Mission

“Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.”

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. stone crumbles. wood rots. people, well, they die. but things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.”

--Chuck Palahniuk

The concept of vision and visioning sets the stage for one's better understanding of his or her mission, or purpose. This is true whether one is developing a strategic plan for his or her professional career or position, or a life plan for his or her personal development. Psychologist, and Nazi concentration camp survivor, Viktor Frankl wrote, "Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone's task is unique as his specific opportunity.”


Developing a sense of mission is fundamental to the act of "becoming."  In the words of Keith Urban, "Hearing Bruce Springsteen sing Born To Run, you know what his goal was. A man on a mission is a great thing to witness in any form. That`s fantastic and inspiring. I have had moments of worrying about this: I don`t have a mission that has a real focus." For a person, or organization, to rise above the perennial lethargy that is the fallout of an acceptance of medocrity or apathy, seeking one's mission or purpose is of paramount importance. Indeed, there is an immediacy that builds upon the acknowledgement that one is becoming aware of something important, something meaningful, something potentially life-changing. The late W. Clement Stone stated, “When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it.”

At some point in the process - for some sooner than for others - an awareness of what this discovery of mission may require of the person, or organization, has a very good chance of dampening the enthusiasm, or sending it into total denial. Anything of value - anything worth doing - always carries with it a toll which must be paid. Putting one's mission into action should not be expected to be less taxing in this regard.  President Richard Nixon once noted, “Once one determines that he or she has a mission in life, that's it's not going to be accomplished without a great deal of pain, and that the rewards in the end may not outweigh the pain --if you recognize historically that always happens, then when it comes, you survive it.”


Those of us whose mission has taken us into the world of institutionalized education are, often times, all too keenly aware of that to which the late Richard Nixon spoke. Our efforts to bring about positive change is frequently at odds to the forces of stagnation. As recently as last week, the Children's Champion was told by a member of a rural school community that a member of the governing school board has openly declared that the existing school has served three generations of his family just fine the way it exists, therefore, any suggestions for change, for better or for worse, are not welcome. Isn't it  kind of interesting that in that same community no motor vehicles of three generations past were noticed in the school parking lot? One cannot help but question why individuals or groups are so fearful of schools progressing at a pace comparable to the world they serve. Because one cannot see the end result of a particular change should not provide sufficient rationale for not exploring and venturing forth. As Soetsu Yanagi notes in his book The Unknown Craftsman, "All works of art, it may be said, are more beautiful when they suggest something beyond themselves than when they end up being merely what they are. . . ." So too, when we seek to determine our mission as educators, and that of our educational institutions, we might be wise to accept a certain degree of "open-endedness" as we set forth to change the direction our schools are currently following.

Whether we speak to the mission of the individual, or the collective, we might do well to follow the advice of  David Coverdale, "I think we have two very important missions in life. One is to find out who we really are and the other one is to taste as much of life and experience as much of life as we can." Just imagine what our schools might look like if we applied Coverdale's philosophy to their design and delivery of instruction. Why are we willing to resign ourselves to the belief that schools exist primarily for the relaying of facts, figures and formulas to successive generations of children? This is not to denigrate the importance of such instruction, but there is so much more to the studying and understanding of life and all its meanings than the simple transference of information from one generation to the next. The Children's Champion believes, at minimum, schools should have as their mission the maximizing of opportunities and the minimizing of obstacles for children as they experience their world and begin the search for their "purpose in being;" their mission.

We will end this offering regarding the concept of "mission" with the following thoughts:

"Make your life a mission - not an intermission”

--Abdul Kalam, President of India

"To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal.”

--Abdul Kalam, President of India

"Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you are alive, it isn't."

--Richard Bach, Pilot and Author