In the spirit of Never Eat Alone, tonight I’m sharing dinner with a new friend. When I wrote about Never Eat Alone a few weeks ago, it was the first time that we met. Since then, we have gotten to know each other through time spent with mutual friends, sharing meals together, etc.; typical fare. Time spent with Shereen is never typical though, I have to say. She’s a really unique person; when we first got together weeks back we spent hours talking about everything under the sun. She’s one of those warm people that you instantly feel comfortable talking to. It’s, no doubt, impressive.
That night where we shared dinner, she asked me several questions that really got me thinking about so much. These kinds of questions I’ve only ever experienced during heart-to-heart experiences with close friends. For example, now that my best friend, Kristin, lives 3,000 miles away and we only talk for dozens of minutes each day, I can easily say that it had been months since my brain felt such…deep thought about thoughts (ironic, a little?).
Shereen and I have only known each other for a month yet somehow it feels like it has been years. Knowing and understanding my love for learning about and engaging with others, last week while I was out of town, Shereen posed an interesting question to me to think about until the next time we got together. I’m currently mulling over this question she posed to me…that I have to answer tonight during dinner.
What is the most important (indirect) lesson you would hope to impart on students that cannot be daught directly from curriculum?
I’ve thought about the answer to her question for days. Literally, hours each day. And I think my answer is perseverance. Now, after I decided on this value, I began to think to myself: why is this my answer? After more thought, I asserted that it’s my answer because it’s what I believe, it’s what I value, and it’s what I model. It’s the very emotion that has pushed me through every single challenge in my life. It’s what other people sense when they meet me. It’s what my loved ones call upon me for when they are feeling a little less persevering. Hell, it’s even the words that’s remained on the dry-erase board on my front door for months, since KH wrote it there, and has pushed us through a lot of the challenges we’ve experienced this summer. “Perseverance conquers all.” Even when I’m not “on” with my “professional persona” in front of my students or in the public, it’s still consistently what I hope to embody.
This is why I love asking people about what’s important to them (or, what makes them awesome?). I can’t remember the last time that I purposefully and consciously tried to dive so deeply into my conscience and figure out what it is about me that I value. And, by virtue of that, what it is that I would want my students to learn. And it’s not anything that would be pronounced in a learning outcome; it would be what I embody inside and outside of the classroom. They should be able to see it in my attitude, my demeanor, all the time. No matter the situation or the environment. Consistency is importance when it comes to authenticity – and I’m no fake.
They should know that above everything I value this and that, at the very least, I would hope that they would consider how they may value it as well, if at all. It’s a quality that I think I am uniquely positioned to help them understand. When thinking of portraying different personas in different environments, sure – sometimes I’m a little more rambunctious than others and in a professional environment I may be a little more calm than I am in others. But, regardless, perseverance is key. For me, what I model is what I value.
What do you model?