In Memory of Persistence

Teachers,

Here is your weekly dose of “5-Point Friday. 

In Memory of Persistence —

My best friend from high school passed away last weekend. He was pretty amazing. He was the kid in school that always had to do everything differently. It drove his teachers crazy. It was fun for us to watch. After he graduated he had many different jobs and adventures. He taught English in Japan for a year then opened a clothing store with his own designs. He painted and drew art that he tried to sell and eventually took a job in the graphics arts field. He worked for a couple different newspapers and marketing companies while starting his own marketing company. He decided he wanted to help others so he became a life coach while still painting, using his graphic arts skills, and keeping up with his marketing company. All this while he raised his small family. He was a pretty amazing guy. The one big thing I learned from him was persistence. No matter what happened, how bad it got, or the roadblocks that showed up in his path, he went on to the next thing and made it work. Shaun had persistence. What I saw was that he did not get stuck if something went wrong, he pushed through it and found something that worked.

So how do we teach persistence with our students? Have high expectations and relate them to the students. Push them, but know when to stop. Persistence needs to be worked on like anything else. It takes practice. How can they push through problems if they only see problems that take a couple seconds to answer? Introduce problems that take time and might have more than one step are needed. Teach what to do when the going gets tough. Model what to do and have them practice it. Teach students to be positive and to tell themselves they can do it. Being negative teaches students they cannot do something that is hard. They can get that negative talk anywhere. We need positivity. Convince them they can do it. Students need to know there is a future that they control. Some cannot see past next week, or even the next few days, but we can expand their view with education. Show them where they can go. Give them a road map and take them on the trip. When they persist and succeed, point it out. When they persist and don’t succeed, praise the persistence and show them the map of where they are going. Give them the confidence that they can do anything with education. That builds persistence. Thank you Shaun for the road map you showed me. You were truly my life coach.

Quote I’m pondering —

“You can’t relate to a superhero, to a superman, but you can identify with a real man who in times of crisis draws forth some extraordinary quality from within himself and triumphs but only after a struggle.” -Timothy Dalton

What I’m watching —

Proficiency vs. Growth and all that stuff...

Another Lex Prin video. His real name is Gerry Brooks. Lex Prin is short for Lexington Principal. We have some serious issues in education right now and Gerry weighs in with his opinion. Enjoy.

Favorite Article This Week —

Continuous Mastery: How Stephen Curry Never Settles

I enjoy basketball and Stephen Curry is one of the best right now. How do we get this type of motivation from our students? Is there a key in this article that can help us as we help our students see the need for constant improvement and progresssion?

A Big Thank You —

Thank you second grade. Taking the bull by the horns and deciding how you wanted your students to be grouped for LLI. Brilliant. You know your students best and you wanted it a specific way, you got it. Thank you for taking your team to the next level. Keep doing what you are doing. Thank you.

And another big thank you for your help with the WIDA. It has gone smoothly for Lisa and I with your help. I know it is a long process. I was talking with another T1C and he told me how crazy it is to test the 50 they need to test. I just let him talk. You have been amazing. Thank you for being flexible. We are almost done. Thank you.

I appreciate all of you and your hard work. Have a wonderful weekend.