Message from the WCTA President - Nov/Dec 2020
2020 has definitely been a year of challenges but I’ve heard that smooth seas don’t make good sailors. Challenges force us to step outside of our comfort zone and learn new things. They help us discover innovation in places we hadn’t thought to look before. Challenges help us grow as professionals in our field and as individuals in our life. Without challenges and hardships, life would be pretty boring; we would probably still be cutting grass with a scythe and fertilizing our turf with sheep sh… well you know.
Embracing the challenge is something I have been trying to focus on lately. Being a young Superintendent has given me plenty of opportunities to step outside of my comfort zone. Sometimes I have found myself doubting my own abilities or second guessing myself but when I decide to finally embrace a challenge, solve a new problem, learn something new, there is a sense of accomplishment, a reward at the end that makes the work all worthwhile. More recently, as a first time father, I’ve found a whole new set of challenges in my life. They have been extremely difficult but extremely rewarding challenges. If you have kids you know what I mean. If you don’t have kids, enjoy life while you still can! You'll find out what I mean when you do.
With the pandemic throwing a wrench into our 2021 WCTA conference plans, we had a huge challenge in front of us. We embraced this challenge and began developing our new WCTA Online Webinar (WOW) series. It has been a big learning curve for all of us, including our WCTA staff, who have done an incredible amount of work to get these webinars off the ground. Our aim is to deliver quality education in the most professional avenue possible while we all work remotely. This new system requires us to learn new ways to both deliver and consume education. It forces us to step outside of what we know and have done well, and to learn new ways to achieve a similar result.
If nothing else, 2020 has forced us all to step outside our comfort zone, embrace new challenges and learn new things. I hope you will join us in this innovation by attending our webinar series and by doing so, finding a new way to continue your education.