Teach & Serve V, No. 25
Half Speed
January 22, 2020
Being a teacher is like playing playoff hockey. You have to have the courage of your convictions. If you do it half speed, you’re going to get hurt.
I want to love hockey. I want to be a dyed-in-the-wool fan. When the NHL season rolls around, I tell myself I am going to watch more games, wear more burgundy and blue for the local club, be more in the know. It never happens. I tend to begin following the sport at playoff time. I love playoff hockey. One of the things I love the most is one cannot play in the playoffs at half speed. You’re either skating or you’re not. And that means you’re moving, backwards and forwards, at all times.
It’s pretty cool.
The longer I work in education – and I am approaching 30 years in the game – the more I know this is true: this work is not for the faint of heart. Consider the time commitment (and never, ever, calculate your hourly wage). Consider the emotional drain. Consider the pressure of pleasing multiple constituents. At some point, the toll adds up.
But the best teachers and administrators with whom I have worked are the ones who eat that kind of stuff for breakfast. They have come to understand – whether they knew it when they started or know it now – that these things are what the job is about.
They understand something else, too. They understand that it takes conviction to do this work well. Being a teacher is like playing playoff hockey. You have to have the courage of your convictions. If you do it half speed, you’re going to get hurt.
There’s too much at stake in the classroom and as an administrator to give this work anything but one’s best, anything but one’s all. If one is not up for that, one should find something else to do.