Miracle on Joliet Street

As you may know, my wife’s side of the family has a tradition of playing a trivia game centered on a Christmas movie each year during our gathering.  Since “Uncle Tim” is a teacher, he is in charge of preparing the questions.  In this, Uncle Tim has to watch the movies. This has elevated my estrogen levels to some extent.  Throughout the years, trivia questions have been presented on It’ A Wonderful Life, Jingle All the Way, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Elf, A Christmas Story and others. This year, the movie is Miracle on 34^th Street (1994 version). Why the winning team did not choose the original from the 40’s is beyond me. Some movies just should not be remade.  In this movie, a little girl, Susan,  is confronted with not being sure if Santa is real or just “a nice old man with whiskers.”  You know the story…Kris Kringle becomes the Macy’s Santa Claus after knocking the Thanksgiving Day parade drunken Santa out with his cane…creates a publicity stunt causing department store wars…works hard to convince the mother that he is the real deal…smacks someone else with his cane…goes to the mental ward…goes on trial for claiming to be Santa…wins the case…works all night and delivers presents to all the “good little boys and girls”…mysteriously disappears…manages to leave little Susan with the gift that she wanted.  End credits to follow. Susan just had to believe. 

Here’s my tie-in. There is a great deal of discussion around the state on the rigor of the “New” ISTEP.  No one can argue that this version of the state exam will be a challenge not only for our kids; but for the teachers who are preparing the kids.  That is why the test examples and video snippets are so important.  Take heed, dig deep and show the kids what WE are up against.  Make them work the technology so that they UNDERSTAND what to expect and are PREPARED to work the keypad correctly. Take nothing for granted.  Right after break, we will begin our “93.5 FM – Are You Dialed In?” theme through daily announcements, the making of student and staff videos, T-shirts, themed pencils and other ways to create the carrots for kids that the test itself does not provide.  Yes, there is a huge emotional side to this.  If you haven’t shown your students their goals for ISTEP, do so when we return.  Finally, we have to BELIEVE in our kids, BELIEVE in ourselves, BELIEVE in our preparation, and BELIEVE that we can reach the goals we have set.

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The Browns play in the great state of North Carolina this Sunday vs. the Panthers.  At this point, we are playing for pride (i.e. – contract money) since we, once again, will not be in the playoffs.  We finish up on the 28^th against the Ratbirds at Baltimore.  A promising season down the drain – saw this movie before.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gmail

When was the last time you actually wrote a letter?  On paper. Using a pen. Addressing an envelope.  Stamping. Dropping it in a mailbox.  Yeah, me too.  Email has just about put the United States Postal Service out of business.  They have changed their push to package delivery service as they compete against giants like Fed Ex and UPS.  Rumor is that the latter two are merging under the new name, “Fed Up”.  Anyway, I came across a quote from Paul Buchheit, creator and lead developer of Gmail, an incredibly popular email service used by millions. His philosophy has always been to extend his employees, to stretch his company, and to think outside of the box. This is what he said about naysayers;  “If someone says: ‘That’s impossible!”, you should understand it as:  “According to my very limited experience and narrow understanding of reality, that’s very unlikely.”  Excellent.  Too often, the answer to a vision is “Why”.  That is the glass half-full view leadership style.  The more appropriate response to a vision should be “Why not?”. Never let logistics get in the way of a worthwhile vision. That is why successful companies flourish.

How about us as educators?  Be honest with yourself.  Have you ever had preconceived notions about a student that there was no way in God’s green acres that this kid will amount to anything?  Did you ever think that what is envisioned is impossible to do?  Did you ever squash someone’s dream just because it was painted outside of the lines?  Did you ever look at a kid’s incoming state test score and think that he had a snowball’s chance in Hades of making the cut so why even bother?  While test scores impact many things beyond our control, that’s not what this is really about.  It’s about making adifference in the lives of others. Don’t let numbers get in the way of that. Let’s look at kids and see the positives that they bring  rather than a majority focus of the negatives.  Let’s move away from limited experiences of our own and embrace things that come our way as a way to grow ourselves.  Let’s widen our range of understanding by really digging deep to explore what makes that kid tick and how I can reach him or her.  The only thing that is limited is the time we have with these kids.  Let’s make a difference while we have them.  The overarching vision is to make a difference - never let logistics get in the way of that vision. In the meantime, write someone a letter – it’s the new weird.

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The Browns play their final home game on Sunday vs the Cincinnati Bengals in round two of the “Battle of Ohio”.  If we hope to make the playoffs, this is an absolute “must” win.  It has been 10 years since a game in January had personal meaning.

Colors

A few years ago, I attended a Promise Keepers conference. Promise Keepers is a Christian organization for men with a core mission of building strong marriages and families.  This was held at the former Hoosier Dome and it was jam packed.  One of the speakers was a black minister whose name escapes me.  Booming voice…very articulate.  His speech began by stating that people many times over the years commented that he was “colored”.  “Colored?”, he asked all of us rhetorically.  He found amusement in that because these comments came from white people.  Amusement?  Yes, amusement. He said that “white” people are only “white” part of the time and that they change colors multiple times a day.  He cited that we are “blue” with sadness, “green” with envy, “pink” with embarrassment, “yellow” with a lack of courage, and “red” with rage.  He ended that segment with, “And you all have the audacity to call me colored!”  Chuckle.

Red should be a prominent color in education; except for the grading pen.  I would hope that all educators be red with passion!  After all, isn’t that why you got into this business, anyway?  Right?  It could not have been because you had zero passion for working with kids.  Wasn’t it because you wanted to make a difference in the lives of kids…maybe even because a former teacher of yours made a profound difference in your life?  We have all had so called “bad” days; maybe even to the point where you were “red” with anger…and showed it quite vividly. This writer is guilty as charged. Advice = step back, count to ten, take a walk, refocus, think before reacting, and remember that a lot of eyes are watching you and will learn from your example. Working on that myself; especially in this latest battle.  If our face is red, let it be red with passion for what we do!

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The Browns play against the Indianapolis Colts on the shores of Lake Erie this weekend.  Weather forecast is brutal…Colts play indoors, right?  Hoping that Andrew runs out of luck.