Handle Hard Better
Originally Published August 2022
At my last new school year convocation, held annually to welcome back staff and prepare for the upcoming school year, I shared a video speech given by Kara Lawson, head coach of the Duke University women’s basketball team. The speech was entitled, “Handle Hard Better” and in it she addresses our propensity for thinking that things are eventually going to get easier.
Once I graduate, things will get easier.
Once I finish this project, work will get easier.
Once the kids are grown, life will be easier.
Or this. It’s easier for other people. It’s too hard for me.
Lawson then goes on to tell her players, and us, what we already know. It - life, work, you name it - does not get easier. And people who are successful - people who have a meaningful pursuit in life - learn to handle hard better.
The last district where I was the superintendent was Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools. Eastland-Fairfield is a high school of choice. It serves 16 school districts in Central Ohio. They offer career technical education at two campuses and through satellite programs housed at four associate school districts. The vast majority of the students who take part in one of these programs had to make a very hard decision to leave the comfort and convenience of their home school to attend one of their programs. It is not easier to attend Eastland-Fairfield. Yet, these students make that hard decision because they have a meaningful pursuit in life.
Eastland-Fairfield is a provider of adult education in fields that are in demand in the region. It is not easy to return to school when you are an adult. It is not easy to sign up for classes when you also must manage a job,a family, or maybe both. But for the students who choose to pursue education and training in a field that will lead to a career and not just a job, they benefit well into the future.
And when these students, high school or adult, complete their programs and graduate, “it” still does not get easier. But they made a choice to pursue something worthy of their time, effort, and money. They learned that meaningful accomplishments, meaningful goals are not easier. And so, they learned to handle hard better.
