Safe & Sorry

With the serious budget crunch in Pennsylvania (more like matter collapsing into black hole), a higher percentage of the senior member of school district's educators than usual are retiring as a final act of generosity.

It is before some of them were planning to in order to save their school's money and get off the payroll. For such educators, commendations are due. I know for many, it has been a heart-wrenching decision.

The local Hempfield Suburban News (a step above The Merchandiser, a truly here today and into the firepit tomorrow publication) did a profile on some of the recent retirees from the Hempfield School District. It was a smattering of those calling it a day across the District.

One of the retiring teachers, and Industrial Arts/Technology instructor, stated that his Greatest Accomplishment was "The fact that in 25 years none of my students were seriously injured." That made me sad....it wasn't something along the lines, "I had many talented students discover and develop abilities in creating projects that were artfully amazing and functionally innovative and in the process they learned something about themselves as well as the craft of woodworking" or something to that effect.

Now I know shop teachers bear a heavy burden making sure junior highers don't chop off their fingers because they are goofing around with their buddies, just like how school counselors like me fear losing a kid to suicide or another act of self-destruction such as driving drunk or too fast. Yet, it seems to me that to define one's greatest achievement in a vocation--especially in teaching--by what didn't happen rather than by what did, is very telling and profoundly tragic. My Greatest Accomplishment as a school counselor is that (still in progress) "I both cared for and challenged my students...to dream and to then do."

In life, it is common to avoid the risk of losing but not really winning either. I had one those "A Ha" moments a couple of weeks ago with a student in my office when we were talking about sacrifice. I said something to the effect, "Sacrifice is a reality of life...it is not so much to sacrifice as to not sacrifice. It is more of a question of a good sacrifice versus a bad sacrifice, that creates or destroys the probabilities of success." The formula is something like this:

"Great sacrifice equals great success." But the sacrifice has to be done is wisdom. Here are two real life examples:

1) Getting drunk as a way of life (bad sacrifice) versus taking time daily to exercise (good sacrifice).

2) Stop spending hours watching insipid, inane, and immoral television (bad sacrifice), and rather go back to college part-time and getting a degree (good sacrifice).

What are you willing to sacrifice in order to succeed...are you willing to risk in order to gain a greater reward, or do you plan to play it safe, get your gold watch, and watch it tick down? I am trying to push myself to not play it safe.

Too many people tip-toe through life, to arrive safely at death Tony Campolo.

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