Last September, I rode the Harvest Century,
I thought that day, and have since then, that sometimes life
is like that. You’re making good
progress, doing your best, when suddenly “headwinds” get in the way. They make it hard to make progress. They can be simple, like when you’re on time
to leave in the morning, but you lose your keys. You’ve worked hard to leave on time—you make
your lunch the night before, you lay out your clothes (or know where they are),
you set your alarm, you had a good breakfast and a shower and have gotten
dressed, but then you set your keys down somewhere, and you can’t find
them. It’s a small setback, but it
practically undoes all the work you’ve done to get out the door. So frustrating.
I encourage my students to think about the difficulties in
their college careers—what might be the “headwinds” they deal with. So much of what I do is more than teaching
them about commas and transitions and topic sentences and coherent paragraphs
and researched essays. I’m teaching them
how to be successful students and citizens.
When I start class promptly, I’m teaching them to respect their time and
my time. When I give an assignment and
hold them to high standards when I evaluate it, I’m teaching them to value the
work they’re doing and to take pride in it—and to try to improve it if they don’t
do as well the first time around. And
when I listen when they tell me about a sick child or a spouse leaving or about
lifelong battles with addiction, I’m teaching them that I value them and that
they should value themselves. If they can learn these lessons, then perhaps the
headwinds in their lives won’t be quite so frustrating.
