Persistence sign

It’s just after spring break when I scrawl this poem on the whiteboard. We are three-quarters through the school year, but for many students it feels like it’s already over. For the dejected and the defeated, the ones whose grades are irredeemable, there’s little reason to try. And even for me, their teacher with the irrepressible
optimism, it seems a bit more difficult to persist, to insist that all of my students continue to give their all. So up it goes, a reminder to us all that we need—no matter what—to “press on.”

My classroom walls are covered with evidence of persistence from literary figures like Stephen King and J. K. Rowling, entrepreneurs like Walt Disney, scientists like Albert Einstein, political figures like Abraham Lincoln, and sports heroes like Michael Jordan, all of whom overcame obstacles through diligence and determination.

But there’s something about the fourth quarter of the school year that needs that solid, obstinate, in-your-face declaration that talent, genius, and education alone do not seal the deal. It’s dogged persistence in the face of adversity—the refusal to give up—that wins the day.

I may teach literary analysis and close reading strategies, but day in and day out I teach students these survival skills, this resilience, this refusal to give up the dream. I teach grit.

And when I’m tempted—to accept less on an assignment or to look the other way, or, heaven forbid, to give up on a student—these words echo in my head: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.”

—April Niemela
Middle and High School English Language Arts Teacher
Lewiston, Idaho

 

Persistence

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the
human race.

—Calvin Coolidge

 

 

TWH Jacket

 

April Niemela’s reflection is from Teaching with Heart.