Bird Droppings October 19, 2012

Would you choose mud or stars?

 

About two weeks from today I will celebrate a birthday and for several years now as I start and make a comment about my age a good friend always reminds me I have the years wrong. I claim to be a year younger every year. Since he too is the same age he doesn’t want me getting too far behind. I walked out this morning to perhaps our one of our coolest mornings of the fall to date, still not a frost, but chilly none the less. I was holding a white sage leave smoldering and a tiny wisp of smoke responding to my breathing as I stood watching the stars midst the dark clear sky. I will attest to the calming aspects of white sage as incense or in a tea. I seem to find the observation of the smoke curling and lifting almost meditative.

I came into my class room today to continue reviewing books and papers in order to develop a rough draft of my dissertation for graduate school. Along the way between writing and reading and research I clean up debris and what not from a study group last period yesterday. That is always fun. But as I started the day looking for quotes these two seemed appropriate. A crazy thought for the morning for some cleaning a snake cage is only nasty, for me it provides a teaching tool with the healthy snake and it also gives me in a way an interconnection with the circle of life. One of the kids asked yesterday why I kept animals in my room.

 

“Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it.” Irving Berlin

 

“To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Each moment, is for each of us different and as I use the word over and over our perceptions vary greatly about life. Emerson so eloquently states “the same world is a hell and a heaven “Depending on how you take it. I was thinking back a few days to a photo I took and made a poster. Again thinking back a year or so to cleaning out a snake cage from a snake a student had brought in. It seems the snake at six foot was too large and still growing; they had started to cut back on food so she wouldn’t grow so fast. I fed several large rats and after a day or two a rather large surprise awaited me. I claimed it was a world record snake poo. Actually took a photo and had on the cage for a day or so. I did clean it up rather quickly as along with size was the additional benefit or olfactory awareness that was not on the lesson plan for that day. How we live life and our reactions can be construed much the same way. Do we see a pile of poo or a way to find humor and even learning?

 

“It’s how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success.” David Feherty

 

We live in a world of contrast black and white and somewhere in there a dividing line to separate our adaptation and manipulation of crossing the line between the two. That is our dealing with life. I am reading on the side a book by Aldus Huxley and his experimenting with mescaline which is derived from peyote under the supervision of a doctor. The session was recorded and documented in 1953. Several of his ideas tied into our acceptance of reality and how we each see that around us.

 

“Nothing in life is so hard that you can’t make it easier by the way you take it.” Ellen Glasgow

 

“What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.” Thaddeus Golas

 

Many years ago I recall a story from Hindu lore of a water bearer who each morning would go to the stream and fill two great jugs with water. One jug was new and held every drop all the way from the river to the house.  The other jug had a crack in it and a steady stream of water leaked out all the way from the river to the house. Many the time when the jug arriving at the house would be nearly empty. One day the new jug most boastful said to the cracked jug how can you be so happy you never complete your task each day all your water leaks out and you come home empty. The cracked jug said smiling and never once upset, have you noticed the flowers all along the way from the stream lining the path where I water them each day. How often do we jump to conclusions with students and friends?

 

“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” Lou Holtz

 

I find this so true in high school and among students, some who are so capable simple choose to just pass, “I have a seventy I am passing that’s all I need”. Others who struggle to achieve try for an A and work finding every aspect of their endeavor difficult, each sentence a chore, but they persist and succeed. I got to know a young lady who took the science portion of the Georgia High School Graduation Test five times. Each time she would be closer gaining points as she went. Finally recently she passed by two points. Several years ago our school board passed or stated they will uphold the graduation walking policy as to GHSGT scores. Sadly within that area of failing scores are the girls and guys who do try and may take five tries to succeed not because of attitude but ability. Unfortunately they are in jeopardy of not walking for graduation.

I read how we need to uphold that standard but it is a faulty one, there are exceptions and this young lady is one and her mother and she were ones that fought to walk. She had received her fourth test score weeks before graduation and was one point off of passing. She took tutoring classes and studied hard and had been a good student for all of her twelve years. She wasn’t a person who did not deserve to walk she tried, and tried hard. Eventually she did pass on the fifth try. However that was the last time a student walked who had not passed the tests. Our view as a society when a child fails a standardized test is that of a failure and we punish them at graduation time.

 

“Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.” Fredrick Langbridge

 

Sometimes it is only a matter of looking up versus looking down and perception is radically different. Huxley in his story of mescaline use adds how we become spoiled by our world and soon forget pieces. Our brain becomes a filter to hold back memories and to adjust perception to what we need for survival.

 

“We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.” Chrétien Malesherbes

 

So often we limit ourselves we set up the road blocks and stop dead in our tracks without a possibility of success because we think or perceive we cannot make it.

 

“Attitudes are more important than facts.” Karl A. Menninger

 

“Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude towards us.” Earl Nightingale

 

“We have unprecedented conditions to deal with and novel adjustments to make — there can be no doubt of that. We also have a great stock of scientific knowledge unknown to our grandfathers with which to operate. So novel are the conditions, so copious the knowledge, that we must undertake the arduous task of reconsidering a great part of the opinions about man and his relations to his fellow men which have been handed down to us by previous generations who lived in far other conditions and possessed far less information about the world and themselves. We have, however, first to create an unprecedented attitude of mind to cope with unprecedented conditions, and to utilize unprecedented knowledge.” James H. Robinson

 

It was only a few years ago in the history of man that TV became a reality. It was only a few days back in school as I was helping someone do a paper, a question was asked “when did racism start during the civil war”. Racism and slavery are not new to man, some anthropologists look back even to Neanderthal man at signs of racism with Cro-Magnon man. But each generation has more to work with more information more knowledge more data to compile their response what had been looked at one way was now different.

 

“There are times when you just get down, you feel like nobody likes you. We’re in high school forever. It’s just what we do with it.” Rene Russo

 

Rene Russo is one of my favorite actresses and someone who was famous as a model and actually made it as an actress. She at one point as her modeling career started to dwindle thought all was over, but interestingly enough now she models as much or more because she is far more famous as an actress.

 

“Don’t be against things so much as for things.” Col. Harland Sanders

 

Most of us have had Kentucky fried chicken at some point in our life. Col. Sanders literally changed fast food along with Ray Kroc of McDonald’s fame. It was attitude that did it. Both men took already used and tested ideas and with attitude made them work far greater than either perhaps ever dreamed.

 

“Nothing will work unless you do.” John Wooden 

 

“Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.” Ray Kroc

 

Every day I hear a student blame a teacher for being a sorry teacher. I have never yet heard a student say they were a sorry student. I have heard many students except simply a seventy percent and be happy stating even proudly “its passing”. So where does the blame lie if in effect blame is appropriate. We choose to fail or succeed and we are the culprits not the teacher, not the book, not the class we choose. Another day is underway and please keep all in harm’s way on your minds and in your hearts and to always give thanks namaste.

 

Wa de (Skee)

bird