Classroom Visit: A Little Child Shall Lead Them

I have a new respect for teachers.



Yesterday I had the opportunity to be a guest speaker at a junior high school located in the Murray area and I have to say, I had a blast. However, I definitely gained a greater understanding for what teachers have to go through everyday.

While the kids were a blast to be with, I learned that their attention span is about 7 minutes long. Anything you say after that just floats into the air as "blah, blah, blah."

Now that isn't to say that I didn't try. I mixed in a good amount of bobsled videos, props (i.e. my training gear and medals), and some online stuff from our team website, www.teamholmbobsled.com. And I think it worked, until I started to talk about the importance of college and deciding what they wanted to do in life. At that point I lost about half of them. But what was really interesting to me was the fact that the other half really perked up at that point. It was this half who knew what they wanted to do and were eager to talk about it. Doctors, dentists, police officers, authors, rockstars, soldiers, etc. You could see the passion in their eyes and how firmly believed that they would become what they wanted to be. And to me, that made the whole experience worth it.

We talked about what they wanted to become and then set out some goals on how they would go about becoming a doctor or a dentist or how they were going to fulfill a lifelong dream of driving a tank (pretty original, you have to admit). It was very refreshing to see their hope and enthusiasm for their dreams that we worked to turn into solid goals. It is my hope that they take that enthusiasm and apply it toward their goals in a constructive manner. You could see it on their faces, at least those who were really paying attention at that point: those who would succeed at their goals were those who wanted it bad enough to work for them.

I can't think of a better lesson than that.