Bodybuilding Motivation - No Shortcut (Muscle Factory)

Your outer muscular strength is not as important as your inner muscular and mental strength.

With your outer strength and stamina you can play with your children, please your woman, and protect your people; especially the children of the world and in your  tribe.

But it cannot help you pursue your dreams and hold onto others until they are strong enough to hold onto their own.

When we concentrate more on our inner strength then the world will become less impressed with our outer strength, and real changes will be made.

Spy Game - The Roof Scene

FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY

We don't trade job security for treating students like test scores. 

Thought #79 on Ending Terrorism ~ Be the Thing that Stops Bad Things From Happening to Them ~ Like a Poor Education

KICKSTARTING OUR HEARTS ~ Thought #79 on Ending Terrorism ~ Be the Thing that Stops Bad Things From Happening to Them ~ Like a Poor Education

*After he told me I reminded him of Hancock and I realized the impact I had on him, I wrote his full name on a piece of paper and practiced saying it every day so I could say it correctly when I called his name during the 5th-grade graduation ceremony. 

Parts of our FaceBook messaging since 2009

“Hey Mr. Stuart, it’s me, Abder (Abderrahmane Echchalhi) lol. How r u doin? I miss u because u always pushed me to higher limits. Plz write back as soon as u can. Ty, bye.

I’m really hating the 6th grade right now because all our teachers are getting crazy about the FCAT and their giving us so much homework each nite. I really miss the way that YOU teach!!!!!!!!!!! How’s ur life going on with ur students? I’m sure their growth is powerful!”

Ur a good man Abder. It's not as much fun 4 me this year becuz I don't have just one group of students to work with. It's more like middle school where I only have @hour with each group. 

I know u'll pull thru and do well. I miss having u in class.

“Hey Mr. Stuart, don’t think I forgot you! Dream big, be big, do big ~ livin by that motto. Happy bday!

I hope you know you've had a great impact on my life. 

I still remember when you lifted me up and put me against the white board joking around. lol good times good times.

And how we had to finish our homework so we can play 4 square (WHICH I LOVED)

Dream big, do big , be big will forever be engraved in my heart thanks to you and breaking away from the school’s curriculum.

Also, you told me once , "If someone says you have a lot of potential don't take it as a compliment (because it means you aren’t using your potential)! Haha! 5th grade with you was the memory I get even in high school, and how much you loved Bella which if I do recall correctly is your daughter!

Just to let you know I'm majoring in sports science now, still have that super long name (Abderrahmane Echchalhi), also going to minor in psychology and my brother Mohamed is doing great, got a manager job at Holiday Inn !

Even though I was so young your class and your name are all I remember when thinking about elementary school.”

What We Do in Our Classrooms Echoes Forever in the Hearts and Minds of Our Students

What We Do in Our Classrooms Echoes Forever in the Hearts and Minds of Our Students
We get them to face their fears and face their realities
And make them courageous enough to overcome and improve upon them.
If you want to wear the helmet,
earn it.
Do something you've never done before.

Perform on a level you've never reached before.
Become more than you've ever been before.
Be more at the end of this day be more than you were before you left your bed and walked out your door.
Marcis has set his sights on getting on grade level and is 25% away from graduating the Kindergarten level in reading.
Gevonte just graduated into the 3rd grade level.

I'm almost out of the Kindergarten level of becoming a millionaire, having made more from my writings in January of this year than I did in all of 2012, and more by the end of February than I did in all of 2013.
Dream and Dream Big ~ Then Do Bigger than you've ever done before, And Become Bigger and more than you ever were before.

Why can't every student learn and grow far beyond where they started the school year? 
Why can't teachers become as wealthy in their wallets as they are in their hearts? 
Why can't all children sleep safely in their beds knowing they have a tomorrow as happy and unlimited as they desire it to be?
Why can't we all sleep knowing no children will be abused to death while we sleep?
And zero people will be killed by an act of terrorism?
Who says we can't?
Current reality?

Let's be bigger than what we see and are today and create a bigger and better reality we get to see and be tomorrow.
We've figured out so much; how to sail past the edge of the horizon without falling off and being eaten by monsters,
How to fly in the sky even though man wasn't born with wings,
How to set foot on the moon and see far beyond even though some have died in the process of making this dream a reality.

Joadeliz has set foot on the moon of becoming a gifted thinker. Now she can spend the rest of the year and her life becoming a gifted creator.
She has gone from being shy and insecure to roaring like a lion and being the first to win the Jessica Gaffin award.
Now the universe is hers!
The dangers we face in attempting the Great Dream are nothing compared to the changes we can make that will echo loudly in our hearts and minds and last forever in our lives!

What’s the Password? We Could Be Heroes!

What's the password?

We could be heroes!

The password to get into class used to be Dream Big, Do Big, Be Big. 

You couldn’t walk into the room unless you promised me you would do these 3 things. 

I’m blocking the door and if you don’t know the password u go back to the end of the line to listen & learn from your fellow warriors who do know the password. 

Then you give it another go until your go is big enough & smart enough to get you in the door. 

Now the password is: "Dream Big, Do Big, and Be Big.....Because  We Could be Heroes!” 

Don’t you dare come into my classroom as if it’s any other day.

Don’t you dare have an attitude of “Same old same old” or “It is what it is”. 

It is only what you ALLOW “it” to be. 

Today "it" is THE day where you work harder than you ever have and make your dreams come alive in your heart, your head, and your world more than you ever have. 

Today is the day you become a hero and light up the world with your learning and love for learning! 

You convince me that you showed up today to become a Hero, 

And I’ll work with you and help you play with higher-level thinking until you become one!

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.

Today we will Follow these Higher-Level Thinkers to Become the Best Versions of Ourselves

Today we will Follow these Higher-Level Thinkers to Become the Best Versions of Ourselves

Everyone but one has responded to my challenge of fighting with renewed vigor, and there's a good chance that the only one holding back may not be able to fight any higher or harder. Which is tough for me to accept because I like to think that we have no limitations other than what we give ourselves.

And in today's world of teaching, we have so many limitations of what we can do and how we are to do it that we as teachers, and in turn our students, can become overwhelmed and disheartened.

So today begins with our friend Voltaire: Bonjour! Faisons-le aujourd’hui

(bohn-dzoor FAYE-zon  loo OHD-dzoor-wee

Good morning! Let's do this today!

Figure out a way to put the things we love and that work for us into our lesson plan:

1. Foreign languages  - So we wake up our brains right away and keep them firing, connecting, and thinking throughout the day!

2. Dickens' The Tale of Two Cities - So we can consciously choose to live in the state of mind city that is the best of times and not the worst of times, where we have everything before us instead of nothing before us!

3. Achilles and his powerful speech to his Myrmidons so we can fight for all that we could be instead of limping through this day as if we were nothing special and capable of doing nothing special with our lives!

4. Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 - So we CAN be compared to a summer's day and CAN become more lovely and more lasting, doing something so great with our lives that we grow in eternal lines to time and so long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives "us" and this gives life to "we"!

5. Poe's Dream Within a Dream ~ So we know we are Dreaming Big, Doing Big, and Becoming so Big that we know we are living more than just a dream within a dream!

6. Powerful thinkers of the ancient past like Solon of Athens, Cleisthenes, Themistocles, and Pericles; tthe founders, nurturers, protectors and defenders of demokratia ~ So that we may become powerful modern day thinkers and the founders, nurturers, protectors and defenders of the democracy inside of us, choosing to and becoming able to rule our own lives and not be ruled by others.

Today we will take this opportunity to figure out a way to include these into the plans we are already given to follow, conquer those basic learning standards, and follow these higher-level thinkers  "beyond the beach" to become a version of ourselves that will last  forever! 

The Einstein~Edison~Eiffel~E=mc2 Effect

The Einstein~Edison~Eiffel~E=mc2 Effect

Today's New idea for Teaching:

"Turn yourself from a paper tiger to a real-life high-flyer!

The Einstein~Edison~Eiffel~E=mc2 Effect

Use ur dream big energy to do big with ur brain matter and turn it into more at ur own unique speed of light 

On the back of ur A test paper imagine something u can do with ur A knowledge

Imagination is more important than knowledge ~ Einstein

Darin’s exit slip: "I loved today proving my answers and Mr. Stuart (Store :-p) getting onto me."

He has trusted me to allow me inside his head and together we have made his inside bigger than his current outside

We are figuratively building an Eiffel Tower inside his heart and head of bigger and bigger believing in himself and thinking for himself

His dream of himself is now way bigger than his current outer bigness

But his do big is becoming so big that his outer reality and ability is becoming bigger on a weekly basis

Not only does he know who Einstein and da Vinci are, but HOW they became big, and how HE can use and apply this knowledge of them to help himself become big, including speaking in their native language of German and Italian

While trying his Math case in front of the court, Attorney Darin, Esq. successfully discovered an error in his thinking (Marzano Element 18 ~ Helping students examine errors in reasoning).

Then he used his knowledge of Einstein, saying, "OK. Was weiß ich? What do I know?", then da Vinci, "Well, Cosa vedo? What do I see?.....I see that the words under the graph say, "Lengths of toy boats in inches.....so.....that means there aren't 4 boats that are one inch but 1 boat that is 4 inches."

In his exit reflection slip below, which I used my Native American necklace to cover his last name (and wear to remind me to live from my spirit and not my ego, that way I don't care when they "fail" and "make me look bad" but care that they learn from their failure and truly grow smarter and succeed in the future - 2morrow, next year, doesn't matter - just matters that they do eventually succeed)

.....when he says he loved me (writing "Mr. Store" for Stuart - were working on his spelling phonics :-p) for getting onto him it was because before he could verbalize his reasoning I kept turning over the timer he got for trying his case and saying, 

"Please explain this point to me again......OK, I liked that thinking but I'm still unclear about what you mean by this point.....What do you mean by.......OK, to rest your case tell the court one more time what you did wrong and how you know u r right now?"

Today I will have all students who scored an A on last week's tests write on the back an idea they can imagine doing with their A knowledge, then folding it into a paper airplane and flying it as far across the room (or outside ~ even better ~ better n bigger fun - better use of Plato's knowledge that we learn more in a state of fun than we do in a lecture)

Their additional homework will be designing and developing that idea into a reality this week.

We'll call this the Einstein~Edison~Eiffel~E=mc2 Effect, using their  dream big energy to do big with their brain matter and turn it into more at their own unique speed of light 

And celebrate with a 21 Pilots video (Marzano Element 3 ~ Celebrating Student Success)

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.

I Have a Dream for Us ~ Take My Hand and Leap into its IN-possibilty

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.