You are as Great as the Cause you Serve and as Young as Your Dreams

As educators in the year 2014, we constantly hear and read about this growth mindset. It is so much embedded in our culture. This video has been passed around the internet and highlights Shimon Peres, at what some might believe is the end of his career at the age of ninety-one. Contrary though, he is job hunting in the video. It shows the skills he has learned throughout his life and how they have prepared him for potential jobs: gas station attendant, skydiving coach, cow milker, and stand-up comedian.

I was happily surprised last week to hear this video and the idea of us always being in progress as the topic of my rabbi’s sermon. But what can we as educators get from this? At this time of the year, religiously I reflect on my life. How can I be a better person? How can I be better spiritually?

I am constantly doing the same as an educator. I have been meeting with my staff to help them set goals for the year to help each of the grow professionally and determine their focus for the year.

As I sat in services last week, my rabbi challenged each of us: are you done or in progress? To me it sounded like the work of Carol Dweck in MindSet; it just goes to show how much overlap there is in our worlds.

Being in progress isn’t just for us as educators but us as human beings.

So in the words of Shimon Peres, former President and Prime Minister of Israel, “You are as great as the cause that you serve and as young as your dreams.”

Are we done or are we always in progress?