The mundanity of excellence

Or, we are what we repeatedly do.

I was recently introduced to a new phrase: the mundanity of excellence.  (Thanks, Alex Richardson – @1917AndAllThat).  I love it, and think it’s highly applicable to teachers.  Here’s why. 

We can all produce the odd brilliant lesson. You know the sort: the ones you really prepped for, maybe created some sh*t hot new resources or lined up a fantastic sequence of questions. Or maybe you know, you just know, that you’ve laid all the groundwork and today’s discussion will fly.  These are lessons they love, you’re proud of, and you all remember. 

But, those aren’t the lessons that make you a brilliant teacher.  They just show that you can do it from time to time.  Similar examples: 

• In the Euro 2016 football tournament, Wales’ Hal Robson-Kanu scored an undeniably world class goal.  But he’s no-one’s idea of a world-class striker. 

• My wife has a theory that every band has one great song in them.  But that doesn’t make them a great band.  Yes, I’m talking about you, Babylon Zoo and, er, Whigfield. 
• [You can insert your own, more culturally sophisticated, example here.] 

By contrast, the truly excellent teachers aren’t the ones who sometimes knock it out the park.  They are the ones who sometimes knock it out the park but always, always make good contact.  The ones who produce not one great single, but an album that’s almost all killer and hardly any filler. (I mean, we all have off days, right?) 

Socrates put it thus: “As it is not one swallow or a fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.”  Marvellous.  But, sacrilegious as it may be, I prefer the more modern take by American historian Will Durant: “We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” 

Not an act, but a habit.  Not a once-a-season thirty yard screamer.  Not a once-a-month painstakingly prepped, expertly engineered debate on the causes of World War One.  

Instead, the screamer now and again but all the mundane, literally everyday, things you do to make yourself an excellent teacher. Things like: 

• doing your register, accurately and on time; 
• turning up for break duty, even in the rain; 
• upholding the uniform rules, so that there’s a consistent line among all staff; 
• marking regularly and helpfully (but not overly frequently); 

• being pleased to see your pupils, even if you’re not feeling like it; 
• asking how your tutee’s poorly pet dog is getting on; 
• expecting high standards in your classroom, of behaviour, effort and achievement; 
• directing your questions to appropriate recipients; 
• looking the part; 

• not snarking at rules you don’t like or policies you don’t agree with (there’s a time and a place); 
• helping colleagues in a jam; 
• helping photocopiers in a jam; 
• carefully calibrating the amount of challenge; 
• remembering that not every lesson can be perfect; 

• reflecting on your practice, and trying new things sometimes. 

None of these are glamorous.  They aren’t all immediately noticeable and won’t all be apparent to colleagues, line managers or SLT.  They won’t have the commentators off their feet or the critics losing their minds.  But they are some of the basics, the building blocks of brilliance.  Do them consistently well and you’re well on the way to excellence.  We are, after all, what we repeatedly do.