Today in class, I was walking my students through the process of scheduling.
“Here’s today’s date: the 22nd. Here’s the date of your rough draft: October 8th. When are you going to settle on a thesis? When you are going to finish an outline? When are you going to sit down and write the draft?”
After they had set personal deadline for the assignment, I asked them to put down all their other commitments: other classes, jobs, athletic commitments, and simple time preferences.
Once that was completed, it occurred to me that my daughter’s near fit the night before would be a good example of what I wanted them to avoid.
So I told my students about my daughter. I bragged on her. We went through her “To Do” list, complete with its grocery list.
I explained that the night before, she had nearly lost it when she realized that she hadn’t played soccer on the day she intended to.
“But you know what?” I said. “Today, I will pick my daughter up, and we will play soccer. This list is an ideal, and if you don’t always match it, it’s okay. Just finish it the next day.”
They laughed. They understood.
And when my daughter came home, we did play soccer. And later that evening when my wife came home, I told them both how I had bragged on our daughter in class. My daughter’s grin almost broke the ceiling.
Learning Together 