My Heater

Disclaimer: As I write this week's blog, I need you to know that I woke up at 1:30 am to a cold house for the third time this week. My rambling/ranting may be exceptional this week, but I promise it leads somewhere. Stick with me. 

I moved to Greene County a little over four years ago. I liked the community and despite warnings that I would soon become a topic of the typical small-town gossip, I joined up to live in the place where I work. Erika and I found a great home that had been completely remodeled and after owning a 110-year-old house before, that appealed to me. New paint, new appliances, and a brand new heat and air unit. Four years later, I still think it was a good decision. My girls have friends here and I'm close to the school. The one bad thing has been my heating unit.

Every winter that I have lived in the house, the heater has failed in some way. Losing your heat usually happens when it's inconvenient. You had plans and it disrupts them. You worry about the cost or how it will impact your family and for me, it makes me sleep even less than I already do. Luckily, the cost hasn't been awful (yet). Most of the parts are under warranty and I'm just stuck paying labor for some guy to put it in. In the past, I've used the same company that installed the unit. They've been fairly responsive and understanding that I've grown increasingly perturbed. In three years, it continues to do the same thing, so I decided this winter to switch up and use the company that worked on one at my old house. Over the past 4-5 weeks, they have tried a lot of things.  I had to pay for a part that was out of warranty (a $500 bill) and when that still didn't solve the problem, I lost my patience with this thing. The repair guy has been honest that he cannot detect the true source of the problem and is just going to have to keep replacing a part at a time until we find it.

This heater reminds me of that one kid that struggles to behave, distracts others, demands attention but shows you just enough promise that you keep working with him. You make it through the semester after lots of calls to parents, conversations with him in the hall and referrals to administrators. Then next year he winds up right back on your roster again. Imagine that. Then imagine he was on your roster EVERY year of high school.

What that student and my heater have in common relates to the difference between being efficient and being effective. Being efficient means being good at doing something. When my heater works, it is efficient. When the repair guy replaces parts, he is efficient. When we stick to using strategies with that troubled kid, we are efficient teachers. What all of those have in common, however, is that none of them, in this case, are effective.

Note: It's 6:54 am and my heat just randomly cut back on. I hope to never repeat the string of profanity that erupted from my mouth. I'm fairly confident that I made up new curse words.

Being effective means doing what's important, not just what you're good at doing. Despite their efficiency, no one has been effective at taking the time to determine the true problem with my heater. And despite my consistency, I wasn't always effective at getting through to students that had issues in the classroom. To be effective, you have to take a step back and evaluate the problem differently. You can't just do what you've done over and over because it's all you know to do. Effective teaching requires hard reflection on your practice and changing it when it suits students, not you.

So the moral to the story is this: To be an effective teacher, don't be like my heater. You can't break down every year. You can't just mend things along the way and hope that it fixes you or your students. And you can't be effective until you can take a step back and identify the source of the issue.

Question: Does anyone know if it's an auto insurance claim or a homeowners insurance claim if you use your truck to run over your heating unit? Asking for a friend...