When I first was reading this chapter I was trying to decide what game I was playing. Was I playing the success-fail game or the contribution game. I came to the conclusion that I was playing my own game that seemed to be a combination of the two. I often think about the contribution I am making in the world and see the good, but more times than not I find my self comparing. I sit in meetings and look at all the more "successful" people around me. The people who have great paying jobs that people refer to as smart jobs. I am a very math and science oriented person and growing up everyone kept telling me that I should be an engineer but I always wanted to be a teacher. I even had a teacher in middle school go as far as to say I was too smart to be a teacher. So I always look at people with jobs that would challenge my intelligence more than teaching and think that they are more successful or that they are smarter than I. I quickly came to see the detriment in such thinking and started to look for the successes in my own career and not the careers of those around me. Now I know I need to take it one step further and not look at my successes but rather my contributions.Photo from: http://www.district196.org/District/CurriculumAssessment/Curr-Math/Images/TeacherAndStudent1.jpg
When we're young we are a bit stuck, having to trust the assessment of our elders because we don't have the experience to know. That would be another reason to be so careful how we help our students become their own persons. But we do need to let the voices of the past fade and listen to our own good intentions and move past the structures given to us by those who came before us.
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