Compare Apples with Apples

I have written before about the need to be conscious of the time and money you have as Numeracy Leader and to avoid beating yourself up because things feel like they are moving forward at a glacial pace.

That brings me to this week’s piece of advice…often comparing doesn’t help.

If you are anything like me, you will be occasionally looking around to see if you are on track. Not in a crazy way…just in a “I’m not 100% sure what I am doing is right, so I just want to see what others are doing” kind of way…

I think this is completely normal and part of the learning process! That is what Vygotsky taught us… we learn through social interactions.

The thing is, often there is no one else in our school to learn from, because we are the only Numeracy Leader.

So, when I was in schools, I decided to compare myself to the Literacy Leader.

I would see her modelling lessons, I would see her running PLTs and introducing new approaches… and I would feel like I wasn’t doing enough…

Now, there was one big problem with this (which I knew, but mostly overlooked at the time)… the Literacy Leader was given 5 days per week for her role (don’t even get me started on the equalities here-I will leave that for another day!).

BUT the time disparity meant I wasn’t comparing apples with apples!

I was comparing myself to someone who didn’t have their own class to worry about and had 5X more time to dedicate to leading.

So, when I look back it makes complete sense why Literacy was moving forward faster than Numeracy.

The reality is, it isn’t helpful to compare outcomes with someone who has a LOT more time to complete it.

It is like giving a student 10 minutes to complete an assignment and giving another student 50 minutes to complete it… of course the one with more time will get more done!

What IS healthy is looking (and talking to) other leaders in your school and learning from their approaches, interactions and their leadership style.

My advice is to compare apples with apples!