“Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary—the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing on the edge of the rudder called a trim-tab. It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving that little trim-tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim-tab. Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go. So I said, “Call me Trimtab.” R. Buckminster Fuller
When we feel overwhelmed by requirements and mandates, it helps to notice or find smaller actions where we can still have a positive impact for students and colleagues, our whole school communities.
I see teachers practice so many little routines that impact students and the whole school culture from tone of voice to the color of the pen used to make comments on a paper or providing specific actionable feedback beyond just ‘good job.’ Do you stand in your doorway to greet students as they enter and say goodbye as they leave? Shaking hands, individual attention, checking with how they’re doing doesn’t take time away from mandated curriculum yet anecdotal reports show fewer discipline issues and evidence that students are more reachable and engaged. My son loved his high school principal because he would say ‘hi’ when he passed you in the hallway ‘even if he didn’t know you.’
Sometimes a lesson or skill turns someone’s course. My direction as a student shifted in Mrs. Sherry’s 9th grade Ancient History class. She spent one 55 minute period teaching us how to organize our research with outlines and notecards. Sitting in the back of the room, I felt like I’d been given a key to organize otherwise daunting information and writing. I felt capable as a student, which changed my attitude forever.
The other day walking out of a high stakes evaluative observation of a teacher under pressure, I whispered ‘thank you.” He looked at me with a surprised smile. I know it didn’t change his life but I’d like to think that at least for that one second, he felt recognized as a human being at least as much as a subject for a standardized evaluation of his performance.
In writing, we practice cracking open a small moment to expand the detail and power of that story. What is one of those small moments you could crack open to more fully realize the impact you have even on otherwise frustrating days? My guess is more days than not, you could think of a moment where you were a trim tab creating movement in a student’s sense of self, competence and possibility. Or maybe you did something that impacted the whole school or a colleague.
Every day I’d like to be able to notice evidence that, like Buckminster Fuller, I can say, ‘Call me trim tab.’