We hear a great deal about Boeing Aircraft of late and most of it is not so good. There was a time when Boeing was known as the epitome of care and craftsmanship in their products, but a merger with MacDonald Douglas led to a business model based less on quality control and more on profits and streamlined production. While such a focus might work well in some companies, it is imperative that makers of planes should seek quality and safety first. So too it is with the ridiculous idea of using production and profit models for all kinds of organizations that require a different kind of measurement to determine success. 

I will never forget a time when my eldest daughter celebrated her first birthday without even making an attempt to walk. As the weeks and then months passed and people began to bombard me with advice regarding her unwillingness to stand upright and take steps. They made me quite anxious with their insistence that something had to be wrong or she would certainly be toddling about. I lay awake at night worrying and wondering if I had somehow done something or neglected to do something that had impeded her movements. 

When she was about fourteen months old I was constantly anxious that she was still unwilling to walk, but I showed a confident face to my critics. I watched them shake their heads and wag their tongues when they saw my child still crawling around in the grass when we went outside to play each day. I tried not to let them see the panic that was growing inside and then something remarkable happened. One day my little girl and I were watching a group of older children toss a rubber ball back and forth. At one point one of the little ones dropped the orb and it rolled in our direction. To my amazement my daughter quickly stood up and literally ran to retrieve the ball before someone else did. From that point forward she not only walked but ran with ease. 

I had always been taught that we humans develop at different rates. There is no ironclad rule that determines when any of us will master any skill. I took heart from my experience with my own child whenever I encountered students who progressed rather slowly in learning different mathematical processes. I often saw some of my pupils soaring with success after only one lesson and others who took many iterations of instruction before finally demonstrating understanding. In fact, in one of my earliest experiences teaching long division I found myself becoming discouraged with the lack of progress with several of my charges when we worked on long division. 

When I expressed my concerns to a teacher who was nearing her retirement she assured me that with patience and motivation all of my students would ultimately master the concepts that seemed to elude them. In fact, she reminded me once again that we each learn at a different pace and as long as we do not give up on the child who is struggling success will eventually blossom. 

My experiences have shown me that anyone can learn, but the rate and timing of learning may differ vastly. Sadly both students and teachers are all too often tested, not to determine where the youngsters fall along the continuum of progress, but to rank them as though there is some magical moment when all humans should be capable of doing certain things or be deemed failures. Society has turned learning into a competition measured by production and high scores on tests. 

What we have witnessed is that much like Boeing when quantity of learning is more valued than taking time to improve the quality things fall apart. Lives are hurt. Both children and their teachers are damaged. The oft heard expression, “I’m no good at that!,” usually results from pushing an individual to master something too soon. It ignores the truth that we all learn different things at different rates. 

I am always wary of any push to adopt a one size fits all methodology in any circumstance. it is almost always a mistake to gage progress or quality on some numerical formula that does not take differences and quality into account. Instead we should celebrate situations that take effort, improvement, and attention to detail into account. We destroy the morale of people when they realize that their value is little more than a set of statistics. People become unmotivated when nobody takes time to notice what they have done right rather than only focusing on what they have done wrong. That applies to any human endeavor. 

How many times have we heard of people who failed many times before ultimately doing remarkable things? My little girl who took fourteen months to perform the act of walking eventually became a beautiful dancer. She choreographed incredible routines and was the lead dancer in a number of school musicals. Nobody asked her how old she was when she first stood upright to take the steps into her future, so why are we in such a hurry in so many situations?

We humans are amazing in our ability to learn and create and produce. It should not always matter how quickly we are able to do such things. Taking time to do things right should be our goal. Celebrating success no matter how long it takes to get there, should be par for the course. Think of how much more we might actually accomplish if we were to focus on a natural progression according to each person’s needs. Soon we would all be running with delight.