The other day my sister sent me a link to an article about how work – and the ‘cult of productivity’ – have been allowed to become benchmarks of self definition in Western culture. You can find it here on Maria Popova’s thought provoking site, Brain Pickings. I’m sharing it here for a number of reasons – one of them being that if I include it here I stand a reasonable chance of finding it again myself. Plus it reminded me of how great things digital can be, when you get a single suggested reading in an email and can then follow it up, down and across a myriad paths through all kinds of new territories and ideas that you never would have followed before. AND – it got me thinking about various things on a personal and professional level.

The article, focussing on Anna Quindlen’s undelivered commencement address that subsequently became a book, addresses the central notion of how students need to ‘get a life’ – not in the derogatory way that we usually intend such a suggestion, but a kind of life worth living, rather than a scrabbling after status and success. You can argue that ‘a life worth living’ is a highly subjective and value-laden construct that will mean different things to different people. You can equally observe that aspiring to such a thing is an old favourite of religions, therapists, self help books, wise aunties and all sorts, however that does not make an element of truth in the exhortation of it go away.  Furthermore, if your over-riding goal is to make stupendous amounts of money and succeed at the expense of your fellows, then this kind of thing will just look a bit wet.

One of her points is that Quindlen insists that we should never confuse life and work. And I am still wrestling inside my head with whether or not I agree, and whether or not I do, so I won’t go on about it. However, it got me thinking about how creative reflection can be about getting a life – because in our curricula the purpose of reflection is to make students perform better, see themselves and their work critically and clearly, and set their goals more effectively. It still feels quite instrumental when described in those terms but students who reflect earnestly and honestly do move into the realms of personal values, motivations and drivers in quite profound ways. They may be doing so even when they don’t actually put it to paper too.  So if you look at our Powerful Questions in Chapter 8, these are all about how we, as learners at any age, can get to the heart of what we are trying to achieve and understanding what compels us in our actions.