Begin Every Day with Two Words: Be Significant
By Dennis Moore, MHS Senior Division Science Teacher
When I leave my house every morning, I think of two words—be significant. It’s my responsibility to be significant in the lives of the students I teach. Whether it’s in relationships, through my biology lessons, or teaching my athletes to throw the javelin, we are all called to be significant.
In everything we do at MHS, it has to be the students first. I often think, “How do we help them?” Most of my students, even though I teach them science, are not going to college for science so I teach them to think like scientists and use science in their everyday lives. I help them learn to look at the evidence and use evidence to direct their opinions.
We talk about a lot of things in science. Charles Darwin is a very important man in the history of science. He said something that has stuck with me. He said, “If the misery of our poor is caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” As we try and take our MHS students out of a history of poverty, we give them all the tools they need to pull themselves out of it. We can’t blame it on where they’re from. We can’t blame it on how well they read, or how much vocabulary they know. We have a role here and a duty to get these kids to break that cycle of poverty.
I’ve used that quote to tell people, like Charles Darwin, Milton Hershey also thought about the future of our children. Great minds think about how do we help human beings take themselves from where they are and arrive at a better place.
Milton Hershey gave everything to this school and the kids he wouldn’t even know. He also provided jobs for future teachers and staff. The older I get, the more I think about Milton Hershey and how he and his wife gave all of that for a community of people he would never meet. I get emotional about it. We are really fortunate to be here to help these kids.
I recently added to my daily motto. In addition to “be significant,” I also have written on my classroom whiteboard “happy, healthy, and fulfilling lives.” That’s the bottom line.
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