I was on the phone with Susan Barber, my teaching buddy, earlier this week about my frustration with my writing and my need for a creative breakthrough.

I’ve grown weary of writing the listicle: Six Ways to a Spectacular Thesis Statement, The Seven Poems I Can’t Live Without, Four Ways to Invigorate a Dull Classroom are all possibilities of what this post might have been. Maybe, you are wishing I followed through on one of those eye-catching topics.

The listicle serves an important role because it breaks down ideas into easily-digestible steps or provides a simple framework for complex topics. But it can easily become trite. Its click bait nature often overpromises and underdelivers. It can reduce complexity to pithy platitudes instead of a nuanced understanding. Most of all, it can sacrifice voice and personalization for broad generalities. I’m sure I’m not waving adieu to it forever, but for right now, it is on hold. I want to experiment with approaches that achieve some of the things I just mentioned.

Not everything has to be reduced to a number.

It is also how I feel about my teaching right now.

Over the last few years, my scores haven’t taken the giant leaps like they once did. Two courses that I teach end with big, high-stakes exams. The data reveals that my students and I have done well. Numbers are up. Failures are down (although no one fails an AP exam). In both cases, we are outperforming the state by record margins. There is a lot to be proud of.

I wanted even more, though. Last year, I wanted to catch perfection. It was going to be the year in which everyone would score a 3 or better on the AP exam. We have been just shy of it by a few hairs lately, but this year was going to be the year. The same was true of my 11th grade English class. Scores had been great, but this year we were going for mastery like never before.

In both classes, I cut short a unit near the end to focus on the exams. I supplanted old methods with newly-devised strategies. I revealed common pitfalls. I preached the power of perseverance on lengthy exams and paved the path to personal excellence.

But I didn’t bury the lead in this piece. You know where this is going.

Scores went up slightly in both cases, but perfection was just beyond our reach.

It wasn’t a letdown, but when the margins are tighter, the satisfaction dulls. Now I realize, as much as I was chasing perfection, I was really chasing the exhilaration that came with the big gains of the past. I wanted the glory of climbing a mountain once again instead of merely traversing foothills.

I’ve done this long enough to know that at this point, my scores will likely have small fluctuations, but seismic gains or losses are unlikely.

So, I’ve hit a plateau.

Standing on this vista, I can see that, just like my frustrations with the listicle, I am ready for a new, creative outpouring in the classroom. As I commit myself to experimenting with new forms of writing, I will also experiment with new approaches to teaching.

Will Guidara, the author of Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect, believes that “We have an opportunity—a responsibility—to make magic in a world that desperately needs more of it.”

If you are like me, and couldn’t come unglued from the news this week, you know how desperately we need this ethos.

There is a scene in The Road, in which the father finds an old vending machine with a single can of Coca-Cola inside. He gives the can to his son, but the boy insists that his father also take a sip. The boy says, “It’s because I won’t ever get to drink another one, isn’t it?”. The father replies, “Ever’s a long time”. It is a subtle response. The act reveals not only the father’s generosity, it shows the way it perpetuates the hope for a better future. 

When we got to that scene one year, we stopped everything and I handed out mini cans of Coca Cola for all my students. They opened them in unison and they finished the period sipping and talking among themselves.

Another year I told a 9-11 love story. The first date my wife and I ever went on was to the World Trade Center observation deck, where we watched the sun set three years before 9-11 and when I wove that story into Rick Rielly’s Sports Illustrated piece, “The Real New York Giants,” there were audible gasps in the room.

This is the exhilaration I am chasing this year — one whose magic can not be quantified numerically.

There are other mountains on the horizon.

I will also open the door, welcoming feedback from my department chair. If writers benefit from the guidance of editors every step of the way, and pro athletes have personal coaches for everything from swings to stances to shooting forms. My high school coach was a master at breaking down game tape.Those sessions taught me how important it was to see the mistakes so that I could improve on them in practice. Why have I limited myself to the three standard observations that I am contractually obligated to receive? Why have I assumed that at a certain point, I no longer needed consistent feedback?

A famous NFL football coach once wrote a book centered on the idea that when you do all the little things right, the score will take care of itself. Put another way, in the context of education, when scores and grades are the center of a student’s education, true learning will never occur. But when learning is core to the experience, grades will take care of themselves. This is how I want to break through my plateau — by doing things that are out of my comfort zone, by challenging myself to make more of the magic, and by opening the doors to new relationships and new levels of feedback.

If you’ve made it this far, send me an email and “tell me, what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious (teaching) life” this year. I’d love to hear your hopes and aspirations, just don’t turn it into a listicle.