This is When the Magic Happens ~ Act 2: Find the Love

(continued from This is When the Magic Happens ~ Act 1)

An increase of 121 points in reading v. just 18....

How does anyone NOT teach individually when it produces results almost 700% greater than traditional teaching????

The students dreamed big, did big and BECAME BIG....much bigger than ever before. And if my ultimate teaching goal was to have them leave my door the last day of the year being able to THINK FOR THEMSELVES and FEELING and BEING UNSTOPPABLE......then that goal has been achieved.

Why isn't this done on a wide-spread level?.....The students obviously win...and win big! Perhaps they win so big that they have the intelligence and confidence to go on and become GREAT in a profession(s) that they LOVE. Tell me that's not success....doing what you love to do and being so good at it that it IMPROVES your profession and all the worlds and people related to it.

Only about 10% of humanity does this. Some even do the opposite, destroying their profession and hurting the worlds and people related to it. Most just maintain the status quo.

So for a teacher to dream and do big enough that ALL students can become this 10% is a very worthwhile and honorable pursuit. The same is true for parents.

But on the flip side.....as education is right now....the teacher who does this loses....and loses big. Instead of this accomplishment being celebrated and built upon I have been both indirectly and directly attacked. Instead of being simply left alone and allowed to recharge my batteries, I've been threatened once more with the loss of my job.

The 80/20 rule is in full effect.

This is why I don't blame or judge any other teacher who just does their job and teaches to the entire class and as many small groups as they can. In education as it is now, the more you give, the more you lose. Only the student gets more. Howard Gardner said our educational system is entirely dysfunctional, and it seems he is right. In talking with Jerry and Angela, a husband-and-wife team (how cool is that?) where my children practice cheer leading, they feel school has become an institution of babysitting v. education for most students.

Maybe I should wait to say this until after I'm a well-publicized author and have earned my doctorate, or maybe I simply have the stupid courage to point out what's not working and sound a call-to-arms for us to fix it now. Doesn't each child deserve to be taught in a way that creates the greatest amount of real learning and self-confidence in them?

Do we need new schools, new systems, new mindsets, new cooperation? Can it even be done? Or are we simply too limited in general as human beings? Both HG Wells and Confucius died feeling they had failed in their life pursuits that enlightenment and education could raise any person, and therefore the world, to higher levels of humanity.

Who am I to think I can play a part in the fulfillment of that same dream? Am I just another foolish dreamer of an impossible dream, acting the rebel fool in a predetermined play? At best, will I die feeling I have failed too, only having left fool's gold for other foolish dreamers to follow?

Or is a sleeping lion being woken up inside of me......one that will carry on the dream by teaching with the intent of Confucius and writing with the intent of HG.......combining the power of two masters as he fights for the lives of others?

I will die someday. Some days I feel as if death is walking right beside me, as if we have some peaceful coexistence, or appreciation for each other. My question to myself is if I will have died for something or nothing at all?

"Death isn't sad. The sad thing is that most people don't live at all."
- Peaceful Warrior

Added to all this great depth of thought and reflection has been even greater depth of emotion. During the latter part of the school year my son's mother wanted him to live with me because she was having too much trouble with a boy approaching the teenage years. My son living with me again! I was exhilarated at the mere thought.

Then Sofia's mother said she wanted her to go to my school next year if I would pay for all the gas and she didn't have to do any of the driving. Seeing Sofia every day again, in my classroom before and after school, visiting her at lunch and spending more nights with me!!!!!!! Oh!....I was in Heaven!

Neither happened or are going to happen. Both offers were retracted a month later without explanation.....and my heart shattered in a million pieces..........

But for one month, dreaming.......seeing........feeling as if they were going to happen......I.....We....were in Heaven....and I am grateful for that. I don't have time for bitterness. It does no good and only harm. The same goes with victimization, anger, hostility or any other destructive emotion.

From my experience Heaven and Hell are not places out there.....they are places in here. The art of allowing others to be who they are is not easily practiced, but well worth the effort.

Loss of my job, loss of my life, loss of time and experience with my children.......it's all getting too familiar though.....as if I'm some actor in a predetermined Stranger Than Fiction play...where my life is either a complete comedy or terrible tragedy

And LOVE, my greatest source of strength.....it seems is also my greatest form of kryptonite.......my greatest vulnerability.......my heart has been broken again......and the image of the warrior standing alone has returned.......trying to find the love in what he does......trying to find courage in the moments where even after you've proven the impossible to be possible.......it's knocked you off your feet and it seems impossible to get back up....

(continued in This is When the Magic Happens ~ Act 3)

clip from PEACEFUL WARRIOR