Stuart's Spectacular Students

This is dedicated to my amazing students. The goal is for each and every one of them to feel unstoppable by the time they walk out of the classroom door for the final time in May. This chronicles their journey; their own Chronicles of Self-Actualization.

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Monday, February 23, 2009

YES WE CAN!



Today.....today I saw true magic happen.....magic manifested from 7 months of having a belief in someone that was greater in their disbelief in themselves

And today was a day of breaking through barriers and crossing into a new world of reality for one young man......a boy not predicted to pass 5th grade.........a man in the making fighting to be the prophet of his own future

This is what he scored on 5 on-grade level reading tests, with the same logical reasoning and complete explanations as the gifted students are required to give me:

100%, 100%, 88%, 100%, 63%

I think on the last test he went into a state of "It's too good to be true" and started to doubt himself. Of course he has never worked this hard in one day before, and he tuckered his brain out pretty good.

As I'm remembering watching him jump high in the air with great excitement mid-morning, and coming to pick the class up at lunch and seeing him sitting at the same table he used to get sent to because he was always in trouble......but this time he had sat himself there to do just two more problems he wouldn't normally have done......

I say to him......with tears coming to my eyes....out of joy.....out of exhaustion that has paid off......

YES YOU CAN!

YES YOU CAN!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

THIS IS WHY

For a long time I've had people asking me why I give so much to my teaching. Lately I've been asking myself that too, more so than usual.

For 21 students I'm planning individual lesson plans each day for at least 3 subjects (reading, science and math). That's 63 different plans a day, 200-300 papers to grade a night, inputting their data in spreadsheets to assess their progress, then planning the next day's work for each one.

My eyes hurt, my fingers numb, and all 3 of my home computers have frozen up at one point or another, causing me to put my head in my hands and wonder why I'm doing this, telling myself I can't keep this up.......and then retaking control and overcoming the negatives by thinking and feeling of all the positives of why I am doing this...........because they are worth it.

And the breakthrough for the students, for myself, for education, for the world........... of what we all CAN do and be, is right here, right now.

Just now I assessed on-grade level tests of four students who are far below grade level and aren't supposed to be able to achieve these scores:

100%, 90%, 75%, 100%

I know right now I don't have the time to write, but I do have the compassion to share with anyone who is listening of what we all can do and become. It IS possible and it IS happening on a daily basis.

We have 60,000 thoughts a day. Can you imagine the power of all these thoughts on what you DO want to see in your life and ONLY what you want?

We have 100 billion neurons capable of making 10,000 connections each, yet 95% of our brains are left unused. Can you imagine how easily we could overcome all of our fears, doubts and current lack of ability if we use just a fraction more of our brains than we currently do?

There is enough potential power in each one of our bodies to power the city we live in for an entire week. Do you know how powerful and energetic we become when we turn that stored, or potential power, into used, or kinetic energy?.......And use that to TAKE MASSIVE ACTION that DOES CREATE what our hearts dream of and minds imagine?

Add all these together and we are in scientific reality unquestionably UNLIMITED BEINGS. It is time for us all to stop living such unnecessarily limited lives. It is hurting the world. It's allowing terrorism to grow and nature to die. It's time for us to shine and develop the light within us so brightly and brilliantly that it lights up all those around us.......

.....Where the focus is on the light, not the dark

It may not be easy, especially at first.....but the more you practice taking control of your own thoughts and feelings the easier it becomes, and allows you to push deeper and deeper into this amazing world of illuminated possibility.

That alone is the reason for pushing oneself and those you care about to the very limits of possibility, and then breaking through those limits into a new world of limitless realities. This for me is the idea of a parallel universe existing right along side of our current reality.

The students have begun to change where they sit according to their production (the number of questions they have passed and mastered). One noticed this was the physical manifestation or creation of my daily challenge to change their lives in 24 hours; To be more than they were the day before.

Based on the real-world of business and athletics, the top 5 are the highest producers who keep their jobs and are the first string because they're giving the most to the team. 6-10 are the second sting players. 11-15 the 3rd string. And 16-21 the 4th.

The top 5 are set free to sit anywhere they want (which they seem to put their desks right against mine as if I'm a magnet :-)

The next, 6-10, are in the first row. 11-15 in the 2nd. 16-21 in the back. If they don't like where they are then all they have to do is change it by changing what they produce that day. If they tell me they want to move but don't do what it takes to move, then I tell them they don't want it enough, or they don't believe in themselves enough, or both.....and that's what we work on that day.

All 60,000 of their thoughts that day are focused on what they CAN do, which greatly increases their feeling and belief in what they CAN do, which wakes up all the energy in them to power up those neurons of what they DO know, creating connections to what they don't know, and using this electrical storm to make sense of it and now DO know.

An ever-growing electrical charge of courage and confidence flows through the class every time just one student holds on and believes in him or herself long enough to turn a failure into mastery.....

We are no longer an industrial society that needs schools to turn out well-behaved workers who will do as they are told. We need powerful thinkers, creative problem solvers and human beings with their hearts set on fire.

To my children, Brosden, Bella and Sofia (who is 7 today!), and students everywhere, which we all are in terms of learning how to develop ourselves, I dedicate this:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who actually strive to do the deed: who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”


Theodore Roosevelt
 
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