Set the bar high and they will rise to hit it. Set it too low and they will stoop to get there.
It was with this mindset that I stood in front of my first group of 28 wide-eyed fifth graders. I was fresh out of school myself, 24 to be exact, the youngest teacher on the block and eager to pour my energy into those ten year old minds. They were fresh out of summer and the only intensity they craved was the carefree August sunshine.
Unfazed it never occurred to me in my first few weeks of teaching that not everyone would share my zeal for high standards. From day one I enacted a policy for assignments given – due the next day or receive a zero. No make-ups. No half credit for turning in the next day. Simply do the assignment and receive credit. It seemed a bare minimum for success and one that each student regardless of skill level could accomplish by being diligent. Do the work. Get the grade. Don’t do the work. Get the zero. Easy enough or so I thought.
It didn’t take more than a couple days for the parents to start showing up at my door before school. Angrily waving homework at me, papers marked with a zero, demanding an explanation. It was my first brush with my idealistic mindset meeting reality. They gave a list of excuses that were long and creative, but I was determined to hold my ground. I believed in my students, that they could rise to the occasion, that they could do hard things like turning in their homework on time. Despite the parents’ complaints, the kids slowly embraced my mantra of breaking through their own self imposed ceilings and the number of completed assignments soon outpaced the zeros.
Back to school night came around and I had a full house of parents. Half were disgruntled and half were excited to see their kids challenged to accept responsibility. I spoke of my belief that this would be a pivotal year. Each one of these students was capable of doing hard things and excelling beyond our expectations. I assured them they would each leave fifth grade prepared for the rigors of middle school and life.
As the parents greeted me and filed out the door, one dad stayed behind. He was a doctor and his son was one of my brightest students. Earlier that week I had given him a zero on a math assignment that he did not turn in on the day it was due. This man was visibly angry with me and I was told that his son only received A’s. He proceeded to give me the reason his son could not do the assignment. He had baseball practice until 10pm the night before. I explained like a broken record that if you set the bar high they will rise to it. Adding on that the bar also applied to myself as his teacher, to be unwavering in my desire for these kids to stretch themselves and have a no excuses approach to life.
I was beginning to see that it was the parents of the high achieving students that struggled with my rule the most. Was it because they were used to calling the shots with authority or were they accustomed to special treatment in line with their child’s abilities? As I turned off the lights and locked my classroom door that night, my resolve to push these kids to reach their individual heights was anchored.
My first year of teaching was one of challenges and triumphs. I loved my students and the bar was set high for all of us. They answered the call and rose to the occasion. It was difficult for many of them at first. We worked on time management, we talked about priorities, and we took responsibility. I watched as their confidence grew taller than their list of excuses. The bar had been set and they were rising to meet it. The obstacles came from a place I never expected it to come, the parents. Either the assignments were too hard or their busy schedules made it impossible to keep up. I learned so many life lessons in that first year that have carried forward into everything I do. The most important one by far is to always set the bar high and they will rise to it.
How do we raise the bar in our own life?
It is never too early to learn that there are consequences to everything in life. The simple discipline of receiving an assignment and turning it on time ingrains in us an essential life lesson.
- Pay your bills on time or the power is turned off.
- Show up to work prepared or lose your job.
- Take care of your body or lose your health.
- Pay attention to your family or someone else will
While my students may not have seen the long range picture of the discipline I was trying to instill in them, they did begin to see the fruits of their labor. Even today when I run into my students – now with families of their own, they will comment on how much they learned from my high expectations of them. We only hold on to fragmented bits of information that we learn, but the life skills we take away from doing hard things stays with us forever. Accept the assignment and follow through with excellence
On the other side of discomfort is the change you are seeking. Oftentimes we are adverse to change because it creates uncertainty. It triggers the endless litany of “what if’s …?”
- What if I fail?
- What if I can’t recover?
- What if I never find success?
When we get to the end of our what if’s – there lies a choice. Either decide to embrace change or stay exactly where you are. My students were asked to raise the bar and accept the momentary discomfort of accountability. Even at 10 years of age we can choose to do hard things and change. We will never grow, never learn something new, never move beyond our own level of mediocrity unless we get super comfortable with change. It requires an intentionality in your days that is transformational. Once you fully wrap your arms around the concept of positive change and growth in your life, you’ll be forever hooked. Embrace the change.
There will always be people around us, even amongst our loved ones who question our ability to do hard things. They may mean well and even truly believe they are keeping us from harm, but their excuses keep us small. If we listen to their voices, we begin to doubt our dreams and abilities. The truth remains. We can only break through our ceiling in life if we are disciplined enough to press forward when everyone else has fallen back.
I always like to look for a nugget of truth in what others tell me. I don’t want to be so focused on the road ahead that I do not heed an honest warning. Evaluate the nugget, glean from it and move forward! I heard Deone Saunders say that when someone tells us to “Pay Attention ….” It costs! They need to be someone or have something worthy of us “paying attention to” because our attention is going to cost us something. We will have critics. We will most certainly have naysayers, even those close to us. We will have plenty of people who don’t understand what we are trying to accomplish.
Be a pioneer, forge a path ahead where others have turned back. Continue on, reach for the highest bar and then go up one more notch. Break through the ceiling!
