Lesson Learned: Finding the Celebrations

We've all heard it said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."  Apparently the same can be true of data.

Let me explain.

Last week we received a Home Energy Report from our electricity provider.  I'm geeky when it comes to data so I love this report with its fancy charts, colorful graphs, and interesting comparisons; not to mention the fact that it usually helps me to show the family that we need to reduce our energy use.  As I looked over the report I was a bit disheartened to read that, once again, we fell above the average of our neighbors in usage and didn't come close to our most efficient neighbors.

One evening as the family sat around chatting I brought up the report.  "Did you see our electricity use report?" I inquired not so innocently.  "How are we among the least efficient electricity consumers in our neighborhood?" I wondered aloud.

"I knew you were going to bring this up," my son sighed.  He is used to my insistence on turning off lights as we leave rooms and keeping the temperature of our heat and air conditioning just out of our comfort zone.  "I saw the report sitting on the counter and knew we were going to have this conversation," he grumbled.

Not wanting to lose any ground I continued, "And did you see our usage this July compared to last July?  It more than doubled.  How can that be when we were gone for some of the month?"

My husband, used to the banter between my son and me, had been sitting quietly in his chair.  He had looked up from his book in slight interest, but hadn't really jumped into the conversation.

My son began trying to reason through the report.  It wasn't long until we were volleying points back and forth.

My husband - who would much prefer we keep the house in our comfort zone - finally interjected in my son's defense, "All I noticed was the statement that said we'd used 11% less electricity this year than last year."

Mic drop.

What?  How could I have missed that?

Quickly I started skimming the report again.  We were among the highest usage customers.  We had used more electricity this July than last.  I continued scanning.  There it was.  The statement read as he said, "So far this year, you've used 11% less electricity than last year."

How had I missed it?  This conversation is similar to the conversations we have in our schools.  Data can tell you a lot of things and may be a bit in the eye of the beholder.  Often as we sit and look at information collected we look for all that needs fixed.  It can be easy to let data tell us everything that is wrong, but what about what is right?  My husband with his rose colored glasses - and desire for a warmer house in the winter - found the positive in the report.  What if we looked more for the strengths in the data we collect?  What if we took pause to find the celebrations?  It seems the interpretation of data may be in the eye of the beholder.