Wayne Gretsky

Wayne Gretsky is the greatest hockey player in NHL history.  In fact, his nickname is “The Great One.”  Gretsky is the leading career point-scorer with 894 goals and 1963 assists.  He is the only player to score over 200 points in a season and he did that four different times!  What made this guy so good?  Why did he stand out above the rest?  Why did he manage to put it in the net or be the guy who assisted on putting the puck in the net so many times?  His philosophy was simple:  “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is.”  That is what made him “The Great One.” He understood that what lead up to the goal was just as important as reaching the goal because you can never reach the goal if you have no plan to get there.   He also said that “You miss 100% of the shots you do not take.”  Hmmm…

It should be that way in what we do.  We should have a what and where we want kids to be (desired outcomes).  Then we should devise ways to measure if they arrived (assessments).  Then we should plan to get to each benchmark through best-practice and high yield teaching.  Note the order of these three things.  If you were in “Lunch & Learn” two weeks ago, this should be coming back to you.  Proper alignment of these three is essential.  Without this, your kids will not grow.  If we know where we want the kids to be, that is the direction that we should go, check progress along the way, and take some great shots at teaching them on the way to the end.  Gretsky put the puck in the net a lot of times – you can as well through proper alignment and teaching to where you want the kids to be. 

By the way, I went to a boxing match last Saturday and a hockey game broke out…