MISSION

Peggy Noonan’s recent column is excellent. She argues that the 2000’s were far from the worse decade in modern history (as many have suggested), but rather a decade during which American institutions lost their way.

Noonan: "(Public school teachers) forget they have a mission—to teach and guide the young—and instead come to think the schools exist for them, to give them secure jobs and meet their needs.”

(Yes. Exactly what I saw as a performing arts teacher. I fault school boards and administrators for this attitude. People in love with bureaucracies do inter-marry and...breed.)

Mission statements tell an organization why it exists, where it’s going, and what it will value along the way. They can be verbose, succinct, or even...poetic. But above all, they must be understood, believed, and kept.

I’m going to write a mission statement for my own professional endeavors this week.