One Step At a Time

By Dr. Marcia Davis-Dawkins

I recently saw a student taking the steps to go to the second floor and he was taking them two by two. I saw catastrophe heading his way, so I quickly told him to take one step at a time. I began to use this as a lesson to myself and thought of sharing the lessons learned from watching that student. How often, as educators, do we see this happen? What are some of the lessons that we can learn from this simple notion? The first thing that comes to mind is in our personal lives. Let’s say we want to lose weight – the first thing we think is that we want the weight off now or very soon, yet we didn’t stop to think that it won’t happen immediately, that it takes time. It means exercising and eating healthily so we can make the adjustment. Losing the weight will not happen overnight.

Another lesson…

Another lesson is that at times our students want to read or learn a skill instantly and they get so frustrated because they are impatient. How do we as the educator and mentor encourage them? I think depending on the student, we can share our stories with them and tell them that there is hope and it is not the end of the world.

Most of us tend to want to get somewhere hastily, but with all things it takes patience, diligence, discipline and self-control to attain a desired goal or place. It might mean falling or failing at something, but then we can re-start, re-assess and make changes that can be fundamental. We live in a world where it is fast-paced and everyone is in a hurry to get to the top or somewhere. I was listening to the news recently where an elderly 78-year couple went shopping in New York City and was returning home. As the train that they were going to take stopped, one of the passengers who was exiting the train, bumped into the male (couple) and the elderly person fell and bumped his head. The elderly woman watched as her husband lay motionless on the ground. Little did she know that he was dead from injuries he received to the head from the fall. Sadly, the person who bumped into him looked back at them but kept on walking! This example showed how in our busyness, we are just in a hurry to get where we want to go, but there is very little compassion for others. We literally step into others’ paths or even step on them and not care what happens next. I know the story may seem far-fetched, but how can we as educators teach our students to slow down and take one-step or even one day at a time? This can be especially difficult when the world in which we live is so fast-paced and dictates that we get everything instantly through fast foods, fast cash, microwave dinners, or even fast degrees online. Let us remember and also teach our students that slow and steady wins the race, and we should take one step at a time, even when things seems laborious! Remind them to focus on one small change at a time. Over time these small changes will add up to big transformations. Drill into them that slow progress is better than no progress and while they may not have reached their goal yet, they are closer than they were yesterday. Keep stepping!!

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