Valentine's Day - How to Save a Life - Be a teacher

Valentine's Day 

Love Day

Dedicated to my fellow teachers

Who love their students every day

We are it

We have dedicated our lives to it

We are everything with it

Nothing without it

Because we have become it

Completely vulnerable to it

Love

Is so incredibly wonderful

And the longer we stay in our profession

The more we dive completely into it

~ Adam Stuart

Valentine's Day 2016

*Inspired after receiving an email recently from a parent of a former student (It is not the student pictured below. This was Joadeliz's gift to me this year that she spent her own money on; money she has very little of. It was truly a gift from her heart).

"Dear Mr. Stuart,

________ has mentioned you several times in the past few months. I as her mom am reaching out to you in hopes that you can send her your famous words of encouragement. 

She has been diagnosed with the early onset of ______ 

She has several doctors appointments in the upcoming weeks. She feels down about school, (___A's, ___B's), she needs an uplifting message and trust me I know you're the one that can deliver it and she would openly  receive it.

Once again,  I deeply appreciate it, if you can do that with your busy schedule."

I am a very unassuming person, which means I don't have an ego thinking I'm great, or worried about others seeing me as great or being better than anybody. I simply see the best in others and in the world and often have no idea of any impact I'm having on others. 

Just like any teacher, I do what I do because I am what I am and because it feels real and it feels true.

While moving recently I found a cross a student gave me ten years ago who contacts me now when she feels like cutting herself.

I have worn that cross around my neck every day since finding it.

I also found a letter from another student who told me he had gone through a period of wanting to kill himself, but each time he tried he heard my voice telling him and his classmates to Dream Big, Do Big, and never give up until they Became Big, and if any of them ever did give up they could always come back to me for hope and passion and the strength to fight again because the world needed them and the gifts only they could develop and give to the world.

He is now an incredible poet.

  

More and more of us are feeling so stressed out by stressed out administrators stressed out by their bosses over-stressing their jobs are at stake by the new protocol that we all forget why we do what we do and don't want to do it anymore.

And more and more of use are dropping out of teaching forever, wondering where we went wrong in our lives.

I came within one day from quitting teaching this year. I was still broken-hearted from a relationship that had ended months earlier, having lost my best friend and wondering where everything had gone wrong.

And now I was teaching at a new school with even tougher requirements because it was a failing school. I didn't feel strong. I didn't feel confident. And I felt so stressed out in meetings that all I heard in my head was, "You can't do this anymore." 


And I wondered what a grown man was doing teaching a bunch of kids who didn't do their homework, didn't behave, didn't care. 


I felt like a loser wondering again where I had gone wrong.

Then I reached down, deep down, into the only thing I had. The only thing I was and the only thing I was ever good at. Love. 

And I didn't quit.

I showed up one day at a time and gave all of me for just one more day at a time.  I decided to live again and love again every day I could get myself out of bed again.

I say we don't drop out. Things are tough in teaching. They are overwhelming. They are hard. 

Love is tougher. Love overcomes. Love breaks down all obstacles.

"It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (Corinthians)

And the love we have for our students has an effect we often have no idea just how big it is on them, how long it stays with them, and how long it keeps them alive because it has become a part of them.  

Valentine's Day is our day.

It is our day every day.

Happy Valentine's Day teachers!

I love you for what you do.

We Teach to Reach 2 ~ The Velveteen Rabbit Approach to Helping our Childrens' World Become Real

~ We Teach to Reach 2 ~ 

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. 

The Godfathers - 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."

The Velveteen Rabbit: Told by Meryl Streep (Official Rabbit Ears Video) 

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.