Another post on the 70-30 rule (just an idea not a rule)

Back in the summer I wrote a blog about the 70-30 rule and how this perhaps can help us to get projects off the ground. Too often we are looking to create perfection before we start anything... sorry to burst the bubble perfection doesn't exist...

What a strange conundrum this 'perfection' thing... if we are all unique and our view of life is uniquely ours... then 'perfection' is only what we believe it is... of course no one else would think that is perfect... so there is no perfect... just our view of what works us individually... another post sorry for rambling. But food for thought... we are indeed chasing the snark if we are looking for perfection. So forget that because it is impossible, instead maybe, find what works... and that you can uniquely do for you.

So the reason for another post on 70-30 rule is because my attention was drawn to the chart above, and I have been chatting with a few people where this has come up in conversation and in relation to education. In that students are encouraged to work harder and harder to achieve better 'grades' and therefore higher levels of achievement. So I thought it would be interesting for me to take a look at my school days and relate what happened to me even though some of it was sub-conscious much of it wasn't.

One consistent thing in my reports was, Chris just does enough to get by. It made my parents mad, but I laughed because I often replied. I'm passing the exams aren't I? What's the problem?

I had three things in my teenage years, Table Tennis (county player), Saturday job (great fun and opportunity to mix with girls, as I went to an all boys school), School... which I enjoyed immensely. Now I went to Watford Grammar School. One of the top 100 academic schools in the country and although 'middle of the road' in terms of grading came out with passes in everything except French.

What's this got to do with 70-30. Well, I had decided I didn't want to go to university as I knew what I wanted to do, programming computers, so for me grades weren't important. I also knew that employers wanted to know how many exams you passed not what grades you got. So I figured I needed to get passes and worked out how much effort that would take... so I spent my evenings playing Table Tennis, my weekends doing what I wanted and school time doing school work.

I basically had a pretty stress free enjoyable school time because I was balancing out what I was doing with a good mix of activities. The extra effort to get grade A's as you can see by the chart above would have required an extra-ordinary amount of extra study on my part which I wasn't prepared to put in as I would've had to sacrifice other things I enjoyed.

I know students that would have been mortified if they had got anything less than an 'A' in anything... these students often couldn't hold a conversation, didn't mix well and didn't like sport. That wasn't me... I never held any grudges about their grades... I just figured I was different from them and enjoyed my life doing what worked for me...

I also wasn't interested in the school's assessment of my abilities either... looking back on my life the things that I have done, the skills I have acquired aren't taught in schools... what I believe I excel in has nothing to do with the school curriculum... so how on earth is all this pressure and stress at school worth it? ... the individual is key here and systems that work for each of our children...