searching for the right word

I’m feeling “not good enough” lately. But that’s not really a feeling, so I plugged that into thesaurus.com and this is what came up…

“Main Entry: wanting
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: lacking, inadequate
Synonyms: absent, away, bankrupt, bereft, burned out, cooked, cut off, defective, deficient, deprived, destitute, devoid, disappointing, empty, failing, faulty, gone, half-baked, imperfect, in default, incomplete, inferior, less, minus, missing, needed, not good enough , not up to par, omitted, out of gas, patchy, poor, scant, scanty, scarce, short, shy, sketchy, substandard, too little too late, unfulfilled, unsound
Antonyms: adequate, perfect, satisfactory, sufficient”

Oddly enough, that about sums it up.
This infuriating winter’s harshness adds to the mix, to be sure, but it’s mostly the result of this job/vocation/career I’ve chosen.
I’m feeling the opposite of sufficient. Nothing I do seems good enough. I’m not looking for sympathy here. Just reporting the facts, as I see them.

Last May, I wrote a “To-do” list blog entry that seems to be repeating itself.

Full disclosure would reveal that we had another depressing staff meeting today about being a Focus School. Almost two hours of statistics reminding us that our achievement gap is larger than over 90% of Michigan schools could send anyone into a bereft, half-baked, inadequate place. It’s troubling that the gap between our highest achieving students and our lowest achieving students is way too wide. And we’re working on closing it…but not in radical and pervasive ways. Not in ways that will close it soon. We’re mostly looking at stats and figuring out what they mean; it’s a deliberate process…like the Stone Age and quitting smoking cigarettes.

I’ll offer one person’s thoughts on the state of teachers and teaching as a wrap-up: Maja Wilson talks about what’s wrong with the Education Reform movement.

Peace and joy,
Aram

One thought on “searching for the right word

  1. One colleague reminded me to remember the “Serenity Prayer”…
    God, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change those things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
    Good advice.

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