perseverance – Dare to Care

Your History of Learning – What have been your greatest learning experiences? (I’m going to tweak this a bit. I’ve learned some valuable lessons, but they’ve happened over a lifetime, not just experiences I can name.)

Two more days of #AprilBlogADay. I’m making it! I really didn’t think I would do it every single day in April! Yippee!

That’s one thing I’ve learned, perseverance. To carry on and keep going. Even when the road gets rough. Like when I was crawling into bed and forgot to write a blog post on April 20, I managed to stand up and turn around and write a really short one. I live by the you-need-to-eat-an-elephant-a-bite-at-a-time philosophy. Just keep on going…

Another thing I’ve learned I already wrote about here on Day 27. Over the years, I have learned to let go and become the chief learner in my life, in my faith, and in my teaching. It has made all the difference.

Another learning that has transformed my life is to choose grace and forgiveness, rather than judgment and bitterness.

How about you? What are the greatest things you’ve learned?

It constantly remains a source of disappointment to me that my drawings are not yet what I want them to be. The difficulties are indeed numerous and great, and cannot be overcome at once. To make progress is a kind of miner’s work; it doesn’t advance as quickly as one would like, and as others also expect, but as one stands before such a task, the basic necessities are patience and faithfulness. In fact, I do not think much about the difficulties, because if one thought of them too much one would get stunned or disturbed.

Mr. Vincent Van Gogh, one of the world’s most famous artists, wrote these words in a letter to his brother.

He speaks of perseverance, grit and stick-to-it-iveness — qualities that I hope and believe my students and I learn during genius hour.