Every Day is the Superbowl

I've got 10 days left with seniors before they go their own ways. I've been writing a quote every day on the chalkboard. Today's is from Neil Gaiman, a writer, and it says, "Face your life, its pain, it's pleasure. Leave no path untaken." Perhaps I'm simple and stupid but I translate that as, "Treat every day like it's your own personal Superbowl."

I want my students to walk out of here with a sense of their place in the world. I want them to dream big. I want them to believe that if they put their minds to it, they can be the titans out there in the world. I want them to be change agents. So few of them have the belief that they can accomplish these things but I believe. And if believing for them was all it took, I'd say that they'd all rise like the stars I believe them to be. They would win the Superbowl of life. They most certainly would.

Things get mellow at school at this time. It leads me to wonder, all of these years later, if these things that I tell my students towards the end of the year actually sink in or not. When they leave here, do they think about the things we talked about? Things like, "treat every day like it's the Superbowl!" I'm hopeful.