February 13 Home Communicator – One of my favorite parts of watching the Olympics at home with my family is getting to hear the athletes speak about their journey to that point. Many athletes talk about how much training they had to put in, and how many sacrifices their family/coaches made to help them succeed. The pure joy they have in their faces after they compete and finally get to enjoy everything they worked so hard for makes it a goal completed.
Of course as an educator I think about how this relates to education, and immediately the process of setting goals strikes me. One of the things our teachers have been working on creating in their classrooms is an atmosphere where having big goals in learning is the norm. Whether it be a Kindergartener learning their addition facts up to 20 or an 8th grader creating and interpreting graphs showing exponential growth, these goals are what drive our classrooms to constantly work hard and grow. The individuals in the Olympics have large grandiose goals that get celebrated by millions, but our Olympic gold as educators are the moments when we see the light go on in a student’s mind and they understand a concept. I encourage each one of you to go ahead and live each day celebrating every completed goal with the pure joy and excitement it deserves!
In Christ,
Justin Knot, Director of Curriculum
