Teach & Serve V, No. 18
Persistence
December 4, 2019
When I think of the successful educators with whom I have worked, persistence is a key, shared quality they possess. They are calm, cool and collected. They are consistent – almost the same in August as they are in December as they are in May.
The calendar has moved into December. Depending on where you are, you can literally feel the difference in the air and, though we are not quite halfway through the school year, something about December seems different. It seems like we have made a turn towards home. Perhaps it is the oncoming Christmas Break that makes us feel this way. It certainly has an affect on our students.
This is the time of year that I begin to feel things slip. It is so easy to allow standards to dip – standards of all kinds – when the weather turns and we can hear the reindeer approaching. It is all too enticing to let things go, things we would have addressed or handled in different and, perhaps, more professional ways earlier in the year. “It’s December,” we tell ourselves. “Everyone is tired.”
First, that last statement is not actually true. Not everyone is tired. Some are, sure. We might be. But some people are energized by December and the coming break and holidays. Some are turned on by it. Some are raring to go.
We, as educational leaders, ought to put ourselves in that category, no matter how much effort it takes us to get there. We have to be the least tired, the most excited, the most energetic. We are charged to be persistent.
When I think of the successful educators with whom I have worked, persistence is a key, shared quality they possess. They are calm, cool and collected. They are consistent – almost the same in August as they are in December as they are in May. This does not mean they are intractable and inflexible, it means they are persistent in presenting their best selves and in asking for those around them to do the same. Their persistence becomes their calling card, an example to follow and a bar to reach.
As we make our way through the month, let us remember that we are called to be persistent. We are called to be consistent. We are called to provide the example. If not us, then who?