I was reading a book recently and came across a line that made me think.
When describing a character who was bravely facing serious struggles in her life, the author said:
"She sees everything as an objective not an obstacle."
I started wondering how I approached struggles in my own life.
When do I see an obstacle?
When do I work toward an objective with confidence and persistence.
Do I choose to tackle more objectives or give in to the obstacles?
Then, I thought about the learners in our classrooms.
I have known students who rarely felt like they could overcome something difficult - who felt like what they needed to do seemed to be a huge obstacle - one so huge that it wasn't even worth trying.
I have also known students who felt they could make progress if they just worked toward difficult learning one step at a time with the confidence they needed.
As teachers, it's one more behavior we need to observe as we work with students. Who sees learning as an objective? Who sees learning as an obstacle? And what can we do to encourage all our students to see learning challenges as objectives not obstacles?
