If You Want to Learn How to Fly ~ You Got to Jump

The School of Athens News

and 
The International School of Intelligent Students (ISIS)

presents

In a world of so much negativity

We want to share so much positivity

Today's post: Building Eiffel Towers of Courage, Confidence, and Capability in our Students.

If you want to soar, to succeed, to learn to fly....You got to try, you got to never quit, you got to jump!

*This has been a School of Athens ~ International School of Intelligent Students production.

Thank you for reading.

Becoming Teachers that Forge Our Students into Steel

The School of Athens News

presents

Hug the Heaven into them 

& Hammer the Hell out of Them

Not with Hell

                                         But with Hellfire

In an effort to get the best of of its students, the School of Athens went on a quest to find out how to get the best out of itself.

Using one of the greatest minds in human history, Einstein, it asked itself the beginning question, "Was weiß ich?".......What do I know, in order to imagine a solution to its problem.

"I know that the Sun produces amazingly powerful energy in the form of light and heat. How can I produce this in the classroom?"

Waking up and taking daily trips to this star for the past few months, this School o-f At-hens, or School of Fat Hens, as Jordan (daughter of Susan Kocarek) calls it, woke up Leonardo da Vinci on the way, who said, "Sai che ora è?".....Do you know what time it is?

"Never mind that. I need to know how to produce more light and energy in the classroom."

"Just use your senses. The human brain is capable of being aware of 2,000 to 3 million bits of data per second.  Cosa vedi? What do you see, about how the Sun makes light and heat," da Vinci replied.

As the two looked on, they saw the Sun smashing its Hydrogen atoms together so powerfully that their nuclei became fused together, creating entirely new molecules of Helium. 

This nuclear fusion produced photons of light and heat 450 times more powerful than what had existed before.

Placing themselves in Plank scale space-time, 10 to the -45 seconds, or .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds, they observed these photons bounce around for 10,000 years until they reached the surface of the Sun and sped off to Earth in 8 minutes.

"But I don't have 10,000 years to do this. I need to do this today! How?"

"I don't know. Go ask Socrates. I'm going back to bed", yawned Leonardo, and he was gone.

"Soh-crates! Soh-crates! Wake up!"

"It's "Sah-creh-teez'", came the reply. 

"Oh, sorry. Bill and Ted told me it was 'Soh-crates'."

"Just philosophize with him dude," whispered Bill and Ted, who were still up partying.

"Poia eínai i gnómi sas?", questioned Socrates, who never told his students what to think, but taught them how to think.

"What do YOU think is the greatest source of energy you have ever felt or known?" he dug deeper.

"Love, and passion......So.......Maybe, I feel my love for the world so deeply; in my cells, my molecules, my atoms....and smash them together as passionately as I can that their nuclei become fused together and unbreakable.....

 .....Producing so much light and heat coming out of my body that others around me become energized 450 times more powerful than they and I were were just a few seconds ago?"

"Try it. What have you got to lose? You can't take anything with you when you die, so why not try and give everything away while you're here, all the while having more and more to give?", the great lover of wisdom said as he placed his hand on the shoulder of the School of Athens.

"That's exactly what I meant when I said 70 times 7!" Jesus shouted as he roared past on his motorcycle, with The School of Athens quickly jumping on for the 8 minute trip back to Earth. 

"Ok, we'll do it!", the School shouted in the wind. "We'll love so passionately that our love becomes powerful and unbreakable, using nucleosynthesis to hug the Heaven into them.......

....and Hellfire to Hammer the Hell out of them.

And having been enlightened and armed with the lessons and weapons of Einstein, da Vinci, the Sun, Bill and Ted, Socrates, and a passionate man of fire from Nazareth........

...the School of Athens was fused with a vivid imagination of the world that could be

...and determined to do what it does best; 

Love them all...

~ Any student who comes into our classrooms

~ Any student that says "Hi" to us in the hallways

~ Any student who opens his or her eyes at us

We're going to love all of these angels.......and kill all of their demons.

Powerful Video ~ Man on Fire ~ 

*read more at Samurai Teaching ~ Sensational Living

Good News from the School of Athens ~ Where it's All Good, All the Time

More good news from the School of Athens, where in a world of so much bad news, we'd like to share so much GOOD news.

1. On Monday I asked who would like to learn from their mistakes on last Friday's test. These students rushed to my table....And this is exactly how the smart get smarter.

2. My goofy yet excited face helping Nancy pronounce "mon", who for the first time asked to sharpen her pencil in French (Est-ce je peux tailler mon crayon or Puis-je tailler mon crayon).

*The deal is I'll learn to speak their brains' languages as to how each one learns best, and we'll learn all the possible world languages we can - Which is great for getting the brain to connect what it doesn't know (foreign language) to what it does (English).

This is how Einstein BECAME so SMART, by asking himself:
"What do I know?" (Was weiß ich? or Was kahn ich wissen?) (Are both these correct Tina Dollinger Scharrenbroich )

This Einstein-thinking helps them be better able to answer my question to their questions;

"What do YOU THINK the answer is?" (Τι πιστεύεις? in Greek, after our role models Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) (help me out Chris Pilavakis , am I saying "What do you think?" correctly?)

3. Why anyone want to be in my class I don't know. It's very demanding and harder than heck....Oooops, sorry X. I mean harder than heaven.

This kid can't read yet knows what "heck" is a substitute for and says that he is not allowed to say it at home so I shouldn't say it in school. It's not fair tongue emoticon

But out of respect for him and his parents wishes we have banned all slang sayings of inappropriate words in the classroom (darn, shoot, etc.)

I don't make them learn my way, I make myself teach THEIR WAY, and it has a very effective effect on how safe and comfortable they FEEL.

*By meeting them in their individual comfort zones they TRUST ME and allow me to take ahold of their hearts and work WITH me on leading their heads outside of their comfort zones, and amazing success happens, as you can see from the picture when Xavier said, "I did it! I did it! Pick me up Monsieur Stuart. I did it!

This was at the end of the day yesterday and you can see us both EXPLODING with energy smile emoticon

4. Working with Nancy to think through her AR test from the book she read over break. She did MORE than she had to so she should get MORE help to help her become successful. Deal #2 is the more passion and energy they give to themselves the more passion and energy they give me to give them all the help I can to guide them to great success.

She is VERY close to getting promoted to a presidency of her own company in class, where she'll use her favorite subject, Art, to CREATE learning activities, products and projects that INTEGRATE her passion and excitement into the less exciting subjects for her of reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic (the 3 R's).

Thank you SirKenRobinson and Beth@ Kids Create Art for helping motivate me to figure out a way to place my students in their ELEMENT, where they DREAM BIG and are willing to DO BIG in order to BECOME their BIGGEST SELVES in school.

5. And the cycle of us powerfully flows together that creates worlds within ourselves that have a powerfully positive influence on the creation of the worlds outside of and around us heart emoticon

No More Jumping on the Bed

In getting ready for our move to a new 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment next month, Sofia and I got her a bigger bed yesterday. 

We even found a penny next to the bed which we picked up and added it to our collection of pennies for Paris.

The only problem is that I have no place to store it in my currently smaller studio apartment.

Every problem has a solution though, and we solved it by putting it on top of my bed, where I will sleep on both for the next 30 days.

Now I need to jump to get onto the bed, but once on pretend I'm a king resting high above my little kingdom :-) 

But there is new problem now; no more jumping on the bed for the king or he will hit his head on the ceiling.

And my mother wins, at least for the next month, where I will hear her voice from my childhood, "Adam, no more jumping on the bed!" :-p

Our Students Need to Know We Believe in Them

Sitting up late tonight listening to songs and I came across one by Mumford & Sons called, "Believe".

I watched the official video and then the one with the lyrics.........Then I watched them both again.

The new school year starts in a week, and I need to believe in a group of students I've never met, at a school where I've never taught. 

How do I get these students to believe in themselves? How do I get them to believe in me?

After closing my eyes and listening to the lyrics over and over, I now know how.

I have to first believe in them. 

But how do I get myself to believe in them; and believe I can have the strength to hold onto them each day all the time?

I need to go back to what I DO KNOW about each one of them, even though I've never met any one of them. 

I KNOW they all learned how to walk, and if they all learned how to walk then I KNOW they all can learn how to think.

How did they ALL learn how to walk? They were all COMPLETELY BELIEVED IN that they could learn how to walk. 

And just how were they ALL completely believed in?

They were all COMPLETELY LOVED by those around them; because powerful, pure, unquestioned BELIEF in another TAKES powerful, pure, unquestioned LOVE for another.

So then all I need to do is COMPLETELY BELIEVE in their ability to think, to learn, and to grow by COMPLETELY LOVING their potential to do so. 

But I'm just a teacher, and I've heard that those who can, do; and those that cannot, teach. Who am I to believe I can do this? 

Well, because I know the opposite is true; that those who CAN LOVE and CAN BELIEVE IN OTHERS........are called TEACHERS!

This is what we do, and these lyrics are our students' challenge to us. And successfully meeting this challenge goes far beyond determining how well they do on the state tests.

How well we meet this challenge affects how much they will love and believe in themselves, and be able to love and believe in others, as adults.

What we do this year affects them forever. I'd say they're all worth fighting for, and not fighting with.

Hearts Bigger Than our Classrooms ~ David Bowie - Heroes (Live AID)

Prompt: What are you most proud of to date in your teaching career?

It has to be that my heart is bigger than my classroom.

As I was pushing myself at the gym this morning, and pushing myself not to develop bigger muscles but to develop a BIGGER SPIRIT...

I saw a shirt that said:

DREAMS WORK

WHEN

YOU WORK

I immediately thought of how that perfectly matches my classroom motto:

DREAM BIG

DO BIG

BE BIG

Which was inspired by Robin Williams who inspired me to leave the world of business to become a teacher because of his role in Dead Poets Society. 

When I asked him to send something that would inspire my students to achieve their own dreams, he sent this...

To Mr. Stuart's Class

Dream Big

And I thought, "Yes!" That's the answer!

He dreamed big and became big only because he DID big! 

And the birth of my classroom motto was born:

DREAM BIG

DO BIG

BE BIG

So as I left the locker room ready to live life to the fullest and bring out the best in my students I heard in my head:

You are a developer of heroes today!

Believe you can do it

Because every one of them are worth it!

No sooner had I left the locker room than I ran into the mother of a former student who I used to read to @ 7 years ago. She wasn't even my student, but she was a wonderful young spirit who had just moved to America and was nervous about her lack of English. 

So to help her after school each day she would come up from her Kindergarten class to my 5th grade class where she, I and my own three children would lie down on bean bags and read stories to her. 

Looking down at her smiling face filled me with joy and I thought: 

When we are young

and covered in love,

We completely believe

we are gifts from above.

This girl is now in middle school, and has been covered in so much love from her mother and teachers that she is earning straight A's, excelling at track and chosen to be the vice-president of her class. 

When our hearts are bigger than our classrooms, we help change the world in a big way. 

Thank you te@chthought for your 30 Day Reflection on Gratitude. I probably wouldn't have written this without your prompt. 

And thank you Robin Williams and that young girl, Sofia, without whom I wouldn't have been able to write this post. I'm very proud of the hero you've become :-)

Going to Bed with Smiles on our Faces

Today was a good day. We all got a lot of things done. Coupons were cut. Shopping was done. Help with homework was given. And after a month off after surgery, workouts were begun.

Pleasantly worn out from a very productive day, everyone was ready to call it a goodnight and head out of sight when low and behold little Lily arose with an Apples to Apples game to play for Family Game Night.

One-by-one we were slowly recruited, until all six of us around the table were seated. And as the game began and later a winner was sung, everyone ignored the end-of-game rules and play continued.

When we finally broke camp and hugs and kisses were exchanged, a warm glow overtook my heart and I saw that we were all going to bed with smiles on our faces.