Blog
Sharpening the Axe
This quote from Abraham Lincoln has cropped up a few times over recent days in my social media feeds.
One affect of the pandemic has been for students to experience very few formal assessments over the past couple of years, so now that mock exams for students in Years 11 and 13 have either ended (or will end very shortly) I'm sure there will be a brief pause whilst everyone thinks about how they went.
What went well? What was a surprise? What didn’t go so well? What must be remembered for next time? What can be done between now and the next round of mocks in early 2022 to make things better, to make learning more secure?
There's a story about a person who was employed as a woodcutter, or lumberjack, who had a fabulously productive first day at their new job, managing to cut down 20 trees from the woodland in a single shift. After a great deal of praise from the manager, they returned on day two determined to do even better – to make the company proud!
However, by the end of day two, there was disappointing news: only 17 trees felled.
Nevertheless, the woodcutter returned on day three, determined to get back up to the 20-tree all-time high.
By the end of day 3 they had only managed to cut down 13 trees. Four less than the day before, and certainly no match for the standard of work on day one.
On day four… only 9 trees felled.
On day five… only 4 trees felled.
The woodcutter was distraught. What was happening? No-one could fault their determination. Nor their effort. Nor their diligence – there was so much hard work going into this job every day and yet success was falling and no amount of hard work was making an impact.
Why?
Well, the woodcutter had forgotten to sharpen the axe!
We are all guilty of this kind of thinking from time to time. Maybe not through felling trees, but definitely in the ways in which we go about our lives. The axe in this fable is a metaphor for our brains and our learning processes. Our skills, our habits, our techniques and our methods.
So what will you do from now on, to sharpen your axe?
