On Tuesday, iconic quarterback and seven-time Super Bowl
champ Tom Brady announced his retirement. In one homage after another, Brady
was lauded for his leadership, work ethic, friendship, commitment, and
unrelenting belief. Educators need to take care they’re teaching and
celebrating the traits that made Brady so successful.

Now, I could readily wander into a reverie about Brady’s life
and times. After all, this is a guy who was the 199th pick in the NFL draft. He
didn’t win the Heisman trophy or other fancy collegiate awards. He wasn’t even
the full-time starting quarterback on his college team. Unlike rivals Peyton
Manning or Patrick Mahomes, his dad wasn’t a professional athlete. Brady was
just a guy who kept gutting it out, studying, and working. He never coasted,
kept getting better, and was clear about his priorities — including his teammates
and his family.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Of course schools should teach
about America’s flaws, past and present. Of course educators should be honest
about the fact that opportunities aren’t distributed equally and that obstacles
loom large for many kids. Of course it’s important to recognize that talk of
hard work and persistence can serve as an excuse to blame those already
burdened by social challenges for their struggles. I get it.

But I fear that the awareness of such things has fueled an
overcorrection. I hear regularly from educators who’ve been through anti-bias
trainings and workshops and are now concerned that to celebrate once-innocuous
icons or to emphasize the importance of hard work, persistence, drive, and
leadership is to trod into a minefield. (For those who wonder whether such
concerns have any real basis, I think they do. See here,
here,
or here).

I’ll be blunt. I think that’s a problem. Schools are
formative institutions. They should strive to form students who are confident
as well as compassionate, capable as well as socially conscious. This means that
schools need to promote the kinds of time-tested values that have made all the
difference for Brady and so many others.

Work hard.

Be a good teammate.

Believe in yourself.

Commit to your priorities.

Always strive to do better.

Pay attention to details.

Take pride in your work.

Prioritize your friends and family.

I think a school which fails to teach these things — alongside
other virtues and values — is falling short of its charge.

That’s the lesson I take from Tom Brady’s remarkable career.

The post The lessons Tom Brady teaches appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.