Inspirational Students

Link Crew Leaders are attending the middle school next week to prepare graduating 8th grade students for high school. The lesson is focused on "Choices."

My students each wrote a letter welcoming 8th grade graduates, quellling fears, giving insight, and wish them the best. Loud, brash, openly emotional, honest, funny, here are some excerpts:

"The first week at high school may be difficult, but at the end of the first month you'll think of it like your second home. Finding your classes and opening lockers would be so easy. Trust me, you won't be pushed around or thrown into a locker, it is a friendly environment and your teachers are nice and are always ready to help.

High school can be scary, upper classmen, new teachers, and suddenly you're not a kid anymore. Don't worry though, after a few times of walking into the wrong classroom, or trying to open the wrong locker, you'll get the hang of it. Make sure to hang out with the right people and don't do anything you won't do in front of your grandma. Have fun next year!

... I have close friends in a lot of different groups and grades. One thing you should always watch out for is your reputation. You really have to think about your decisions, because they will follow you. Watch out for your grades! They are super important, and they really do matter in the long run!

Don't be a tool, no one likes a tool.

Don't be scared or intimidated. My freshman year I was tempted to not try out for basketball, but I'm so glad I did because the varsity girls basketball team has become my second family. If sports aren't your thing, get involved in a club... it helps so much.

I know you will end up hearing this so many times, if not already, but your grades are so important! Don't screw things up freshman year, or any others, it'll come back to bite you in the butt come graduation time when applying to colleges and what not. Don't hang out with people you know will get you in trouble. You will have people drift in and out of your high school years and after high school you'll probably forget they even existed. Don't take things to heart, let it roll off your shoulder and NEVER be afraid to express yourself. This is a pretty neat school, and compared to most, smaller. It won't feel like that in the halls sometimes, but you learn to live with it. I really hope that you make the very best of your high school years. 11th grader.

High school will be an adventure for you. You will make new friends and many enemies. You will love Mr. ... or hate him. You will wake up late every other week, rush to get to school only to realize today was an off day! I LOVE YOU! (popular junior)

Do not procrastinate. Take honors classes.

When you are walking through the halls, DO NOT stand in the middle of the walk way. YOU WILL GET YELLED AT! If you just do all your homework, passing all your classes will be super easy. Don't get on anyone's bad side, and don't start any drama with people, for there might be some undesireable outcome. Just be nice, friendly, and accept everyone for who they are. Don't judge people or make any assumptions just based on a person's outside features. Treat others with respect and don't act like you own the school." (He's a really nice student, happy, liked by others, and it totally sounds like him, freshman)

Tons more... one young man suggests: Don't speak to the pretty girl you will make someone mad! Too cute. Wise, smart, intelligent, sweet, generous. What a pleasure to be working with these students ;-)

Year of the Fire Tiger

Catch the tiger by the tail, run with it, or it will eat you up - says my Chinese horoscope. I laugh at that, and every now and again see it played out in life. You know that whole thing imagine it and it becomes real. You presence it.

Being a "yes" to new openings, never done befores, responsibilities, taking on doing the homework the way it's designed...

I am so aware of being human, all my feelings, my experiences, the things that I make mean something and have it all significant and live my life as though that's the truth, forgetting all along - I made it up.

This weekend, and we're only just talking about this weekend:

Fabulous time watching our highschool take championship in a tense game, being acknowledged by college students for being their favorite best teacher as a bonus surprise, dinner with a great colleague, night before put a dent in those chick flicks and household chores, all terrific.

Today, enjoyed watching Burlesque with 12 ladies, home, realized movies needed to be returned... hence:

Tonight, I backed into my neighbor's car, dented my bumper, and allowed myself to feel annoyed for something a whole lot more personal and having this be the "excuse" to express annoyance. Big breathe. It's all good, I came clean. We're good friends and the car will be parked elsewhere, yes, I will pay attention when backing up. "I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you."

This is the roller coaster of life, sometimes it's coasting, quiet, perfect and suddenly choices, unexpected action, shaking, rattling, probing, triggering. The roaring tiger's tail.

Homework, being the one who gets to say, to cause it to happen, to take responsibility, out of which so many actions arise that I would happily have said "no" to, ducked out of, walked away from. The up is things are happening, I step into that place of making it work. Whatever that "it" is.

Training upperclassmen to present Academic Follow ups during lunches, helping out in fundraisers, social follow ups, being the facilitator for Unitown, taking kids on field trips, working with them on empty bowls, helping a non-art teacher during my prep time being in her classroom at another school, sitting on the architect steering committee, keeping up with work, creating wholesome recipes, squeezing in workouts, time with Chris, taking on being frugal/saving...

Days blur, I'm just happy to catch up with the laundry and maybe empty out unrecognizable fuzz and melted sludge in the fridge.

Haven't let go of that tiger's tail
yet...







Moulting, shedding, observing thoughts, experiences

Closure

Endings. End of the school year, end of a relationship, end of old ways of being, just endings. Interesting how that shows up in my life.

I got to see how I've avoided endings with my students. I rush them through their final assignment, through clean up, and sweep them out the door without closure. I don't have to deal with saying goodbye. Never saw anything wrong with that, it's just how it was.

Our homework is empowerment/disempowerment. Noticing where we are with that and being at choice. Through this I got to notice the way endings fall in my life, and I realized what's missing.

On Thursday, my students completed their Finals, cleaned up the classroom (vigorously), sat down, with time for closure. A first!

Closure was rich. Looking into everyone's eyes, I shared that it's been such an honor and privilege working with them, watching them grow, take on expanding their boundaries, throwing work at me that was x10 amazing, and giving me the space to teach, thanking them for their generosity and patience. I also thanked them for creating a fabulous student teacher. Her supervisor remarked on how Jenny was a completely different person. Jenny thanked them. They were contribution. Tears rolled down my face, in public, in front of my students - an all time first. We finished with them sharing (write/switch) how each of them made a difference: "I will always remember you for..."

Students who struggled with with me said: "I love you" out loud, promised to visit. I signed Yearbooks, one of my students nominated me for a teacher award, and in my mailbox thank you letters from parents.

Endings

Organization

Being organized is my focus. My Teaching Assistants are naturally, super organized. I am blessed to have their help in getting me structured with file cabinets, handouts, and keeping up with grading, returning work. They love this stuff and bounce back looking for more.

Part of being a manager is assigning work to someone else whose really good at that job.

My goal this year is to be a fabulous high school art teacher with exciting, in depth lessons that teach to different modalities and ensure success. Keeping up with professional responsibilities is a huge part of teaching, and having students who help keep me organized and structured is such a blessing. Organization gives me breathing space to function. It's about being in the job a year, running through the lessons, getting who the kids are, knowing how to work with my colleagues, and then sensing what needs to happen and how.

Being organized is taking responsibility, putting structures in place to support efficient action. It's the balance and the base from which my impulsive, spontaniety, and putting all my energy into just being "out there" is released. The yin and yang of life.

Being Straight

What I learned today is how I'm given to being nice with adults. I can be straight with my kids because I know that's what they need to hear. It's pretty straightforward, you do this, here's the consequence. You behave like that this is the outcome. No emotions, nothing. It's just fact.
Kids can listen to that (or not) and that's okay. They'll get it in their own way - either through reward of the outcome or feeling it's negative consequence.

Today, I had to be straight and describe someone's behavior and the impact it has on everyone including myself. What a huge relief. I've been trying to help someone in every way possible and after a while it's really up to them to step up and help themselves. What I tell my kids is I'm paddling 100% for your success, you have to be paddling 100% for your own success. This business of splash, splash then coast is not going to work.

If everyone could get a sense of the immense impact their behavior has on everyone in their life, on every facet of their life, they would have an amazing, extraordinary life of freedom, fun, and play. Things would open up in the most unbelievable way.

Today, I took a dose of the being straight vitamin.

Ideals, Expectations and What's Possible

I did not write this, Nancy Zapolski did. She is truly insightful, amazing and I want to share this with you.

From the words of poets throughout the ages to Zadie Smith’s latest novel, On Beauty, to novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco’s comments, beauty gets a lot of ink. “Beauty is a mess, a sinkhole, a trap,” says Eco. “Approach it philosophically, and you risk getting bogged down in questions of idealism, empiricism, subjectivity, and objectivity. Plato began the conversation, Kant tried to finish it. Take a cultural run at it, and you’re stumbling over issues of relativism, where nothing is either beautiful or ugly but time, class, nation, or ethnicity makes it so.”
These issues of relativism, of arbitrary ideals and standards, become so real and unquestioned, they become powerful yet mostly invisible determinants that shape our lives.


We traffic daily in concepts like beauty, success, generosity, intelligence—they hold a place in every peer group, every community, every culture around the world. They exist as ideals, expectations, and standards. While their specific expressions and definitions vary from place to place, situation to situation—in one country beautiful means Rubenesque, in another, wafer thin—we all strive for ideals. They are the measures we use every day—to see where we stand, how we fit in, how we stack up.

Ideals have enormous practical value. They can be powerful catalysts motivating us to open new frontiers, excel in sports, establish such principles as justice and democracy, or set benchmarks for educational, medical, and technological progress. They permeate every aspect of our lives. Ideals can awaken passion and an urgency that calls forth excellence, persistence, and going beyond our perceived limits, allowing for something new and surprising to emerge.
There is also a downside. One that is subtle, grows, and over time can take hold.

The dictionary defines “ideal” as being a model or archetype, something thought of as perfect, or exactly as one would wish. When we are driven by the ideal, we almost by definition fall short. Holding on to an ideal, while spurring us on, can also keep us from seeing what else is possible. We can’t imagine what we might create or do because we are held captive by the particular ideal we hold in our minds.

An ideal can become a “failed possibility”—a possibility that wasn’t achieved, but one that stays around as something that is not possible, now or perhaps ever. A failed possibility is something like when we make up our minds to handle something in a particular way and we don’t—for example, we mean to be compassionate, but we find ourselves judging; we want to speak up, go for the promotion, make our contribution, but find ourselves not taking action.
When that happens we see ourselves as having failed in some way. It’s not just that a thing failed, but that we failed. To the degree that the characteristics or properties with which we identify ourselves are ideals—beautiful, magnanimous, successful, whatever—we decide we don’t have what it takes, and who we are becomes diminished.

Now, throw into the mix “expectations.” Expectations can be considered a possibility that we’ve destroyed as a possibility, because we counted on it. If, for example, we really study and think we’re going to get a high grade on an exam, or we train hard to make the cut for a sports team, but it doesn’t pan out—what lived for us as a possibility, but failed, can leave us questioning ourselves, and the stuff of which we are made. We then try to go out and create a new possibility, but against a backdrop that negates it. We stop trusting the possibilities we create, we turn down the dials, adjust and accommodate—we settle for less. Possibilities devolve into ideals, and ideals begin to masquerade as possibility. We lose our power.

How we relate to our setbacks and circumstances has everything to do with what’s possible. Responses like “it’s not my fault,” “I didn’t invent the rules,” or “it just happened that way” might seem legitimate but leave us paying a price—the price is a loss of power. Responsibility—acknowledging our cause in the matter, seeing where we have been inauthentic, taking whatever actions we need to take, and telling the truth about it—is key to restoring and having power.

It’s not that the ideal or expectation is bad, by any means, it’s collapsing the two and relating to them in the same way that power is lost. As shown in the diagram, an expectation or ideal unfulfilled leads to a lack of power, where a possibility unfulfilled still leads to a possibility—and no loss of power or freedom.

Access to restoring our power is in language. When we’re clear that we’ve got something to say about who we are, we can separate out our interpretation from the circumstance—the disparity between something that happened, and the possibility of who we are. What we say to ourselves and about ourselves, silently and out loud, once or a million times, shapes our possibilities for being. Our ideals, standards, and expectations occur in language. Our reluctance, accommodation, and powerlessness occur in language. But language is also the home—the only home—of possibility. What determines whether possibility (a creative act) or failed possibility (an ideal masquerading as possibility) will carry the day is up to each of us. The choice is ours.

This is the crux of what I learn in Landmark Education; it's about what it is to be human, being with our own humanity, confronting what needs to be confronted, having compassion for ourselves and others, empowering ourselves so we can make the difference, be the gift and enrich society. Nancy is a seasoned seminar leader - who volunteers her time so we can be all of our possibility.

Annonymous Good Deed

I am a clearing for generosity showing up at my door.

In cleaning up Nina's bedroom aka storage room (in my quest to collect Nina stuff for taking to Europe) I came across 15 telephone directories - all huge. I walked outside, and yet another set was waiting for me on the driveway, and as I brought it in, I noticed one more sitting on the desk waiting to be moved.

I went to dinner with David last night for our Velocity group meeting and requested we sit at a table since my legs dangle in booths and the table reaches up to my chin (well almost). I thanked him for his generosity. Part of our initiative is "Granting Being." So I could have made him wrong during the evening, I granted being and placed myself in acceptance (which equates to love). He settled, opened up, and started sharing also how great his life was and how much he had accomplished in a short space of time. At the end of the evening, he surruptiously paid for my dinner, and had me take home the entire leftovers. Generous.

This morning, I open up my email and receive this: 100 Random Acts of Kindness link. My homework is the annonymous good deed and I find myself stuck at the usual things I always do. This ups the ante with great ideas.

May generosity show up at your door.

Send someone a hand written note of thanks.
Make a card at home and send it to a friend for no reason.
Buy a lottery ticket for a stranger.
Put some coins in someone else’s parking meter.
Cut your neighbor’s hedge.
Walk your friend’s dog.
Give a compliment about your waiter/waitress to his/her manager.
Send someone a small gift anonymously.
Stop and help someone replace their flat tire.
Let someone jump the line at the bank.
Pay for the drinks on the next table at a café.
Treat a friend to the movies for no reason.
Give a huge tip to someone when they least expect it.
Hold the train door open for someone rushing to get in.
Give up your seat for someone, not just an elderly person.
Write notes of appreciation at least once a week.
Talk to a homeless person and have a “normal” conversation.
Pick up some rubbish in the road which would otherwise be lying around.
Compliment a work colleague for their excellence.
Recommend a competitor to a potential client.
Give another driver your parking spot.
Give a piece of fruit to a delivery person.
Help an elderly neighbor carry the rubbish out.
Tell all your family members how much your appreciate them.
Leave a copy of an interesting book on a train/bus.
Buy an inspirational book for a friend.
Send a thank you note to a person who has helped you in the past.
Smile a lot.
Once you get started, you may find it a habit hard to break!

For even more inspiration, and support from other people who are passionate about passing on kindness to others, check out The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation at www.ActsOfKindness.org.