Very Superstitious

Over the past few months of basketball games, several of us became very superstitious. For me, it started with refusing to talk about a state championship. Then I would refuse to talk about anything other than the next game. By the end of the season, I had lucky shoes, a lucky shirt and specific places I would stand during the game. In my head, these things mattered somehow. All I knew was that things were working and I refused to change anything that worked. Anything.

Being superstitious is nothing new for athletes and sports fans. Most will likely admit to something small that they believe impacts the game. The funny thing about superstitions is that they require some form of constant assessment. When things go well, you evaluate what was right about that day. When you lose, you evaluate what was different. So with that thought in mind, is it smart to be superstitious about instruction? When students perform well in a lesson or unit, do we take the time to evaluate what made that difference? I'm not talking about a lucky shirt in this case, but more about what changed within the classroom. When students do not perform well, are we analyzing what changed to cause this? If we can approach instruction with the same mentality of a superstitious athlete or fan, we can take a much more critical approach to self-assessment. So while wearing your lucky shirt on exam days may help, try analyzing all parts of student achievement and try making those repeatable.

And by the way, we only had two losses this season in men's basketball. Both of those occurred on days that Duke and Carolina played each other. We should probably not schedule games on those days next year.