Tag Archives: Benjamin Franklin

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! A Blog Is Born!

Posted on by
4

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

–Carl Sagan (1934–1996; astronomer and science communicator who inspired millions through his work on Cosmos and popular science writing.)

Tell me to do something, and I probably won’t do it. It smacks too much of being ordered around. No, thank you. Most of the time–though not always–I prefer to do the bossing.

On the other hand, suggest that I do something–maybe even challenge me to do something–and I’ll probably do it. Yes, thank you. I thrive on encouragement.

That’s exactly how today’s post began. One of my followers–my Linden Correspondent (LC)–suggested that the world at large might be revved and ready to know how my wired blog began! I thought LC’s suggestion was splendid, especially since my blog just celebrated its 12th anniversary. What better time than now to share the electrifying backstory.

With a growing readership of 13,782 (and counting!), I like to think my blog has found its niche. My readers value my blog for what it is today: a succession of riveting and captivating creative nonfiction essays that appear magically every Monday morning just in time for that first cup of coffee–that is for early risers who get their brew going early. That’s why I make a point of posting before 7am. While I sip on my coffee and savor what I wrote, I like to think that the entire world is doing the same thing.

Every Monday morning, you’ll find me in my reading chair with Ruby—my 60-pound lapdog—perusing my post while she peruses me. Sometimes, I smile and say aloud for her amusement:

“Wow, Kendrick! That’s a remarkable sentence. If you keep cranking out little gems like that, maybe one day you’ll end up somewhere as someone’s endnote.”

Yep. An endnote. Ironically, I guess that’s where we all end up: Someone’s endnote.

That’s not such a bad thing, you know. An endnote here. An endnote there. It seems to me that achieving a memorable, perhaps quotable phrase here and there is probably far wiser than having the entire canon of my work ricocheting around the world.

Stop and think about it for a minute or three. Look, for example, at what Benjamin Franklin achieved as a writer. Let’s focus on his Poor Richard’s Almanack, published annually from 1732 to 1758—nearly a quarter of a century of wit and wisdom.

Most people today can recall only a handful of Franklin’s most famous sayings, like:

● “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
● “A penny saved is a penny earned.”
● “No gains without pains.”

Please tell me, Dear Reader, that you know those sayings, for if you don’t, you surely won’t know these:

● “Well done is better than well said.”
● “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
● “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”

Indeed, Franklin managed to do both: he wrote things worth reading and did things worth writing. And, as I like to say:

“Endnoted.”

But let me take you back to where I began: the beginning of this blog.

I am so sorely tempted to say:

“It was a dark and stormy night …”

And that’s exactly what I would say, but if I said that I would have to note that Edward Bulwer-Lytton opened his 1830 novel, Paul Clifford with those words. As much as I hate to say it, because I am a stickler on documentation, I have grown weary of all the endnoting that I keep noting. Let us then move on to something that requires no noting.

Whew! I don’t know about you, but I feel notably relieved already.

LC must be relieved, too, to see that, at last, I’m getting around to sharing with the world the story behind the birth of my blog. But, as they say, every blog has its story, and mine is no exception.

Here’s what’s fascinating. Today, I am known around the world for my weekly memoir blog posts talking about anything from Aging to Zippers and about everything in between.

But when the idea for my blog came to me in 2012, I had a sharp, narrow, scholarly focus. I was working on my application for the VCCS Chancellor’s Commonwealth Professorship Program. At the heart of my application was the scholarly research that I wanted to do with a remarkable collection of Colonial American essays, songs, poems, and advertisements published pseudonymously under the name of “The Humourist” in the South Carolina Gazette during 1753-1754. The unique essays had never been reprinted, so they remained “hidden” and “undiscovered,” so to speak, in that newspaper. Further, no one knew who wrote the essays. Well, I was 99% certain that I knew, but I needed to do additional research and analysis to confirm my suspicions. In that sense, my project was a literary “whodunit” involving three things.

First, I planned to prepare a critical, annotated edition of the essays.

Second, I planned to develop a convincing case for authorial attribution based on a preponderance of internal evidence as well as on stylometrics.

Third, throughout the process of preparing the critical, annotated edition and developing a case for authorial attribution, I planned to give the essays a “close reading.” I was reminded of a quote by Robert Frost:

“We go to college to be given one more chance to learn to read in case we haven’t learned in high school. Once we have learned to read, the rest can be trusted to add itself unto us.”

I always shared that wisdom with my students. Learning to read—really read—gets to the heart of what we want our students to do, not just in English classes but across the board. When students slow down and give a text a close reading, critical thinking and intellectual discovery follow.

As Frost knew so well, that is what “learning to read” is all about. Further, when students learn how to really read, they can construct their own intellectual inquiries: “the rest can be trusted to add itself unto us.”

I always shared that belief—and approach—with my students without fail. I showed them how to learn to read, class after class, reading assignment after reading assignment, as I gave whatever literary selection we were reading my own close reading and as I made my own discoveries about a text. They were intrigued not only by my process but also by the discoveries that I made simply because of my dogged determination to give a text—any text—a close reading.

In my application, that’s precisely what I proposed to do with “The Humourist” essays. I wanted the opportunity to give the essays such a close reading that I would be able not only to establish a scholarly, annotated edition but also to identify the author.

I was really happy with that part of my application, but I knew that I needed something more. I needed a way to share my scholarly work on a regular basis with my colleagues and my students so that they could benefit, too.

I needed an idea. As I sat there on that January 8th evening, well into the third or fourth or maybe even fifth revision of my application, I started thinking about Daniel Boorstin (1975-1987), twelfth Librarian of Congress. A champion of accessibility, he worked to open the library to the public in symbolic and practical ways. He placed picnic tables and benches on Neptune Plaza, transforming it into a space for community gatherings. He initiated mid-day concerts and famously removed the chains from the majestic bronze doors at the first-floor west entrance leading to the Great Hall of the Jefferson Building. When told it would create a draft, he replied, “Great—that’s just what we need.”  In a bold move, he even stopped the practice of searching visitors.

At that time, I worked at the Library of Congress as an editor of the National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints, and I well remember the occasion when the bronze doors were opened. If I am not mistaken, it was on this occasion that I heard Dr. Boorstin say:

“You never know when an idea is about to be born.“

His comment lingered, and since hearing it, I made a point to keep track of when my own ideas were born.

So it came to be. While thinking about Boorstin, ideas, and my project, I exclaimed to myself:

“Blog it!”

I knew that a blog would allow me to share with the entire world my challenges, discoveries, and joys of research.

I knew that a blog would allow me to share with others this remarkable collection of Colonial American essays, songs, poems, and advertisements. The Encyclopedia of the Essay (ed. Tracy Chevalier, 1997) placed “The Humourist” essays in the tradition of Samuel Johnson’s Rambler essays and observed that they are the only “full-fledged literary” works to have appeared in the South Carolina Gazette. Years earlier, J. A. Leo Lemay (du Pont Winterthur Professor of English at the University of Delaware) had noted in A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Southern Literature (1969) that the essays should be edited, published, and the author identified.

This was hot! I knew that I could make “stuffy” literary research come alive in a blog. Colleagues and students and scholars and the world at large would love it. I knew they would because who wouldn’t love essays on par with Benjamin Franklin’s “Silence Dogood Letters”? Get this, too. Franklin had direct ties to the South Carolina Gazette and possibly to the author of “The Humourist” essays.

I knew, too, that aside from being in the essay tradition itself, a blog would allow me to share my project with faculty and students throughout the Virginia Community College System (VCCS), from the beginning of my work and every step of the way through completion. I realized that a blog would allow me to capture my personal experiences on a regular and ongoing basis: my work, my methods, my discoveries, my challenges and frustrations, and my joys.

I knew that a blog would allow me to do in the virtual world—using a heretofore unstudied literary work—exactly what I did in my classroom with literary works that appear in our textbooks: turn my blog followers on to the beauty of giving a text a close reading and turn them my on to “learning how to read,” showing them that once they learned how to read all else would be given to them.

That same evening, I came up with a working title: The Wired Researcher.  I Googled it and was delighted to discover that no such blog existed.

As I often do, I emailed a former student—a lover of language and words and ideas—to get her take on my blog idea.

She responded immediately:

The word “wired” will catch the attention of …The Young.  They’ll think you are “hip.”

You’ll need a logo.  You’ll need T-shirts with the logo on them.  You need pens that say, “The Wired Researcher.”  “Sold in libraries everywhere.”  “Guaranteed to make study more exciting.” Oh, boy, I see tie-ins!

Clearly my former student was as wired as I was—perhaps that’s why I valued her opinions as highly as I did—but her email response gave affirmation to the title of the blog that had been born.

Here’s where the birth of the blog starts to get really sweet. I was awarded the Chancellor’s Commonwealth Professorship (2012-2014).

My first announcement appeared on October 19, 2012. It was short!

“Welcome to The Wired Researcher! Blog posts will begin on November 26, 2012.”

True to my promise, on November 26, I published “Opportunity Knocks Twice in the Virginia Community College System.” That post included the first of the historical essays that served as the nucleus for my project: “The Humourist” (November 26, 1753). Yep. Choosing to launch my blog on November 26, the same day that the Humourist launched his essays, was deliberate, and if I must say so myself, I think it was a stroke of genius!

And so, The Wired Researcher was born—not just as a blog, but as a way for me to share my love of research with a world eager to learn about my discoveries.

Now you have the inside scoop. If you want to know more, simply go back to the beginning and read all the posts from the start. But whatever you do, please make certain that you read “Colonial Charleston’s Biggest Literary Mystery Is Solved!” Yep. I solved the literary whodunit that captured me in the first place. Then you have to read “Three Special Shout-Outs!” because behind every success story are lots of people who deserve praise and thanks!

Wait! Wait! Don’t go yet. I have one or two more things to share.

When my blog started, I had around 1,750 views a year, representing 33 countries. So far this year, it has soared to an impressive 13,782 views from 152 countries! I must be writing something right!

To each and every one of you, My Dear Readers–then, now, and all along the way–a special shout-out!

To my Linden Correspondent (LC), who tossed out the idea that I share the story behind the blog, I extend a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious thank-you! (As Mary Poppins would say, nothing else captures the exuberance quite right!)

I look forward to a future of Mondays, inspired by the joy of discovery and by the connections that I’m making with all of you.

P. S. The joy of sharing new ideas awaits us all!

Old Anchors for the New Year

Posted on by
7

“You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.”

–Brian Tracy (b. 1944; CANADIAN AMERICAN motivational speaker, author, and personal development expert; His popular books are Earn What You’re Really Worth; Eat That Frog!; No Excuses!; The Power of Self-Discipline; and The Psychology of Achievement.)

Strangely enough, when I awakened from a restful night’s slumber not too long ago, I started thinking about a way to make my life better–not long-range, mind you, but instead, just for that day. I didn’t have anything special in mind. Actually, I didn’t have anything at all in mind, other than doing something, anything, to give me an added layer of fulfillment and improvement, so that I could look in the mirror and affirm, “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” After all, self-improvement, like learning, is lifelong.

As I lay there, I realized that my vaguely formed notion would do me no good whatsoever. I realized that I needed an action plan, even if it was nothing more than resolving to start the day by asking, in the spirit of Benjamin Franklin:

“What good shall I do this day?”

Perhaps I could even end each day with Franklin’s self-examination:

“What good have I done this day?”

Those two questions serve unequivocally as a noble way to live: doing good for others, living life in service to others.

I always make a point of sharing Franklin’s questions whenever I teach Colonial American Literature. I project onto the screen the facsimile page from Franklin’s Autobiography, containing those two questions, and I pause to give my students time to reflect. Then I ask:

“What if we lived our lives that way, with a daily commitment to doing good for others?”

I pause again, watching faces glow with good resolve:

“I challenge you. Live your life that way for an entire month. Start each day with, ‘What good shall I do this day?’ End each day with, ‘What good have I done this day?’

“Set your own daily goals and be the measure of your own performance.

“Oh. Yes. Here’s one more thing. Don’t tell anyone that you’re walking in Franklin’s footsteps. Don’t tell anyone about the daily good that you’re doing. Just go forth into your own world and do your own intended good.”

I can tell by their inspired faces that some of the students accept the challenge and go forth with determined resolve. I hope that they sustained the practice for their entire life. If they did, I know that it worked for them just as surely as it worked for Franklin, who, by the age of 42, dedicated his life to public service. I’d like to think that he did so with no realization that as he enriched the lives of others, so, too, would his own life be enriched.

If I had heeded Franklin’s advice that morning by venturing forth in a philanthropic direction, I could not have done better, especially at my age when opportunities to do good for others will not in the future be as plentiful as they have been in the past.

But Franklin’s approach didn’t resonate with me as I thought about a way to make my daily life better. I knew why. I didn’t have lofty in mind. Instead, I had little in mind. I wanted something little that I could do daily without too much fuss and without too much bother.

At that moment, an epiphany washed over me. I realized that I didn’t need to search for something new. I could tap something old that my fourth grade teacher, Helen Petry, introduced me to when I joined the 4-H Club. Its basic idea was then and remains now a simple one:

“[to] help young people and their families gain the skills needed to be proactive forces in their communities and develop ideas for a more innovative economy.”

4-H was especially popular in coal-mining areas where I grew up because it connected education and rural life.

Mrs. Petry mentored me during my first year of belonging to 4-H. From the fifth grade through the eighth, my English teacher, Edith Jarrell, guided me. Throughout high school, my biology teacher, Kenneth Gross, coached me. When I graduated, my nine years of active 4-H involvement ended.

However, the power of 4-H within me did not end. Though buried deep in my psyche, its principles became part of my core values, on par with my faith and work core values instilled in me by my parents. Those foundational values guided me through college and graduate school, through my federal career at the Library of Congress, and through my teaching career at Laurel Ridge Community College. They’re even guiding ne now through my career of reinvention.

Those realizations eased a soft smile across my waking face, as I lay there in bed, chanting to myself the 4-H pledge:

I pledge my head to clearer thinking,
My heart to greater loyalty,
My hands to larger service,
and my health to better living,
for my club, my community, my country, and my world.

In those quiet morning moments, I unearthed treasures deep within myself. From the enduring wisdom of Benjamin Franklin’s daily questions to the steadfast principles of the 4-H pledge, my core values have served as timeless anchors. Through the tapestry of love and loss, success and failure, birth and death, and every twist of fate along the way, my anchors have endured. My anchors have held.

In those quiet morning moments, I realized the simplicity of it all. All that I needed to do was dedicate one activity daily (regardless of how small) to my head, my heart, my hands, and my health.

As we begin a New Year, Dear Readers, may you have your own quiet morning moments. May you rediscover your own core values, and may you hold them tight with the full realization that they are not relics of your past: they are old anchors for your New Year.

Foolin’ Around with Time

Posted on by
4

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)

Hopefully, you paid close attention to the title of this post. I don’t want anyone jumping to the wishful conclusion that I’m fooling around. Well, I guess I am, but it’s not with someone. I’m fooling around with time which surely makes fooling around permissible albeit boring!

But let me share with you what made me start fooling around with time in the first place. When I look around me, I seem to see lots of folks who have time on their hands. Sometimes I even hear them saying to one another, “Oh, I’m just killing time.”

Thankfully, I’m not one of those folks. Instead of time on my hands, I seem to have time on my mind. I think about time a lot of the time. And I never have time to kill. I’m not even sure that I know how to kill time.

Both expressions–time on my hands and killing time–strike me as rather lame, but not lame enough to keep me from looking up their origins in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

“Time on your hands” goes back to 1668 with Flavell’s Saint Indeed Ep. Ded. sig. A7:  “Leave trifling studies to such as have time lying on their hands, and know not how to imploy it.”

Of course, I am intrigued by the reference to “trifling studies,” but I don’t have time right now to look it up.

“Killing time” dates to 1751, when it appeared in Richardson’s Clarissa (ed. 3) VIII. Concl. 266:  “The more active and lively amusements and Kill-times.”

In the next century, Coleridge used it in a way that intrigues me. In his Lect. Shakespeare (1856) 3, he writes: “Where the reading of novels prevails as a habit…it is not so much to be called pass-time as kill-time.” As an English professor, I am stunned that a poet would speak so unkindly of novels!

Sometimes folks killing time or with time on their hands look at me and ask, “How do you find time to do all the things that you do? You must have all the time in the world.”

I want to come back with, “Find time? How could I do that? You have 24 hours in your day, just as I do.”

But, instead, I count to ten, smile, and bide my time.

Even so, those questions set me to thinking, “How do I find time to do all that I do when I’m not foolin’ around with time?”

The answer is not as straightforward as it might seem. In reality, it’s not about finding time. It’s about managing time. It’s about realizing that when work is to be done–when goals are to be accomplished–time is not on my side. I have to worry not only about how much time I have to do the needful but also about how much time I will set aside to do the needful.

When it comes to managing time for goals and projects–both long- and short-term–I am downright SMART. I know how to get things accomplished on time or ahead of time.

S–Specific.

M–Measurable.

A–Achievable.

R–Relative.

T–Time-based.

In my head, I know that SMART can be applied successfully to daily time management, too.

But I don’t always practice what’s in my head. As a result, time and time again, I discover that I am not the best time manager, even of my own time. Nonetheless, I always develop some kind of plan for my time every day. Usually, I do that planning the night before, while lying in bed, right after I finish taking time to work on my blog post.

The way that I develop those plans has everything to do with how productive my time will be the next day.

Over time, I’ve picked up on patterns–what works and what doesn’t work.

Let me start with the latter. What doesn’t work for me is when I make sketchy notes of what I hope to accomplish for the day. I approach the plan so cavalierly that in no time, I’m done.

Here’s a perfect example of my sketchy planning for one day, a week or two ago. Let me share without any further loss of time.

Morning Goals

* Meditate

* Bike

* Student Engagement Hours at Laurel Ridge CC

By the end of such a day, I might well have accomplished those goals and more, but I know that they did not require the entire day. I’m left somewhat satisfied, but not entirely. I have the sinking feeling that time slipped through my fingers into soft, billowy expanses of nothingness.

We all need downtime like that from time to time. In fact, some of my best ideas appear in moments when seemingly I am doing nothing.

But, as a rule, I am no fonder of nothingness than I am of stillness. I like my days to be chock-full of activities so that at day’s end I can look back knowing that I had a whale of a productive time.

Here’s an example of what works best for me when I’m planning a typical day. For the time being, one example should suffice because time’s a-wastin’.

Morning Goals

5:00-5:30am | Meditate

5:30-6:30am | Bike 20 miles

6:30-7:30am | Shower, dress, and have breakfast

7:50am | Leave for Laurel Ridge CC. Stop for coffee and pastry at Flour and Water. Take the leisurely and scenic Valley Pike route to the college.

9:30am-12:30pm | Student Engagement Hours at Laurel Ridge CC

Hopefully, you get my point. When I anchor my goals to time allotted to each task, I have a specific plan for how I will spend my time.

The beauty of this approach–aside from being more productive–is that I escape to a once-upon-a-time world simply by setting aside time to motor to the college via Valley Pike–past cornfields and the meandering Shenandoah River–rather than whirring to the college mindlessly at 70 miles an hour on the interstate.

No doubt even Benjamin Franklin would have been proud of me on my days when I use time management effectively. Franklin, of course, was ahead of his time in so many ways. Aside from realizing that time is money, his way of scheduling his own days became the prototype of the American day planner.

Sadly, I am not ahead of my time, and, most assuredly, I am not a legend in my own time. But I am fully confident that my way of planning a fully productive day–of making time for the goals that I want to accomplish–will withstand the test of time.

Painfully, too, I know that time and tide wait for no man, least of all for me. For now, then, the time has come for me to stop foolin’ around with time, yours and mine.

Gr!t ’R Done!

Posted on by
10

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”

Confucius, The Analects

Needless to say, I need not even ask what I am about to ask. But I will ask it anyway.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed?

“Who? Me?” I just heard someone ask.

Yes. You. Maybe. But let’s edge our way in to this just a little more before you decide, lest you decide too hastily.

I’m not talking about the way you feel when that last straw is headed right toward you, and you know fully well that it’s the one that will break your proverbial camel’s back.

If that’s the mell of a hess you’re grappling with, I’m really sorry for your streak of bad luck.

The overwhelmed that I have in mind is when you have a mountain smackdab in front of you. It’s ginormous. And you have to move it, and you have no idea how you will ever get it done.

Maybe, in reality, it’s nothing more than a mole hill. But perceptions are perceptions. If that mole hill is a mountain to you, then it is indeed your mountain.

Aren’t we masterful at turning our mole hills into mountains?

I am. You are. We all are.

And, at the same time, let’s acknowledge that all of us face real life mountains, too, that we have to move.

It’s when we’re facing our mountains–the real ones and the mole hills that we have turned into mountains–that we feel overwhelmed. That’s when we sigh or cry or moan or groan because at that moment we just don’t see how we will ever move that mole hill. We just don’t see how we will ever move that mountain. We just don’t see how we will ever get it done.

To feel overwhelmed before the mountains of life–real or overblown–is to be human.

This week, I’m feeling superhuman. Overwhelmed is on my mind a lot: it’s the next to the last week before my summer classes end. Also, overwhelmed is on my students’ minds a lot this week: they have reading assignments and a final discussion board forum this week and a final reflection essay next week.

(A word to educators who would be wise: abandon those ridiculous final exams. Replace them with meaningful final reflection essays. Reach out to me using Contact, and I will share proven strategies that have worked for me during the last four years.)

My apologies for that digressory jab at defunct final exam practices that continue to plague the hallowed ivory halls of learning. I couldn’t help myself.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. My students are feeling overwhelmed by end-of-semester assignments and by final reflection essays.

Guess what?

I am, too. It’s a mountain of work right in front of me, so close that I can smell the virtual submissions, so close that I can hardly breathe. And I have to get it done.

Let me define the preceding “it.” I have to grade all of that student work that’s closing in on me and smothering me, because I have to submit final grades two days after those final reflection essays are submitted. My mountain seems even larger.

Oh. Yes. I understand how it feels to feel overwhelmed.

I know, too, that my students always feel overwhelmed at the beginning of the semester. They have so much to do before the end.

I do, too. I’m their learning coach. I’m their learning cheerleader. I’m there to help them move those mole hills. I’m there to help them move those mountains. I’m there to help them get it done.

I always suggest some strategies that they can use to see themselves through to the successful conclusion that they hope to enjoy and that they can enjoy if they work at it.

Ironically, the strategies are always the same whether it’s the beginning, or, as it is now, the end.

Ironically, the same strategies work for me, at my beginnings and my endings.

Ironically, the strategies will work for you, at your beginnings and your endings.

Following these strategies can help all of us–me, my students, and you–feel less overwhelmed as we tackle our mole hills and our mountains.

A good place to start is by realistically measuring our grit. Please tell me that you know about grit. You do, right? Sometimes I have to explain it to my students, so let me explain it here for everyone’s benefit.

And yes: after the explanation, you will have a quiz! Don’t worry. (1) It’s optional. (2) Anyone who takes the quiz will pass.

Grit has nothing to do with IQ. It has nothing to do with talent. It has nothing to do with luck. It has everything to do with your willingness to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work always required to achieve any goal, usually a long-term goal, but it applies as well to short term goals. Grit is all about perseverance and passion.

I have always known about grit, but Angela Duckworth is the one who turned me on to the power and awesomeness of grit. She has turned lots of folks on to it, too, and when you get turned on to grit, get ready to get it done, whatever you need to get done.

I start my semesters by having my students take Duckworth’s 10-question Grit Quiz. Why don’t you take it, right now? Hot Tip: Be honest. No need to fool yourself! Not now. Not ever.

After my students find out how gritty they are, I invite them to share their grit score with the class if they wish. I am always amazed by the fruitful and honest conversations that follow. I just heard someone whisper, “What’s your grit score?” Thank you, but no need to whisper. I’m proud of it. I scored a 5. Did you hear me? Let me shout it again. I’m a 5. I’m as gritty as they grit. My grit is awesome. When I start it–whatever the “it” is–I’m going to stick with it until I get it done. Count on it.

After our class discussion of grittiness goes wherever it goes–and wherever it goes is always exactly where it ought to go: learning is always spontaneous, and spontaneity is always all right with me–I get my students hooked on Duckworth’s TED Talk: “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.” It’s powerful. It’s motivational. It makes you want to get down and get gritty. Go ahead. Watch it. It’s had 26,997,225 views. With any luck, this post might take it up to 27 million views! So come on! Let’s gr!t ‘r done.

As my students and I get deeper and deeper into the semester, I am always mindful that the journey that I am trying to make a fun and fulfilling one for them might start looking more and more like a mountain. Then I love to share with them little proverbs as little reminders that a little strength applied consistently and for a sustained period of time can bring staggering results. Maybe it’s as simple as “The man who would move mountains must begin by carrying away small stones” (Confucius, The Analects). Or maybe “Little Strokes Fell Great Oaks” (Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac).

Then as research papers start to loom on the horizon, I up the ante still more and share with my classes the backstory for Anne Lamott’s classic book on writing and living, Bird by Bird. In the introduction to her book, she tells the story of her brother who had waited until the last minute to write his paper that was due the next day. Interestingly enough, the paper was about birds. Lamott’s father told him to write the paper bird by bird. Looking at the component parts and completing one part of the paper at a time made the whole project seem less intimidating and less overwhelming.

What Lamott and Franklin and Confucius and a gazillion others are offering up as a pearl of wisdom is a lesson in incrementalism: progress comes gradually, in small steps.

It works for my students. It works for me. It will work for you.

As the semester progresses and end-of-semester fatigue raises its nasty and unnerving head, I can see in my students’ faces the reflection of their mountains right in front of them. Then I know that I have to up the ante once again. I play for the class one of my favorite poems by Rita Dove–“Maple Valley Branch Library, 1967. It’s an incredible tribute to learning and to libraries and to librarians and to getting it done. It has an even more special meaning for me because Rita Dove read that poem at the White House on May 11, 2011. Former President Obama–who believes that poetry and the arts matter (and they do)–provides a masterful introduction to the power of poetry, with wry, charming humor as only he can do. Afterwards the poet reads her poem. Both the former president and the former United States Poet Laureate are genuine charmers. I’ll provide the link in just a second. Watch the video, please. (But not until you finish my post, or, if you insist on watching the video before finishing my post, go ahead. Just come back. I’ll be lost without you.) Rita Dove: 2011 White House Poetry Evening — introduction by Barack Obama.

Without exception, my students always love watching this video. Sometimes they even applaud. Sometimes they even applaud without mention of extra credit. The video inspires. It motivates. It makes them know that they can get it done.

Here’s how Dove empowers my students–and all of us– to come to that understanding. The stanzas that follow are directly from her poem. They recount the poet’s journey home, as a 15-year-old, carrying six volumes of knowledge–six books that she selected on her learning journey:

“I carried [the books] home, past five blocks of aluminum siding
and the old garage where, on its boarded-up doors,
someone had scrawled:

“I can eat an elephant
if I take small bites.

“Yes, I said, to no one in particular: That’s
what I’m gonna do!”

Overwhelmed? My students? Me? You? All of us?

Of course, we are. To be overwhelmed is to be human.

Thankfully, we’re not overwhelmed all of the time. But when we are, isn’t it great to know that we have wisdom as our ally–all the way from Confucius to Franklin to Lamott to Dove? Isn’t it great to know that we have wisdom cheering us every step of the way? As we carry away our stones. As we fell our oaks. As we write our birds. As we eat our elephants. As we get it done.

Isn’t it great knowing that a little gr!t will gr!t ‘r done?

It certainly calms me. And just as soon as I finish grading end-of-semester assignments and final reflection essays, I’m going to polish that nugget of truth as I face my next mountain: gardens (right here on my mountain) overtaken by a gazillion weeds, all reaching for the stars.

And guess what else? I will pump myself up just as I try to pump up my students–just as I have tried to pump you up here, so that you can face your own mountains, whatever they might be–and believe you me: I will tackle my mountain, and I will gr!t ‘r done.