How are you Smart?

​One of my favourite sayings comes from a conversation with a colleague – Edele – when I worked in Youth Justice in Ballymena.  “Don’t ask how smart are you?  Ask how are you smart?”  I loved this saying from the moment I heard it.  It made me wish someone had said this to me when I failed my GCSE Maths for the 3rd time!  I was not Number Smart and I wasn’t Geography Smart (ask anyone who has ever heard my story about where I thought Venezuela was until my 30th year).  But that was ok, because I was Art Smart, I was Word Smart, I was People Smart.  My self-esteem was grown through a realisation that I wasn’t perfect, I wasn’t good at everything, but I was good at something – I was good enough.

I think one of the biggest challenges a school faces today is figuring out how to meet the performance targets set by the powers that be, but to recognise and embrace the differences of each student they encounter and all the different ways that they are smart.

Helping children to learn how to grow good self-esteem, to learn how to fail successfully without the shaming belief that they are not good enough, how to see mistakes as opportunities to learn whether it is a curriculum mistake or a behaviour mistake, is all part of the fabric of a school culture that is not recorded in the performance targets.  And yet it should be.  Because learning how to be accountable for our performance, our behaviour, our relationships is so so important in being a well-rounded adult ready to meet the world.

In every part of life, personal and professional, people will have to foster relationships, find ways to disagree and negotiate and resolve differences of opinion and perspective.  It is not an easy thing to do - I am still learning.  But letting our children go out into the world without the skills to listen to others, put right hurt that they have, and will again, cause others, whilst also communicating their own needs is failing them in their move towards independence.  

---