This afternoon, I received notice that the interview for what I thought would be the perfect job was canceled and would not be rescheduled.
But the day was still fantastic.
I’m still on course to looking for the “right” thing and to bring passion to bear against the world’s most important problems.
This morning, I spent an hour with a 17 year old student, I’ll call him Andre, which is actually not his name. He needed to working on some intro computer science exercises. He was presented as being “behind.” He had missed some class and I needed to help him catch up. When I joined him in a virtual breakout room, I could hear a children’s song being sung in the background.
Andre and I started working on the problems, but it was clear, he was distracted. There was loud yelling in the background. It sounded like a kindergarten class, but Andre was in High School. I asked about the noise. He said it was his cousin. Andre seemed to double-down and reengage.
I felt a sense of sadness. I felt some tears well up, but refocused myself. We had work to do.
We didn’t do any work against the past problems, but Andre was able to do the lessons of the day, which built on past lessons. I contributed with a few nudges. It was very helpful that we had some 1:1 time so I could observe which past lessons he struggled with. In the end though, he kicked ass!
Inspired.
I’m going to get a job leading teams to solve the big problems in education, healthcare, or sustainability. I’m not going to settle.
A Sense Of 