“We must really start believing in the inherent worth of each child if we are to have any hope for their healthy future. If we could do this, school could become a journey, an exploration, rather than an evaluation that lasts eighteen years. Think about it—sixteen years of someone telling you what is right and what is wrong about you. And throughout, you’ve never had an ounce of input into the discussion. Imagine if this were happening to you in your workplace; imagine if you never set any of the goals or expectations, and you never had the opportunity to disagree. We could never fathom success in such a repressive environment for ourselves, so why do we think it is healthy for our children?” Jenifer Fox, Your Child’s Strengths
The word “passion” has come up a lot in the field of education recently, and more people are believing that this is one of the keys to improving our education system. From my own experience, I have known that passion has been a key to my own career. Through that experience of being able to find my own passion, I feel it is essential that I give students and staff the opportunity to find that passion in themselves.
From my own experience…I was in a situation several years ago where I was not interested in teaching anymore and it had just become a “job”. It was not that I did not enjoy teaching, but I felt that there was just something missing in my career. Deciding on trying to have a change of scenery, I was fortunate enough to be put in a position where I worked in a school with a principal who did everything to ignite the strengths that I already had. Nothing really changed about me other than what someone saw and invoked. This is essential to this process of passion; it is not creating something that does not exist, but it is finding the strength and passion that is already inside of someone. This is where people will truly excel.
Having gone from the point of totally losing interest in the field of education, to where I now cannot imagine doing something else, my focus (my sentence) has been to try and inspire and motivate others to find that passion and strength within themselves. This is something I believe in for staff and students. Passion is the game-changer in education and if we can have more of this in the field of education, we will be better off both in school, and in life. The more people that follow their passions and do great things, the better off we are all as a society.
“When students are engaged in discovering strengths, they are motivated to work toward goals that develop them. Strengths are like a compass; without them, people just get lost in life. With them, children end up reaching their goals—both academically and otherwise—because they feel ownership and pride in their work.” Jenifer Fox, Your Child’s Strengths
So why is this so important to me? As a child of immigrant parents who never had the chance to complete school, they taught my siblings and I that education was the key to a better life. I believe in the power of schools. I also believe that although schools should not look the same as they did when I went to school, they still are also (and should be) a major part of our communities.
The vision is that we can build strong relationships within our schools, tap into the strengths and passions of our kids, and then watch them do amazing things. Passion is the key.
“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.”
— G. W. F. Hegel
