Don’t Get Stuck on an Escalator

Remember that video I showed you way back in the beginning of the school year?  The one with two people who get stuck on an escalator? Remember? They need help to get off the broken escalator?

Here’s the clip if you need to see it again.

I showed that to you because it’s time to get off the escalator. It’s time you begin solving some of your own problems. It’s time for you to take action and not just sit at your desk helplessly. 

You can solve many of the problems you face. Maybe not the biggest ones, but you can solve the ones that come up the most frequently.

Every day I see students stuck on an escalator. Here are a few examples:

“I don’t have a pencil.” 
  In the science lab, I always have freshly sharpened pencils for you to borrow. Get up and go get one. (Please put it back at the end of class.)

“I didn’t get the hand-out.” 
  I bet if your raised your hand, your teacher, or the student passing them out, would be happy to give you one.

“I don’t have the homework” or “I lost my homework” or “I wasn’t here and missed the homework” or “You never gave me one.”
          In the science lab, I have a large bin labeled “Missing Something?” In that bin, you will find two weeks of hand-outs, homework and other papers we have used organized by grade and day. Go get what you need. You don’t even need to ask, just take the initiative to go get what you need.

“I don’t know what we’re doing.”
  Clearly, you have missed some instructions. Instead of sitting and doing nothing, raise your hand, ask the teacher. Take action to solve your problem.

Getting stuck on an escalator seems ridiculous but it’s a metaphor for problems you have the power to solve. You just need to try. Take action. Take the initiative and do something. 

Sitting and waiting like a helpless waif is not how to solve problems. We all have problems and most of the time, they don’t just go away. In fact, if you just sit helplessly and hope a problem goes away, it usually gets bigger. 

“I don’t have the worksheet,” becomes “I missed the work,”  and spirals into “I didn’t learn that,” which grows into “I bombed my quiz,” which leads to “I got a poor grade on my report card.” 

All this can be avoided by solving the easy problem instead of hoping it goes away.  Raise your hand, get the worksheet, solve the simple problem.

How do you get off a broken escalator?  You were shouting it at the screen as the video played….”Walk off!” 

Take initiative. 

You can solve many of your own problems. 

You have the power…use it.