Relentless in Our Pursuit of Perfection

"We will be relentless in our pursuit for perfection. We won't ever be perfect - but in the process we will achieve greatness."

                                         - Vince Lombardi

In the HBO documentary Lombardi, former Packer great Bart Starr describes the emotion he felt at that first team meeting when Vince Lombardi first made that statement to the Green Bay team.  Starr describes coming to full attention, at the edge of his seat, ready to go.  The emotion in his voice is what captures the true sense of the commitment this demanded of him and his teammates. 

This is the type of commitment educators and the students entrusted to their care must agree to strive toward in pursuit of the academic excellence each student should aspire to.  Each student will achieve at the maximum level of their abilities and talents to attain  a level of excellence that will thereby create greatness for the learning community as a whole.

As educators we must be willing to ask ourselves what does that pursuit look like. 

• What will this classroom look like?
• What preparations must be made?
• What methodologies will be most effective in this classroom?
• What assignments will most effectively light the path of this pursuit?
• What will our work look like?
• What will our expectations be?
• Will there be room for compromise?
• What tools will we need?
• What benchmarks will mark the pursuit?
• How will we measure success?
• How will we overcome setbacks?
• What support structures will we create?
• What challenges will we create?
• How will we incorporate media?
• How can technology expand the pursuit?

When I coached I always explained to my players that success in games was a direct result of successful preparation.  The success of our students will be directly related to our own preparation as educators.