Start With Passion

In his book, "Bo's Lasting Lessons" author John U. Bacon begins Chapter 1 with Bo Schembechler saying, "Let's start with first things first: passion. Because without that, nothing else I'm going to tell you in this book is going to be worth a damn."

Passion? How often to do we talk about passion in education? In our business we have built an entire vocabulary of acronyms. Terms such as NCLB, IDP, AYP, CTE, ELL, ESL, IDEA, RttT, SIP, Title I, Title II, Title IX, GRE, SRO etc. Even our school service organizations have joined the movement, referring to themselves as the PTO or PTA.

If we are to be successful in education, passion must be the foundation of all we do. A passion to work with children. A passion to make a difference, one child at a time. A passion to teach children how to learn and to love learning. A passion to be just a bit better today than you were yesterday.

Take the time to visit a kindergarten classroom some day soon - you will see passion everywhere. Students jumping at the opportunity to participate, to answer questions, to engage in the learning process. It is our challenge to maintain that same degree of passion in the students right through the end of their senior year.

The children we lead deserve passionate leaders. If coming to school each day becomes a job for the adults, it will become a job to our students too. It is up to us as adults to demonstrate our passion on a daily basis.