"The best things happen while you're dancing."

Remember when your middle school and high school teachers used to say this:

Students, work with a partner - one of you needs to take a moment to spontaneously create an 8-count  of a dance routine to teach to the other person, who will then perform it in front of the rest of the class.

Yeah, I don't remember that either.

But my students will.

Kindness Is Timeless

Breakfast pals.

Greeted a man in town today who got a bigger smile than normal from me.

Later I realized that if I didn't happen to know he is losing his marriage and the mother of his children, I wouldn't have had that as a motivating reason to give an extra bit of kindness.

It reminded me of that quote that says, "Be kind for everyone is fighting a hard fight."

Six Word Bio

Knowing God

Feeling loved

Living dreams

These Are My People

O how I love motivational thoughts from writers for writers.

Reading a collection of quotes and insights about writing just made me sigh
like one of those young ladies gazing at the flowers on the table from her beau.

Into The Woods

I always love the green I see across our campus and surrounding it.

The annual Tree Day holiday gives students a chance to take part in simple
beautifying tasks on the grounds of our campus and in a few other parts of town.

This week's Tree Day celebration had the teenagers and me braving the woods behind campus in order to plant trees.

Being in the woods like that took me back in a flash to my school boy days as an elementary schooler. I realized I am thankful for the neighborhood kids I grew up with. They're who I followed into the woods we lived close to...without those kids, it's possible I never would've walked around in there...never would've touched the earth in there with my hands...never would've realized it's fine to sit on top of dirt and leaves and twigs and sticks...never would've tried exploring a creek in there and turning over big rocks to find what lives underneath...never would've developed my connection with the dust I was made from...never would've appreciated my fellow creation as fully....never would've known how peaceful it is in the woods...never would've known what kids today are missing out on...never would've known the need to have my own sons and daughters follow me into the woods someday. 

Who Gives A Crap

Here's the unexpected thought process that unfolded when I saw one of the teenagers walking across campus after school:

My first thought was that I'm not sure we got through to him this year. After so much intervention, planning, tutoring, threatening, encouraging, collaborating, and reassuring his parents - it's possible he's about to exit the school year with the understanding that he will still be passed through or allowed to do whatever he was told could be forfeited if he failed to change.

Then I thought about the fact that the parents might continue to enable or make concessions or bail him out. And the fact that he may never really "get it" and make positive changes, and mature into the kind of person that can avoid hard lessons and rude awakenings later in the real world. 

From there, I thought that as much of a shame as that would be, the reality is that student will still survive and probably be alright in the grand scheme of things. 

That's when it hit me.

That whole thought process brought me to the recognition of just how much we (teachers) give a crap...just how much we carry the weight of making the difference that we know needs to be made.

We find ourselves involved in a ton of feeling, and this is the peculiar part:

it's all for someone (or several different someones each year, followed by a new list of someones at the start of every new academic year) who isn't even our kid...or our relative...or so much as our best friend's kid who we just love to pieces.

Interesting to be just arriving at some moment of closure or settling of the soul after 9 months of physical/mental/emotional labor and toil.

Big

Back in graduate school, some of my coolest friendships were with internationals.

I remember noticing the effect those students had on me. They had moved from all over the world to Athens, Georgia for higher education - in spite of the uncertainty and fear involved in such an undertaking - and something about that reality struck me in a particular way.
It made me feel like the world was smaller than I thought before.

Of course, in those days I had no idea that the courage of my international friends would help embolden me to live abroad someday.

But I am so glad it did.