Time Capsule reposts blogs from years past.
In the eighth year of Teach & Serve, there are more than a few from which to choose!
Just Because Something Works
Originally published in April 2018
Just because something works doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. – Shuri, Black Panther
If you have not had the time to see Black Panther, you may wish to drop everything, tell your supervisor you have to leave school, find the nearest theater, the closest showtime and remedy that situation.
I’ll wait.
Okay, with that out of the way…
In Black Panther, the title character’s sister Shuri, the Princess of Wakanda, has more than a few terrific moments and scene stealing lines. Upon my second viewing of the movie this past weekend I was struck by the truth of the quote that begins this blog and how important it is to our work in education, especially this time of year.
Just because what we are doing in our classroom or with our team or on our administrative staffs is working does not mean we should not look to improve it. We should. This time of year, as spring is upon us and we can see summer break not too, too far down the road is a perfect time to ask if what we are doing is the best we can be doing. This is a question we should ask, frequently.
We should ask it continually.
Our work in schools calls us to be ever tying to reach the horizon and pull it closer. We are called to be about continuous improvement in ourselves and of our systems so that we can support our students in improving continuously themselves.
Surely much if not most of what we do works. We would not be successful if it did not. It is a challenge to look at what is going well – what is highly functional – and say: “how can we do this better?”
We should. We should be agents of this kind of review. Hey, it is possible that there is no way to improve on what we are doing and that is fine.
How will we know if we do not ask the question?
Trust Shuri: just because something works doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.