If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.-Unknown
Sometimes you "build" a door by knocking down the wall in front of you. Doing this takes great inner strength, and total commitment, two requirements I have for my students. I think by the end of September everyone had "knocked down" at least one of their "walls".
The classes on both sides asked us to stop (including my son's), the booming sounds being too distracting. Even Brosden has asked me just exactly what we do, because it sounds and looks like anything but traditional "learning" (he came in while I was rocking out to The Godfathers, unphased since I'm this way at home, and naturally started playing a golf game on probability I had prepared.)
Before he left I put in Sinatra and made him serenade the class with me.......and I wonder where he gets his crazy warrior, wildly romantic zest for life......
Usually after morning announcements the crew listens to "
Birth, School, Work, Death" (The Godfathers, 1988 - London) while writing in their reflection journals. I want them to practice taking responsibility of their own learning by determining their greatest needs for that day and matching it with the data I have on each of them. This personalizes individual instruction and truly seems to internally motivate, being that they are collaboraters with versus simply "employees" being told what to do, how to do it, and when to do it....Hence the significance of the song.....Birth, School, Work, Death......
This song/journal exercise helps "grab" their hearts and minds to make that total commitment to using this day to step bravely and intelligently in the direction of their greatest selves, uncovering their biggest weaknesses, and truly spending the day turning those weaknesses into strengths (and great dance moves...go Luis...go Luis...)
Last week when the song ended I would put some of their new school photos up on the big screen and spontaneously break out in a hilarious Adam Sandler, SNL impression, saying such things as
I'm Smiley Boy. Look at me. I like to smile. I'm smiling so much I look like a plastic smiley doll......Buy my plastic smiley doll for your kids so they smile too.....Buy one for those frowney neighbor kids next door, and make it a smiley world!
I'm Happy Boy. I'm so happy I have happy written all over my face.....I'm learning so much and feeling so good I can't help but be happy....Be a happy boy like me!
I'm Happy Boy too. I've finally changed from just being a good little, do-as-I'm told student, to somebody who actually understands what he's learning and able to use it for higher thinking. I am now free to roam the room like a learning scientist today. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty I am free at last! Come on and be free like me!
I'm Bill Gates. I think school is boring. I'm dropping out of Harvard and going to work on computers in my garage. If school's not fun and interesting, then it's a waste of my time. I'm determined to Do Big and make Mr. Stuart's class fun and interesting for myself.....and then own the world like Pinky and the Brain (obviously the voices start changing to match the characters).
Hey! Little Billy Gates, Smiley Boy and the Happy Boy Twins.......I'm Scary Man, now get to work. Ya'll can laugh in this class as much as you want......but ya'll better be working too. Don't think I'm not watching you.....
I did other voice impressions for the girls' pictures but can't remember what they were. All I know is everyone was laughing, including me, which I couldn't believe because by noon each day I miss Sofia so much I feel as if blood is pouring out of the open wound in my chest, and I'm just too tired to try and stop the bleeding anymore, and I drop my hands to my sides, ready to just quit.
Oddly, everytime this happened last week, I would see a pair of hands come up and cover my wound for me, and I would grab hold of them and press them against my chest. Maybe it's God, an angel, the kind words I've received from family, friends and readers...maybe it's the Universe realizing it might have tested me a little too much this time....I don't know. But I'm grateful for those hands.
I then put in Andrea Boccelli and close my eyes, and begin to see pictures of an Italian countryside.....
and feel as if I'm riding on a horse, with this unknown person to my side just out of my view. It is so vivid and real I feel as if perhaps I'm vibrating it into existense.....
or maybe this is just a preview of what my heaven will look like. Either way, I hold on to this place until it's time to open my eyes and pick up the kids from lunch, and give again, finding out we are all capable of so much more than we think we are....much more than we can even imagine....and I am grateful for this latest challenge. I do not like it, but the battle is evolving me ever onward and upward.....
So.....as I begin a new week, I lift myself up and wipe the blood from my face...and smile as I get ready to head out the door. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and I am stronger. I can't imagine anything happening today that will kill me, especially my spirit. Just like you, I am limitless...I am deathless.....Bring On The Pain.....I use it to fuel my dreams.
I don't want to ever sleep, so I can keep you forever.
- Kwaidan (1964 - Japan)
(Line I heard from a movie this morning...and just felt it resonate within.)
I asked my students what the quote below meant to them. Seeing myself in the pictures makes it easy for me to put myself in their shoes. I'm still on the same journey of self discovery, learning, and growing as they are. I hope I never forget this - because it's been said you don't stop playing because you get old, you get old because you stop playing.
If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.
The classes on both sides asked us to stop (including my son's), the booming sounds being too distracting. Even Brosden has asked me just exactly what we do, because it sounds and looks like anything but traditional "learning" (he came in while I was rocking out to The Godfathers, unphased since I'm this way at home, and naturally started playing a golf game on probability I had prepared.)
Before he left I put in Sinatra and made him serenade the class with me.......and I wonder where he gets his crazy warrior, wildly romantic zest for life......
Usually after morning announcements the crew listens to "Birth, School, Work, Death" (The Godfathers, 1988 - London) while writing in their reflection journals. I want them to practice taking responsibility of their own learning by determining their greatest needs for that day and matching it with the data I have on each of them. This personalizes individual instruction and truly seems to internally motivate, being that they are collaboraters with versus simply "employees" being told what to do, how to do it, and when to do it....Hence the significance of the song.....Birth, School, Work, Death......
This song/journal exercise helps "grab" their hearts and minds to make that total commitment to using this day to step bravely and intelligently in the direction of their greatest selves, uncovering their biggest weaknesses, and truly spending the day turning those weaknesses into strengths (and great dance moves...go Luis...go Luis...)
Last week when the song ended I would put some of their new school photos up on the big screen and spontaneously break out in a hilarious Adam Sandler, SNL impression, saying such things as
I'm Smiley Boy. Look at me. I like to smile. I'm smiling so much I look like a plastic smiley doll......Buy my plastic smiley doll for your kids so they smile too.....Buy one for those frowney neighbor kids next door, and make it a smiley world!
I'm Happy Boy. I'm so happy I have happy written all over my face.....I'm learning so much and feeling so good I can't help but be happy....Be a happy boy like me!
I'm Happy Boy too. I've finally changed from just being a good little, do-as-I'm told student, to somebody who actually understands what he's learning and able to use it for higher thinking. I am now free to roam the room like a learning scientist today. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty I am free at last! Come on and be free like me!
I'm Bill Gates. I think school is boring. I'm dropping out of Harvard and going to work on computers in my garage. If school's not fun and interesting, then it's a waste of my time. I'm determined to Do Big and make Mr. Stuart's class fun and interesting for myself.....and then own the world like Pinky and the Brain (obviously the voices start changing to match the characters).
Hey! Little Billy Gates, Smiley Boy and the Happy Boy Twins.......I'm Scary Man, now get to work. Ya'll can laugh in this class as much as you want......but ya'll better be working too. Don't think I'm not watching you.....
I then put in Andrea Boccelli and close my eyes, and begin to see pictures of an Italian countryside..... 
and feel as if I'm riding on a horse, with this unknown person to my side just out of my view. It is so vivid and real I feel as if perhaps I'm vibrating it into existense.....
or maybe this is just a preview of what my heaven will look like. Either way, I hold on to this place until it's time to open my eyes and pick up the kids from lunch, and give again, finding out we are all capable of so much more than we think we are....much more than we can even imagine....and I am grateful for this latest challenge. I do not like it, but the battle is evolving me ever onward and upward.....
I don't want to ever sleep, so I can keep you forever.
....or taking the time to play (Sofia ran from my kisses after school so I'm getting her with cupid's arrow)......
She's such a fighter, picking up everything she could find to toss at me while laughing her beautiful laugh.....
Making me bust out laughing, and catching and kissing her, realizing she is just like her father...that if we can't figure it out, we'll simply throw everything we have at the problem...
With all our hearts and love and energy...
Even if it turns us inside-out and upside-down (I carried her out to the car upside down, and buckled her in the car the same way, which of course she thought was cool and wanted to stay that way)....
The data on my students says only two of them are likely to achieve at the next highest level in reading, and only one in math.
And although I don't know how I'm going to pull off another "upset" of impossible growth....
I know that if I throw everything I have at them we have a chance at victory, with EVERYONE succeeding....
Just as EVERY ONE of us has with ourselves succeeding....if we NEVER GIVE UP.
If you want a little humor, all the day's pictures of this inside-out and upside-down class are available at Stuart's Spectacular Students.
