Perseverance

What is perseverance?

• Perseverance is commitment, hard work, patience, endurance.
• Perseverance is being able to bear difficulties calmly and without complaint.
• Perseverance is trying again and again.

You show perseverance when you ...

• Give up your tv time to spend hours studying
• Try a new sport that is very difficult but you don't give up
• Have a learning disability but keep studying even when discouraged
• Come from a home where there is fighting and unhappiness but you still try your best
• Have missed a week of school but you work hard to catch up
• Are at the end of a difficult race but you cross the finish line
• Save money and make sacrifices to buy something
• Spend hours practicing on your music
• Study and work hard to raise your grade
• Try out for something you weren't successful at the first time

Proverbs and maxims

• Failure is the path of least persistence.
• All things will come round to him who will but wait. (Longfellow)
• Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
• Work hard and give it your best shot; never be a quitter. (Charley Taylor)

More quotes on perseverance

• Victory belongs to the most persevering. (Napoleon Bonaparte)
• Hitch your wagon to a star. (Emerson)
• To persevere, trusting in what hopes he has, is courage to a man. (Euripides)
• You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. (Beverly Sills)
• Many strokes overthrow the tallest trees. (John Lyly)

People who persevered despite handicaps and disabilities

• Beethoven (composer) - was deaf
• Ray Charles (musician) - is blind
• Thomas Edison (inventor) - had a learning problem
• Albert Einstein (scientist) - had a learning disability
• Terry Fox (runner) - is an amputee with cancer
• Stevie Wonder (musician) - is blind
• James Earl Jones (actor) - was a stutterer
• Helen Keller (author) - was deaf and blind
• Marlee Matlin (actress) - is deaf
• Franklin D. Roosevelt (president) - was paralyzed from polio
• Vincent Van Gogh (artist) - was mentally ill
• Woodrow Wilson (president) - had a learning problem
• Itzhak Perlman (concert violinist) - was paralyzed from the waist down
• Stephen Hawking (physicist) - had Lou Gehrig's disease (of the nervous system)

Heroes and heroines

• Susan B. Anthony was a women's rights activist who spent her entire life working for a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.
• Marie Curie was a physicist who published 32 scientific papers and continued to study sources of radioactivity over many years.
• Amelia Earhart became famous as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and as an advocate of aviation and women's rights.
• Babe Didrikson Zaharias was a great American female athlete who excelled in many sports.
• Benjamin Franklin was a leading scientist, inventor, publisher, and politician whose persistence, patience, and hard work paid off. He is on our $100 bill.
• Wilma Randolph was an Olympics Gold medalist in track who was not able to walk properly as a child.
• El Chino was the first Chinese matador in Spain.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. worked very hard to lead the civil rights movement in the 1960's. He withstood prejudice and resistance to change.

Put perseverance into action

• When something starts to bother you, wait as long as you can before you express frustration.
• When something doesn't work right, try again and again.
• Don't lose your temper when something upsets you.
• Always finish what you start.
• Keep working at something that is difficult until you complete it.
• Don't give up on difficult jobs or situations.
• Focus on someone or something that ordinarily makes you lose your patience and try to understand it (and don't "lose it").
• Work a little harder or a few minutes longer on a task that you do not like.

Community service ideas

• Volunteer to work in the library, at a nature center, or in an animal shelter doing tasks that require a great deal of patience and persistence.
• Organize a campaign to promote good study habits in your school.
• Help with the recycling project at your school and community.

Not so cool ways to cope

• Escape or avoid your problems.
• Blame yourself.
• Blame other people.
• Blame chance.
• Blame other things, forces, or powers.

Cool ways to cope

• Face and accept what happens in your life.
• Express your feelings.
• Write about your feelings.
• Get help if you need it.
• Try to make it better.
• Take good care of yourself.
• Learn and grow from your experiences, including the ones that hurt.

Activities

• Write in your journal about difficult situations and how you handled them without giving up.
• Write a poem about suffering, what you can learn from it, how to face it, how not to hurt others, or anything else about obstacles.
• Collect stories, poems, diaries, or quotations by writers about persistence.
• Brainstorm cures for "the blues."
• Learn what Galileo (a famous astronomer) or other scientist endured with opposition faced during his or her lifetime.
• Find out what help is there for people who face difficult situations - counselors, psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, therapists.
• Create a skit that shows what to do when disaster strikes.
• Explore the healing power of music.
• Explore the healing power of exercise.
• Explore the healing power of pets.
• Put some extra effort into a project that is difficult and try to improve your skill (like public speaking or learning a dance).

BOOKLISTS for PERSEVERANCE

Grades K-3

Tortoise and the Hare - Aesop

Helen Keller

The Carrot Seed - Krauss

El Chino - Say

John Henry - Lester

The Little Engine That Could - Piper

Mirette on the High Wire - McCully

Wagon Wheels - Brenner

Wilma Unlimited - Krull

Alexander and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day - Viorst

A Chair for My Mother - Williams

How Many Days to America? - Bunting

The Little Red Ant and the Great Big Crumb - Climo

Pancakes for Breakfast - De Paola

The Wednesday Surprise - Bunting

Ginger Jumps - Ernst

The Little Red Hen

The Ox-Cart Man - Hall

The Three Little Pigs

The Tortoise and the Jack Rabbit - Lowell

Whistle for Willie - Keats

Snowflake Bentley - Martin

D.W. Flips - Brown

Hugh Can Do - Armstrong

A Little Pig Goes a Long Way - Loehr

Weslandia - Fleischman

Gandhi - Fisher

Mandela - Cooper

Sebastian: a Book About Bach - Winter

Leif's Saga - Hunt

Froggy Rides a Bike - London

Grades 3-6 

The Big Wave - Buck

The Book of Virtues - Bennett

Call It Courage - Sperry

The Cay - Taylor

The Diary of a Young Girl - Frank

Dragonwings - Yep

Island of the Blue Dolphins - O'Dell

Julie of the Wolves - George

Nothing Is Impossible - Potter

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes - Coerr

Sarah Plain and Tall - MacLachlan

Sing Down the Moon - O'Dell

Stone Fox - Gardiner

The Wheel on the School - DeJong

Reach Higher - Pippen

Wizards Hall - Yolen

Holes - Sachar

Hatchet - Paulsen

Weasel - DeFelice

Amelia Writes Again! - Moss

Catherine Called Birdy - Cushman

Ellen Anders On Her Own - Hirsch

Heads or Tails: Stories from the Sixth Grade - Gantos

The Lion and the Unicorn - Hughes

Sky Pioneer: a Photobiography of Amelia Earhart - Szabo

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