Tomorrow’s Education Today

I’m a runner – currently training for my third marathon this winter. I love to run, and could fairly easily crank out the necessary miles and finish the 26.2 – and still be able to walk the next day. However, I really, really, REALLY want to qualify for the Boston marathon. This means I needed to create a detailed training plan and stick with it. I need to look forward to the day of the race and make sure I have prepared myself for finishing in (gulp) three hours and forty-five minutes. It was necessary to “backward design” my daily training plan.

This reminds me a lot of the expectations and goals I have for my incoming class, and that most teachers have for their students. Many of us have recently been in meetings listening to goals for AYP, goals for School Improvement Plans, writing and revising mission statements, etc…and hopefully talking a lot about how our students can make a difference in their world and how they can be successful, challenged, joyful learners. It’s that time of year. It’s part of education. We look to the end. We use backward design. We visualize where we want our learners to be in June. I think it’s very important to have a vision for where we are going – and necessary for a successful year.

But as I ran this morning, I was thinking about this beautiful summer morning, today, right now. I was enjoying the pre-dawn glow on the horizon. I was listening to the crickets, smelling coffee from passing houses and watching sleepy people stumble out to get their papers. I was enjoying the sticky humid air and wishing it would stay warm all year long. Yes, my thoughts went to Boston briefly, and I picked up my pace a bit, but mostly I was focused in the moment – enjoying this run, today. I had already done the planning, and knew how I needed to run today, so I was free to simply enjoy it.

While it’s so important to know where we are going and where we want to end up, I think it’s equally important to slow down, enjoy the moments we have in our classrooms, and savor the journey. It can’t all be focused on what benchmark the kids are at, how they are going to pass those tests in the spring, or what ranking our school is going to make. We’ll never get there (or we’ll be so stressed out when we do get there that we can’t enjoy it!) if we don’t take the time to celebrate the milestones along the way and enjoy what we do each day.