Toward Wide-Awakeness

The irony. I have tried to riff, create, and ponder for a while now and the moment I feel as though I’m on the right track — actually doing some good thinking about What if we buried the zero? 60-60-60 #26 and reflecting — there’s nothing there. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

Which is fitting. And perfectly ironic.

Some would say that my zero moment is quite a failure on this 26th day of spontaneous writing. (Not my first failure during this experi(ence)ment, but probably one of the bigger ones).

But, I see it differently.

It’s a Monday. A busy day of back-to-back meetings at work. I’m worried about a few friends. It was important that I honored my two after-school commitments. And I have a dinner with friends tonight that I don’t want to miss. And, of course, a bit of work to do now and once I return home from my evening out.

It’s not unlike what most middle and high school students — and even some elementary students, I suspect — experience with school and the second shift of extracurriculars, homework, and personal commitments.

But I have a choice. And I am making the choice to take my zero moment…and learn from it. Because I will not be penalized. In fact, because I have the choice to reflect on not being able to do the work (at this moment), I am more motivated to re-riff, re-create, and re-ponder at a later time.

And this time to reflect — without guilt and with full confidence that this choice is more of a future credit and not as much a debit– is liberating indeed. What if we asked students to reflect on their own zero moments? What might they learn? What initial challenges could they overcome if presented with the opportunity to give  greater voice to those inevitable zero moments? What new learning could we cultivate if we buried the zero?

Image Credit: fouro on Flickr