I do have high expectations for all of my students. I expect them to have good attendance and act as if school were a job. When they walk into my classroom, I expect my students to learn, work hard, and exercise the most important muscle they have – their brains. Hard work and focus leads to the freedom of choice to dream and achieve your goals in life. I don’t like to hear my students complain about how tired they are or that they don’t like to work their brains. These excuses are distractions that derail us toward failure and passivity.
My classroom is dress rehearsal for a future job or career. Each day, we choose to prepare for success or failure tomorrow. Each decision we make today affects tomorrow.
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, is famous for his work regarding a human’s ability to choose. He said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Each individual is accountable to himself. I challenge my students to believe in themselves and the power of their dreams. They can and must prepare for success in life in order to achieve their dreams. This takes FOCUS. The ability to succeed comes with faith and hard work. Like an athlete trains to win in competition, we have to train our brains each day to focus on achieving our goals. This is something everyone can learn to do. I find writing out our goals on paper as well as meditation are great tools that help us to slow down and prioritize what’s truly important each day.
So … No, I will not apologize for having high expectations for my students. Each one is an intelligent human being with the potential to learn and achieve their dreams if they choose to. There’s the key. Each human has the volition – choice to choose. We choose to succeed or fail. And if we have a bad day, we can recover by making better choices the next day. I believe that hard work and effort leads to successful results if one chooses to never give up. I know because I’ve had to live it out in my life. I don’t expect my students to do something that I’ve not had to do myself.
I am always available for those who ask for help and show the desire to learn.
You can do it! You can learn whatever you set your mind to learn.
