The Pursuit of Excellence

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit (Aristotle). 

In the five months, I have served in East Greenwich as superintendent of schools, we have talked a great deal about academic excellence. At our School Committee meeting on Tuesday, November 15, Michael Podraza, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning, shared a comprehensive breakdown of our RICAS and SAT scores. There will be additional information shared by our principals on Tuesday, December 6, specific to each building. Our foundational mission as schools is to work with our students to learn and grow as scholars. 

And, just as importantly, is ensuring that our students learn and grow as people. The work of relationships is foundational to our humanity. When we look around, we see far too many examples of humans finding ways to reduce another's humanity to skin color, gender identity, political affiliation, religious beliefs, or any other way to separate us from each other. Once that separation is created, humans can find ways to inflict harm, violence, or even worse on one another. Even when the reality remains that we all laugh when we think something is funny, we cry when we feel something is sad (or deeply joyful), and when our skin is broken, we bleed. 

As we look around our world in 2022, it is clearly crying out for people who know how to be in relationship with others, especially with others who don't see the world in exactly the same way. We need critical thinkers, problem solvers, bridge builders, and those committed to finding ways to connect. We don't want to be academically excellent at the expense of others. Then we would be like the doctor who can accurately diagnose a rare disease but has no empathy (nor sympathy) to communicate appropriately to the individual who contracted it. 

Since we first heard the word COVID, we know that the last two years have impacted us as human beings. All of us. The disease transcends skin color, gender identity, political affiliation, religious beliefs, or any other way we separate ourselves as humans. We know that adults and students have been affected by our choices due to COVID, even the ones made for us. We know there is still healing that must take place. That work is not done. 

Neither is the work of teaching and learning. But the social-emotional work must be done together with the academic work. They cannot be done in isolation from one another; they must be done in tandem. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. 

Both in academics and in relationships.