Pillar One- Perserverance

I want to focus on the pillars of our culture movement- #WensinkWay.

All of the pillars are based around the word "Elite."
What is our definition of Elite?

Elite- Being the best version of yourself                             

That definition of ELITE has linkage back to guys named Brian and Tim Kight and their leadership training.  The Kight's are used by Urban Meyer and the Buckeye Football Team.  You can read more about them here.


Pillar One is PERSERVERANCE

What is perserverance?  The definition that our students helped us create is "Being ELITE in difficult times."  Let that set in.  Have you had a difficult time recently?  Were you the best version of yourself?  Ultimately, we will all fall short of being the best version of ourselves in all situations.  That would not be the goal.  To build culture, the talk of perserverance and what it means to us has to be relevant.  Our students have to hear about it and use the language in this blog to describe it.

Scenario:  A student struggles through putting an answer together after many promtpings by you, the teacher.  The student has genuinely made the effort and not just tried to bypass your question.  Really you can input any activity (quiz team, band, choir, sports, church, etc..)  What a great opprotuntity to quickly mention, "That is a great example of perserverance, being the best version of yourself when things are difficult."  "I appreciate that."  Done, move on.  You helped build culture.

Though I know PATS classes will be limited this month, but I am going to give you some resource sheets you might want to use in PATS classes or possibly in other classes.  Here is a document that you could give to students to let them tell their "perserverance" story.  If you do this, tell them you would like to post them in your room.  No names are required.  Collect them and post them. 

We will do something similar to this with the other two pillars.  I would love to see these posted in many of our rooms.  This helps build culture, you have to talk about it and teachers are the front line of communication with our students.
 


Questions To Consider:
1.  Be the first in your room to print this, fill in your story, and display it.  Let students see it.
2.  Have you read a great book or article lately that included perserverance?  Or maybe you saw a neat ESPN special during the Final Four about a player that perservered.  Find the link, email to some students.  Tell them it reminded you of them or something along those lines and encourage them to continue to perservere.
3.  What other ways can a teacher help build culture in their classrooms, building, or district?