Don't Tell Me That! ~ Part 5

continued from Don't Tell Me That! ~ Part 4

Just as in strength-training with athletes, the student begins to feel more confident the more success they experience, the more they "can lift". As has been seen again this year, incredible, incredulous growth has been achieved by taking the time to figure out where each student is starting from and teaching them from WHERE THEY ARE instead of where they should be (which happens by analyzing the massive amounts of data from the massive amounts of assessments being done - this is called taking a problem and turning it into a solution).

Instead of complaining about the terrible state of education, let's throw a rope around at least one of those ornery bulls (the massive amounts of testing).

Once we've wrestled her to the ground, let's overcome the wild beast by analyzing the data to determine our starting point with each student in each subject we teach.

Because this starting point needs to be redetermined anew everyday, I am in no way criticizing any other teacher. It's truly one of the hardest professions around, requiring teachers to be smarter, stronger, faster, better than EVER before.

No longer are educational babysitters allowed. No longer is it OK to stand in front of the room and lecture most of the day trying to cover everything we are supposed to and call that "teaching". NO MORE thinking, "Well this is the way I teach and if they don't get it it's not my problem." We can't even afford to be OK with our teaching being effective to the majority of our students.......If it's not effective with ALL, it's not effective at all, because we don't throw away ANY student.

(that's my little brother - and one of my biggest fans - his love and support fuels me for months at a time)

I am saying that if you're not up to this type of teaching everyday, it's time to quit the rodeo. Either real cowboys and cowgirls will enter the ring or The Land of Opportunity will have new address.

The confidence that comes from learning, growing, becoming more....allows one to love themselves more...and loving yourself more allows you to love others more...and loving others more allows for a more loving world (as our confidence grows the less we feel a need to take confidence away from others and feel we're "better" than them)

As big a fighter as I am, there is nothing worth fighting more for than love.

So Sofia (age 6) can't read or understand the sentence, "Click on the HIGHEST value", on the Brain Game software program. But what she can do is start from where she is, and what she does know.

She CAN tell the difference between the "H" in "highest, the "L" in "lowest, and the "M" in "middle". She can also recognize the numbers 1 through 10, and understand which ones are more or less than others. I didn't tell her what to do. All I said was look at the word spelled all in uppercase ("uppercase" because she told me she didn't understand "capitalized").

And she figured it out. She learned. And most importantly, she is learning that she loves herself.

We have to begin with where we are, not where we're "supposed" to be. This applies in school, in the gym, and in life. How many of us feel "behind" in some way? We should be successfully married, a better parent, in our perfect career, developed our greatest talents, have made a certain amount of money.....

But instead of giving up the dream and settling for less, what if we figured out where we really are, where our starting point is, and then...

Go look in the mirror, and say, "Don't tell me that!.....Don't tell me that I can't do....can't be....can't have...DON'T TELL ME THAT!

And do it with feeling, with PASSION, with RAGE......with LOVE!

What have you got to lose?....What do you have to gain? Make life FUN! Make it FULL!