Reflection on "There are No Shortcuts"

Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi said this,

“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion

to their commitment to excellence,

regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”

An educator that I have a great deal of respect for is Rafe Esquith. He is a winner of the American Teacher Award in addition to other various awards. He teaches in Los Angeles, where he refers to his school as, 'The Jungle' simply due to the fact that the majority of his students are not from English-speaking homes and many are from poor or troubled families.

I have read three of his books entitled: Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire, There are No Molasses Classes and There are No Shortcuts. The second mile is no stranger to Rafe as he chronicles what he accomplishes with a group of 5th graders each day. Those activities include 6:30 am problem-solving lessons, guitar lessons at lunch and Shakespeare productions after school, in addition to many other herculean feats each day. Oh, and did I mention that he takes his classes each year on multiple field trips to places such as Disney Land, Washington DC, etc.

Since I entered my chosen field of education in 1995, I have been privileged to meet many amazing and not-so-amazing educators. Many exemplary educators that I have been so privileged to teach alongside for these years truly exemplify excellence and traveling the little-known second mile. This book has made me realize all over again, that excellence and hard work go hand in hand in the teaching profession.

While many teachers just show up every day and don't seem to give an ounce of care about motivating their students or even caring enough to provide safe environments, free of ridicule and sarcasm, there are so many more across the world that model the very essence of sold-out determination to reach each kid in the class.

This poem is such a great example of the mindless "yammer" that many educators, school boards, state education departments and on down the list of our massive educational wasteland seem to think, if they could even manage that fatigue-inducing process! 

If every educator would stand up and demand excellence from themselves and their colleagues as well as maintaining high expectations for their students amazing things would happen across this great nation, in every classroom.

Rafe states that Charles Osgood of CBS News gave him this poem.

There once was a pretty good student,
Who sat in a pretty good class;
And was taught by a pretty good teacher,
Who always let pretty good pass--

He wasn't terrific at reading;
He wasn't a whizbang at math;
But for him education was leading
Straight down a pretty good path.

He didn't find school too exciting,
But he wanted to do pretty well;
And he did have some trouble with writing,
And nobody had taught him to spell.

When doing arithmetic problems,
Pretty good was regarded as fine--
5 and 5 needn't always add up to be 10,
A pretty good answer was 9.

The pretty good class that he sat in

Was part of a pretty good school;

And the student was not the exception,

On the contrary, he was the rule.

The pretty good class that he sat in
Was part of a pretty good school,

And the student was not an exception;
On the contrary, he was the rule.

The pretty good school that he went to
Was right there in a pretty good town.
And nobody there ever noticed
He could not tell a verb from a noun.

The pretty good student, in fact,
was part of a pretty good mob,
And the first time he knew what he lacked was
When he looked for a pretty good job.

It was then, when he sought a position,
He discovered that a life can be tough--
And he soon had a sneaky suspicion
Pretty good might not be good enough.

The pretty good town in our story
Was part of a pretty good state
Which had pretty good aspirations
And prayed for a pretty good fate.

There was once a pretty good nation,
Pretty proud of the greatness it had,
But which learned much too late,

If you want to be great,
Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.

As my friend Jennifer says,

"That's all I have to say about that!"

You may find more information about Rafe Esquith at: http://www.hobartshakespeareans.org/

Find a good GREAT teacher and

take him/her a LATTE of thanks...

Tell them thanks for modeling excellence and

working diligently to educate the next generation.