{"id":3181,"date":"2020-09-30T21:02:29","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T01:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/edt431-531\/?p=3181"},"modified":"2020-09-30T21:05:35","modified_gmt":"2020-10-01T01:05:35","slug":"atomic-habits-patience-with-the-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/2020\/09\/atomic-habits-patience-with-the-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Atomic Habits: Patience with the Process"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My Struggle with Patience<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I have to admit, I’m not a patient person. I’m the kind of person who lines my arms with grocery bags just to be sure it’ll only be one trip from my car to my house. If I order something online, I check my mailbox everyday even though I know my package won’t show up for a week. When I take a shower I get in before the water has time to warm up, just because I don’t want to wait for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This impatience sometimes is good, it makes me think more efficiently, however, other times it is to my detriment. I’m a percussionist, I have been since fifth grade, so I’ve been doing it for a while at this point. When I started, I made progress quickly, moving from piece to piece thinking I was the best drummer in history. Then, the better I got, the slower progress became. I had to actually start working on my drumming outside of my class in order to improve. This quickly became very frustrating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mastering slow progression is the key to James Clear’s novel Atomic Habits. Throughout the book, Clear writes about the importance of making small improvements everyday in order to make large improvements over time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Atomic habits are small incremental changes and improvements to one’s habits and systems that eventually make big changes in someone’s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A graphic representation of making small improvements everyday.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Clear writes that “habits are the compound interest of self-improvement” (p. 22). Like money that multiplies over time, so do habits and their effect on a person. Now, the issue with this is it takes a long time for progress to become apparent if it ever does at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a budding physics teacher, not only do I need to work on improving my own patience with self-improvements, but I will need to instill this same patience in my students as they make their slow, but powerful educational journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Habits and Patience in the Classroom<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The learning process at a high level, like drumming, is a slow process. Personally, high school was the first time I started struggling with education, I needed to start really paying attention in class and studying. I think this is true for many other students and probably true for my future students as physics can sometime be a tough subject to grasp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I learned a lot reading Atomic Habits. I work everyday on reducing friction in my life. I move my couch every night just to give myself space in my living room to work out in the morning. It makes getting out of bed so much easier! @JamesClear<\/a> #atomichabits<\/a> #smallimprovements<\/a><\/p>— Tommy Daigler (@DaiglerTommy) October 1, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote>