Rene Martin
5 months ago
Welcome
to the
2019-20
school year!
In this ever changing world, it is hard to imagine what the Class of 2032 will face as they walk out our doors at graduation. As parents, educators, mentors, aunts, uncles, grandparents and community members it is still our job to help guide these children into adulthood when even we don’t know what the future will bring. As a society, we are realizing that we need to actively teach traits such as work ethic, integrity, and intrinsic motivation. With easy access to factual data, we need to train students to know how to interpret and apply that data, how to be a critical thinker to solve complex problems that can’t be googled (yep- that is now a verb), and ultimately how to overcome challenges that today’s adults can’t really comprehend.
In the past few years more than ever, I am seeing that our young people are less willing to try something for the sake of trying and less willing to push themselves to take an intellectual risk. Is it the fear of failure? The fear of public humiliation in the world of “put it all out there” and hope to get some “likes”? Many times in the course of my day I will tell a child, “Mistakes are going to happen, and that’s okay. It is how you come back from the mistake that matters.” So, the question for me becomes how do we help foster that intellectual risk taking in our children? One small step toward this end will be in fostering RESILIENCY.
Personally, this past year has taught me that no matter what your age being resilient is a critical need in finding personal fulfillment in life. Professionally, the resiliency in our staff has allowed us to come through five years and five different superintendents with a strong sense of unity and gratitude for the wonderful school community that we have. Fortunately, we now have outstanding educational leadership in Superintendent Getchell and Dean Sundberg. I hope you all join me in celebrating the start of what promises to be an amazing school year!
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. That is how character is built.” Eleanor Roosevelt
In this ever changing world, it is hard to imagine what the Class of 2032 will face as they walk out our doors at graduation. As parents, educators, mentors, aunts, uncles, grandparents and community members it is still our job to help guide these children into adulthood when even we don’t know what the future will bring. As a society, we are realizing that we need to actively teach traits such as work ethic, integrity, and intrinsic motivation. With easy access to factual data, we need to train students to know how to interpret and apply that data, how to be a critical thinker to solve complex problems that can’t be googled (yep- that is now a verb), and ultimately how to overcome challenges that today’s adults can’t really comprehend.
In the past few years more than ever, I am seeing that our young people are less willing to try something for the sake of trying and less willing to push themselves to take an intellectual risk. Is it the fear of failure? The fear of public humiliation in the world of “put it all out there” and hope to get some “likes”? Many times in the course of my day I will tell a child, “Mistakes are going to happen, and that’s okay. It is how you come back from the mistake that matters.” So, the question for me becomes how do we help foster that intellectual risk taking in our children? One small step toward this end will be in fostering RESILIENCY.
Personally, this past year has taught me that no matter what your age being resilient is a critical need in finding personal fulfillment in life. Professionally, the resiliency in our staff has allowed us to come through five years and five different superintendents with a strong sense of unity and gratitude for the wonderful school community that we have. Fortunately, we now have outstanding educational leadership in Superintendent Getchell and Dean Sundberg. I hope you all join me in celebrating the start of what promises to be an amazing school year!
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. That is how character is built.” Eleanor Roosevelt