Where am I going wrong?

Effort ↑ + Expectation ↑ = Excellence

Effort ↓ + Expectations ↓ = Failure

Effort ↓ + Expectations ↑ or Effort ↑ + Expectations ↓ = Mediocrity

This week in my leadership group we will only be meeting once because of the school schedule but our discussion on Monday brought out some really good things.  The most insightful in my opinion was the diagram of equations I displayed above.  This was actually something that came to me in the class based on what we were talking about.  This unplanned occurrence was birthed out of discussion based on the students’ definition of excellence.  I asked what keeps them from doing consistent excellent work in their classes. The responses kept circling around feeling defeated before starting the task, low expectations, giving up, and not working hard enough.  Based on what they told me I designed this diagram.  It may not tell the whole story because there are other variables involved but it was the best way in that moment to show them possible reasons for them coming up short so many times.  The purpose of these equations are to show that ultimately when you give your best effort and combine that with high expectations the typical outcome will be an excellent finished product.  The converse is also true when poor effort is put out with low expectations or a combination of low and high inputs the results will be average or below average results.  I’m hoping that these students will begin to recognize that they have the opportunity to control how the story ends.  It may not have started well for them but it’s definitely going to end well if I have anything to say about it.