Do We Understand?

As educators it is extremely important that we understand the impact that we have on our students and community!  On a daily basis there are numerous moments where we will impact a student's life.  Will we be aware of that impact and care whether it is a positive or negative impact? Do we understand how important our role is in a student's life?  This is a burning but simple question!  

Being a great educator takes a great amount of hard work, dedication, passion, and reflection, among other things. Reflection is something that I used to sweep by the wayside and roll my eyes at when asked to reflect as an educator.   The more time I spend as an educator the more I realize how much true reflection is vitally important in an educator's life.  It has many times given me clarity on the impact both good and bad I have as an educator.  I have also realized how important it is in my personal life as well.  

If you are not familiar with TED Talks then as a person and an educator I urge you to become familiar with them. They are so informative, helpful, and inspirational. There are many that center on education and leadership. One such talk that focuses on leadership is by Drew Dudley. A lot of you will be familiar with this video. Drew speaks about the importance of leadership and the impact we can have on peoples' lives and not even be aware of it. Drew refers to them as lollipop moments. You'll have to watch his video to understand what he means.  

As educators we will effect our students on a daily basis. We may not even be aware of it until years later or maybe ever!  Rest assured we do have an enormous impact on our students and our community. We are leaders!  As educators we matter in the lives of our students! 

Do we understand the impact we have?  Do we understand how important we are in the lives of students? Do understand we may very well be the most important person in that student's life?  It is so important that we do!  As we all enter into a new school year we should be cognizant of the huge impact we have on our students. There will be many lollipop moments along the way, even if we are not aware of them at the time. 

Failure is an Option

In the movie, Apollo 13 Gene Kranz, the flight director for NASA at the time was credited with the quote, "Failure is not an option".  Even though not any of the astronauts or people associated with the space program actually said that it was a good quote for a movie as well as a title for a book Kranz would later write.  However, it characterized the determination of getting astronauts home safely during the Apollo 13 mission.  In that sense that mantra was extremely important for everyone involved to have that frame of mind. Of course in NASA's attempts to build rockets and develop a space program before astronauts were ever sent into space, failure was an option.  Improvement and perfection require and demand mistakes.  It is important to see what doesn't work before we as people know what does and will continue to work.

That thought process of failure is extremely important in education.  For so long it seems that the opposite thought process of not failing was preached so to speak.  There is a Domino's Pizza commercial that is currently airing where two Domino's executives state that 'failure is an option'.  Andy Wetzel, of Domino's product innovation states, "At Domino's failure is an option!  We know everything isn't going to work".
Also, Scott Hinshaw who is Executive Vice President of Operations says, "In order to get better, in order to move ahead you're gonna make mistakes."  This type of outlook has to be mirrored in education.  Not only for our students but also for our teachers, parents, community member, and all stakeholders alike.  Mistakes will happen.  What we learn from those mistakes and how we move forward are paramount and of the most importance.  There is no success without failure.  I am using several quotes in this entry.  I will use another one from Robert Kennedy; "Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly."

As educators it is so important for us to understand that failing along the way will make not only ourselves stronger but make our students stronger and help them achieve and learn so many life lessons along the way. We want to perfect our craft and be as complete as possible.  None of that will happen without failure along the way.  I hope that this thought will hit home for educators and parents alike as we are about to begin the school year.  I will leave you with a quote from the great Winston Churchill; "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."