What is Most Important?

Any person, group, or organization can easily lose focus and forget the things that are most important. We are all extremely busy and “busyness” can get in the way of personal relationships, and business. Our main purpose in public education is to provide students with learning opportunities they will need for the remainder of their lives. Providing this education is a multifaceted endeavor and requires a multitude of people and resources.

Core classes are the most obvious venues to help provide this education, but elective classes, vocational classes, and extracurricular activities supplement the core curriculum. While all of these components are important, we must constantly be vigilant to ensure one area does not take undue preeminence over the others. There are trends in education just like any other aspect of our society and we must try and make sure the curricula and strategies we use are sound, and not just the latest, greatest idea.

Student safety never goes out of style and making sure our students’ needs are met is a big part of what we do. We have students that are hungry, tired, and abused which makes it very difficult to lead them to focus on their academic tasks. While schools were not created to address such issues our most important concern is our students because we know that unless physical and emotional needs are met the students will not receive the best education possible.  The job of the school is also to make sure we provide a safe haven for our students to grow, mature and learn. When human beings are placed together in large numbers there will invariably be conflict. Administrators must sometimes punish those that break rules, but we must also try and teach the desired behavior.

Sports, and other extracurricular are a very important part of school for sure, but they must not replace the academic instruction as the most important thing we do. During this semester break I hope we will all have time to reflect and refocus ourselves on our main job as students, parents, teachers and administrators to make sure we are spending our time wisely on what is most important. As the old saying goes, “Keep the main thing the main thing.”