Thomas was an outstanding athlete.  When he played football or basketball or baseball, he was wonderful to watch. His body was fluid and smooth, he ran with abandon and was faster than the others.  He would juke one way, run the other and inevitably leave behind a trail of peers unable to keep up with him.  In grade school, he was a pleasure to watch and rarely left a game in which he was not a star athlete.

Thomas had a more difficult time in the classroom where his dyslexic tendencies got in the way of his success.  However, Thomas was so explosive on the field that many of his teachers excused his less than stellar grades knowing that Thomas excelled elsewhere.  His teachers never caved in to his lack of performance, but they never worried that he would suffer from a dearth of praise.  Indeed, Thomas graduated from our school with less than stellar grades, but with a healthy dose of admiration for his athletic prowess.

High school and college were the same for Thomas where he was invariably a star on the sports fields and a less than average student in the classroom.  Thomas went on to play semi-professional baseball in the Midwest where he would often receive letters from college classmates extolling their belief that he was their hero.  Who wouldn’t want to play in a professional sports league with the chance to be a star?

But Thomas was not a believer.  After college, he began to see the challenges of his earlier years.  While many people viewed his life as the dream, Thomas did not.  Instead, he dreamed of the day that he would join his friends in the opening days of their pursuit of a better life.  Thomas admired the friend who struggled at a low income level, knowing full well that his struggle would pay off down the road.

After four years in the minor leagues, Thomas was more than ready to enter the work force, where he felt like he was four years behind his friends.  While they luxuriated in the aftermath of “the lean years”, Thomas knew that his own struggles were just beginning.  The praise of his early years, so closely aligned with his abilities on the sports field, brought him continuing praise, but little long term investment.

Fortunately, from participation in sports, Thomas had learned a great deal about life, about challenge, and about the makings of success.  He had learned the grit and resilience that he needed to formulate his next step.  Though he started a few year’s behind, Thomas spent the next years catching up to his peers.    And though it took him some extra time to  work through his dreams of success, Thomas made his life work outside of sports.  His success and happiness today are deeply rooted in ways he learned to define success in grade school.

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Coming Next- Stories From the Classroom- Elizabeth

 From our first posting:

“As parents and teachers, we need to reclaim our traditional role as influencers of our children – not by shouting louder than the influencers our children discover online, but by stressing ideas that are more important than fancy shoes and snappy TikTok tunes. We need to emphasize traits that everyone agrees children will honor.  We need to convince our children that the people who are most important to them have a better understanding of what it takes to be successful in life.”

#charactereducation #successtraits #parentingtips #homeschooling #teachertips