Stamina

It's been another week of testing at my school.  Reading fluency screens, to be precise.  Dozens upon dozens of first grade readers have parked beside me the last three days, each student reading three passages for one minute each.  Thrilling stuff.  Next week it's on to Kindergarten to do the same thing, unless I don't return to school next week because, well, Kindergartners.

As I listen to and watch kids read I more and more become convinced that one of the great skills necessary for reading success is the ability to sustain a concerted effort over time towards the goal of reading fluency.  Or, in short, stamina.  I use that word, stamina, with my students throughout the school year, as well as push them through stamina drills, if you will, to increase the length of time they can keep words pouring out of their mouths.  As a Title I teacher I work primarily with kids who are struggling to read, but I have come to believe very strongly that what they struggle with more than anything is stamina, or a lack thereof.

Is stamina not one of the key ingredients - maybe the ingredient - that separates the good from the bad, greats from the good, and the elite from the greats?  Not just in reading, but in life.  The best athletes, musicians, artists, writers, teachers....you name it......became the best through years of hard work, and were carried through those years with stamina.  Many other words get thrown around when talking about how to achieve great success - grit, passion, intensity, desire - but I don't often hear the word stamina.  Maybe I'm not listening closely enough.

We spend a lot of time in schools teaching the wrong kinds of lessons to kids, while making them practice the wrong kinds of skills.  Tonight I don't have the stamina needed to get into all of the wrong things we do, but intently practicing the strengthening of stamina in students would be a good first step towards being more correct in what we do.  The stamina to sit attentively, the stamina to write legibly, the stamina to think coherently.  Without practice in how to sustain effort at anything, more and more children will be doomed to perform inadequately at everything.

And that's all I've got for tonight.