Nothing really matters. I guide kids through all sorts of things. Some of it registers with them. Some of it–If I am lucky–even resonates with them. But most of the things we encounter together are just experiences, and as we know, as experiences become memory, it is not the thing that’s carried; it’s the feeling. So no thing really matters in the end.

But everyone does. Every one I teach matters. And how they feel from their experience with me is–I believe–a better mark than any label of of learning attached to any thing I “teach” them. So, I teach ones, not things.

What does that look like? It’s not fully in focus for me yet, but as I continue through the Project 180 process of do-reflect-do better, I believe things are coming into view, and as I try to zoom in on the finer details, I keep coming to the place of humanizing the experience, for that focuses on the ones I teach, not the things I teach, which seem to come from that place of standardizing the experience. And when we come to that place, we find ourselves disconnected and the things become the “every,” not the ones, and we lose sight of our why, which should be who, not what. And so, I focus on the one.

And though I may never fully find the answer on my journey, I have come to accept that everyone I teach matters more than anything I teach, and that has changed the experience–for everyone.

Happy Tuesday, all.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.