New song for their playlist ~ Learning Goal: To keep the students focused on rockin' and rollin' all week so they can party on Friday after they've scored a 100% or their highest score ever.
Learning Target: I'll keep em high all week on their own internal juices and send them off into the world at the end of the year never needing drugs to get high.
The Velveteen Rabbit Approach to Helping our Children's World Become Real
As teachers, we have so much to cover in so short a time that we can easily be filled with so much stress that we lose sight of why we teach.
We teach to reach.
Yet we wonder at the end of the year if we've reached any of our students or enough of them, or if you're crazy enough, all of them.
Robynique was one of these students. I tried and tried to get her to throw away her limiting beliefs, but she was one of the toughest students I've ever had and she fought me all year long to keep them.
I still remember the day 10 years ago when she stubbornly sat on a table in my 5th-grade class refusing to work. I gathered up all the love and belief I had inside for her and sent it out like the Sun shoots out a solar flare.
My insides were bigger than my outside and I blew a blood vessel in my nose that's still there today.
About a month ago I hurt my nose again by getting punched at a 7-11. I stepped in front of a father who was hitting his son. I told him he was bigger than me and could beat me to a pulp, but I could take it much more than his little boy could. He told me to mind my own business and hit me again. I told him he was right but it was my business because if he beats his kid then his kid will beat his kids and that it didn't have to be this way. He called me "smart guy" and hit me again. When I didn't move he asked me what he was supposed to do when his kid talked back. I told him I didn't know because I wasn't there, but giving him a consequence that made him grow stronger and smarter was better than giving him one that made him grow weaker and smaller and full of hate and anger. His son had asked for a candy bar and when told "no", he mouthed off. I suggested he remind his son that he already had been told no, and now he doesn't get one the next time either. If he mouths off again then he doesn't get one the next four times, the next eight times, whatever. But tell him you love him and know he's better than what he's being. He said alright and that he'd try, then said, "You know, I could have really hurt you". I said, "I think you already have." He laughed and shook my hand and told me he was sorry. When I got home and looked at my nose I began to feel sorry that I had done what I did because it looked like he had broken a few more blood vessels, and thought again about what I had done for Robynique and wondered what the hell I was doing with my life.
I didn't care so much about how I looked as I did thinking about how my ex was right. I go too far. I'm too unsafe. I don't know when to stop. I could get hurt, or worse, and that made her scared, and angry. I give too much to the point where I'm tired and wiped out and not the same happy, positive person she used to know. This hurts, because I know she (and another girlfriend who left me for the same reasons 10 years ago) is right, and I wish I could behave, be less, be normal, be acceptable. I just don't know how to be any different even though I've tried to improve. I don't go directly into abusive homes anymore because I promised someone I loved not to, and love lasts even if the relationship doesn't. She was the only one to get me to stop and I love her for that, so I keep the promise I made. I also don't drink anymore to numb the pain instead of going to the hospital. I don't even drink at all because I need my wits to write the "Find the Hero in You!" books and lessons in hopes of helping us all find the hero in ourselves and become the big, great, real people we were meant to be. I want to be real and this world to be real; full of real people filled with real power. The Socrates, Einsteins, and Edisons have done it, why can't we? If I wear myself out doing it then I become the Velveteen Rabbit being worn out from love.
I'll have to finish the rest tomorrow because it's time to go make people Real, but I want to share the message that Robynique sent me a few days ago. I think it will help all of us teachers and parents hold on even when we feel we're being worn away.
The Velveteen Rabbit Approach to Helping our Childrens' World Become Real
Sometimes we're told we may get hurt doing what we're doing. But if I get hurt keeping a child from getting hurt then it seems to make sense to risk it. It takes much more to hurt a man than it does a child. Very simple logic. If I die then I'm dying for something more beautiful than myself. I'm dying trying to create the real world that could be. A little more complex but still pretty simple.
But being this simple and logical doesn't take away the fact that it makes me seem crazy and illogical and unacceptable as I am. No matter what anyone says in the beginning, after a few years, it's just too hard to put up with me. I'm a live wire who doesn't know how to dial it down and be normal, trying to give everything to everyone, even those who have made me look bad or hurt me and don't deserve it.
The day after I got punched I was grumpy and not liking myself very much, looking at my students and wondering if I was just throwing my life away. I've already told the gods I don't want to go to their heavens when I die if the world is still full of so much hell. The devil has barred me from hell so I can't get sent there either. He has put up a Not Wanted poster with my picture saying, "No matter what this guy says, you don't have a chance down here." (You don't have a chance in hell, get it? I say you do, you just have to get hell out of your head and tell the devil to go to hell.) What's odd and unacceptable to me is so much dying; 4 a day from child abuse, 100+ a day from suicide, 1 in 5 teen girls cutting themselves each day, ????? teens doing drugs a day, isis and ther forms of terrorism killing ??? on average a day. And if we aren't one of the 167,000 dying each day, many more are dying before death, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually; living life like the walking dead, by waking up, going to school or work, coming home, going to bed, waking up to do it again. Rinsing and repeating in a cycle of birth, school, work, death.
And that is why my why I do this is just a prayer for the dying, with the learning target being more (and eventually all) people being alive inside mentally, intellectually, and spiritually and living fully before dying physically. The hell with death. We're too busy living life fully. But this means that with today's ideas of Heaven and Hell I've got no place to go when I die and no one to go there with. The pain in my nose made me think of Robynique again and I felt more convinced I was either an idiot or a Doctor Who from another planet who loves earth people with both of his two hearts but is driven crazy by their limited thinking.
I still gave my best to the students and they had a great day becoming more than they were when they first arrived, but I felt sad inside like the Velveteen Rabbit who wishes becoming Real didn't hurt so much.
"Generally, by the time you become Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes don't see as well and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all. Cause once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand....But once you are Real, you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always." ~ The Skin Horse "The rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like. And yet, the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him."
I drove home that night and for the past few weeks knowing I was growing shabby, but sighing, wondering if I was growing Real enough to make any real difference in my students so they could become Real, for always. I woke up grumpy and sad, threw it away during the day so I didn't infect my students, then went home and fell asleep grumpy and sad again.
And then Robynique contacted me. And I began to feel better. I felt better about being me even if it meant I'm being worn away in the process, because the process is love, and it does make a real difference in helping others become Real. I asked her for permission to share her message. I'm happy to say she's become Real. Hey mr.stuart I don't know if you remember me but I was one of your students at sandlake my fit grade year ,
I thought about your words everyday after I left and went into middle school and now into high school.. I remember you with all these pictures and signs up that said dream big and believe . You played this music that had the class ready to learn something and had everyone hyped. Everyone was ready to come to school lol I remember when it was like an honor to be in your class.. until this day your words are still in my head and I don't think I will every forget them, I'm now a junior in high school and I'm doing so good, I'm working on going to the Navy whem I graduate now I'm pregant and I thought I didn't have a reason to go to school anymore and just give up and I was actually going to do it until I went through my things and seen a picture of you that said " believe and always have faith " and I got up and stopped feeling sorry for myself and made something happen so I started going back to school and picked all my grades up and now on an honor roll lost at school I just wanted you to know years later that you still motivate me and will always be someone I look up to and I thank you for that
Robynique, thank you for becoming Real and letting me know that it's really worth it, even if it makes you seem odd and unacceptable. Because to me, the world as it is is odd and unacceptable. ISIS is unacceptable. Poverty is unacceptable. Crime and murder are unacceptable. Student failure is unacceptable. Human limitation is unacceptable. Being anything less than crazy for what this world could be and should be, is unacceptable. And I will keep teaching the way I do Robynique because there's a you in every one of my students waiting to become Real in the real world full of real problems....And they will overcome them like you and really succeed. Congratulations! You are passing life's test and my heart is proud of you.
Sometimes we see something and feel it vibrate inside of us, causing us to say, "I wish I could do that!" or "That looks like fun!"
I have this happen to me when I watch this scene from the movie, Benny and June”. I even brought in my Charlie Chaplin poster to class to inspire me to use his genius somehow in my teaching.
Yesterday I realized how I could add Charlie Chaplin (the inspiration for Johnny Depp in this movie) to our faculty of the School of Athens Heroes.
I created a reading and math board game on one of our circular tables that requires them to first think like our hero Leonardo da Vinci.
What do I see?
Starting with 6 players, each one has one minute to take advantage of the opportunity I am putting on their "plates" by answering the empirical who, what, where, why, when, or how question they have landed on from the book we're reading.
If they're right they earn money and get to stay in the game.
If they're wrong they leave the game and I hand the "plate of opportunity” to a student from the audience who is prepared and knows the answer. That student earns the money and places their piece on the board where the student who wasn't prepared has left.
While they are developing these reading and math skills they are also developing another one of our "School of Athens" life goals from our hero, Abraham Lincoln:
"I will study and prepare, and someday my opportunity will come."
And once a student is able to answer the empirical questions that are directly from the text, I "speed up the plates" by handing them inferential questions that require them to use their minds to see what the answer is that they cannot see with their eyes (not explicitly stated in the text).
This requires the use of another hero: Miyamoto Musashi, who was so developed in “seeing” where his opponents would be before they moved that he never lost a battle.
(The game of chess is also a great way to develop these skills:
Where is your opponent now? (da Vinci)
Where will he or she be on their next move? (Musashi))
Now Plato has introduced us to two new heroes to our faculty teachers, Charlie Chaplin and Johnny Depp (who overcame his dyslexia).
I Have a Dream for Us ~ Take My Hand and Leap into its IN-possibilty
The first thing students hear and see when they walk into their "star nebula", their birthplace as the shining stars they truly are, is this video and their teacher greeting them with "Ohayōgozaimasu Samurai Bushi!" (Good morning, Samurai warriors!) They face me and respond back with "Ohayōgozaimasu sensei!" (Good Morning, Teacher!)".
And so begins our daily dream that we have become united in fighting for and will be evaluating ourselves on;
That one day we will not be judged by the level of our test scores on someone else's tests or our score-ability on someone else's checklists, but by ourselves on our own ability to dream our very biggest dreams and throw our entire selves at making them happen.
Our entire selves.
Not some of ourselves some of the time,
when it's easy and everyone is approving and cheering us on.
But when it is hard
and others are telling us to stop and that we're wrong.
that we could get hurt
and talk about how foolish we are being.
The only way to do this is to see the star of Martin Luther King and take it down out of the sky. Place it inside of us and allow his dream to fuel our own and to go after it with as much passion as he did and with as much fire as the Sun does every single day we're alive.
All I ask of my students each day is to have faith in their dreams and place their hands in mine. And then jump off the cliff with me into the creation of their very IN-possible dreams.
Thank you, MLK for living a life that is still very much alive inside of us and showing the way for us to make it happen, with courageous intelligence.
Einstein said that if we can't explain something simply enough it means we don't understand it well enough. I had to redo my teacher observation again, for yet another year again, which I've had to do each year again since this teacher observation checklist has been used......and not because I was bad....I was so bad that my lesson wasn't even score-able, again..... It was so far out of the box that there wasn't any place to score it on the checklist, again. On my redo I scored so high that in the observer's professional opinion some of these previously below-grade-level 2nd-graders are now ready to succeed in middle school. I have to accept that if I'm going to teach the way I do I’ll never win any awards and I’ll never fit on anyone’s acceptable checklist. And I must understand it well enough to communicate it simply enough for others to follow. It sounds like I'm putting them down but I'm not. The students have been with me now for four months...... They can read the Latin, Greek, German, French, and Italian on the board......They don't have to be told what to think because they have been taught how to think and how to figure out what the teacher isn't directly stating by paying attention to what the teacher's questions are indirectly stating and guiding them to focus on. While these students have become more fluent in the language of learning and how to think at the higher levels, to an outside observer using a connect-the-dots checklist there are just too many gaps and too many thoughts and ideas zooming around the brains in class for one to follow. Except for the students. And if the way I'm teaching not only helps them succeed at their grade level and beyond, I owe it to them to make my teaching acceptable and understandable to others, at least for a few days a year. Because I know that all of these students have become more intelligent and more powerful where it really matters, in solving life's problems and frustrations. I know not one of them will ever think that the solution is a bullet coming out of a gun. Not one of them will become, as I think this song is talking about, among the 289 Americans who get shot every day by those who "think" that’s what the answer is. Not for one of these children and not for one day of their lives will they ever think at this low of a level ever again. And maybe one of these days one of these children will solve this problem once and for all.
*To me this song, “Musica È”, says that when more of us feel more we become the many in a universal language chorus of what we can be. And it is this music that we hear that will save you and me. The part at @6:30 is especially moving. When more of us feel more of what more we can do and what more we can be we take up more space in the universe of how much more it can be. I KNEW Xavier could be more than what he was living because from the first time I got him to shake my hand a few months ago I felt MORE POWER in the grip of his handshake than I had in most grown men. I knew he had a passionate and fiery desire to be more than what he was at that point.
I don't want to speak too soon but he may now have become permanently more than he's ever been. On Friday, he asked what his homework was. When I told him that he didn't have any, he asked if I could give him some anyway.
He didn't do it, and I'm not judging him because I don't know what he had to deal with over the weekend, but I DO know that for the first time he asked for MORE homework that he COULD do instead of asking for what homework he HAD to do. I do know that he now believes in himself more and believes he has the potential to be more and not sitting around wishing his life could be more.
Now he's standing up to it and fighting for it. And I guarantee you this is a fight he will win because I can guarantee I will be right beside him, fighting with him and for him and not against him. And that comes from the teacher learning how to be more for him. Last Tuesday at dismissal he was yelling to a friend passing by the door and I yelled at him to stop yelling (such a hypocrite I can be).
I saw the look on his face and realized what I had done. I called him over and put my arm around him telling him that I loved him and just needed him to control his voice because it was draining me constantly asking him, and now yelling at him, not to yell.
On Monday, he said that his mom told him he was not draining her as much as he used to and asked if he was not draining me as much either.
And this was a "no" I was happy to tell him. As teachers we are forced to become multilingual, learning the language of each of our students. And I’m happy knowing that I’m becoming more fluent in speaking the language of him.
If we listen hard enough we will hear this in the cry of the stars and feel this as it punctures our skin, as I did when I realized I had yelled at him. Senti più siamo in tanti e più in alto sale un coro in lingua universale. Dice che anche del cielo han bucato la pelle. Lo senti è l'urlo delle stelle. È musica è da conservare, da salvare insieme a te.
