Follow The Leader




There is a blind man in New York City that everyday wakes up and heads to the subway station, where he sits and begs for money from those riding throughout the day. Day in and day out this man heads to the same place, with only his knowledge of the area and his probing cane.
On the morning of September 11, 2001 this man was on the subway station platform when the first of the two towers fell. The power instantly went out and everything went dark. The subway riders  started to panic and were in complete hysteria, they did not know how to act and could not find their way out in the complete darkness.

At that moment of time the man had a choice: he could get out of there and avoid the mass exodus/confusion or he could stay and help others find their way out of the tunnel. With a loud voice, he got others attention and said “I have been walking around this station for years in the dark and I can lead you out of here now, but you need to follow me.”

He suggested that others would build a chain of people behind him, allowing for the chain to get longer and longer, making sure every trip was maximized. This man kept on leading groups of people out of the darkness and into safety until the last group reached the daylight.

Leadership sometimes means taking control and going back in when everyone else is running away.

Too often in education we see others around us struggling and we do nothing about it. For a variety of reasons, we focus on ourselves and our students, without always making sure that the other educators around us are doing okay.

Education takes everyone working together to make sure that we are all strong and moving in the right direction. May can be a tough month for many educators as we are close to the end of the school year, but need more energy than at the start of the year. The month of May is filled with activity after activity and usually there is some type of assessment testing. All the events, combined with the time of year, often leads some educators to burnout and some to get discouraged.
This is the time of year to make sure that all educators are bringing their energy, passion, and dedication every day for their students and their colleagues.

Be like the blind man in the subway, don’t be afraid to teach and lead others around you. Help everyone find the light and make sure they can finish the year as strong, if not stronger, than when they started it. It takes everyone to make sure that education is as amazing as it should be.

Be The One that does whatever it takes to help out everyone around you and be the best educator possible.

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