I’m a big fan of legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. I am fascinated enough with him that I have read 4 books that he has co-written and listened to another book about him on tape. One of the many sayings that he was fond of was “the journey is better than the inn.” While a positive end result in any situation, especially sports, is often extremely satisfying and enjoyable, looking back on all of my sports experiences it was the journey (the people, the struggles, the adversity, the camaraderie, the development) that I remember, not the inn (a win, or a championship).
I played 9 holes of golf this morning with a buddy from Gahanna. As we walked one of the fairways I thought about how much I hate this week, and Andy being a fellow teacher agreed. This final week of summer, to me, is even worse than the first week of school. The entire week I think about the looming school year, the lack of preparation I have managed to do, and the 9 months of actual work I will muscle through. All these depressing thoughts are compounded by the thoughts of what I didn’t do in the past 3 months. I didn’t go to Maui, played far too little golf, and only had one fire in the backyard. I sit and debate with myself countless times “should I go in and do some work or…?” I end up putting it off another day, only to sit around the house and think about the work I should be doing and how horrible it will be when I actually do go in. It’s kind of like the opposite of Coach Wooden’s saying in that I cannot wait to actually get to the inn because the mental journey of this last week flat out stinks.
The best part about the inn in this case is that it signals the beginning of a new journey for me. I am very excited about starting my new position as the physical education teacher at Conger Elementary and Carlisle Elementary. I’ll be spending 2.5 days at each school, welcoming over 750 wound up kindergarten through 4th graders into my classroom weekly. I’m excited because 99.9% of those kids that enter will be excited to be there, a big change from the 20% that are excited at the high school.
Coach Wooden’s most famous quote may be “be quick, but don’t hurry.” And to this week I say “be quick” and while I’m excited to go back, I still say “don’t hurry” to the looming world of work.
Until next time,
posts like this make me want to punch you teachers in the larynx.
ReplyDeleteIndeed my friend... indeed.....and for that bshawise character....we can give him a nice dunk in the lake next summer!
ReplyDeletecouldn't agree more scott. Brad, it's a shame they didn't offer education at UC, that's weird.
ReplyDeletethat's an illogical argument/comeback, brenty. the frustration is not in teachers getting the summers off. i'm completely fine with that and 70% sure you need three months off. my frustration is teachers complaining about how their break isn't long enough. that's annoying and fairly insulting.
ReplyDeleteWould i like the summer to be longer? absolutely. But, your frustration is illogical because the post is not about how the summer is not long enough. it was about how I am excited to start something new, how I personally didnt do enough with the time off, and how I am ready to get going rather than just thinking about the upcoming year.
ReplyDeleteI actually think the summer is too long. You've never heard me complain nor will you ever because I think the school year should be longer. I agreed with scott that this is the worst week ever because I didn't do jack all summer now all of sudden I'm packing all this work into one week. Interesting fact, when it comes to actually being in front of students teaching, face to face, in America we double the number of hours Japanese students are exposed to. So somehow they have a longer year, but actually teach less, by half. We should look into that.
ReplyDeleteI think we should teach one day a week....
ReplyDeleteI'm watching these Jerome bball films for the highlight video and I suggest that teaching once all season would have been great for your team... once a week this year and you could win state.
ReplyDeleteI like your suggestion and I will present it to the board
ReplyDelete