Happy New Year, everyone!

I’m sure many of you, like me, grew up with the mantra  “If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”

My father wielded it for acing tests and vacuuming the corners in the living room equally. He wanted me to develop a work ethic and take pride in my work. It worked. I work hard. I take pride in my work. I don't do anything half-heartedly. When I'm in, I'm all in.

But attaching 'worth' to 'right' has a dark side. I've thrown out perfectly good dinners because I messed up the potatoes.

When my students show up to class, I ask them to develop a work ethic, to have a sense of pride in their work. I ask them to go all in.

Many of my students are here because they are struggling. They're learning new skills or facing down a looming IGCSE exam. They're working in their second language, figuring out how their ADHD brain works, redoubling their efforts to finally get good at reading. They've failed before. They're bracing to fail again, and wondering if they should give up.

And here I am, asking them to go all in on something they are bad at—something they might not be good at for a while

I'm asking them to sit with that discomfort. To keep showing up even when the results they want seem impossibly far away. To believe me when I tell them we can get there.

It's a very big ask. It requires bravery and trust.

So as we move into 2026, I want to flip the script: "If something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly."

Here, we play the long game. I get down in the trenches with my students, and week after week we open our books and our documents and we try again. Our goals are lofty. They're worth the time, the effort, the discomfort.

They're worth doing badly.

So here's to 2026. Here's to showing up even when it's messy. Here's to your kids being brave enough to be bad at something today so they can be better at it tomorrow.

I'll be here with them.