What Is "The Work"?

Brain cancer is...

 ...always giving us things to think about.

First:  The news you need. 
What did Darrell do today? One thing he did was figure out all the light switches in our Temecula villa.  He also rested because (dang it!) he came down with a mucusy cold in these few days before the MRI. For the scan, he needs to hold his head perfectly still for about 45 minutes, a task made more difficult by mucus.  Beat that cold, Darrell!  Full scan ahead!

Next:  What Is "The Work"?
When one attends a multi-day professional meeting for the first time in a long time, one hears forgotten terminology.  Today at my meeting, people kept talking about "the work," but they pronounced it like this:  The Work.  (Example:  "For us, The Work is about supporting student learning in mathematics.")

At first I thought, "How cute!  These people who drive 'to work' every day think that there is 'The Work'!" 

Then a keynote speech required me to revise my thinking about The Work.  Karen Mayfield-Ingram invited us to think about the facets of our identity.  She described "identity" as things that are assigned to us (e.g., race, sex, social class) and things we choose (e.g., values, beliefs, and experiences that define us). 

Here's where you participate remotely,  in your minds.  Take eight index cards.  Write one facet of your identity on each card.  (Examples to get you started:  1. parent, 2.  reader, 3. female...)  Please, at least write two or three mental cards so you'll appreciate the post's punchline.

After we wrote eight cards, Karen asked us to discard, one by one, our cards, using the any criteria we chose.  We threw away facets of identity in stages until we were each left with just one card. One card.

That's when it occurred to me:  "The Work" is what's written on that one remaining card.  Over dinner (above) Darrell and I found connections between our two cards.   

What's written on that solo card?  That's The Work.  This was a big conversation for us. 


(Want to play?  You show your solo card and we'll we'll show you our solo cards.)

A final question to lighten the mood:

Despite the fact that this photo is blurry, we wonder...Where might the exit be?