Resourcefulness Over Resources
Resourcefulness Over Resources
This post is part of an ongoing series of chapters from the book CHOICE. Please view this post for an introduction and table of contents. To keep up with each new chapter published, please subscribe.
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
Arthur Ashe
Money will forever be a limiting factor in education. Working within a budget is a common and constant constraint. For better or worse that is how it is. Education isn’t alone in this constraint. Let’s learn to work with the constraint, opposed to have it work against us.
There will always be a need and a want for more resources, more money, better systems, etc. Everyone wants the best for their students, their classrooms, themselves. To be successful in the long term you need to learn how to work within constraints.
Embrace the idea of resourcefulness over resources. This is a motto that needs to be engrained in the culture of your district, school, classroom, staff, and students. A focus on doing the best work with what is available and not what should could be available. Make it work with what is possible, rather than dreaming of what if.
You’ll be amazed what can be accomplished with what you already have, and how creative your staff, students, and community are. Shoestrings can hold up an incredible amount when everyone works together.
There is always the opportunity to go back when funding is available. Create better fixes or permanent solutions. But going through the shoestring and resourcefulness phase will give you a better understanding of what is truly needed and how your population uses it. Come to the budgeting table with a practical knowledge and be better off in the long run for it.
Know the real problem before throwing money and resources at it. Resourcefulness.
Author Comments
Providing a peak behind the curtain of the thought and writing process.
When I first started publishing these chapters, I had an outline done. A structure to how and when I wanted to post things. I’ve stuck to that pretty well. This chapter was not in that outline.
Publishing these chapters has done the amazing act of getting them out of my head and into the public. New topics, questions, and ideas have come out of publishing so far, and it’s working to make the book better.
I still have a list of chapters from my outline that will be published, but now that the first real structure change has happened on my outline, I feel more will come.
This “editing on the go” wouldn’t happen without the community that has been reading, commenting, and providing feedback so far. Thank you so much for the support and input to make this writing even better. Please continue to share.