Faster

The other day I was walking down a school hallway at my normal ADD pace and I got stuck behind a woman in her late 50s. She was moving at a sort of normal, late-adult speed. That is, slowly. Unfortunately it was a long, narrow hallway, and there wasn’t room to pass without appearing, if not rude, at least rushed. I pulled out of hyperspeed and settled into a pace behind her, feeling like I was back in college driving West Virginia’s Route 20 behind a logging truck, where you can’t pass for many miles* and have to settle for 1/3 your desired speed as the truck slowly rattles through the curvy Appalacians. I wasn’t in a rush, except that I’m always in a rush. 

Suddenly a boy popped up next to me, doing the walk that kids do when running is banned. He quickly mathed the situation – the length of the hallway, the speed of the woman in front of me – and he bounded around her in a kind of ducking two-step and was off, speedwalking down the hallway. I burned with jealousy. 

Slowing my guys down is a big part of my job. Lots of my students race through homework with the same ferocious impatience as a 19-year-old behind the wheel. My students will often spend more time trying to find a shortcut than they would have just doing the actual, full assignment. In their franticness, they don’t realize is that their time-saving efforts are costing them time. 

Q: How many of my students have had the experience of rushing through a math worksheet, only to have to go back and redo a ton of questions because of dumb mistakes?

A: All. Of. Them.

There are a ton of maxims that address this – “measure twice, cut once” comes to mind – but in my experience, the one that most resonates with adolescent boys is, “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” 

Taming the franticness is difficult. The benefits of slowness are most readily apparent on something like a math sheet, where they fly through it and then have to go back and fix everything that’s wrong. The benefits are less apparent – and a whole lot greater – on something like an essay. Rather than slow down and think about where they’re headed, they launch in. Halfway through, they realize that their lack of a plan has yielded a nonsensical hodgepodge of paragraphs that don’t tie into an overarching thesis or thematic arc. Unlike a math problem, where they simply need to go and fix it, they’re now stuck with an essay that may take more effort to save than to just redo completely. Faced with the prospect of restarting, restructuring, or continuing to cobble together disparate ideas, one guess as to what most of my students want to do.**

Much of my work falls into one of two categories: immediate fixes and long-term change. Not getting a math concept is a quick fix: here’s how it works, let’s practice it, done. Slowing a speedy kid down is – ahem! – a slow process. The franticness is chipped away, session by session, month by month, semester by semester. I adore this aspect of my work, partially because I can relate so strongly. I still feel the furious tug of ineffective speed. It’s also one of the most fulfilling parts of my work. Like so many pairs of opposites, the excellence lies in the unification. A quick kid who can go slow is nearly unstoppable. Until they get stuck behind a logging truck. 

*unless you’re 19 and immortal. Sorry Mom!

**what is, “Cobble together?”