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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Sunday, February 14, 2016

Valentines Day ~ How to Save a Life ~ Be a Teacher


Valentine's Day 
Love Day

Dedicated to my fellow teachers
Who love their students every day

We are it
We have dedicated our lives to it
We are everything with it
Nothing without it
Because we have become it
Completely vulnerable to it
Love
Is so incredibly wonderful
And the longer we stay in our profession
The more we dive completely into it

~ Adam Stuart
Valentine's Day 2016

*Inspired after receiving an email recently from a parent of a former student (It is not the student pictured below. This was Joadeliz's gift to me this year that she spent her own money on; money she has very little of. It was truly a gift from her heart).


"Dear Mr. Stuart,
________ has mentioned you several times in the past few months. I as her mom am reaching out to you in hopes that you can send her your famous words of encouragement. 

She has been diagnosed with the early onset of ______ 

She has several doctors appointments in the upcoming weeks. She feels down about school, (___A's, ___B's), she needs an uplifting message and trust me I know you're the one that can deliver it and she would openly  receive it.

Once again,  I deeply appreciate it, if you can do that with your busy schedule."


I am a very unassuming person, which means I don't have an ego thinking I'm great, or worried about others seeing me as great or being better than anybody. I simply see the best in others and in the world and often have no idea of any impact I'm having on others. 

Just like any teacher, I do what I do because I am what I am and because it feels real and it feels true.

While moving recently I found a cross a student gave me ten years ago who contacts me now when she feels like cutting herself.

I have worn that cross around my neck every day since finding it.


I also found a letter from another student who told me he had gone through a period of wanting to kill himself, but each time he tried he heard my voice telling him and his classmates to Dream Big, Do Big, and never give up until they Became Big, and if any of them ever did give up they could always come back to me for hope and passion and the strength to fight again because the world needed them and the gifts only they could develop and give to the world.

He is now an incredible poet.
  
More and more of us are feeling so stressed out by stressed out administrators stressed out by their bosses over-stressing their jobs are at stake by the new protocol that we all forget why we do what we do and don't want to do it anymore.

And more and more of use are dropping out of teaching forever, wondering where we went wrong in our lives.

I came within one day from quitting teaching this year. I was still broken-hearted from a relationship that had ended months earlier, having lost my best friend and wondering where everything had gone wrong.

And now I was teaching at a new school with even tougher requirements because it was a failing school. I didn't feel strong. I didn't feel confident. And I felt so stressed out in meetings that all I heard in my head was, "You can't do this anymore." 

And I wondered what a grown man was doing teaching a bunch of kids who didn't do their homework, didn't behave, didn't care. 

I felt like a loser wondering again where I had gone wrong.


Then I reached down, deep down, into the only thing I had. The only thing I was and the only thing I was ever good at. Love. 


And I didn't quit.

I showed up one day at a time and gave all of me for just one more day at a time.  I decided to live again and love again every day I could get myself out of bed again.

I say we don't drop out. Things are tough in teaching. They are overwhelming. They are hard. 

Love is tougher. Love overcomes. Love breaks down all obstacles.


"It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (Corinthians)

And the love we have for our students has an effect we often have no idea just how big it is on them, how long it stays with them, and how long it keeps them alive because it has become a part of them.  


Valentine's Day is our day.

It is our day every day.

Happy Valentine's Day teachers!

I love you for what you do.

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Thursday, February 11, 2016

Today we will Follow these Higher-Level Thinkers to Become the Best Versions of Ourselves

Today we will Follow these Higher-Level Thinkers to Become the Best Versions of Ourselves



Everyone but one has responded to my challenge of fighting with renewed vigor, and there's a good chance that the only one holding back may not be able to fight any higher or harder. Which is tough for me to accept because I like to think that we have no limitations other than what we give ourselves.

And in today's world of teaching, we have so many limitations of what we can do and how we are to do it that we as teachers, and in turn our students, can become overwhelmed and disheartened.

So today begins with our friend Voltaire: Bonjour! Faisons-le aujourd’hui
(bohn-dzoor FAYE-zon  loo OHD-dzoor-wee

Good morning! Let's do this today!

Figure out a way to put the things we love and that work for us into our lesson plan:

1. Foreign languages  - So we wake up our brains right away and keep them firing, connecting, and thinking throughout the day!

2. Dickens' The Tale of Two Cities - So we can consciously choose to live in the state of mind city that is the best of times and not the worst of times, where we have everything before us instead of nothing before us!

3. Achilles and his powerful speech to his Myrmidons so we can fight for all that we could be instead of limping through this day as if we were nothing special and capable of doing nothing special with our lives!

4. Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 - So we CAN be compared to a summer's day and CAN become more lovely and more lasting, doing something so great with our lives that we grow in eternal lines to time and so long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives "us" and this gives life to "we"!


5. Poe's Dream Within a Dream ~ So we know we are Dreaming Big, Doing Big, and Becoming so Big that we know we are living more than just a dream within a dream!

6. Powerful thinkers of the ancient past like Solon of Athens, Cleisthenes, Themistocles, and Pericles; tthe founders, nurturers, protectors and defenders of demokratia ~ So that we may become powerful modern day thinkers and the founders, nurturers, protectors and defenders of the democracy inside of us, choosing to and becoming able to rule our own lives and not be ruled by others.

Today we will take this opportunity to figure out a way to include these into the plans we are already given to follow, conquer those basic learning standards, and follow these higher-level thinkers  "beyond the beach" to become a version of ourselves that will last  forever! 

Tuesday, February 09, 2016

BOOYAH!


big dreams don't happen without big effort

and big effort doesn't happen if u aren't committed to making those dreams happen

it's a time on the year/journey of all teachers when we want to give up because things aren't going as planned

you've hit a bump in the road and obstacles that seem too tall

but if i don't quit on them now because it seems too hard
then maybe i'll teach them not to quit on themselves when life seems too hard

maybe i'll teach them not to quit on the dreams they love and the people they love

maybe i'll teach them not to quit at all

and maybe they and there dreams will never have to hear the heart-breaking and dream-breaking words,
i'm glad we ended it

because there was no quitting by either of them at all

i sat down and talked with the class yesterday
i came in roaring like a lion and they came in as meek as sheep

i recommitted myself to helping make their dreams happen
and asked them to recommit to me and what i was trying to do

i told them i don't care what their obstacles are
as much as i care about them bigger than anything trying stop them

now and forever

and if we can re-commit to do this together
then we have a relationship that will last forever

we can give up on each other
just as we can choose to keep working together

we just need to work smarter and stronger
and i'm holding out my hand asking them to take it for one day longer

this morning these words came to my head:

will they respond big
will they respond small
will they respond
not at all

i've chosen to be in a loving, committed relationship with them
and i don't know how to give up on them

my love lasts forever
my effort only gets greater

if they choose to give up and let our dreams go
that's something i can’t control

if their obstacles are just too large for them in their own minds
then i will continue to fight and break down all of mine

teaching this way is not easy
loving like this makes you feel crazy

often you’re left alone
left to walk this dream big path alone

it doesn't mean it’s not the right
it doesn’t mean that you’re wrong

it just means you've chosen the path less taken
and sometimes you’re left alone to fight the demons you’ve awakened

as i look into the darkness this morning at all that still needs to be done
i shrug my shoulders
i shake my head
yet i choose to keep going forward
and i choose to make this journey fun

even if it means i lose
even if it means the world of what is laughs at this loser for trying

i know this was something trying for and believing in
and choose for one more day to make it fun again

and i choose to say one word for one more day to all that "can't be done"

BOOYAH!

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Today equals Tomorrow

Today equals Tomorrow


Today I woke up
with four
 of my country’s
 children
 gone.

Today I will wake up 
love and intelligence
in a powerful  
ringing of the
gong.

Tomorrow I will wake up
with all of my country’s
 children
smiling and singing
 Heaven’s
 song.


~ Adam Stuart

Février 4, 2016

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Tuesday, February 02, 2016

The Einstein~Edison~Eiffel~E=mc2 Effect

The Einstein~Edison~Eiffel~E=mc2 Effect


Today's New idea for Teaching:

"Turn yourself from a paper tiger to a real-life high-flyer!
The Einstein~Edison~Eiffel~E=mc2 Effect

Use ur dream big energy to do big with ur brain matter and turn it into more at ur own unique speed of light 

On the back of ur A test paper imagine something u can do with ur A knowledge



Imagination is more important than knowledge ~ Einstein

Darin’s exit slip: "I loved today proving my answers and Mr. Stuart (Store :-p) getting onto me."



He has trusted me to allow me inside his head and together we have made his inside bigger than his current outside

We are figuratively building an Eiffel Tower inside his heart and head of bigger and bigger believing in himself and thinking for himself

His dream of himself is now way bigger than his current outer bigness

But his do big is becoming so big that his outer reality and ability is becoming bigger on a weekly basis

Not only does he know who Einstein and da Vinci are, but HOW they became big, and how HE can use and apply this knowledge of them to help himself become big, including speaking in their native language of German and Italian

While trying his Math case in front of the court, Attorney Darin, Esq. successfully discovered an error in his thinking (Marzano Element 18 ~ Helping students examine errors in reasoning).

Then he used his knowledge of Einstein, saying, "OK. Was weiß ich? What do I know?", then da Vinci, "Well, Cosa vedo? What do I see?.....I see that the words under the graph say, "Lengths of toy boats in inches.....so.....that means there aren't 4 boats that are one inch but 1 boat that is 4 inches."

In his exit reflection slip below, which I used my Native American necklace to cover his last name (and wear to remind me to live from my spirit and not my ego, that way I don't care when they "fail" and "make me look bad" but care that they learn from their failure and truly grow smarter and succeed in the future - 2morrow, next year, doesn't matter - just matters that they do eventually succeed)

.....when he says he loved me (writing "Mr. Store" for Stuart - were working on his spelling phonics :-p) for getting onto him it was because before he could verbalize his reasoning I kept turning over the timer he got for trying his case and saying, 

"Please explain this point to me again......OK, I liked that thinking but I'm still unclear about what you mean by this point.....What do you mean by.......OK, to rest your case tell the court one more time what you did wrong and how you know u r right now?"

Today I will have all students who scored an A on last week's tests write on the back an idea they can imagine doing with their A knowledge, then folding it into a paper airplane and flying it as far across the room (or outside ~ even better ~ better n bigger fun - better use of Plato's knowledge that we learn more in a state of fun than we do in a lecture)

Their additional homework will be designing and developing that idea into a reality this week.


We'll call this the Einstein~Edison~Eiffel~E=mc2 Effect, using their  dream big energy to do big with their brain matter and turn it into more at their own unique speed of light 

And celebrate with a 21 Pilots video (Marzano Element 3 ~ Celebrating Student Success)

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