"The Fears That Bind..."

"You always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear." - Sammy Davis Jr.

Dramatic irony.  When an audience or reader knows something that the character in a movie or book does not. We all live with an element of dramatic irony.  None of us knows when a legitimate fear may come towards us and if that's true, knowing how to handle those fears becomes next to impossible.  Oh how it be so much easier if we could be warned. 

I can think of many times throughout my life when I was incredibly fearful of someone or a situation.  As a kid, I was definitely afraid of my parents.  I was afraid of this kid who bullied me on the school bus.  I was afraid of my math teacher in seventh grade.  He was a very, VERY tall man. I saw him reprimand a kid in the hallway and boy, I wouldn't have wanted to be that kid for all the tea in China.  I was afraid of not understanding what I was being taught.  The harder something was for me to learn, the more fearful I became.

I've been afraid of how others perceive my intentions.  First impressions, the first day of a new job, a first date, first kiss, a last date, fear permeates all of those instances.  We survive.  We even grow to appreciate them and look back on those firsts with fondness and yes, even love.

Marriage is scary.  I don't care what anyone thinks. Vows exchanged mean a partnership has to ensue. There will undoubtedly be "better or worse."  The upside to this is with the right partner, you witness loyalty, vulnerability, and trust that no one else that came along was going to provide.

I've been fearful of change.  The first day of college was terribly fearful.  The day I graduated from college, terrifying.  Graduating,  meant I had to move forward and find a job. The first time we experience the death of a loved one perpetuates so much change.  We understand that we are not invincible. Loss can make us refocus and jump into the world with both feet. But it's the fear above all that catapults us to change.  We will not live forever and that we had better make damn sure we approach each day with a gratitude that we have another day.  

Then there are the "What ifs..." of fear.  We overthink.  We don't want to disappoint those we love or ourselves by a failure so that fear alone prevents us from a necessary movement. If we can manage to make a change and ignore the "What ifs," we often find out that although the move or change is extremely difficult, we come out having learned a great deal.  When we come out the other side, we have more to offer not only to ourselves but to others. 

If we think about each and every time we've been fearful, we realize that we are no different than the person sitting next to us.  We find, if given the opportunity, that the very people we argue with or have a problem with, are just as fearful as we are.  Perhaps if we focused more on accepting the idea that humans by their very nature experiene fear (or the fight or flight behaviors) and admitting them, we would be willing to accept the differences in others, and find the common ground. We would in fact be less quick to judge and have a more accepting society.  I find myself thinking about this each and every time I find myself disliking someone or I find myself getting angry with someone's behavior.  They have fears. I have fears. I then walk away and find my peace.

"Why Teachers Lose Their Faith..."

"Calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that's very important for good health." - Dali Lama

"How do I keep my faith?" "How do I stay positive?" For twelve years of my teaching career, I've asked these same questions with no definitive answer or methodology except for this...The success I've had has been directly related to giving my students, my kids, a purpose.  Without purpose, no one moves a muscle to go further in their growth or in their happiness. I have witnessed and experienced a great deal of heartache as a teacher of junior high students.  At the same time, I have witnessed and experienced a happiness and a joy beyond anything I could have imagined and that almost was not a possibility.  Giving kids a purpose, energizes them and makes them eager to learn.  That's what I've been doing these past years and now I understand that purpose and gratitude creates the mobility we need to see in our young people.

In my twenties, I was told many times over that I wouldn't make it as a teacher. Being just shy of 4'11" in height,  I was told I wasn't physically able to manage a classroom of high school students. (True story.)   That was told to me at the age of 26 by a professor at college. I was told this by principals and teachers early on in my career who lacked innovation, creativity and yet, were as negative and deplorable as one can be. This was back in 1987. Teaching jobs were at a premium then. Today, I look at my past career path and realize that as ugly as it was, I took the next twenty years and went into the business world and grew up and licked my wounds. I had managers and  supervisors who allowed me to grow without fear, without provocation, and thankfully, respectfully my strength and my confidence grew.  That's what we need to do with our teachers.  We need to encourage them to find and then keep their joy and let them be comfortable in their own skin.

Why do teachers lose faith?  The answer is because it's still too easy to crush their enthusiasm by not empowering them and accepting their individuality to grow as a teacher.  We are shocked and disgusted when this happens to our kids. We should not be doing this to our new teachers either. More and more students are becoming "reluctant learners."  At the same time, teacher shortages are being predicted.   Apparently, fewer and fewer people are seeing the positives to a teaching career.  Education is going by the wayside and the smart phone and iPhone are replacing our ability to focus on the fundamentals of communication, learning and even more importantly, manners.  If a student can't learn with any kind of immediate gratification, then learning has no value.

The cell phone has replaced any need for patience.  The cell phone surrounds us with twenty-four hour narcissism and this is hurting the teaching profession and it's hurting our kids, who, by the way are my kids for forty-two minutes, five periods a day.  

We all love our phones.  But in the hands of those without a fully developed hypothalamus, they are deadly.  We have plenty of proof of this too and should make all of us pause.  There has to be a shift in how we look at education.  Some of the good old-fashioned fundamentals really are healthy fundamentals that build a strong society with a sense of purpose. 

A couple of days before school let out for the summer, we were told to pack up our classrooms so they could be cleaned properly.  Before I knew it, I had students in my room, who weren't motivated to even bring a pencil to class, come and not only help me but redecorate my classroom for September.  They needed purpose and so I let them claim one for themselves.  As the last day before summer ended, I looked around my room and thought,  all that work, and not one of them looked at their phone.  Purpose.  We all need a purpose. Perhaps that is way we gain our faith when we need it most.