As part of our opening meetings, I challenged the staff to create a poster centered upon an inspirational passage that they will use to remind themselves of what is important in their teaching. I hope you will come see them in the lobby, they are wonderful! However, what I forgot to consider in assigning this project, was that I too would have to create a poster. Art is hard for me. My abilities are limited. And so there I sat in the Music Room with the rest of the staff, my poster paper and my glitter pens and my markers staring back at me. I was not comfortable. It was time for me to stretch.
All of us have strength and weaknesses. This year, at Beechwood, we are asking our entire community to look for areas where they are weak and to seek improvement in those areas. We are calling this “stretch work”. If we continually avoid working on our weaker areas, or even worse, deny that we even have weaknesses, we can never reach our full potential as parents, students, teachers or administrators.