Inspiring Greatness in
Students
By Michael W. Firmin, Cedarville College, OH firminm@cedarville.edu
It
gives me deep joy to “inspire greatness” in students. By this I do not mean for students to become inflated “big shots”
who think that they can conquer the world before they have exercised the
painstaking discipline and demonstrated maturity to warrant greatness. Rather, I mean urging students to fulfill
the potential that they genuinely possess and push themselves toward the outer
limits of their capabilities. Consider
the following six guiding principles.
Believing in students involves
sizing up their abilities and interests and assessing how far these could take
them in the future if they are developed, honed, and disciplined. Some students react with surprise when I
share my belief in them and their latent potential. Having someone that they respect express confidence in what they
could do in time provides the impetus for them to stretch themselves toward new
goals of personal excellence.
This is putting my money where
my mouth is (so to speak). That is, if
I really believe in some students, then I am willing to take some risks with
them. All great people were once young
and immature, made mistakes, and embarrassed their mentors. But the greatness eventually achieved made
the clumsiness along the way worth the effort and pain of getting there.
My own mentors gave me chances
to develop and hone abilities early in my college experience. As a college senior, I was given a level of
responsibility that amazes me even today.
Various faculty and administrators believed in me and expressed their
confidence in what I could do. Having
experienced this efficacy early has made me want to instill it in my own
students – to pass a baton.
Let me use Laura as an
example. When I think of Laura, I do
not see a young 23-year-old woman. I
see a future school psychologist with a Ph.D. who is a leader in her
field. I see someone who has made a
significant difference in the lives of disadvantaged children, someone eminent
and successful. Of course, Laura is
none of those things today. She is a
good student who is working in a pharmacy to pay her way through graduate
school. But that is not the Laura I see
in class every Monday night.
I try to challenge students like
Laura with a sense of “destiny.” That
is, she may not ever achieve what I envision for her – and whether or not she
ever does is not important. It is not
for me to determine students’ paths.
But what I do want to do is to encourage students not to sell themselves
short of their destinies. I want them
to think in terms of all they can do and be.
Students know. They can tell if you are being fakey or just
trying out some sort of motivational spin.
Believing in students, giving them chances, and viewing them through the
lens of time needs to be part of who I am as a person. It is an expression of my being – not simply
an exercise or experiment I am trying on students. There is a lot at stake:
students’ self-concept, confidence, efficacy – not to mention the time,
money, and energy that they may expend in pursuing goals that they believe they
can reach. Inspiring students to
greatness has to be something that you genuinely and deeply believe in as a
person.
Inspiring greatness takes
time. It takes a lot of time. Students need me at inconvenient times. I am forced to prioritize these demands on
my time and forced to make the choices on the spot without the luxury of time
to think and analyze.
For me, the battle is often won
or lost with the pencil I hold in my hand.
If I can discipline myself to put my pencil down on the desk, most often
I have won the battle of giving students time and individual attention. If I continue to clutch that pencil with a
death grip, students get an implicit message:
They are an interruption. And
during these times, unfortunately, my urgency is at the expense of their future
greatness.
Not all my students are destined
to be great. This is not to say that
all students do not have tremendous future potentials. They do.
But not all will become great.
In sum, I find myself inspiring only a few students to greatness. This is not always a “selection” process;
sometimes it is simple more of a phenomenon.
That is, students may express(overtly or covertly) a desire to be
mentored, I may take an exceptional interest in them, or the connection simply
happens. In my own experience, there is
no real science to it. If there is a
remote pattern, however, I would say that in all cases a certain “goodness of
fit” occurs between me and the student.
So inspire students to
greatness! You may not be able to do it
for all; but the ones for whom you do it will be worth investing your life in
higher education. It has been for me,
and I have only been at it for a decade.