#72: My Daughter the Brainiac

One of my favorite things about working with children, out of the innumerable reasons, is that they naturally bring to life many of the simple notions and life lessons that I tend to overlook with age. And it's incredibly refreshing in my opinion. I love the simplicity yet deep symbolism in this piece, Sasha. Thank you :)   

-  Amanda 

Sasha Dichter      sdichter@acumen.org 

My Daughter the Brainiac 

My daughter is working her way through a summer book of math and reading. She got to the end and found this Summer Brainiac Certificate on the last page. She was ecstatic.

Elara’s Summer Brainiac Award Certificate

After filling it in and cutting it out she asked, “Is this a real certificate?”

Striking to notice how, at just seven years old, she’s already picked up that it might be someone else’s job to tell her if she’s achieved, to decide whether she gets a trophy, a certificate or a gold star.

“Yes,” I told her, “it’s definitely a real certificate.”

This lesson, that someone besides us is judge and jury, holds on tight to us. We started learning it at a tender age, and year after year, our schools and then our workplaces have taught us that a grade is coming from somewhere, that someone besides us decides what the homework is, how we should direct our efforts, what is going to be on the test. If we do it all right, they give us a piece of paper that confirms, to us and to others, that we hit the mark.

Makes me wonder what blank certificates I should be writing for myself for the skills and achievements I’m working towards. So simple to write them out and leave a blank space for my name.

To be clear, I couldn’t be prouder of my Brainiac daughter, most of all that she choose to do the work and then she filled out her own certificate.

Sasha's first-person bio:

As Acumen’s Chief Innovation Officer, I oversee Acumen’s three fastest-growing verticals: Lean Data, which brings customer voice into impact measurement; the Acumen Fellows Programs, with more than 400 Fellows globally; and +Acumen, the World’s School for Social change. I’ve also been blogging since 2008 and have written more than 1,000 blog posts on generosity, philanthropy and social change. I was the instigator behind Generosity Day and, frustrated with how nonprofits approach fundraising, I wrote the Manifesto for Nonprofit CEOs, a free resource that has been shared with thousands of nonprofit CEOs and Boards who care about making a difference.      I find I get the most joy from my work when I see someone around me change and grow.