Thought #79 on Ending Terrorism ~ Be the Thing that Stops Bad Things From Happening to Them ~ Like a Poor Education

KICKSTARTING OUR HEARTS ~ Thought #79 on Ending Terrorism ~ Be the Thing that Stops Bad Things From Happening to Them ~ Like a Poor Education

*After he told me I reminded him of Hancock and I realized the impact I had on him, I wrote his full name on a piece of paper and practiced saying it every day until I could say it correctly when I called his name during the 5th-grade graduation ceremony. 

Here are parts of our Facebook messaging since 2009:

“Hey Mr. Stuart, it’s me, Abder (Abderrahmane Echchalhi) lol. How r u doin? I miss u because u always pushed me to higher limits. Plz write back as soon as u can. Ty, bye.

I’m really hating the 6th grade right now because all our teachers are getting crazy about the FCAT and giving us so much homework each nite. I really miss the way that YOU teach!!!!!!!!!!! How’s ur life going on with ur students? I’m sure their growth is powerful!”

Ur a good man Abder. It's not as much fun 4 me this year becuz I don't have just one group of students to work with. It's more like middle school where I only have @hour with each group. 

I know u'll pull thru and do well. I miss having u in class.

“Hey Mr. Stuart, don’t think I forgot you! Dream big, be big, do big ~ livin by that motto. Happy bday!

I hope you know you've had a great impact on my life. 

I still remember when you lifted me up and put me against the white board joking around. lol good times good times.

And how we had to finish our homework so we can play 4 square (WHICH I LOVED)

Dream big, do big , be big will forever be engraved in my heart thanks to you and breaking away from the school’s curriculum.

Also, you told me once , "If someone says you have a lot of potential don't take it as a compliment (because it means you aren’t using your potential)! Haha! 5th grade with you was the memory I get even in high school, and how much you loved Bella which if I do recall correctly is your daughter!

Just to let you know I'm majoring in sports science now, still have that super long name (Abderrahmane Echchalhi), also going to minor in psychology and my brother Mohamed is doing great, got a manager job at Holiday Inn !

Even though I was so young your class and your name are all I remember when thinking about elementary school.”

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.

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)

Our Students Must Believe that we Believe in Them

Sitting up late tonight listening to songs and I came across one by Mumford & Sons called, "Believe".

I watched the official video and then the one with the lyrics.........Then I watched them both again.

The new school year starts in a week, and I need to believe in a group of students I've never met, at a school where I've never taught. 

How do I get these students to believe in themselves? How do I get them to believe in me?

After closing my eyes and listening to the lyrics over and over, I now know how.

I have to first believe in them. 

But how do I get myself to believe in them; and believe I can have the strength to hold onto them each day all the time?

I need to go back to what I DO KNOW about each one of them, even though I've never met any one of them. 

I KNOW they all learned how to walk, and if they all learned how to walk then I KNOW they all can learn how to think.

How did they ALL learn how to walk? They were all COMPLETELY BELIEVED IN that they could learn how to walk. 

And just how were they ALL completely believed in?

They were all COMPLETELY LOVED by those around them; because powerful, pure, unquestioned BELIEF in another TAKES powerful, pure, unquestioned LOVE for another.

So then all I need to do is COMPLETELY BELIEVE in their ability to think, to learn, and to grow by COMPLETELY LOVING their potential to do so. 

But I'm just a teacher, and I've heard that those who can, do; and those that cannot, teach. Who am I to believe I can do this? 

Well, because I know the opposite is true; that those who CAN LOVE and CAN BELIEVE IN OTHERS........are called TEACHERS!

This is what we do, and these lyrics are our students' challenge to us. And successfully meeting this challenge goes far beyond determining how well they do on the state tests.

How well we meet this challenge affects how much they will love and believe in themselves, and be able to love and believe in others, as adults.

What we do this year affects them forever. I'd say they're all worth fighting for, and not fighting with.

Knowledge IS NOT Power

I've always had problems with the statement that, "Knowledge is Power"
I agree that it is POTENTIAL power, but only that. According to Bloom's Taxonomy of Thinking, knowledge is the LOWEST level of thinking, and from my experience, I've seen this to be true. (getting Amanda to think at higher levels)

Getting my introduction to what teaching is at a private high school in Ohio, I had a senior getting an A- in my class without even trying. She was so skilled at memorizing, and the class being American History, that I pulled her into the hall and told her she could only get two grades in my class:

"Ms. Wong, either earn an A+ in my class (meaning she would at least have to try)
or you will earn an F. You're operating at this level without trying. My job is to see how high your level can be."

She asked if I was allowed to do this. I responded with, "As far as you know."

She did get an A+, but more importantly I changed my tests from testing memorization to testing their understanding of how one event led to and was related to another. (paying attention to how her brain recognizes information)

So from what I have seen, knowledge is just the start, or foundation, of real mental power. Take into account that spelling and most tests only measure a student's ability to memorize, and NOT problem solve, and you see where I'm heading; we are producing a nation of educated unable-to-problem solve-and -think-for-themselves idiots. (seeing how her strategic brain network works with the new knowledge)

And if you think I'm being too harsh and want to rush to defend our great country in a non-thinking knee jerk reaction, understand that although test scores are going UP in this country, they are going DOWN when compared against other countries (we are now in the LOWER half of industrialized countries on problem solving tests).


During my first year of teaching I heard myself telling students, "Memorize nothing, understand everything". Now I know why. Take a look at this, an excerpt from a book I'm reading called, What We Owe Children: The subordination of teaching to learning:

"Teachers are those people who take knowledge down from the shelves where it is displayed and hand it out to students who...need only memory in order to receive it. (Tapping into their affective brain networks, or motivation, before attempting to teach them)

This process is conceied as the way the student comes to knowledge. The key to this view - and to the whole traditional way of teaching - is the tacit belief that memory is a power of the mind...

La Rochefoucauld said around 1660....'Man gladly complains of his memory, but not of his intelligence.'

Was he correct in his implication that memory is in fact a weak power of the mind?

To see that it is we need to go no farther than to look at what is done by teachers in order to insure that their students retain the knowledge handed down to them. (Constantly asking them what is the "So What?", the importance of what this knowledge is - TO THEM)
Teachers give a lesson, thinking they are passing knowledge on to their students, but since they do not actually know whether they have succeeded, they proceed to give the student exercises.

Why?....So that what they themselves cannot do, the exercises will do: get the knowledge securely into their students. (Seeing that they're not ready - the lesson has no meaning for them - YET!)

But exercises usually are not sufficient, so teachers give homework. What does homework do? WHat a teacher cannot do...(during the school day)

It does not end there either, There are also reviews. On Monday morning the class reviews what was done the week before. In January...what was done last term. And next year what was done the previous year. ...Reviewing and testing goes on for years because know that many of their students do not retain the knowledge....

(taken from pages 18-19 of the book)


***So I ask where is this POWER in "knowledge", when knowledge simply consists of facts and rules to be memorized.

What's NOT done is focusing on the FUNCTIONAL ABILITY of the student to USE bits of knowledge to connect neurons and form ideas.

Ideas that lead to possible solutions to problems they ARE NOT GIVEN the answers to.

My own children asked their mother if I knew anything, because every time they asked me something I said, "What do you think". (getting them fired up - one-by-one - by helping them each make meaning of this knowledge)

I do the same with my students. I want them to THINK ~
(and sensing they are ready to really begin learning)
~ to UNDERSTAND or MAKE MEANING of facts and rules (all but four got an A on yesterday's spelling test. which test their ability to memorize. FOr these students this test can only serve to build their confidence, but not their brains

~ to be able to APPLY this understanding to solve similar problems

~ to ANALYZE why and how this information makes sense by being able to break it down into it's functioning parts

~ to be able to SYNTHESIZE these parts or put them back together to solve a seemingly unrelated problem

~ and be able to EVALUATE their own thinking and work to determine their own performance, or grade (and hitting it hard now that I have them fully engaged)

**This last step I feel is what truly frees them as independent learners and thinkers, enabling them to step away from the parent-teacher-boss iconic to think and act for themselves, following what is right for them, according to what feels right to them. (and finally being able to celebrate real success)

Tell Me

Now that class is over
And it's time for you to go

Tell me what you learned today
And tell me how you've grown

Tell me that I did my job
And gave you wings for flight

Tell me that you'll fly so high
In your dreams tonight

- Adam Stuart
(just another peaceful warrior with just another young dreamer - Amanda)

YOU'VE DONE IT!

You are officially one of the highest growing classes in Orange County last year. All of our efforts have paid off. Congratulations! I am so proud, and miss you guys more than ever. Remember when I told you not to be afraid of the FCAT, to be the buzz saw and tear it up? Well, you did and I mentioned you guys throughout a post I wrote today called "BRING ON THE PAIN!". Here it is.....

I received a comment from a good friend on my "The Power of Life" post. He felt bad for me and encouraged me to stay strong and positive, which is a nice thing to say. But I wanted to make it very clear, that being in pain is not necessarily bad. It is in dealing with the pain in your life YOU BECOME STRONGER and MORE POSITIVE. And as your strength increases, so does your ability to cause GREAT change in your life, and hence THE WORLD that interacts with you. (By being a happy and strong person, I believed we could combine great fun with great learning in the classroom)

Pain is an incredible tool to produce miracles. Life IS NOT a pursuit of trying to avoid pain or feel sorry for those that have it in their lives (I was sent to the principal's office at least three times for "expecting too much" from Kenny, yet constantly questioned by other teachers and students if I really ever taught anything because there was so much noise and laughter coming from the room).

The principal chose to trust me. As much as I respect any boss, I was strong enough to believe in myself whether my boss and others did or not. Since I used to crumble when my wives didn't believe in me, I can only attribute this HUGE amount of growth from going through and overcoming MORE fear, doubt, worry and pain involving the loss of my children from my everyday life. Going from a half-million dollar home to a rented room in a neighborhood known as "Crime Hills" didn't hurt me anywhere near this much. (I was too hard on Ryan in the beginning and had to go through the pains of learning a different approach. We ended the year very close.)

I finally learned not to feel sorry for myself (thanks Mom and Dad for saying things I needed to hear). I certainly don't want anyone else feeling sorry for me now. That can only bring me back down and weak. Too many students need me to believe in them. How long can I do that feeling so bad about my situation that I can't sleep at night?

Every person knows how hard it is to hold onto their dreams with each passing year. It is less painful to let them go as foolish and unrealistic than it is to hold on to them. And the more you do make them come true and begin succeeding you WILL have to deal with the pain of critics who really just wish they could be more like you.
(Jessica is a GENIUS! She would create characters to go along with her stories, testing at the very top of the country in reading, and at the highest level you can in math - her WORST subject at the start of the year!)

The main reason they're not more like you is not because they don't have your potential, it's because they haven't put themselves through the process of dealing with their everyday pain as well as you have, and in process, getting strong enough to develop said gifts. This is exactly what I was talking about in "Give One More, To One More". That's why I feel "potential" is nothing. What you do with your potential is everything. (Serena WILL become ANYTHING she wants)

In fact, the more pain, the greater the opportunity for growth. The bigger the obstacle, the bigger you can become. I read somewhere that "you're as big as the obstacle that stops you". I've never forgotten it.

So I put my students through more pain and expectation than they have ever had before.
(I taught Haseeb like Denzel Washington coached his players in "Remember the Titans". This is what worked for him, what he needed. He was accepted to private middle school and Denzel's signed picture is in the room.)

At the same time they experience more fun and laughter than they ever had, probably since Kindergarten, simply because I have taken the pains to learn each of their motivations and learning styles, teach them that way, and then teach them how to motivate and teach themselves.

This produces a great flow of real learning versus trying to force it. As a result, I am allowed to operate as a doctor and strength-coach, identifying and working with individual needs versus standing in front of the room and "teaching" all day. (Kenny, one of my biggest challenges and one of the ones I miss most, grew more in overall reading and math than any other student in the entire 5th grade). I just put a slide show on MySpace (click here) in celebration of their achievement as being one of the highest growing classes in Orange County, FL (the other O.C. :-)

So I say, "BRING ON THE PAIN!" If it doesn't kill you it will make you stronger. I have found this to be very true. I know pain can hurt, but it can't kill. Only you can do that. And ONLY YOU can use it to allow you to grow and become more enlightened, more peaceful, and much happier in the long run, which is TODAY! I have wanted it to kill me in the past because then I wouldn't have to feel it anymore. But I held on one more day, sometimes even one more hour. But I did. (Mighty Malcolm, like myself, wasn't so mighty in the beginning. By the end he was!)

Now I am a healthier and happier person with healthier and happier children, other kids no longer being abused, students in the top of the county and country and I bet the world, straight A's in a tough masters program, and two book series in process. All from struggle, all from pain, all from overcoming fear, doubt and worry - three of the worst drugs you can take into your mind.

So bring on the pain. Bring on the badness. I will not intend or desire any of it, but by Buddha and God and any other enlightened being I can learn from and grow, I WILL SUCCEED. I WILL LIVE WHILE I'M ALIVE. I will live ALIVE-ING versus DYING.

We don't enter school knowing how to do and deal with everything. We don't leave school knowing all of it either. Life is a process, a wonderful adventure that includes scaling cliffs and climbing mountains as much as it does swimming in the ocean and walking through a meadow of flowers.

No matter what mountain you're being asked to climb, CLIMB IT! And when you get to the top, reach out help others up. We are all capable of being more than we're living now, and more greatness than we could ever imagine. Our success is only starting.

There's Zen in Fire! All the time!

*P.S. If you'd like, here is the link to their stories from about Christmas to the end of the year, Stuart's Spectacular Students (I had the strength to know they would be spectacular and hold onto that vision, until they saw it and believed it too. Thank God for the pain I've been through.)

Their stories from the first of the year to Christmas are on Samurai Teaching ~ Sensational Living. This blog got so big I had to make the other. The link to the first student story on the Samurai blog is "The Winners of Washington Shores.'"

Hilarious Student Bloopers

These are actual student mistakes, unintentional ones, collected by Richard Lederer, a high school English teacher. These make me laugh, and then I remember this is the future of our country, and start to cry :-) (Just kidding. When things are wrong....DO SOMETHING TO MAKE THEM RIGHT.)

Don't sit around and complain, anyone can do that. But, can you go about fixing the problem with a sense of humor? That not only makes the problem more likely to be solved, but much, much more enjoyable. I have had enough near-death experiences to appreciate the opportunity to wake up and say, "I'm still here? Cool!"

This great appreciation for life today has helped me to care less about what people think of me, and more about how I can help people think more of themselves, while I am here. My greatest concern being my children and my students. It's a pretty cool way to live.

The History of The World (from 8th grade through the college level)

Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies, and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation.

The pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain. The Egyptians built the pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube.

The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked, "Am I my brother's son?"

God asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Issac, stole his brother's birthmark. Jacob was a patriarch who brought up his 12 sons to be patriarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.

Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.

....Well, back to working on my thesis, which is on education. I'll post more when I take another break. Till then, keep laughing, or crying. The US emerged as the world's greatest power just a short 60 years ago after World War II. China is predicted to take our place in as little as 30 years. India might surprise us all and beat them to it (greater democracy and faster growth to compensate for China's greater numbers).

Half our economy comes from the math, science, and engineering fields. After kicking out and keeping out many foreigners contributing to this part of our GDP after 911, it seems as if the real terrorism of that event is just beginning.

And with fewer and fewer American students entering the math and science fields because they don't "get it" and therefore don't find it interesting, it's as if we're throwing away this incredible freedom we've gained via economic prosperity and burying our heads in the sand in ignorance.

Hence, another example of where I just don't see ignorance as being bliss. What you, I and especially our children don't know, harms us all. "A's" in school don't mean a thing if that knowledge cannot be broken down and used to solve open-ended problems.

The world is full of problems, and we need heroes to solve them. The longer I teach the more important I see my job. When someone now asks me what I do for a living, with a Bruce Willis-like smile on my face I say, "I wake up grateful that I'm alive, get on my motorcycle, and go make heroes."

"The gods favor the bold." - Ovid

Make a hero today. Go believe in someone.

- Adam Stuart