During my Calculus chapter on limits, students write an essay about three of their habits—one good, one bad, and one they hope to cultivate. Habits are the functions of our daily lives. When functions performs the same operations over and over again, the long-term outcomes becomes predictable. The same is true of habits.
Students gravitate to certain standards: eating junk food, exercising, procrastination. They are supposed to explore what sort of people those habits will make them after 50 years.
This year, a student wrote about making his bed.
To begin with, it was a sweet reminder that the students I’m teaching really are kids—just a few years ago, these young men and women I’m teaching to find derivatives were little boys who played with legos and little girls who enjoyed dress up.
It was also a unique perspective. My student argued that bed-making cultivated a certain kind of person—one who does the right thing from the start, one who cares about life’s details.
The thoughtful bed-making essay was a breakthrough for me as a teacher. Often in my math classes, I find students generally grasp the complex concepts they are learning. However, they often fail to arrive at the correct answers on tests and quizzes due to simple, careless mistakes: forgetting a negative sign, adding instead of multiplying, etc.
I can hand tests back with the exhortation, “Be more careful!” but it’s not like carelessness is a switch students can flip off when they enter my class. To become more careful, they have to make a habit of care.
Which brings me back to bed-making. What if the road to doing better in math starts with making your bed every morning? What if less mistakes at work begins with a new habit that requires precision like baking? What if the answer is not learning life hacks but cultivating lifelong habits?
Often the fix we need is not quick, but it is simple. Many of us are looking for overnight transformation, but we have a “from one degree of glory to another” kind of God (2 Cor 3:18). He prefers to change us one bed-making at a time.
Cookie Boxes for Greenville Locals!
Greenville locals: We will be baking dozens of cookies next week and packaging up cookie boxes ($25) to be picked up at The Hutch between Thursday-Saturday (Dec 14-16). If you’d like one either for yourself—or to share with someone you love—let us know either via email or our Facebook page, so we can put you down!
I love this for multiple reasons. One, we’re trying to help our three kids to develop healthy habits. It has, however, put the magnifying glass on our not-so-healthy patterns as their parents and as a family unit. Also, in my work my team is trying to help younger (20-45ish) Christians to develop Bible engagement and literacy through daily habits. This is encouraging. Thanks for writing!