Where do you go for inspiration for the start of the school year?  Where do you get the energy to start the year fresh and ready to roll? In Teaching with Heart, Cordell Jones, principal of the Alamo Heights Junior School in San Antonio, Texas, wrote that each year he turns to Robert Herrick’s poem “To the Virgins, to make much of Time” and to a movie, The Dead Poet’s Society,  to set his sights for doing his best in the year ahead.

The movie, with the loss of Robin Williams, is particularly poignant these days. We include the clip here in keeping with Cordell’s reflection and as a way to honor and celebrate the life and impact of Robin Williams.

Teaching with Heart Reflection:

Here is Cordell Jones’s reflection on Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins, to make much of Time.”

As a child, I saw the direct impact my mother had as a teacher. She inspired her students. She helped change their lives, and they often came back to see her or would write to tell her so. I was in awe of the impact she had on them.

I yearned to have that type of impact on the world.

Flash forward a decade. As a college student, I saw Dead Poet’s Society starring Robin Williams. I was mesmerized. I loved how he inspired his students to think for themselves, be passionate learners, and challenge the status quo. I can still close my eyes and hear him talking about Robert Herrick’s poem and exhorting his students to imagine the impact they might have on the world: “Did [these former students] wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? . . . Carpe diem, seize the day, boys, make your lives extraordinary.”1

Was I going to go through life without making an impact? Certainly not!

Every August I watch Dead Poet’s Society to ground and motivate me for the challenges I will face during the upcoming school year, asking myself: What will my impact be on this year? How can I best help the children and the teachers in my school? How can I help change the world each and every day, knowing that tomorrow I might be gone?

Carpe diem is my mantra. For almost twenty-five years, this poem has shaped me and pushed me to be my very best for my students, my staff, and my family.

 

rosebuds

To the Virgins, to make much of Time

Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a flying:
And this same flower that smiles today,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
The higher he’s a getting;
The sooner will his Race be run,
And neerer he’s to Setting.

That Age is best, which is the first,
When Youth and Blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, goe marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

—Robert Herrick

For a display version of this poem, check out Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may