Monday, September 10, 2018

Competency Matters


It was one of those stormy days early this spring when the Midwest was hunkering down during devastating tornadoes, and Salt Lake was watching storm warnings. Dark clouds and threatening winds thundered in. Leslie and her family had returned from initiating their new camp trailer and parked it along the street when a ruckus came charging down the road. A horse was dragging a trampoline! Someone thought it would be smart to hitch up their horse to their children’s trampoline. The horse thought differently. Leslie watched as neighbors somehow calmed the horse when it veered into their yard and got the mangled trampoline unhitched. Tragedy averted! Trailer unharmed! Horse survived! Trampoline unusable!

Sometimes we hitch up our hopes to a program or an idea that looks sturdy and strong. When the storms roll in, everything gets wild, and our hopes for success are drug through the dust and mud. I guess the lesson is: be careful what you are hitching up and what you are hitching up to. We cannot take a great new Common Core, for example, and hitch it to shoddy practice or weak knowledge of the subject. Make sure that we are competent and ready and stable before we add a new core. Let’s not let the Core drag us. We can do hard things! We do whatever it takes because our kids are worth it!

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