Thursday, March 28, 2013

P.R.I.D.E.

On Monday I read a post by Justin Tarte (@justintarte) entitled It's our personal responsibility.  As I read the post, it reminded me of a quote I heard from Lou Holtz, famous college football coach and ESPN college football analyst.  In one of the pregame shows, Mr. Holtz put the following letters on the chalkboard- PRIDE.  Next to each letter was a word that began with each letter.  PRIDE, to Mr. Holtz, means Personal Responsibility In Daily Excellence.  What a powerful message from one word.  I had t-shirts made for each of the teachers (I'm famous for t-shirts and spiritwear in my district) and we often wore these shirts on spirit days.
After reading Justin's post, I began wondering why I haven't brought out my shirt in a while.  I still have PRIDE in all that we do in Merton, but sometimes, with the day to day responsibilities of school for our staff and for me, we forget the PRIDE that we have in our school.  We do great things with our students each and every day.  Why don't we let more people in our district and in our community know more about all of this?  Maybe this is also our personal responsibility, that and providing engaging and meaningful activities in each of our classrooms and schools every day.
I welcome your comments and thoughts.