Focus on Students' Firsts

While I was disappointed in the results of this week's NCAA men's basketball championship game, I was delighted to read this quote from Duke's senior guard Quinn Cook.  

"Coach K, he just helps everybody, man. He is the greatest. He wasn't focused on getting his fifth championship. He was focused on getting our first together." 

--Quinn Cook on Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski

I love it because it's a great reminder for us as educators that it doesn't matter how many years we've taught the same grade level or class. It doesn't matter how long To Kill a Mockingbird and Romeo and Juliet have been taught to freshman ELA students or Iowa history has been taught to fifth graders. It doesn't matter how many thousands of kindergartners have walked through the doors of a Southeast Polk elementary school for on the first day of school in any given August. What is important is remembering that many things that are old hat for us as educators are new for our students, and together we have the opportunity to help make our students' firsts as special to them as they were for us when we first experienced them.