Bird Droppings August 1, 2010
Finding the gem?

With a little over a week of summer vacation left before reporting for teachers preplanning many differing ideas have been bouncing around my head. I am punishing myself for so little effort in my own writing and reading. While I consumed numerous books and papers and wrote literally daily for hours I am not where I wanted to be. On the bright side I have made many new friends intellectually and been introduced to many possibilities and developed some very concrete directions for my writing effort to flow. MY gardens have done well and I have many new plants sprouting or flowering. I enjoyed the summer intensely but always in the back of my mind could I have done more. It has been several years since I first read this little paragraph.

“Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia, once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The following was one of the winners. As I was driving home from work one day, I stopped to watch a local Little League baseball game that was being played in a park near my home. As I sat down behind the bench on the first-base line, I asked one of the boys what the score was. ‘We’re behind 14 to nothing,’ he answered with a smile. ‘Really,’ I said. ‘I have to say you don’t look very discouraged.’ ‘Discouraged?’ the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face. ‘Why should we be discouraged? We haven’t been up to bat yet.’” From the writings of Leo Buscaglia

Over the years I so often am interacting and talking with children and the innocence contained within them is always amazing. Sometimes it the optimism, which we hold onto till somewhere as adults but it is stripped away because we let our guard down or we become discouraged. It is our job to try and maintain that youthful zeal that outlook that lets us see opportunity in the midst of seeming defeat. Maybe we could package a bit of that zeal of youth and make a fortune. Capitalism seems to always creep in. Maybe we could just give it a way and change the world. I like that approach better now that is ethical capitalism.

“I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail.” William Faulkner

Sitting here today thinking over events of the past few days I can understand Faulkner’s quote we are a resilient lot and no matter what is thrown at us we can prevail.

“There comes that mysterious meeting in life when someone acknowledges who we are and what we can be, igniting the circuits of our highest potential.” Rusty Berkus

Too often we find the opportunity of defeat but when expectations are high and when we are expected to succeed more often than not we do. Many years ago I learned to expect the most out of students and that is what you get will expect the least and you will get that as well. This can be said for teachers as well. If students expect the most from a teacher and you may be surprised.

“Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles.” Sir Thomas Browne

The star of Africa the largest diamond ever found may have been looked over as a large (the size of a baseball) piece of quartz if the miner did not know what he was looking for.

“The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become.” Ben Herbster

“What you can become you are already.” Hebbel Friedrich

So often we limit ourselves. For some time now I have been thinking about and discussing at what stage in teaching do teachers become stunted I use the term anally retentive loosely as a pun. Interestingly enough I had a teacher asking what I meant. Someone quickly next to me said when you become a little box with no room for more ideas or thoughts, when your vision is so narrow minded and limited you see as if looking through a toilet tissue tube.
I thought maybe there was a class like Limitations 101 or Boxing up of ideas 102 being taught in education departments around the country. But you know what it isn’t just teachers, students too limit themselves. Goals and parameters become fixed so tightly and confined that new and creative opportunity becomes overshadowed by those limits and in an instant we are simply cloning not creating. The potential for greatness is there it is the greater amount we need to see.

“It’s not what you’ve got; it’s what you use that makes a difference.” Zig Ziglar

With a name like Zig Ziglar, you had better be good. I had the great opportunity to hear Zig and read several of his books over the years but nearly twenty five years ago I heard him speak for the first time. His entire talk was about unleashing potential, about seeing beyond limitations, and rising up over the mountains. Dynamic and up lifting as he spoke of selling your self as well as your product in his motivational program. The greatest idea in the world is only an idea till it is used.

“Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use of their possible consciousness and of their soul’s resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.” William James

I am reminded of an old ad for Comcast Cable. In the ad a man in a hospital room with a broken leg is being wheeled out and realizes he will lose his cable. He escapes from the nurse rolling in his wheel chair in front of a truck in which he in the next scene is lying in bed again watching cable with the doctor stating sir you have broken every bone in your body, except for his remote finger as he channel surfs. I laugh as I think how true as so many of us become restricted through our habits.
I recently I received an email from a last years high school senior that questions I had asked were the first time she was challenged to think not since another teacher in ninth grade. Thinking is what this is all about not merely waking up, punching a time clock and returning home. I had a conversation with a student yesterday and that student did not want to be in school. I asked where you would prefer to be. The answer was at home sleeping. So I had to say, what you would accomplish by sleeping. I would be getting rested to get more sleep was the answer. Sadly I have heard this from more than one student and here I am feeling bad when after a twenty hour day yesterday I slept till eight this morning way past my normal wake up normally.
Do we tend to limit, box up, and lose vital sight of tomorrow, of something more than the air around us? Do we get in a habit of simply channel surfing using one finger, one button and blipping through life? When I was a child we had one, maybe two stations and channel surfing was more simply turning on and off the TV as it was. We now have more opportunity and less effort, you had to get off the sofa in the old days to press the on and off button at least. Think for a minute, open your eyes to what is around you try and see the gem inside the rough stone. Do try not to be boxed and labeled and blinded by limitations and lessened expectations as you should not limit those around you. But most importantly keep all in harms way on your mind and in your heart.
namaste
bird