The importance of 'meaning it'

                       I just finished reading the book, Linchpin by Seth Godin and in it he has so many incredibly useful and life-changing ideas. But the one I especially keep coming back to this week is the one about the importance of being genuine, of 'meaning it.' He explains that human beings are very astute at being able to 'read' each other and if you're not going to genuine in your expressions and communications then why bother for all of us can read right through the facade anyway. He further explains that if you're at a place of work, for example, where the culture is not conducive for you or others to being genuinely friendly and courteous and respectful as a whole, that perhaps, this is not the place for you. 

                       The reason I keep coming back to this idea of 'meaning it' is that, as many of you may know, I got a new art teaching job this year, at a different district than last year. This school system, Arlington Public Schools in Northern Virginia, has really done a great job inspiring me beyond what I had expected; I mean, they have taken this 15-year teacher off her feet! Aside from their impeccable organization of orientation week so far, the people are just so, so friendly, almost old-world gracious. Myself being somewhat of a cynic due to past circumstances and a critic by nature, I all week long trying to literally 'assess' the genuineness of every new person I met. I asked myself, "Could they possibly be this happy?", "Could they possibly be this helpful to me?",  "Could they possibly love their job this much?" I pride myself at being able to read people, and yes, slowly I'm starting to believe that these new friendly, smiling people may actually be as friendly, happy and content as they present themselves to be!! I feel this will be an amazing journey and happy to be on this path. 

                         So why does 'meaning it' matter anyway? Here's why. Godin, in his book, explains how we've all experienced the human automatons on customer service calls who respond a canned, 'I am so sorry you're experiencing difficulties' as you call for help. When you hear these dry remarks we immediately know why meaning it matters. The canned response does not alleviate our situation, or soothe us in any way because we know it's not genuine. 

                   This same dilemma repeats itself in the state of education in this country today, especially in the inner cities. The overburdening of our teachers with scripted lessons, scripted morning responses, scripted set of behaviors only takes away from our kids for 'scripted-ness', by its very nature, is limiting, a dead-on inspiration killer. Inspiration matters because all great ideas come from inspiration. I'd go as far as to say that the solution to our educational system lies right here in this issue of 'being allowed to be genuine.' It's simple......If only, as a country-wide initiative we would from now on ONLY hire teachers we trust to teach (for life), we could then 'loosen the noose' and allow our teachers to be who they are, to critically develop her own ideas and teach without all the scripting. Inspiration does not and will not stem from inside a cage.  Just like in gardening, all the conditions must be met for flowering to happen. 
                       
                     

Cleaning out my closet as metaphor for self-reflection

                         All this week I have been busy in my new classroom, getting it all ready for a wonderful new year teaching elementary art, this year in Spanish; I cannot wait to begin. This ended up being a huge undertaking for me, for the person who occupied the classroom before me had not been very organized in 'closing out' the room before summer; all of this is very normal in transitions within the teaching world mind you. Early on, it became clear that I would have to actually empty all the storage spaces (which are many), look over everything, and decide on what needed to go and what needed to stay. For a split second,  I actually hesitated taking this daunting route, but regardless of its enormity I knew it was the route to take if I truly wanted genuine organization. Two afternoons, and a raging backache later, I am done with all the major organizing and I could be more proud of myself for having tackled the 'monster'.  Although there is still lots to do, I know where everything is now and that feels amazing.

                         In looking at this situation with these closets and the amazing feeling I now enjoy having done the physically demanding and tedious work to get them gutted and sorted reminded me of the inner reflecting that's necessary to become who we truly were meant to be in this world. What a wonderful metaphor for true healing this was; so much that I sat right up to write about it at 4am. The motion of taking out each item in that closet and truly assessing its importance and relevance to my classroom simulates the act of self-reflection. I have discovered in my observations of people that when we have had a painful past, we deal with them in one of three ways, yet only one way is truly healing.

                           Some people deal with past hurts by using it as an excuse to everything they do or don't do. They have allowed the narrative of their painful past to pop-up when triggered and define and literally infect all their relationships and interactions. These are often very heavy, unpredictable, and difficult people. Then, there are the ones who have chosen to do quite the opposite, the ones who have chosen to utterly ignore their past narrative and continue their lives as if the painful experiences never existed at all. These people operate quite well in the world 99% of the time. The only issue I see with this approach is that it simulates a closet full of junk where one has thrown away the key. Having been this second way initially, I know it's not a 'forever' solution. What ends up happening, and this happened to me, is that huge, life-changing moments such as births, deaths and even marriage can often trigger these closets to open wide and force you deal with the issues hidden inside.  Last, and this is where I aim to stay, there are people that need to process and reflect on the past in order to be free of it and move forward in their lives. I am convinced that in order to have a joyful and fulfilling life one must take out each item in that 'closet' and look at it, assess it's value.  Interestingly, I have found that I am often drawn to friends and people in general who also have this self-reflective mechanism embedded in their lives.  Where do you fall?

Update on my daily running routine

                   I have managed to carve a half-hour daily running/jogging work-out routine for a month now. I am in disbelief that I am able to find the time to accomplish this daily, and without fail. For years I have been making excuses after excuses to avoid having to really work out. Yet, here I am at a point in my life where I know in my bones that this is not going to roll back to some form of lazy complacency. All it took was a clear decision not to hear the excuses, not even for a minute to entertain them in my head. Despite my day's tiredness each night, despite my daily inner resistance I went out that door and did it and I could not be more excited.  A few months back this would have seemed like a huge undertaking, yet, after a few days it was a breeze walking out that door and hitting the pavement. The amazing feeling one gets from sweating, from feeling strong and fearless is worth every bit of effort. After just several days, the routine no longer feels like a struggle. It begins to feel more like a lifeline, a pure necessity to maintaining total well being. 

             Although the routine has become quite simple to accommodate into my days nowadays, I did have quite a bit of setting up work that needed to be established at the beginning. I got new sneakers, I got a heart rate monitor, I set up all my running clothes, sneakers and socks in one place in my closet so I can quickly access them and head out the door.  Last but not least, I had to adjust and time when I ate at night in order to be able to run on an empty stomach once my two kiddies went to bed. Last, I even created fun mixes and uploaded them along with inspiring books onto my iPod Touch to give my workout that extra fun kick. 

Women and feeling strong, why we need it....

                   

                  I use to run 6 miles a day as a teen, and in college I also ran, though not as much. Forward many years later, I stopped working out all together as years progressed. But, inspired by a friend, I have begun to run daily again. Not much mind you, just 1/2 hour daily running, raising my heart rate to over 140 beats per minute, 6-7 days a week. As a result of this new change in my life,  I feel the strongest I have ever felt in a long time. In fact, looking back, the last time I felt this strong was before I had my first child; that is about 8 years ago. 

                 In reflecting on what it was exactly that changed 8 years ago that 'weakened' me, I can immediately say it was the c-section births of my son, then my daughter 3 years later. For both births I was shooting for natural births with a midwife, doula and all. No matter how much people comforted me about this, something in me was telling me I had somehow failed, failed as a woman; the feeling and confidence I had in my own body was zapped out, shut off completely. As silent and quietly personal as these toxic messages which resonated within me were, the toll of such negative views of my own body and my own strength and abilities began to shift my self-image. Until one day I believed that I could not achieve much physically, and as all self-fulfilling prophesies work, I did not achieve much for years. 

                     I am back 8 years later and feeling stronger than ever.  I am again feeling in control of my own body after having literally given up on the idea of seeing myself in that capacity. I so intensely value what running  does for my well being, my self-image, my self-esteem that I am not worried about 'slipping back' to not exercising, or going back to viewing myself as unable to achieve much physically. This thing I now have, whatever it is, is mine baby, and it's here to stay, I know it in my bones; the benefits are too valuable. 

                    In further reflecting on running and its impact on my life, the impact of this current addition to my life reaches far beyond the obvious physical benefits. Like some magical domino affect, daily running is systematically affecting everything from my spirituality to my personal relationships, from my mood, to my patience level. Allow me to illustrate. Running has helped correct my posture for example. Now, you might think that's small and almost insignificant, but in fixing my posture, I now feel more at ease inside my own body, which affects the way I interact with others, which affects the way others see and interact with me, which makes for a more relaxed relationship, which makes for a more peaceful world, and the ripple affects go on, and on and on. 

                    Ones feelings about one's own abilities play an enormous role in how we related to other humans. The level of connectedness we feel with each other as human beings is inextricably connected with how we feel about ourselves, how we feel inside our own skins, what image we hold of ourselves. If we believe that we live in abundance and enjoy a life of emotional well-being, we are more likely to feel connected to people in positive ways and to other aspects of our lives in a way that reflects that level of inner peace and calmness. 

                     Your 'thing' might now be running, but I believe everyone has that special something that helps put all of life in perspective, it's our job to find it, cultivate it, grow it. Our bodies are great barometers of internal peace, if you don't feel right in your own skin it's time to start looking for that thing that will make it all fall into place....it's out there. 

My Newest Inspiration for Parenting and Education

              This is my son doing what he loves. When he is playing baseball he could literally do it for hours.  His attention is so focused and time seems to go by so fast. Human beings can only be GREAT at doing the things they love. As a parent it's important we find the 'element' that makes out kids tick and support them in this journey. 

                    My newest inspiration for both my current theories on education and parenting come from Sir Ken Robinson, the author of The Element. It mainly talks about the importance if finding out the huge importance at finding out what each child is great at and focusing on them to help them reach a fulfilling existence. This goes far beyond JUST being academically successful, but it's more about about feeling successful in life and getting there doing something you love. 

                    Below I have included some quotes from Ken Robinson's speeches and books just to give you a taste of what he is all about. I absolutely recommend the books to all parents, hands down. 

Ken Robinson Quotes

“The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't need to be reformed -- it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education, but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions.”
― Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything 

Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement. And it's the one thing that I believe we are systematically jeopardizing in the way we educate our children and ourselves.”
― Ken Robinson

“Our task is to educate their (our students) whole being so they can face the future. We may not see the future, but they will and our job is to help them make something of it.”
― Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

“I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our concept of the richness in human capacity.” 

― Ken Robinson

“Human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.”
― Ken Robinson

“We have sold ourselves into a fast food model of education, and it's impoverishing our spirit and our energies as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies.”
― Ken Robinson

“We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people. We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it's an organic process. And you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.”
― Ken Robinson

“You cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do is like a farmer create the conditions under which it will begin to flourish.” 

― Ken Robinson

“Human communities depend upon a diversity of talent not a singular conception of ability”
― Ken Robinson

“If you're not prepared to be wrong ,you'll never come up with any thing original”
― Ken Robinson

“The arts especially address the idea of aesthetic experience. An aesthetic experience is one in which your senses are operating at their peak; when you’re present in the current moment; when you’re resonating with the excitement of this thing that you’re experiencing; when you are fully alive.”
― Ken Robinson

“If all you had was academic ability, you wouldn't have been able to get out of bed this morning. In fact, there wouldn't have been a bad to get out of. No one could have made one. You could have written about possibility of one, but not have constructed it.”
― Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative

Making Decisions We Can Live With

           Saw an amazing movie, The Devil Came on Horseback, about the atrocities that happened and continue to happen Darfur. It's a documentary based on a book by a young ex-marine who by chance, finds himself witnessing mass slaughters, rapes and ethnic cleansing in the area and who then uses his photos to try to convince the world of these killings and speak against them. 

          When I see stories like this, I am renewed in my belief that the universe has a plan for everyone and that it's up to us to allow for these twists and turns of life to reveal to us the ultimate purpose of our lives. I believe with all my heart that everyone has a purpose here. Unfortunately, that does not mean that we all will necessarily hail to the call of 'destiny' and right away gear all aspects of our lives in that direction. But I do know that in order to maximize on our lives' purpose three essential ingredients must e present. The three ingredients include, (1) an almost raw and genuine honesty with ourselves, (2) fearless bravery and (3) total acceptance of circumstances that might have not necessarily been in our plans. This plight needs to take on an 'at-all-cost' status. For example, this young man in the movie, a former Marine named Brian Steidle, was at first fearful that showing his photographs 
might get him in trouble with various entities here in the States.
Yet, his inner voice was so convincing and loud that he knew right away that what he was doing was right and true, even at the face of all his fears.

         There comes times in our lives when difficult decision must be made for the larger good. We must choose between what's cozy and easy and what's an obvious uphill battle for the ultimate right; whatever that may be for us at the time. What I find most poignant about these 'life battles' is how unimportant other's opinions and perspectives becomes once we know in our hearts what is right. This year for example, I left a job I loved very much after painfully realizing that under the current administration I would not prosper as a professional or as a human being. Lots of people had very strong feelings about my decision to find greener pastures, but ultimately I knew that it would be me who needed to live with this decision and therefore only my understanding of my predicament truly mattered. Making the right decision is never easy, but after the dust settles, we knew we took the right path if we can walk with our heads held high.   

THIS is what learning should look like!!!