The word excellence has been so over used that it has lost a lot of its meaning. And yet I have been getting excited recently about this word again. Actually I feel as though I have rediscovered it.
As I picked it up and dusted it off I discovered that excellence means so much more than what it has been reduced to in pop culture. At its core, it really isn’t a qualitative word. Our concept of the word originates with its use in Ancient Greece as the word arête. Its original use conveyed the sense of fulfillment of purpose or function, to fulfillment of potential. It means to completely fulfill ones purpose.
Excellence then is not some fixed measurement for each student, a cookie cutter mold that each student should adjust themselves to fit. Instead it means that we must bring excellence out of them in every facet of their individual personhood. It means that we recognize the varying degrees of giftedness unique to them, and shape them to reach their own maximum potential, much like the parable of the talents, as I’ve included below.
In light of its true meaning I emphatically want us to be a school of excellence. We should strive daily to help each student reach their full, God given potential. We should equally strive to fulfill our purpose as a school and our full organization as a community; the personal excellence intersection with skill-specific proficiency.
14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Matthew 25:14—30
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