2008-05-09

A Hero Gives It ~ Doesn't Give Up


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I've long had a sense that we are all born the same, but we don't all stay the same. Those of us who can keep giving time to the development of our dreams, our highest and happiest selves, are the ones who achieve our dreams.

Those of us who give up giving time.....are the ones who don't.....and there is way too much of that going on in our world.

Four students lost confidence in themselves while I was gone. Without me, they stopped believing in the hero inside of themselves. Now they are not turning in homework, giving excuses for their behavior, and dropping their heads versus holding them high.

They are still dependent on an outside source to help them create their success. They are beginning again to blame things outside of themselves for their problems. This tells me I have failed in reaching them on a deeper, more meaningful level, and they are in grave danger of not being able to repeat the same success of this year in any of their future years.

This has the very sad potential of being the best year of their lives, as their real potential stays locked up and undiscovered BY THEMSELVES from here on out.

Next year they will be just one student out of @165 to each of their new teachers. And even if one or two of these teachers does see the greatness inside of them and is willing to work to help them develop it, they will have just @ an hour a day to do it in.

You wonder why so many people fail to find greatness in their lives? So many of them as students failed to find it in themselves while in school....And the school of life is much harder than any school they will have graduated from or dropped out of.

They are not failures. They've done things this year that they were not doing just one year ago. Among the multitude of things that have changed in their lives:

One, who at his old school used to purposely get himself thrown in in-school suspension so he wouldn't get beaten up, is now getting along with everyone in class (developing one of the most important of the the multiple intelligences ~ interpersonal)

Another has won TWO awards for achieving 100%+ growth on two county reading tests.

Another has achieved @300% growth, tripling her learning in just three months!

And yet another has grown FOUR years in reading in only 6 months.

But this change has not changed them. And even with proof of what they are capable of accomplishing staring at them in the face, they still don't see themselves as capable of being the creator of this powerful change....they see me....some outside force they require to have success, to have happiness.

Isn't this why children and adults eventually turn to drugs and alcohol and other damaging things, searching for something outside of themselves to make them feel better?

No? You think that's too harsh? Tell that to a student from last year that I'm texting everyday now because they've cut themselves 100 times and been on suicide watch, because among other things, dad hits and mother hates.

You don't think I would give up every single comment singing praises for me as a teacher....for this one child to be singing their own praises? Come on! A real hero isn't a hero to many, but to just one at a time.

And what you do for a hundred others doesn't matter to the one who is dying inside because no hero has shown up to help them believe in themselves again, to give to them again....for just a little more time once again.....

And the real hero, the one that truly counts and can be counted on whenever you need it....is the hero inside of you. The same one for each of us, inside each one of us...the most important one that needs to reach us.....ourselves. The one that tells us we can do anything, be anything, create anything that dwells in our hearts and burns with a fire we feel for few other things.....these are our dreams....our greatest and most important dreams.......and only a great and most important hero can make them come true.



And good or bad, that hero is you.

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