Labels

My daughter recently had her 1 year check up and the nurse had a list of questions for me before the doctor came in.

How does she sleep?

I had no idea how to answer this. She is a baby and her sleep patterns change almost weekly. Did the nurse want to know an overview since the last time we were there, how she has been doing overall or how she is doing lately? Looking at this question from these three different points of view would give three different answers.

When we "label" kids, what information goes into that label?  Are we allowing them to grow and be relabeled?

I have had a drivers licence for fourteen years. Up until this year, I have had one incident involving a car. Does this mean I am a good driver? In the last two months I have hit a traffic cone and rear ended someone. Does this make me a bad driver? Three accidents in fourteen years sounds pretty good, but two accidents in two years dramatically changes the label (in my opinion).

Labels can be helpful,  but we need to be extremely careful how we use them and how we think about people, especially our students and coworkers. What we tell ourself is what we will see. Our labels of people should be as positive as possible. Life is miserable when we focus on the negatives.