Thank You for Another Great School Year!

This week's end-of-school-year article summary is Think Yourself Better: 10 Rules to Live By.

I always like to close the school year with an article on how we live our lives both inside and outside of school.

I consider myself very fortunate to have spent the majority of my career working in elementary and middle schools whose cultures are grounded in optimism, positivity, and growth.

I don’t know if I am an optimist by nature or that working in such uplifting environments has made me more positive. Yet, always seeing the positive and enjoying myself in my job and my personal life have been constants throughout my life.

The end of a school year is always exciting—with summer break tantalizingly near. I usually need the first days of summer to decompress, but then I inevitably find myself thinking and reflecting on the previous school year and then beginning to plan for next year. It’s this annual opportunity for fresh starts that has kept energizing me for the past 45 years.

When I was in college, my dad told me that whatever career I chose, he hoped my job gave me fulfillment. Even after roughly 7500 morning get-ups, I can honestly say that every day I have looked forward to coming to school.

I hope all of you are equally fulfilled in teaching and working in a school. Everyone likes the cuteness of puppies and kittens. But, of course, puppies and kittens grow up to be dogs and cats (and not everyone, including my wife, is an animal lover). I like to tell people that my job is so special because every year Trinity gets a new batch of puppies and kittens to educate!

Thank you for another spectacular and memorable year!

Joe

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The thing that separates human beings from other animals is our extraordinary capacity for complex, abstract thought. This is what has given rise to our diverse cultures, our scientific achievements, our ability to envisage the future and, hopefully, make it better than what has gone before.

But our imperfect minds have also generated terrible mistakes and dangerous ideologies. If we don’t know how to distinguish bad thinking from good, we can end up believing what we shouldn’t, and behaving in ways that are harmful to ourselves, to others, and to the planet.

Throughout history wise men and women have applied themselves to these problems in the service of their own development and that of humankind. Rather than start from scratch, why not draw on thousands of years of experience, and millions of hours of reflection and practice? Here is what some of the most powerful ideas that can help guide us how to think – and live – well.

• Be sincere

• Be charitable

• Be humble

• Keep it simple, but not simplistic

• Choose your words with care

• Be eclectic

• Think for yourself, not by yourself

• Seek clarity not certainty

• Pay attention

• Follow the mean