Patience- Where can I find some?

Patience is a virtue.  Until I read the definition on Wikipedia, I had no idea that it came from Psychomachia, a poem written in the fifth century.  Fortunately my internet was working well so I didn't have to be too patient to find the definition.  It may be that I do have patience, but I don't know if I exhibit it often enough.  When I want something to happen, I want it to happen sooner rather than later.  With everything that I've learned from my PLN on Twitter and Voxer, I sometimes just need to stop and make things a priority.  So that's where my patience needs to begin.

I enjoyed a post from Joe Sanfelippo (@Joesanfelippofc) recently entitled Learning to Lead that made me think about my lack of patience.  It also caused me to determine the three things I will work on this year.
1. Celebrate a risk with a staff member or student.
2. Model energy and excitement.
3. Share out the great things our Merton family is doing.
I truly believe this will help me with being more patient.  Everything that I do as a principal every day can be done with my focus on these goals.

Celebration of risk is a great way to show the importance of learning something new.  Modeling energy and excitement may seem contrary to patience, but if I choose a few items to focus on (Readers' Workshop and family engagement come to mind), hopefully the staff and students will focus on these items as well.  Having fewer things to focus on will help me maintain some semblance of patience.  Sharing out as much as a I can about all that we do in Merton will help me to pause and be involved in classrooms, allowing me to be more patient.

As many of my friends and co-workers will tell you, I can't stay seated for very long.  I always need to be doing something.  I just spent the last week in Myrtle Beach and couldn't just relax on the beach without jumping in and going boogie boarding every 15 minutes.  But I can feel my patience increasing while writing this post.  I was able to sit for 15 minutes to write on my Chromebook.  Maybe I can be patient after all.

The idea behind this post came from my Voxer family.  Here are posts from some of them.
Jessica Johnson
Melinda Miller
Tony Sinanis