Loving What You Do

We went to see Sting last night.  Wow, what an amazing show.  

At 62 years old, Sting brought it.  He brought every bit of energy, passion and sound that we could have ever wished for.  You can tell that he absolutely loves what he is doing, that he is living the dream.  I guess that is all that we can ask for, to find ourselves going to "work" everyday doing what we love.  I know a farmer who believes that he has never worked a day in his life.  He is in his 70s and still going strong.  It's not worth struggling--trudging--through your day doing something that you would rather not do.  I had a teacher once--grade 9 Social Studies--who started off the year telling us how much he hated teaching and how he was too old to do anything about it.  How do you think that year went?  I can tell you one thing, that teacher taught me more in that sentence than he did the entire year.

I often hear young teachers--especially student teachers--make statements along the lines of "I am just trying to survive".  A mentor once told me never to "survive" but always to thrive.  There is something good to be learned from every experience.  I have had two TOC experiences, in two provinces, where I was led to a classroom of, well, animals, with nothing planned or prepared, both times with a new student teacher sitting scared in the corner.  One was a grade 7 class and the other was the first day of middle school sex ed.  I could have turned and ran, but instead I dug in my heels and planned a day (thank goodness that I was married to medical student).  Here is what I learned from those two awful  experiences:

• I will never, ever leave my classroom unprepared for a TOC.  I will always have a clear plan laid out for me, every day, that is written in "teacher-on-call" language, that anyone could pick up and go.
• My lessons are planned so that my class know what they are doing, and why.  It is way easier for someone new to take off when they can see the runway.
• I can't be the all-encompassing driving force, passion, information vessel, energetic story-teller, sole judge and evaluator for every lesson and assessment.  If I am, I can never be away or have an off day.
• My students are prepared in advance if the upcoming lesson is of a sensitive nature.
• My job is to teach, not to be cool.  As a student, I had a "cool" teacher who had low standards and gave out little work.  The most valuable thing for a teenager is probably their time, and they don't want it wasted.  While we complained about getting homework, it was a far better choice than having to sit through idle time every day for an hour.
• I am very adaptable, and can be thrown into any situation.
• Lesson planning is not simply about "what I can do today", but "what I need to do today, tomorrow, and the next day..." and so on.  There has to be purpose and clear design in what we do.  Experience tells me that most of the time that students don't really know what they are doing stems from their teachers not really knowing what they are doing.  BTW, the class of "animals" had no idea what they were doing that day, the day before or the day after.  They were just there.
• I connect with people well, even when I need them to do something that they are not used to doing.
• I will never assign a student teacher to someone who is not worthy of being a leader and a mentor.

When you love what you do, you have purpose, reason and meaning.  You are happy, and make things productive to those around you.  You make a difference.

My BIG question:  are you doing what you love?

My follow-up to the BIG question:  if the answer to the above question is "no", then why not?

Kid Snippets

Kid Snippets are hilarioius.  They get small children to answer questions or describe situations, and then bring in adult actors to "lip sync" to the words.

As we are busy in staff season, I thought that I would share their Job Interview movie (above), but can't resist sharing my favourite, Math Class (below).  My kids absolutely love them.

Inspiration: The Way We Choose to Live

This one really got me.

Every once in a while we get a reminder...a real reminder...about the things that are important...

...about how we can should live our lives...

...about being a leader.

Zach has such a beautiful story, and one that needs to be shared.  Zach died recently, just days after turning 18.  Above all else, I think Zach epitomizes the qualities that we need to see in our young leaders—about making choices to live the right way.  It is 22 minutes long, and it is emotional,  but definitely very worthwhile and inspirational.  Zach didn't face uncertainty; things were very certain for him.  And, instead of worrying about dying, he spent his energy living.  He showed us how we all should live.

Thanks Zach.

Silly Season Mantra: One Thing at a Time

Wow, it's May 17th, and I can't believe how busy things are at this time of year.  With track and field in full swing, school-wide writes, cultural performances, staffing and budgeting for next year, new kindergarten orientations, a busy spouse's work schedule, multiple soccer practices for multiple kids at the same time, fighting over who is buying groceries for dinner tonight (every night)....the list goes on.  On top of that, we are all getting tired--not worn out--just tired, and when that happens and our resiliency is low molehills often become mountains.  My wife is experiencing this as she approaches the one-year anniversary at her university job.  She loves the job, but finds the human resources--a.k.a. the people part of the job--a real time consumer. 

Welcome to my world.

"But, you have a Master's degree", she says. 

"And, you have a Doctor of Medicine", I say.

"But they didn't teach us about Human Resources", she counters.

Welcome to my world.

It is funny that I find myself finishing of a post intended to encourage us all to enjoy the last months of the school year without feeling overworked and overwhelmed, two weeks after I started it.  I guess it just goes back to that idea of a daily "To Do" list gone awry, smothered in a humongous helping of the "One Things at a Time" mantra that I was going to write about.  Talk about irony.

In any event, here is my advice:

During silly season, the playoffs push so to speak, we all have days when we feel like we are running on fumes.  Our resiliency is low, and that leaves us susceptible to stronger reactions (you will notice that I did not use the word overreaction) to things that would be managed more easily with a fuller tank.  It is very easy to throw your hands in the air, in despair, and to feel overwhelmed when in fact all we need is a little focus to give us clarity. 

Easier said than done.

For me, it usually takes enough emergencies that I want to run away for me to step back, prioritize, and start dealing with things one at a time.  O n e  a t  a  t i m e.  It helps to remember those posters, you know, the ones that you find in offices everywhere that ask for the patience to solve the things that you can and the sanity to let go of the things that you cannot fix?  So, make a list, a real list on paper, and start dealing with things on at a time.  People already know that you are busy, and appreciate that you have a plan to help them out even if they have to be next in line.  You see, they at least know that they are next in line.  I find that being able to make a list, and then actually crossing things off of that list really helps me to calm done, and that means that I listen better, connect better and help people to solve their problems better.  It also helps me to delegate off the things that someone else can do a better job on;  trust me, trying micromanage your way out of a deluge of issues isn't good  for anyone

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely live for the weekends and the quick recharge I get from them at this time of the year.  I have lists of the things that absolutely need to be done today, this week and this month in front of me, and those lists change depending on the circumstances that come before me.  Let your lists be fluid, and tackle the things that you can, one at a time, when they need to get done.  You can do it.

Phew, I did it!  Not on time, or at least on my original time line, but I know that you understand.

Risk vs. Reward: How Much Help is Healthy?

A friend connected me to this article by Tim Elmore, who believes that "our 'over-protection, over-connection' style" of parenting "has damaged" our children.

Hmmm...in my experience, I think many of us are worried about this exact thing.

I hate to sound like my parents when I talk about "when I was a kid...", but things were really different.  I grew up in a small, coastal, mill town where we played outside, made forts in the bush and kept a keen eye on the clock so that the axes we borrowed from our dads' tool sheds were back before they got of the bus from work at the end of the day.  Imagine us, straight-legging down the street with an axe down the leg of our pants, hiding it from the nosy old lady on the corner, racing to get it back in the shed so we could be washing our hands before our mom found any tell-tale evidence of our lumber jacking escapades.  We didn't have video games, and cartoons last for 30 minutes on one channel, so there was no way our moms allowed us to hang around in the house complaining about being bored.

We didn't get rides places; we rode our bikes everywhere.  This in itself built up our future resumes as riding a bike--no matter how old and hand-me-downed it was--necessitated some serious engineering skills building jumps and obstacle courses.  Nothing was too extreme, of course, as YouTube hadn't been invented yet to fill our minds with death-defying feats, and the X Games wasn't here to justify a youth misspent. The bikes extended our range, allowing us to travel much farther (and get back before the work bus much faster), and it also added to our education.  We could now easily get to Kirby's Pond where we collected salamanders, pulled sword ferns to make swords and bracken ferns to make throwing spears, and we learned life lessons like running away from the bad, big kids who smoke and swore, and building secret, camouflaged forts to hide in--laughing--when they chased us.  The bikes took us down to the stream where we learned about commitment; you can't pull up short on an epic flight over the creek bed without getting hurt, wet muddy, and an earful from your mom who spent all day doing laundry.

And summer was the ultimate freedom, described best by phrases like "be home before dark" and "don't get caught doing anything stupid".  We would walk down to the store by ourselves, and buy whatever teat we could afford with the change in our pockets.  The stores then never had those signs that said "2 kids at a time" and "no backpacks".  Man, if you screwed around or were rude to someone, you knew your dad would hear about it and that you would get a whupping when you got home--without a chance to explain your side of the story.  Adults ruled and no one questioned them.  There was no such a thing as a child negotiating out of trouble;  if you messed up, you took your lumps.  That was called learning.

We came from a neighbourhood, a community, that worked hard to get by.  Dad's appreciated jobs in the mill because a job there meant that you could buy a house and raise a family.  We took vacations...crammed in the family car, and travelled to wondrous places like Surrey to visit relatives where they had amazing things like 7-11s and McDonald's.  I did well in school, and my dad was proud.  He showed it by saying things like "Good job.  I am proud of you".  Recently, I had a conversation (that I didn't realize was actually an argument) with a beloved family member about how I should be paying my daughter handsomely for every A she earned, and then add a special bonus for the perfect report card she brought home last month.  Payment for As?  Isn't that her job?  Do you understand how rich I could have been if could have only negotiated a fair price for every A I brought home?

Everything is not supposed to come easily.  We need to get knocked down and scratched to learn what hurts.  We need to be left to figure conflict out with our peers without parental referees so that we can problem solve for ourselves when we are older.  We need to have our hearts broken so that we can learn to love.  Our kids need to be able to accept disappointment so that they can develop resiliency.  That way, they will learn to take risks--calculated risks--that are smart and safe, and that will open up options and opportunities for them when they are adults.  Risk-taking is an essential part in building success;  it is how we build leaders.

Tim Elmore's article provides some good discussion points to that last idea of building leaders.  Have a read and let me know what you think.

 http://growingleaders.com/blog/3-mistakes-we-make-leading-kids/

 It's a choice:


 or