What do you see when you look at the people around you? Sometimes it’s easier to notice flaws, frustrations, and failures. But the greatest educators have a different kind of vision. They see potential where others see problems. They treat people as if they already are who they could become. They get it, and that changes everything.
What we call the beginning is often the end.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
― T.S. Eliot
With holiday celebrations coming, we get more time for favorite comfort foods.
In our family, that includes delicious recipes to enjoy a bowl full of grits.
We love them with cheese, green onions, mushrooms, shrimp, gravy, fried eggs, bacon, more cheese, and a litany of other mouth-watering ingredients.
If you've only had the bland porridge grits, then you've failed your taste buds.
With the right stone ground grits combined with expert preparation and great imagination, the possibilities are endless. You might actually like those grits.
Treat people as if they were what they
ought to be, and you help them become
what they are capable of being.
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Thinking in terms of possibilities rather than limitations is core to our calling as educators, because our words, our influence, our expectations change lives.
Cynicism and sarcasm are often rooted in past hurt. While people with this mindset need our care, they pose dangerous risk within a school environment.
The value of wise educators is less about their intelligence or experience, and more about their powerful ability to see beyond what others dismiss or despise.
Therefore, any one of you who judges is
without excuse. For when you judge another,
you condemn yourself, since you,
the judge, do the same things.
― Romans 2:1
Transformation happens when we see the possibilities, rather than past failure.
See what others are missing―when we defer judgment in favor of humility and wisdom, they are more likely to become who and what they were created to be.
See with renewed expectations each day, free from the burden of ungrace. That's when we are at our very best, believing in what they can't see yet while consistently loving them through the ending in order to start a new beginning.
Look beyond the past and see the possibilities. You’ll enjoy the freedom of grace. (And maybe you’ll even enjoy some grits!)
