On Being Mentored

Here's a snippet of thought that I think I'll just post as is.  It was drafted sometime last fall...

I had a meeting today during which I was reminded how valuable it is to be working within a structure or under the guidance of folks who have a vision and a passion for what they do.  It's not easy to sustain passion for the things you do without that leadership.  It's one thing to be a leader and that's great, but its sometimes even more valuable to be led.

And that leadership can come in unexpected ways.  In this meeting today I found myself ranting a bit about curriculum mapping.  It's an important part of education but the specifics don't matter, what matters is being able to get excited about something and have someone in the room say, "Yes!" and get it and support it and share a vision and have the situational authority to help make something happen.

Ack!  What the hell am I talking about?  When you get up in the morning and you head out to do the things that are important to you are you alone?  Do you walk down the sidewalk thinking, "Yes, I'll do that!"  and when you do is there someone to say, "Yes, do that!"

Do that.  Get your shit together.  Make a difference.  Be passionate.

I've gotten a bunch of useful mentoring in the past few years from Sam Tanner.  He's a wacky educator who believes in students to the exclusion of just about everything else and he continually reminds me that there is a passion in the room that must be leveraged in order for learning (or art) to happen.

And without that leadership, or mentoring, things seem to fizzle about.

And collaboration.  These things all go together...leadership, mentoring, collaboration...this is one of those thoughts without form.

Backing up, so I'm going into this meeting and I've got a notepad but nothing else and I haven't prepared anything because it's a just a sharing of ideas or a discussion of history or something.

Not sure...saving for later.