I learned a lot from my days as a basketball referee. Although the environment was quite collaborative, as great referees work as a team on the court, there was also a lot of competition in the field. The best referees would get higher level games, based on their consistent performance in games.
One of the things that I found interesting was the half time feedback referees would receive from evaluators. Having between 10-15 minutes during a break in the next half, there was no time to mince words. Evaluators could often be blunt and sometimes brutal in their feedback. They needed you to correct your work now, and they didn’t have time for you to embrace their feedback. The feedback given was not to be mean or harsh, but to make you better.
The interesting thing about this is that you could have two refs in a game, with one perhaps being a better quality at the beginning than the other, but what the evaluators would look at was not how good you were at the beginning, but how teachable you were by the end. If feedback was given in the first half, they expected you to implement in the second. Sometimes it wouldn’t work for a referee, but what the evaluators looked for was the willingness to take feedback and give the learning a shot. You may not have been perfect in your first try, but your willingness to learn would surely improve your performance as a referee. The ability to be a “sponge” was crucial.
This “sponge” factor is crucial for educators. I have often said that I am much more comfortable working with a teacher that is willing to learn and grow than one who thinks that they have “mastered” teaching. Things will change in education and society, and one that is not willing to evolve in their practice, will eventually become irrelevant. It may not be next year or the following year, but it will come eventually. The person that is willing to continuously learn and evolve will always stay relevant. Yet there are people in all fields, that will totally listen to feedback, nod their head in agreement, and go back to what they have always done. There is a difference between “hearing” or being “open” to feedback.
As educators are currently interviewing for positions, one of the questions that I have asked in interviews before was, “Tell me an area where you received feedback, and what did you do to improve.” This question promotes a vulnerability that is needed to be an educator that we are not a “know-it-all” but that we are willing to learn. This willingness to embrace turnaround learning is crucial to growth, which is not only being open to feedback, but doing something because of the feedback you have received.
Change will happen regardless of our own personal growth. Are we open to your own evolution?
