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
- 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.
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!"
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