BEE Willing to Change

The determination not to let anyone bee thrown away, including yourself and your greatest dreams, ALWAYS produces successful results.

Either the dream IS achieved, or important learning opportunities showing the way to the achievement of the dream are revealed.

(Bella coming down singing, "I'm a business bug, a business bug, a business bug.")

So far, five students have all "A's" in class. Once they achieve "mastery" in the approved curriculum, I am allowed to begin teaching them "my way" (which is for deeper meaning of the curriculum and in a way that uses their strengths and desires to overcome their weaknesses and boredom).

Marc Mero, former pro-wrestler who visited the school last year, came again this week and again fired up the students. I held Bella and barely held onto my tears.

Marc was part of the reason why last year there were four Level One students in class at the beginning of the year (the lowest possible at which you can test) and NONE at the end.

Tapping into the unending energy of a dream and applying individualized instruction to its attainment works where traditional teaching fails. This is because traditional teaching often fails to go bee-yond mastery of surface knowledge and bee-yond external motivation (doing it for grades, for recess, for mom and dad, etc).

So with five students now free to really begin learning, the problem is that if the traditional method hasn't worked in the past for the other 17, will continuing to force it upon them miraculously work? Not likely.

At this point I can give myself the very valid excuse of, "I'm doing my job by covering it in class. They'll have to get tutoring if they want to do better".

But if I want to do the job of helping them bee-come real dream achievers, no excuse, no matter how good, is acceptable. You either have excuses or results, an any excuse is still an excuse.

(Sofia lining her class up for phys ed)

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. I tell the students it's like an insect caught inside a room and banging its head against the window, again and again, hoping this is the time it escapes and finds its freedom. (this scene is at the end of the clip)



We are much smarter than bugs, yet we don't always act like it. We'll keep banging our heads (or faces), eventually tiring out and giving up by sitting on the windowsill and watching life pass us by, while slowly, slowly dying.

So when you find yourself in this situation know that there is something to bee learned ....something needs to change in your approach. Often this change is within you, which is what you want. You want to have control. When you put the blame on someone or something else, you give your power for change away.

There is a great need for change in our schools, because education right now is banging the heads of its principals, teachers and students against the wall, hoping that maybe if we cover more, test more, force more....then we will achieve higher student scores and the problem will bee solved.

We have raised our scores, but only at the surface level, and the problem hasn't been solved. Why?

Read this from the book, "Making Connections: Teaching and the Human Brain":

“Regretfully, most schools do not engage students in the reflection, inquiry, and critical thinking needed to help them cope with and take charge of the influences of technology and the media.....

'Teaching is more than knowing a subject matter and presenting it in clear language; ...teaching involves knowing how students think, their preconceptions and misconceptions.... It involves learning what motivates students and what genuinely gets their attention....' (Merlin Wittrock, psychologist at UCLA)

The result of continuous input without realistic engagement in interactive experiences may well be a generation that has access to a great deal of superficial information but has no deeper sense of how that information connects to ecological issues, a global economy, the quality of life, or even the joy of learning.....

****Some of this lack of deeper understanding may be reflected in the fact that most 11^th graders have extremely unrealistic career goals when measured against standards established in the profession of their choice. ALTHOUGH U.S. CHILDREN RANKED LAST IN MATHEMATICS AMONG 14 NATIONS TESTED IN 1988, they ranked highest in their own assessment of how good they were in mathematics. Sixty-eight percent thought their knowledge was 'excellent', compared with 22 percent of the Korean students who had, in fact, performed best." (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement 1988, cited by Finn 1989).

I agree that all teachers should bee held accountable for teaching what they're supposed to.

But teaching all children the same thing at the same time and forcing the same homework upon them is as ineffective as a doctor treating all his patients the same way at the same time and sending them all home with the same remedies for their different ailments.

(I took the class outside to practice prime factorization by looking at it and doing it in a new way.)

The difference is that a doctor treats his patients one at a time and a teacher treats everybody all at once, hence the adoption of an efficient, yet ineffective, traditional teaching method.

But we're not even sending our "successful" students out into the world as "healthy" adults. Something MUST change, and change now. The solution isn't to DO more (testing and "teaching") ....it's to "BEE" more (higher level thinking and empowering students and teachers)

(My son, who is proofreading this, wanted me to change the "BE more" to "BEE more". I like it.....OK, now he wants me to go back and change all the "be's" to "bee's"......talk about giving a kid a little power.....Actually, give a kid a little power, and he becomes just a little man......give him A LOT of power, show him how to use it, and he becomes A LOT of a MAN!

...now he's sticking his chest out - LOL :-)

I've achieved success in the past by breaking the rules of traditional teaching. Now even more rules have been imposed on all of us by well-intentioned policy makers who have never met us or our students, and treating us all the same.

Many teachers are more gifted than I am so the answer isn't to make everyone teach my way, but in a way that allows their students to bee-come more.

How do I help make this happen? I'm not quite sure, but I do know I've been working on it since 1:30 Saturday morning.

And I do know I WILL figure it out. The WHY is important enough to me to figure out the HOW.

Is your WHY big enough for you to figure out HOW you will go from bee-ing on the windowsill of life, just looking out and wishing for your freedom...... to actually achieving it?

Or are you hoping someday someone just comes by and opens the window for you?

Bee Brave....Find a Way!

MySpace Murder Plot v. MySpace Child's Triumph

This past Monday Taneicea wanted to look at pictures of Bella and I on the camera. Soon she started crying and wouldn't tell me why.

Finally she told me that she also saw pictures of her and I from the week before and realized how much she was truly cared about. Taneicea's tears were from overwhelming happiness....and the bursting of the love she felt in her heart was literally flowing out of her eyes.

(I am so glad I went to school on Monday. Of all the things to learn in school, learning that you are truly cared about has to be one of the greatest.)

I hadn't posted the pictures that made her cry because I didn't see how the praise wouldn't end up coming back to me, and not on the child. It's not that I don't appreciate it. I do very much. Sometimes it gives me the strength to go on. Most of that day I was so exhausted I taught on my knees (Becoming Impossible to Fail). Waking up the next day to see the positive comments left helped give me the energy to get me to school this week.

But in spite of this after I post something new I often tell myself that this is it, I'm not writing anything anymore. I think it's because at times it takes too much out of me emotionally.

And although on first-read I greatly appreciate the feedback I think, "Wait a minute. I've been here before. I've heard the highest praises a man could get from two different wives, only to hear the ugliest insults when they were angry. Is it possible for people to be non-manipulative, and both passionate and loving even in the bad times, even when I don't do what THEY think I should do?"

I've learned the hard way that not everyone means what they say, and I wonder if the time it took to write the post really made a difference to anyone. And if it did, was it more than I am some great guy? I really think it's more...I have a hunch that tells me what I write are partial answers to part of our problems. Solutions ARE possible and they are right here with us right now....and within and around us all.

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.
Kahlil Gibran

Many times the problem itself holds the solution. As teachers/parents/coaches solutions can come from the very ones we are trying to raise/educate/train. While watching my children at tumbling practice this week I asked Sarah, a 5th grader at another school, what advice she would give to teachers. She said, "Give better examples on the board and have more learning games." I took her advice and had "Stone Age Education" during recess this week, teaching math with a stick, stone and sand.

And with all the work grad school takes I really don't have the time anyway. After I'm done teaching I have to work another full-time job as a student. I literally researched/wrote Saturday ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT.....from 5am to 3am

When I do choose to write it's because of a voice telling me, sometimes shouting at me, that it needs to be shared.....the story of what's truly possible needs to be told.

Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'
Kahlil Gibran

No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
Kahlil Gibran

In this case, no matter how hard the coach works, it is the players that play the game. It is the students that choose to buy into dreaming and doing big....UNTIL...they BECOME BIG.

As parents, teachers and coaches we can only do what we can do........until it's time to release our children into the world, where they have to make their own choices.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
Kahlil Gibran

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
Kahlil Gibran

Unfortunately, we are sending our children into a world that is not so good sometimes. Below was what I woke up to yesterday, along with some statistics of how serious the problems are......which means the success teachers ARE having in the hearts and minds of the students needs to be duplicated as much and as fast as possible.....in EVERY classroom across the world.

The following teenage murder plot was discovered on MySpace. I want the opposite, the great love a child felt that caused her to be overcome with positive emotion to be discovered, and the reason I decided to make this post....in hopes it will also be felt inside your heart, and then burst forth onto another's.

Each of us holds the power to change the world......for better or worse.

DeLand, Florida - Three DeLand Middle School seventh-graders were arrested late Friday on charges that they threatened to shoot as many students as possible and then kill themselves.

Although the 13-year-olds -- two boys and a girl -- did not succeed in finding a weapon to carry out their plans, "it wasn't for lack of trying," Volusia County sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said.

Investigators learned late March 5 of what they called a "plot" after one of the teens posted on his MySpace page a picture of a tombstone, satanic references and admiration for the shooters in the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, authorities said.

In instant messages with another teen who had contacted him through his MySpace page, the boy threatened to lock the cafeteria doors during one of the lunch periods and shoot everyone inside. The violence evidently was intended as retaliation for teasing he had endured.

"Everyone will pay for what they did to me," wrote the boy, who pretended online to be 19.

"I will kill every person I see. . . . The massacre will happen soon."

The sister of the girl authorities say is involved appeared at a news conference late Friday evening to say the teen is a good student who enjoyed dancing and earned good grades.

But, the sister said, she seemed to change after breaking up with her boyfriend. She started hanging out with different friends and dressing in black.

"She's a sweetheart," the sister said.

"Nothing ever happened until she met [the boy authorities say was the mastermind]."

Orlando Sentinel, March 15, 2008

Each year in the U.S., thousands of teenagers commit suicide. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15-to-24-year-olds, and the sixth leading cause of death for 5-to-14-year-olds.

Teenagers experience strong feelings of stress, confusion, self-doubt, pressure to succeed, financial uncertainty, and other fears while growing up. For some teenagers, divorce, the formation of a new family with step-parents and step-siblings, or moving to a new community can be very unsettling and can intensify self-doubts. For some teens, suicide may appear to be a solution to their problems and stress.

- American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Parents, professionals and many others are concerned about the increasing numbers of children and adolescents killed by firearms. The following statistics were taken from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Center to Prevent Hand Gun Violence:

• In 1998, more than 10 children and teenagers, ages 19 and under, were killed with guns everyday. Many more are wounded.
• In 1998, 77% of murdered Juveniles age 13-19 were killed with a firearm.
• From 1993 through 1997, an average of 1,409 children and teenagers took their own lives with guns each year.

- American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry


This doesn't include the 30,000 children a day that die from disease and malnutrition worldwide.
UNICEF

WHAT KIND OF WORLD ARE WE LIVING IN? ........The one we allow to be created. And I'll be damned if I'll let the world tell me or those I care about what kind of world it's going to be.

(letting new student Hunter know that in this class we make the world a better place and don't put down fellow classmates...then telling Raymond who was goofing off now that he's been reached I WILL NOT let him doubt or give up on himself....and then flipping over a desk to make my point very clear to both....I turned my back to them and smiled at the rest of the class to let them know I did it so those two wouldn't forget)

If the world isn't giving you what you want....you can do what many do and either give up and settle for what's given or try and take what's yours from the world and to hell with the rest.......or you can CREATE what you want to see in the world by first creating it inside of yourself.....so much that it explodes in great abundance out from you and onto the world.

Great musicians are very important to me, like the song, "Beautiful", by Ferry Corsten now first on my MySpace playlist. When I'm exhausted or something ugly has happened, I close my eyes and feel the beat and words beat inside of me....and I see a more beautiful world before opening my eyes again determined to make my inner reality my outer existence.

Why in the world would children even think of doing such hellish things? My guess is that because they feel like hell. Maybe they've been made to feel that way or they don't have the support system to help them stop making themselves feel so bad.

Hell is very real, I just think it's more real inside of us than it is somewhere down below. And if there is one I'm willing to pull a child's demons out of him or her and wrestle them back into the hell from where they came. You give a child challenges.....you don't give them the devil himself.

If the devil wants a child, they have to come through the adults around him or her first.

What makes a child feel like hell? Fear, doubt, heartache, failure, overwhelming stress?

What if we adults recognized this and took all those ugly emotions into our hands...and threw them into the dark abyss..... before the child throws themselves into it?

Some children have a lot to deal with, a lot of challenges that no child should have. And it causes great damage to them, and sometimes to others. But it doesn't mean it's hopeless, and it doesn't mean they're helpless.....Not if we let the love from our hearts burst forth and flow into theirs.

Kahlil Gibran had a very difficult childhood, yet had one teacher who believed in and supported him....helping him overcome his challenges.....and the rest is history. Miguel's mother, encouraged by the success I've had with her son, told me she's befriended a troubled teen no one else would that's living in their apartment complex.

Everyone's heart beats.....Can you imagine if everyone's heart burst?????

"We are all heroes in our own way when we reach deep inside ourselves during the most difficult times."- Alexandria

(this is one of my favorite quotes and the one I'm going over with Taneicea that is printed on their daily Marc Mero "Wild Thing" goal-setting paper. It's important that each child see the hero inside of themselves, and times of grief are perfect times to make this happen)

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.
Kahlil Gibran

One day my heart will stop beating. I don't think it will ever stop bursting. I'm pretty sure it will continue to burst in the hearts of others long after I'm gone. And that feels pretty cool.

These are the pictures that made one young girl, also going through a rough time, realize just how much she is worth being completely cared about and believed in. And instead of falling into despair and doing something tragic, she rose to a state of bliss and knowledge......Instead of becoming less, she became MORE. And I am very proud of her!

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
Kahlil Gibran

I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.
Kahlil Gibran

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
Kahlil Gibran

Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
Kahlil Gibran

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Kahlil Gibran

Love... It surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.
Kahlil Gibran

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path.
Kahlil Gibran

Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.
Kahlil Gibran

Of life's two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer's hand.
Kahlil Gibran

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Kahlil Gibran

Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.
Kahlil Gibran

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.
Kahlil Gibran

Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
Kahlil Gibran

Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.
Kahlil Gibran

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.
Kahlil Gibran

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
Kahlil Gibran

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
Kahlil Gibran



There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
Kahlil Gibran

Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.
Kahlil Gibran

To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.
Kahlil Gibran

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
Kahlil Gibran

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Kahlil Gibran

Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.
Kahlil Gibran

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
Kahlil Gibran

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?
Kahlil Gibran

When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
Kahlil Gibran

When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.
Kahlil Gibran

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.
Kahlil Gibran

Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.
Kahlil Gibran

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
Kahlil Gibran

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.
Kahlil Gibran

Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.
Kahlil Gibran

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.
Kahlil Gibran

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Kahlil Gibran

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.
Kahlil Gibran

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.
Kahlil Gibran

Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.
Kahlil Gibran

(Taneicea overjoyed at her success. She took what we went over together and applied it to another test on her own. Now she sees herself as capable and competent....and feels amazing!)

We need to be shown that we're cared about, and know that we can handle our problems and emotions.

When we do this for another, the world IS a very good place!

We go from crying tears of pain and hopelessness....

To tears of overflowing joy and happiness....

To a look of determination and confidence...

(camera-shy Taneicea actually asked for this last picture to be taken. She is overcoming her fears by leaps and bounds, and her future looks very bright. Congratulations Taneicea for HOLDING ON v. letting go....for choosing to BELIEVE v. give up!!!!!)

Instead of, "Everyone will pay for what they did to me," wrote the boy, who pretended online to be 19. "I will kill every person I see. . . . The massacre will happen soon."....

We have a child saying, "Everyone will see what I CAN accomplish....I will HELP everyone I see....The TRIUMPH will continue to happen!"

We Can't Do It Alone

I was talking to Kenny's new teacher this week and told him I'd send him the "Happy Valentines Day" post showing Kenny opening the door for his mother. I ending up finding other posts from last year:

"Happy Kenny Day", when the class had learned to appreciate his amazing capacity for love so much that they renamed Valentines Day in honor of his great heart. (Kenny coming back this year to visit....and with great joy and emotion as I write this.......INSPIRE!...without even trying.)

And "My Great Historical Figure" , where after he had been home sick for a week the comments showed how important he was to us:

(This year's class - pictured here with Kenny - know all about him and his accomplishments. At one point last year when we were both just fed up with each other, I looked him in the eyes and told him he was more important to the world than he knew, and that if he would just give me his best he would see it too.

Together we would make the world a better place beginning by making HIS life better than it already was....so much better that he would inspire the world more than he already did. )

Impossible growth and success rarely comes from individual effort. We can do it, but rarely can we do it alone. And if we do do it alone, won't that be sad as we're standing there all by ourselves?
(Kristen hugging me with tears of joy running down her face. You'll see why below)

This is some of Kenny's story........

2006-11-03

My Great Historical Figure

During the History on Parade presentations one student had a difficult time paying attention. As inconspicuously as I could, I helped him focus while still focusing on the student doing their presentation. He asked me why I was being mean to him. I told him I was being kind to him by believing he could do better.

After the parents left and the students went to lunch, I had an idea. (Oh, I was dressed as a biker. When I got to school Tricia in the office (a fellow motorcycle rider) said "Ah, you're dressed as a biker". Thinking of the shirt and tie I had waiting for me in my classroom, the fun side of me said "Yes, that's right." And I got to wear my "costume" all day long :-).

If teachers enjoy teaching and have fun doing it, the students are more likely to enjoy learning and have fun doing it. And I just really, really, really wanted to wear my biker costume.

When I brought the students back from lunch I told them there was one more presentation. I had my own great historical figure to talk about.

"Ladies and Gentlemen. I am up here to tell you the story of a great person. My name is Kenny and this is my story. My life changed way back in the 5th grade, when I was put in a regular classroom and I was seen as a regular student by my teachers. I used to think Mr. Stuart was being mean to me sometimes, but I realized he loved me all the time. He and Ms. Wilson saw me as having the same great potential to have the same great life as anyone else. They believed that I could develop talents and abilities and end up giving the world something so phenomenal, making the world such a better place, that I would be remembered forever."



"Kenny, come up here and help me tell your story."







"You're talking about me? But why?"








"Because this is the Kenny I see; the Great Kenny, The Amazing Kenny, The Best Kenny possible."









"Rise with me! There has never been someone exactly like you. The world will never again see anyone exactly like you. Give the best of yourself to the world. See the Great Kenny I see!"







"I see it!"








Ms. Wilson, who also works with Kenny, showing how proud she is of him. You're a great teacher Ms. Wilson. Together with his incredibly loving mother, we are all affecting this child's life in a powerfully positive way. We are doing our jobs.

3 Comments:

Anonymous said...

kenny you will shine no matter were you are in life. you have lifted your heart and opened the doors for the world to see how specail you are. life will give what you will give your self. I have always enjoyed how your teacher Mr Stuart teaches you and your class. and i know he is very proud of you and your class mates
-JD

11/09/2006 01:22:00 AM

Anonymous said...

I MISS KENNY (X>X)!!! from Skyler Martin

11/10/2006 02:14:00 PM

Anonymous said...

Kenny is Back!!!

11/14/2006 01:03:00 PM

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What will you and I do that will last forever? Historically the chances are, not much. About 90% of us will stop dreaming and doing big, and as a result not ever becoming as big as we were meant to be.

But 100% of us are all gifted. And it's time to develop those gifts and share them with the world.

I say this and "hear" this inside of me because I have seen just this week how bringing others' gifts into the classroom has helped me reach my students just when I, and THEY needed it most.

After the students had left this past Thursday my son came in and took this pic of me. For a week I've been dealing with a lot, including Shanghai's owner wanting him back. (The day after I posted "Our Love Makes Us Immortal", mentioning maybe Shanghai is my path to learning to trust that not everything I love will be taken away...I got an email saying she wanted him back)

And during the week there had been lying and cheating, skipping school, students giving up and not giving their best, etc.

We all are going to mess up and do stupid things out of anger, fear, panic, pain and self-doubt. If we can't learn to overcome and resist these as children, chances aren't good that we will as adults, when everything gets harder and heavier.

Our children NEED US to have the strength to keep believing in them and not letting go of the high expectations we know they can achieve. (Nick and Shawn, runner-up and first place DARE essay finishers posing with Deputy Drake)

Brosden showed me how terrible I looked and asked what was wrong. When I told him I had just run out of smiles and hugs, he said, "Here, take one of mine", and gave me a such a big hug I literally felt it all the way to my heart (proving that it is true when we give unselfishly and purely we create more giving in return).

We can't accomplish great things alone, and I can't thank others enough.....Officer Deputy Drake, the DARE officer who motivated a very rare 100% participation FOR THE 2ND YEAR IN A ROW,

...My fellow 5th grade teachers, who take my kids once a week for skill rotation, and especially Ms. Bruce, who teaches my son; Mrs. Blackmore, who makes extra coffee for me and whose husband signed his Disney artwork with an inspirational message; Mrs. McNally, who puts up with our banging and loud noises; and Mrs. Gryna, who tutors one of my students and as the school's Teacher of the Year will be representing us to the county.

....Mrs. Lyons, a 4th grade teacher who helped me reach a 5th grade student who wasn't even mine, inspiring the chapter title called "Every Effective School Has a Lyon" for a book I'm working on

....Ms. Mosley and Mr. Pollock, the PE teachers who brought former professional wrestler Marc Mero and his program, Champion of Choices, to our school (Ms. Mosley pictured to Marc's right).

....as well as parents who have given us their time and energy (Mrs. Mason, Mr. Bullard, Mr. & Mrs. Dolsak, Mr. & Mrs. Gaffin, etc).

...And people who don't even know these students who have either directly given something or indirectly by allowing me to share something I've read of theirs that with the class:

Some of these are Liz (SWAT shirts), Serenity (books and Kristen), Marc Mero (class/school visit, inspirational quotes and his signed Dream Big pics of himself, Mohammad Ali, and President Jimmy Carter which can be seen in the Deputy Drake pic with Nick and Shawn)

Alexandra (quote), Brian Blackmore (signed Dream Big artistic work), Robert (poem), Jeff (sending us his book), Tui (Christmas cookies), Red (poster) Dodinsky (something special arriving early next week) and Tarringo (his poem, "Miss Parks", in my hands being read to the students....

....which made even those working elsewhere stop what they were doing and listen intently......this is what engaged students look like....and grabbing their minds AND hearts is what engagement is all about

.....and the key to helping them produce greater results than they have ever produced before! (Raymond had perhaps the best week of school in his life....and I know Tarringo's poem played a part in that)

After my son's hug brought me back to life on Thursday, taking Sofia to her current favorite Date Night With Daddy hangout (Congo River Golf - Sofia wearing Manager Dave's hat), and nearly falling asleep at the wheel on my drive home, I logged on MySpace to keep my promise to answer an email. I saw Tarringo had written me and I opened it wanting to thank him for allowing me to share his poem and excited to tell him the effect it had on the class.....

....and do you know what his message was to me?....That he had included me in a post about positive role models......I didn't know what to say. I just kept hitting the "..........." button, feeling completely overwhelmed.

I'm still stunned by the irony.

(Shaking my head awake - Now where was I? Oh!)

It's the teacher's job to reach ALL his students. Whether or not it's the teacher himself doesn't matter. What matters is if he or she is failing to reach the students, by God he better find somebody who can.

I plan on writing more about so many of you. You have thrown your rock in our pond, and the rippling effects it has had have been extraordinary.

Just as you don't stop lifting a weight when it gets "too heavy", we don't give up on our children just because they are difficult to reach! When we hold on and keep "lifting" UNTIL we find a way.......THAT'S WHEN GROWTH and INCREASE IN STRENGTH and ABILITY HAPPENS!

We MUST do the things we think we cannot do - Eleanor Roosevelt

Throughout history so much emphasis has been placed on looks. Being attractive to someone is wonderful. I love good-looking people. Eleanor was not. Yet besides my grandmother, she and Mother Theresa are the most meaningful and beautiful women in history to me.

So thank you all from the bottom of my heart, because that's exactly where I was this week, at the very bottom of what was left. I want your beauty to be shared with the world as much as it has been shared with us.

You have helped us hold on for just one more day when we felt like giving up, giving us the strength to give the heroic effort needed that produced the shouts of jubilation and tears of joy from improbable success the next day.

(Kristen above telling Serenity about her success. She actually ran barefoot that morning to catch the bus to keep a promise to Serenity that she wouldn't miss any more school. I don't know what was said between the two, but Kristen was crying tears of joy and very touched afterwards.)

May God and Buddha and Mohammad all cover you in as many blessings as they have in talents and gifts, realized and yet to be developed.........especially the gift of caring for and loving children you have never met.

The greatest gift and strongest muscle is the heart, and I love and thank you all for yours. (Kelly, who along with Nick tied for the highest Science class test grade, celebrating with Kristen who received her highest test score ever!)

When I told Kenny that when I called next week expecting his teacher to tell me he was giving him his best, Kenny replied, "Don't worry Mr. Stuart, I won't let you down!".......I once again felt covered in his love and beauty...covered in his gift of the heart...and I felt that I could go on believing in myself and others for at least one more week...that IT DID matter...that IT DID make a difference....

....giving me the strength to mean it when I say back to him ...And don't worry Kenny, I won't let YOU down. I won't give up!

You breathe life back into me.....

And this is why Kenny deserves his own holiday....This is HAPPY KENNY DAY from last year

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Everyone has a genius, a talent, a gift....EVERYBODY! I will argue for this as long as I live because I can see it with my soul and feel it in my bones to be true.

Kenny's is his ability to love, to make others feel better, to enrich their lives with a pureness of honesty, an innocence of love and a bravery to show it that so few of us have the power to take into adulthood.

Here's an actual conversation between the two of us:

"You're funny Mr. Stuart" (I can't remember what I did to make him say this)

"Aiy! That I am. And do yoo know why Kenny?" (said in my Scottish accent)

"No. Tell me."

"Because I am happy. I am a happy man."

"Why are you a happy man, Mr. Stuart? See, you're being funny again."

"Aiy that I am! I am happy because YOO are in my class. YOO make mah day good. YOO fill it weeth love, and weeth joy."

"I do?"

"That yoo do. And very well at that. I want tah thank yoo fah dooin' thees Kenny. Yoo make mah life betta', and yer important to me."

"Ahh, no problem Mr. Stuart. I love you."

"And I luv yoo rite back, weeth every bit of me. Now let's get tah work on developin' that grate mind uv yoors."

Kenny's great power is his ability to love. In honor of this the class gave him his very own holiday last month, renaming Valentines Day "Happy Kenny Day".

pictures to follow...as soon as I can find where I downloaded them and on which computer....every one has a gift, and organization ISN'T mine. That's why you don't focus on being better than others; instead you surround yourself with others better than you. Fortunately for me this isn't hard :-)"

- Adam Stuart (November 2006)