So When is This Due?

Though retired for twenty years now, Bill Watterson and his Calvin and Hobbes comics live on. Recently I acquired an exhibition catalogue put together by the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at The Ohio State University that was published this year in March. Not only has the catalogue collected, organized, and commented on Watterson's art and various aspects of the strip, the book contains a long interview with Watterson about varying aspects of his experience at the helm of this popular comic. One exchange between Watterson and the interviewer that stood out to me was in regard to deadlines.

Watterson was speaking about the limitations and constraints of the comic strip as an art form. There are rules that must be followed, constraints that must be respected. The daily strips require one format, the Sundays another. There are color limitations. And then there are the demands of the deadline. Every day, 365 days a year, there's a demand for new content. Right now. Immediately. He spoke of the fact that, in hindsight, he appreciated what those limitations did for him:

"It's going to be black and white, it's going to be ink on paper, it's all got to fit in this teeny little space, and it has to be done by yesterday. Okay, thank you, now I can get to work! I think the hardest part is the deadline. But even there, I've come to respect it. A painting is infinitely perfectible, so I can't tell when to stop. The strip deadlines are so relentless that simplicity and speed become great virtues. . ." (p. 26)

What I found illuminating was the response of the interviewer: "Without that deadline constraint, it wouldn't have been possible to complete so much work."

And there it is. Without someone forcing Watterson into demanding, sometimes unreasonable deadlines for content, one of the greatest, most well-known strip writers would have created only a fraction of the thousands of strips that have captured the hearts of generations. Simply put, without this pressure, he would have accomplished less. Far less.

Dear English students: this is why I am so demanding with you. This is why I don't push deadlines back when you beg and prod and verbally abuse my supposedly non-existent soul. If I did, you would accomplish less. You would read less, write less, learn less, and create less. You might be okay with that, but you won't be in twenty years. Bill Watterson hated the daily demand for new content and the unrelenting stream of pressure on his abilities. At least he did then. Now? Now he's being interviewed on his artistic gift to the world and all the success and fulfillment it's brought him.

Most adults are vocally appalled when I tell them that a national trend in education is to do away with due dates and deadlines, that new conventional wisdom has it that you can't put a timetable on learning and that holding students to a due date is in essence giving up on them. They talk about the real world. And I'm with them. But one question that begs to be asked is this: how many deadlines are adults being held to? Or perhaps more importantly, how much more could we all accomplish under the pressure of a deadline?

I know the temptations to procrastinate that which should be done. I clean the house more and with more vigor when the deadline of company coming to visit approaches. I haven't completed my baseball online rules exam yet despite having it for a week and a half; after all, the season doesn't start tomorrow. My drivers license got renewed 6 months after it was past due, and only then because I feared a stiffer penalty if I didn't finally take care of it. Netflix has no due date; some DVD's have stayed in a drawer for months. Absent a clear and present threat of "past due," I'm mostly worthless.

I know this about human nature. I know this about myself. So I've put myself on a writing deadline every month. Every month in 2015 I've met the deadline. Most months I've met it on the last day of the month. Other than avoiding the self-loathing involved with failing at a simple personal goal, I've also found that what was true for Watterson is true for me: I've accomplished well more than I ever could without it. I'm at over 26,000 words of typed prayers for the year. That's more than all of last year. At 1/4 of the way through the year, I'm over half of the way to last year's blog total. I am thinking better, loving better, enjoying better. The only change is the deadline.

Tomorrow some of my students take a high-stakes AP Exam. We've been in heavy exam prep mode over the last two weeks. I have some students who have considerably ramped up their efforts to learn more before this deadline. That sense of urgency did not exist in December, when perhaps it was a little easier to take a few days off from reading and writing. I don't fault them for that. Rather, I see myself in them.

If it matters to you, give yourself a deadline. Or put yourself in a position where someone else is holding one up for you. See what you can do. If me and my friend Mr. Watterson are any indication, it will be far more than you thought possible.