• Columnists

Peter Noonan, Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Service, Fairfax County Public Schools

COLUMN = EDUCATION

In 2006, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Superintendent Jack D. Dale named Peter Noonan, Cluster VII assistant superintendent and former principal of Centreville High School, as the new assistant superintendent for instructional services, effective August 1.

Prior to that, Noonan has served as assistant superintendent for Cluster VII schools, including the Centreville, Chantilly, and Fairfax High School pyramids. In this position, he initiated instructional and organizational change using professional learning communities, increased accessibility to educational technology resources for students and staff members, and school leadership development to support diverse learners.

Noonan served as principal of Centreville High School from July 2004 until April 2006, where he developed a principal’s round table for aspiring student leaders, initiated a freshman transition team for rising ninth grade students, and secured funding for an Honors and Advanced Placement Summer Institute. Prior to that, he served as principal of Lanier Middle School. Noonan came to FCPS in 2001 to serve as assistant principal at Langley High School.

Prior to joining FCPS, Noonan served as dean of students, assistant principal, and principal of several schools in Albuquerque. He began his career as a special education teacher at Roosevelt Middle School in Albuquerque, where he was named Teacher of the Year in 1993.

Noonan has made numerous professional presentations, including workshops on establishing professional learning communities, providing extra time and support for students, and integrating technology into education.

Noonan earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the University of New Mexico and completed studies to earn the education specialist designation in educational administration from that institution. He was named a Danforth Scholar at the University of New Mexico. He also completed advanced studies of contemporary British and Shakespearean literature at the University of Essex in England.

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth. Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.”

– Noela Evans

We are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die.”

– Douglas Coupland

You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing.”

– Maya Angelou

This is the age when magical technologies make more and more radically fun ideas plausible, even easy. You’re only limited by your creativity.”

– Martha Beck

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

A person who learns to juggle six balls will be more skilled than the person who never tries to juggle more than three.”

– Marilyn vos Savant

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

– Seneca

There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”

– J. Robert Oppenheimer

Death is to lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.”

– Thomas Wolfe

Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”

– Madam C.J. Walker

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”

– Annie Dillard

Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

– Basil King

Change is a math formula. Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change.”

– Alan Webber, author, "Rules of Thumb"

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leon Joseph Suenens

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Think of their needs.”

– Barack Obama

Almost anyone can start a community, but it takes real talent and commitment to get people to show up and keep coming back.”

– Andy Sernovitz

The quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with.”

– Tony Robbins

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

Anything not worth doing well is not worth doing.”

– Warren Buffett

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”

– Audre Lorde

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

– Eckhart Tolle

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”

– Jesse Jackson

Part of your destiny is to live in the zone of maximum satisfaction.”

– Martha Beck

I’ve come to confirm that one’s title, even that of president, says little about how well one’s life has been led. No matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, to learn, and to achieve.”

– Barack Obama

The awakening to the mystery of life is a revolutionary event; in it an old world is destroyed so that a new and better one may take its place.”

– J.J. Van Der Leeuw, The Conquest of Illusion

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.”

– Ray Bradbury

I was taught at a very young age that you can do whatever you want to, but you have to make it happen — not just talk about it.”

– Kathleen Jo Ryan

But all the while I was alone, the past was close behind, I seen a lot of women, but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew, tangled up in blue.”

– Bob Dylan

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. 
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.”

– Mary Jean Irion

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

I can’t go back to yesterday—because I was a different person then.”

– Lewis Carroll

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself—your own thinking coming back at you.”

– Byron Katie

When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Why am I whispering when I have something to say?”

– Eve Ensler

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

– Groucho Marx

To follow, without halt, one aim: There’s the secret of success.”

– Anna Pavlova

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

Many people prefer to play it safe when it comes to business matters. Are you willing to take risks in the pursuit of entrepreneurial success?”

– Steven Schussler

I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other ability under the sun.”

– John D. Rockefeller

Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences.”

– J.K. Rowling

If you were independently wealthy and never had to work a day in your life, would you still choose to spend your time attempting to become a successful entrepreneur?”

– Steven Schussler

Traveling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance.”

– Benjamin Franklin

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in your room.”

– A wisdomism

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

Remember that it’s okay to ask for help when you’re stumped, because sometimes you really can’t be expected to handle everything alone.”

– Martha Beck

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”

– Jalaluddin Rumi

Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.”

– Lord Chesterfield