It's time for a checkup. No, I'm not talking about a dentist appointment, or a trip to your financial advisor to get an update on the performance of your investment portfolio. It's time to assess where we stand in terms of what we stand for and what we should pay attention to. In our school, this is the time of the year that we tackle midterm and final exams to demonstrate levels of learning and understanding. On a broader scale, it's a good time to consider some questions that may help to focus our efforts as we consider issues linked directly to education and to the world resulting from the success and failures of our collective formal and informal educational experience. Consider the following questions to jump start your conversations at the water cooler.

What is worth standing for? Do you get the feeling that sometimes we take a stand for something that isn't worthy of our time and attention? Stubbornness occasionally gets in the way of progress and results. Recently, we celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King is celebrated because he took a stand that was worth the attention of our society. There was a larger purpose to his action. In contrast, do you ever get the feeling that stubbornness and short-sightedness causes us to take a stand on issues not worthy of our time and attention? Dr. King fought a noble fight and took a stand for collective progress and individual improvement. If the stand we take is centered around protecting our comfort level as opposed to striving for improvement, our efforts are largely in vain. If we're looking to avoid challenges more than we look to embrace them, we may have some tough questions to ask ourselves.

Now for some rapid fire questions borrowing from the style of comedian, Jeff Foxworthy - we'll call it “You might be an avoider.”

• You might be an avoider if you spend more time and energy trying to not take necessary action than actively doing what needs to be done.

• You might be an avoider if you get angry at people who hold you accountable to reasonable expectations.

• You might be an avoider if you make decisions based on short-term ease instead of long-term consequences.

• You might be an avoider if you blame others for missteps rather than resolve to learn from shortcomings.

• You might be an avoider if you attack people of accomplishment who inadvertently magnify your weaknesses instead of trying to learn from them.

• You might be an avoider if you allow bad habits to become a way of life instead of an issue to confront.

• You might be an avoider if you spend more time tearing down other people's accomplishments than bolstering your own.

• You might be an avoider if you put more effort into listing problems than outlining solutions.

• You might be an avoider if you allow yourself to justify failures instead of correcting problems and planning for success.

• Finally, you might be an avoider if your words are more bountiful than the actions you carry out.

The lesson is that time is precious and competition is fierce. The answers to these questions can go a long way in maximizing everyone's educational experience. Come to think of it, any of our experiences.

If we're honest with ourselves, analyzing our answers to these questions can be an effective mechanism for making sure what we pay attention to is worthy of our time and energy.

What do you choose to stand for? I hope you pass the test!

Shawn Bissetta is principal of Dana L. West High School in Port Byron.