How You Start

My last blog post of 2018 referenced my last track race in high school. I've written several times about the metaphors I find between running and life and even some of the lessons that sports and competitive running and coaching taught me. One of the most difficult things to figure out (and to teach) as a competitive runner has nothing to do with stride, breathing or the distance of the race. One of the toughest things to figure out is how to start. Starting too slow guarantees you a spot at the back and once you realize it, you spend extra energy making an attempt to catch up or you resolve to do your best another day. If you start too fast, you dictate the pace for everyone else but if you can't hold that, you're likely to burn up your energy and finish poorly. Often, experience is the best teacher for this, but as you improve,  you continually have to remind yourself to change how you start. Starting the same way at the beginning of a season, even for experienced runners, almost guarantees to finish the same way you did at the start of the season. That's not growth or improvement.

Those that figure out how to start, know that you push yourself and you continually monitor yourself. Treat the start of the semester the same way. Beginning teachers need the feedback that reflective practice gives them. Even experienced teachers can fall into the trap of not starting out a semester the right way by not pushing their practice. Simply put, if you want more out of students than you got last semester or last year, you have to do more than you did then. And you have to monitor it.

With 95 days left in the semester, we are very much at the start of a long race. If you don't have a plan, get one now. If you do, monitor it and check for progress often. How you start will dictate how you finish.