Becoming Teachers that Forge Our Students into Steel

The School of Athens News

presents

Hug the Heaven into them 

& Hammer the Hell out of Them

Not with Hell

But with Hellfire

In an effort to get the best of of its students, the School of Athens went on a quest to find out how to get the best out of itself.

Using one of the greatest minds in human history, Einstein, it asked itself the beginning question, "Was weiß ich?".......What do I know, in order to imagine a solution to its problem.

"I know that the Sun produces amazingly powerful energy in the form of light and heat. How can I produce this in the classroom?"

Waking up and taking daily trips to this star for the past few months, this School o-f At-hens, or School of Fat Hens, as Jordan (daughter of Susan Kocarek) calls it, woke up Leonardo da Vinci on the way, who said, "Sai che ora è?".....Do you know what time it is?

"Never mind that. I need to know how to produce more light and energy in the classroom."

"Just use your senses. The human brain is capable of being aware of 2,000 to 3 million bits of data per second.  Cosa vedi? What do you see, about how the Sun makes light and heat," da Vinci replied.

As the two looked on, they saw the Sun smashing its Hydrogen atoms together so powerfully that their nuclei became fused together, creating entirely new molecules of Helium. 

This nuclear fusion produced photons of light and heat 450 times more powerful than what had existed before.

Placing themselves in Plank scale space-time, 10 to the -45 seconds, or .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds, they observed these photons bounce around for 10,000 years until they reached the surface of the Sun and sped off to Earth in 8 minutes.

"But I don't have 10,000 years to do this. I need to do this today! How?"

"I don't know. Go ask Socrates. I'm going back to bed", yawned Leonardo, and he was gone.

"Soh-crates! Soh-crates! Wake up!"

"It's "Sah-creh-teez'", came the reply. 

"Oh, sorry. Bill and Ted told me it was 'Soh-crates'."

"Just philosophize with him dude," whispered Bill and Ted, who were still up partying.

"Poia eínai i gnómi sas?", questioned Socrates, who never told his students what to think, but taught them how to think.

"What do YOU think is the greatest source of energy you have ever felt or known?" he dug deeper.

"Love, and passion......So.......Maybe, I feel my love for the world so deeply; in my cells, my molecules, my atoms....and smash them together as passionately as I can that their nuclei become fused together and unbreakable.....

 .....Producing so much light and heat coming out of my body that others around me become energized 450 times more powerful than they and I were were just a few seconds ago?"

"Try it. What have you got to lose? You can't take anything with you when you die, so why not try and give everything away while you're here, all the while having more and more to give?", the great lover of wisdom said as he placed his hand on the shoulder of the School of Athens.

"That's exactly what I meant when I said 70 times 7!" Jesus shouted as he roared past on his motorcycle, with The School of Athens quickly jumping on for the 8 minute trip back to Earth. 

"Ok, we'll do it!", the School shouted in the wind. "We'll love so passionately that our love becomes powerful and unbreakable, using nucleosynthesis to hug the Heaven into them.......

....and Hellfire to Hammer the Hell out of them.

And having been enlightened and armed with the lessons and weapons of Einstein, da Vinci, the Sun, Bill and Ted, Socrates, and a passionate man of fire from Nazareth........

...the School of Athens was fused with a vivid imagination of the world that could be

...and determined to do what it does best; 

Love them all...

~ Any student who comes into our classrooms

~ Any student that says "Hi" to us in the hallways

~ Any student who opens his or her eyes at us

We're going to love all of these angels.......and kill all of their demons.

Powerful Video ~ Man on Fire ~ 

"Man" On FIRE!

Watching a bit of Man on Fire, the 1957 version with Bing Crosby (not Denzel Washington, who played an incredible role that hit so close to home in the later version that I shook in the parts where he shook).

"That's all I have to say about that." - from Forrest Gump).


At the end of the film, Bing's girl says about his son, "He's growing up".

Crosby replies, "So am I".

How cool is that? "So am I".

We're all still growing up, and we all, myself very much included, need to remember this and allow ourselves to continue growing, upwards, forever closer to our best possible selves.

Why live any other way, than our strongest, smartest, happiest, harmonious and most passionate selves?

IT'S A GREAT WAY TO LIVE!

Why fear our inevitable deaths? Why not instead look death in the eye and say, "Take me anytime you'd like; I'm living fully and freely in the NOW, and giving life EVERYTHING I HAVE!"

"I'll fight you and will not go quietly into the night. But if you win and snatch the life from me, I can say, I WASN'T AFRAID TO LIVE."

Death ALWAYS happens to EVERYBODY........LIVING happens among FAR TOO FEW.

Just make sure that isn't you. Whatever you dream about, DEVELOP! Live your dream! Live while you have LIFE!

You and I ARE going to die. The question is, ARE WE REALLY GOING TO LIVE?

BRING ON THE PAIN!

I received a comment from a good friend on my "The Power of Life" post. He felt bad for me and encouraged me to stay strong and positive, which is a nice thing to say. But I wanted to make it very clear, that being in pain is not necessarily bad. It is in dealing with the pain in your life YOU BECOME STRONGER and MORE POSITIVE. And as your strength increases, so does your ability to cause GREAT change in your life, and hence THE WORLD that interacts with you. (By being a happy and strong person, I believed we could combine great fun with great learning in the classroom)

Pain is an incredible tool to produce miracles. Life IS NOT a pursuit of trying to avoid pain or feel sorry for those that have it in their lives (I was sent to the principal's office at least three times for "expecting too much" from Kenny, yet constantly questioned by other teachers and students if I really ever taught anything because there was so much noise and laughter coming from the room).

The principal chose to trust me. As much as I respect any boss, I was strong enough to believe in myself whether my boss and others did or not. Since I used to crumble when my wives didn't believe in me, I can only attribute this HUGE amount of growth from going through and overcoming MORE fear, doubt, worry and pain involving the loss of my children from my everyday life. Going from a half-million dollar home to a rented room in a neighborhood known as "Crime Hills" didn't hurt me anywhere near this much. (I was too hard on Ryan in the beginning and had to go through the pains of learning a different approach. We ended the year very close.)

I finally learned not to feel sorry for myself (thanks Mom and Dad for saying things I needed to hear). I certainly don't want anyone else feeling sorry for me now. That can only bring me back down and weak. Too many students need me to believe in them. How long can I do that feeling so bad about my situation that I can't sleep at night?

Every person knows how hard it is to hold onto their dreams with each passing year. It is less painful to let them go as foolish and unrealistic than it is to hold on to them. And the more you do make them come true and begin succeeding you WILL have to deal with the pain of critics who really just wish they could be more like you.
(Jessica is a GENIUS! She would create characters to go along with her stories, testing at the very top of the country in reading, and at the highest level you can in math - her WORST subject at the start of the year!)

The main reason they're not more like you is not because they don't have your potential, it's because they haven't put themselves through the process of dealing with their everyday pain as well as you have, and in process, getting strong enough to develop said gifts. This is exactly what I was talking about in "Give One More, To One More". That's why I feel "potential" is nothing. What you do with your potential is everything. (Serena WILL become ANYTHING she wants)

In fact, the more pain, the greater the opportunity for growth. The bigger the obstacle, the bigger you can become. I read somewhere that "you're as big as the obstacle that stops you". I've never forgotten it.

So I put my students through more pain and expectation than they have ever had before.
(I taught Haseeb like Denzel Washington coached his players in "Remember the Titans". This is what worked for him, what he needed. He was accepted to private middle school and Denzel's signed picture is in the room.)

At the same time they experience more fun and laughter than they ever had, probably since Kindergarten, simply because I have taken the pains to learn each of their motivations and learning styles, teach them that way, and then teach them how to motivate and teach themselves.

This produces a great flow of real learning versus trying to force it. As a result, I am allowed to operate as a doctor and strength-coach, identifying and working with individual needs versus standing in front of the room and "teaching" all day. (Kenny, one of my biggest challenges and one of the ones I miss most, grew more in overall reading and math than any other student in the entire 5th grade). I just put a slide show on MySpace (click here) in celebration of their achievement as being one of the highest growing classes in Orange County, FL (the other O.C. :-)

So I say, "BRING ON THE PAIN!" If it doesn't kill you it will make you stronger. I have found this to be very true. I know pain can hurt, but it can't kill. Only you can do that. And ONLY YOU can use it to allow you to grow and become more enlightened, more peaceful, and much happier in the long run, which is TODAY! I have wanted it to kill me in the past because then I wouldn't have to feel it anymore. But I held on one more day, sometimes even one more hour. But I did. (Mighty Malcolm, like myself, wasn't so mighty in the beginning. By the end he was!)

Now I am a healthier and happier person with healthier and happier children, other kids no longer being abused, students in the top of the county and country and I bet the world, straight A's in a tough masters program, and two book series in process. All from struggle, all from pain, all from overcoming fear, doubt and worry - three of the worst drugs you can take into your mind.

So bring on the pain. Bring on the badness. I will not intend or desire any of it, but by Buddha and God and any other enlightened being I can learn from and grow, I WILL SUCCEED. I WILL LIVE WHILE I'M ALIVE. I will live ALIVE-ING versus DYING.

We don't enter school knowing how to do and deal with everything. We don't leave school knowing all of it either. Life is a process, a wonderful adventure that includes scaling cliffs and climbing mountains as much as it does swimming in the ocean and walking through a meadow of flowers.

No matter what mountain you're being asked to climb, CLIMB IT! And when you get to the top, reach out help others up. We are all capable of being more than we're living now, and more greatness than we could ever imagine. Our success is only starting.

There's Zen in Fire! All the time!

*P.S. If you'd like, here is the link to their stories from about Christmas to the end of the year, Stuart's Spectacular Students (I had the strength to know they would be spectacular and hold onto that vision, until they saw it and believed it too. Thank God for the pain I've been through.)

Their stories from the first of the year to Christmas are on Samurai Teaching ~ Sensational Living. This blog got so big I had to make the other. The link to the first student story on the Samurai blog is "The Winners of Washington Shores.'"