Fixation on Translation

I had a student question me on a paper he was asked to write. It was an English paper on identity and how he see the concept of identity present in his school. He’s an avid reader, loves literature and vehemently opposed writing a paper like this. He asked, “what’s even the point of this coach? This has nothing to with any of the works we’re studying” As you can imagine, I live for this kind of “teachable” moment. Why? Because there exists a brilliant opportunity to enlarge the context of education in a student’s life.

Without getting bogged down in the nitty gritty of the conversation, we had a chance to explore how these assignments can be a training ground for developing his ability to allocate the time and energy to tasks that reside outside of his current vista of perceived importance. He had never considered it from this perspective and he now had a context to reconsider the validity of participating more fully in the writing of this paper.

In my view, allowing students to fixate on a task’s direct translative benefits to their self-defined life circumstance creates the risk of raising kids into young adults who only work when they can see the certainty of a direct pay off. I want to be clear - questioning what is asked of you is healthy - we don’t want to cultivate throngs of lemmings who blindly follow orders; however, there are all too many moments in life where we need to step outside our own comfortable paradigm of relevance and meaningfully apply ourselves deliberately to something we know we need to do but may not want to do.

At work, it can be as simple as ensuring the document to be sent to a prospective client has a seemingly unreasonably high level polish befitting the organization’s values. In a relationship, it means participating in activities, ones that may not pique your interest at the outset, with a certain zeal that communicate a genuine desire to be there. As a parent, it’s being able to authentically dive in, talk about, and play Spider Man like there’s no other place you’d rather be. While no one can do this 100% of time, developing and being able to leverage this skill when it’s needed is invaluable to becoming a meaningful part of those beautiful life occasions where we feel a part of something bigger.