Measuring by Improvement

Students live in a world where improvement isn't considered an important metric.

Here's what I mean.

Let's say a student receives a C in freshman-year English. But sophomore, junior, and senior years, the student gets all A's. A clear improvement.

It doesn't matter.

The C in freshman-year English stands. The high-school GPA continues to be dragged down by it. Colleges don't take the time to consider the context of the C when they look at the student's transcript.

For all time, the student will have a C in freshman-year English.

This spills over into our artistic universe of music, writing, drama, dance, and more. If a student's performance doesn't go well, or we have a tough year, we're tempted to pull our kids out.

But what if instead of focusing on a snapshot of time, we take a moment to appreciate improvement over time? If a performance is rough, but it's much better than last month's performance, what does that mean?

When we focus on improvement rather than the moment, that's where true growth can begin. The growth that makes our lives better over time.

In the end, improvement is the metric that makes the difference.