We are not only in the midst of a countdown for an Israeli coalition/election; any child or teacher will tell you that we are also in the midst of a countdown towards the end of the year.
"You can already feel the end-of-year atmosphere, smell summer vacation, but the decision is in our hands: will these final weeks be 'garbage time' or 'money time?' In the sports world," explain Hovav Yehieli and Uriel Herzog of the "The Freedom to Teach" project, "garbage time is the time left at the end of a game which can't actually affect the score. One of the teams is way ahead and it's clear they'll win, so those last few minutes the players are just going through the motions. But there are other games in which those exact same final minutes are called 'money time.' The game is tight, and those are the most crucial minutes of the game for all the players to put in their top performance. The coach and the players are alert, everyone's giving more than a 100%, the atmosphere is electrifying. No going through the motions there at all. So too, we students, teachers, people working in any profession, should take a look at these final weeks before summer:
if we now choose to tackle some serious challenges and raise the bar, if we aspire to excel educationally and socially, we can decide what atmosphere we will have until the arrival of the lazy days of summer. Will we do nothing, just wait around for the referee to blow the final whistle? Or will we be the best players we can, until the game is actually over?"
Translated by JewishMOM.com
