In February 2013, a three-alarm fire destroyed Crestline Elementary in Vancouver, Washington. Fortunately there were no injuries, but the $22 million in damages and the displacement of 50 staff members and their 500 students brought its own challenges and pain.
The community came together. Within two and a half days, everyone had been relocated to local elementary schools. Not long after that, Gov. Jay Inslee asked students what they had taken away from the traumatic experience. In reference to working together, Payton Rush, then a fourth grader, said, "We can do hard things." Gov. Inslee was so inspired, he had "We can do hard things"¬ù made into a sign that hangs in his office in Olympia.
Only 18 months later, Gov. Inslee was in attendance at the ribbon-cutting ceremony in the gymnasium of the new campus. Inspired by the community effort and support, he said, "It's clear to me, you can burn down a building but you cannot burn down a community's commitment to its children.¬ù The rebuilding of Crestline Elementary School is the most inspiring story in the state of Washington."
Payton Rush may have been young, but he understood that moving forward and healing wouldn't be easy. It would take courage and grit. Grit is a term Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, coined. She says, "This quality of being able to sustain your passions, and also work really hard at them, over really disappointingly long periods of time, that's grit."
Doing hard things is definitely what the Crestline community did to rebuild their school and their culture. The grit it took to stick with the process is admirable.
On a smaller scale, we do hard things each and every day. We work with limited resources. We fight to connect with hard-to-reach students. We wrestle with high standards, high stakes, and limited time. It is the effort we put into those hard things that will ultimately lead to success. We can do hard things, too.
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