“The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.”

As the fourth week of the 2012 Secondary Division at ATDP draws to a close, these words from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow seem appropriate. My siblings and I grew up with these words echoing in our heads, and they were almost inevitably spoken when we were facing a hard task or thinking about giving up. Whether you are in a one-semester or a two-semester course, I suspect that you are beginning to feel the pressure of ATDP’s fast-paced and intensive curriculum. Many of you have completed midterms, and some of you did not do as well as you would have wished or hoped. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The course will be over in just two more weeks. So now is the time to continue to press on.

Although it is wonderful to get a very high grade, from the program’s perspective, working hard and learning a lot are perhaps more important than the final grade that you get. In other words, although winning a prize is great, it is also important to think about pacing yourself on the road to excellence, excellence that comes not at the end of ATDP but much farther along on your educational journey. And how much of that pacing are you doing? Have you been stretched academically? Have you improved your study skills this summer? Have you learned how to work with a study group? Have you given the class your all? If you have done all of these things, you are on track to come back and to do even better next year or in your next educational placement. So if you are feeling stretched at the moment, consider these words from contemporary songwriter, Wilson Phillips:

Don’t you know things can change
Things’ll go your way
If you hold on for one more day…