A Letter To My Students

A Letter To My Students

Michelangelo

    When I was traveling Florence, Italy in the summer of 2016 I bought this thing called the Firenze card. Basically it was like $80 for unlimited access to all the museums of Florence and I could skip most of the lines. Now for most of us that doesn’t sound like a great deal, but 2 of these museums were fairly expensive and had incredibly long waits. One of which housed Michelangelo’s David and the other more paintings from more artists than I could even describe. With these two alone I was close to breaking even on the purchase, but for those of you who know how cheap I am, know that breaking even wasn’t enough. I told myself I had to visit at least 10 other museums (this is all within a 2 day period) in order to justify the purchase. The card actually gave you access to 72 museums, I did not have that kind of time. So I took one day and for 9 hours straight I visit museum after museum after museum. I saw some of the most amazing works of art that have ever been done. Do I remember even half of these museums? No! Except one. It was this little museum, off the beaten path, with no one even on the streets surrounding it. I had to triple check to make sure I was even at the right place. It was a museum dedicated to the destroyed works of Michelangelo. Everything was partially complete, partially burned, ripped, or broken. I picked up one of the free cassettes and head phones for the self guided tour. I walked around in the fast pace I had been using most of the day because nothing in there was of any real interest to me, I was simply trying to convince myself I had made a wise investment with this card, until during the tour it was explaining why the half destroyed and half completed works of Michelangelo I was viewing were so rare.

True Genius

    The recording explained how during the end of his life he commissioned people to have every sketch, rough draft, model, and incomplete work to be destroyed. I’m talking models of the David, sketches of the Sistine Chapel, the whole nine yards. He wanted to destroy any record of the things he deemed imperfect. It was as if he did not want people to see his hard work, his process of refinement, and in his opinion his failure. In that moment I knew no greater beauty. The David felt like macaroni art compared to these grungy clay sculptures. Because the true genius of Michelangelo was in his relentless work towards a goal. The hundreds of sketches that obsessed over a single facet of a painting or sculpture showed a side of him that made me appreciate him so much more. 

How we destroy our work

    I think we can all relate on some level to Michelangelo, and I think you who are in the social environment of school more so. We all want to be the person who creates something genius on the first try. We want to turn in an assignment and not tell the teacher you were up past midnight working on it. We want to be really proud of a project but turn it in with a phrase like, “but it kinda sucks” or “but I really didn’t try” or “but I don’t really like it” or “but I don’t really care.” We are Michelangelo burning our rough drafts when we say that. We are hiding our hard work.

Even me

    I personally would down play how much work I put into being a teacher. Ask any of the other teachers at the school how hard they thought I tried or how much effort they believe I put into work outside of school. I know most would not be anywhere close to the actual amount. The nights I spent obsessing over a conversation in the hallway or a slide that had a typo. The rigors I would go through planning Field Day or the Presidential Fitness Run. Even worse, the sleep I lost trying to figure out how to respond to an Email. The desperate need to appear flawless without trying and if I couldn’t appear, I would act as if I didn’t care. I was Michelangelo. 

All of this roots back to 2 things: Our fear of failure and our definition of failure.

Fear of Failure

    The typical idea associated with the word failure is the lack of success. Your attempt at something did not result in the desired product, or in other words, what you wanted to happen did not happen; failure. It is seen as the opposite of success. I’ll pretend for a minute that this is the right definition. So why should we be afraid of not succeeding? Maybe we think our parents, friends, or teachers have a certain expectation that if we do not meet they will be disappointed, and we do not want to let them down? Maybe we see other people “succeeding” and we don’t want to be the only ones who don’t? Maybe we have a standard we hold ourselves to and anything other than success is unacceptable? For starters, your parents love you regardless, trust me, I’ve bombed pretty hard in my life and my dad still says he loves me at the end of every phone call! If your friends expect you to always succeed they aren’t good friends. Friends are those who will love you despite your failures. Seriously, sometimes I wonder what I would have to do to get some of my friends to not support me (I already tried moving to the other side of the world). They’re literally too supportive. As for your teachers, I can give a special attribution to this section. Look, we love y’all with all your imperfections. We knew what we signed up for when we got our degrees. If you were already perfect we wouldn’t even have jobs! Also, in secret, most of us are trying to impress y’all just as much as you are trying to impress us, I promise. So, even with the conventional definition of failure, “forget about it!” *read in an Italian accent. There is no need to fear. Failure is a pressure we put on ourselves. Our friends, family, and teachers just want to see us putting in effort and loving what we do.

The True Definition

    My favorite band The Lumineers have a song title Stubborn Love, and in the song they say, “The opposite of love is indifference.” Such a subtle lyric that holds so much truth. If you ask most people the opposite of love they will likely tell you “hate.” Unless they are huge Lumineers fans like me. SO… what does this have to do with failure? Well, it shows that often times a dichotomy doesn’t work as we think. In other words, the opposite of success is in fact not failure, it is not trying. Failure is just a different type of success. Call it diet success if you want…

Real Beauty

    No, I’m not saying everyone is a winner! I’m saying that whether you fail or succeed, you did something and that is progress. You learned, you attempted, you “risked it for the biscuit” (looking at you 6th grade). Failure is not something bad to be swept under the rug. It is a badge of honor you should wear proudly. It is like the sketches of Michelangelo that were inches away from my finger tips. It is the real beauty because it shows the stages of imperfection that led to perfection. It shows the hours worked, the barriers pushed through, the amount of times the universe said no and he said YES!

Don't be afraid

    With all that, as you start this new year of school, this new chapter of your life, don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t hold yourself to some crazy standard. Embrace the beauty of working hard, failing, learning, and working hard again. On behalf of your parents, friends, and teachers, we love you failures and all. We hope you feel the same way for us.

Love,

Josh Moore