"Dear Death, can you help me live?"

At the beginning of every class of new students, I present a piece* on the most important principle of my life: Death. That's right.  I live my life according to death. (What better first-impression than a Debbie-downer topic like death?).   Here's the brutal truth of it though:  Someday, I'm going to die.   Someday, you are going to die.  Everyone knows this; yet, most seem to assume that the wink of death will happen years from now.  Hopefully it will.  But maybe it won't.  Maybe today is my last day.  Maybe today is your last day.  So, if that were the case, how would you live today differently?  How would you get the most out of every second?


When one has this image in mind -- mortality -- it's amazing seeing what energy and motivation emerges.  Maybe, instead of playing two hours of Call of Duty today, I'll actually learn that phrase in Spanish I always wanted to know because today might be my last.  Maybe, instead of clicking "refresh" on my Facebook homepage for the tenth time, I'll finally call up my brother to tell him how much I look up to him because today might be my last.  Or maybe, instead of complaining about how much [insert nonsense here] sucks, I'll try to change someone's life because today might be my last.

Ultimately, it is this driving force that has helped popularize "bucket lists."  Our modern media is starting to bank on the idea with movies like The Bucket List and shows like MTV's The Buried Life (Finally, MTV has produced something that doesn't make me want to stick my head in a blender).  People are starting to pull themselves from dull stupors and look at how they're living their lives -- recognizing that life is fragile and impermanent. 

At the back of my room, I have posted my list I've had for three years.  99 items -- one for every time I've said, "I'd love to ____" or "I've always wanted to _____."  For weeks, students had been asking me about the items on my bucket list, how I checked some off, why some of them were added, when I'll complete others. Many even asked frequently, "Can we make our own lists in class?"  Wait. Was that a request for an assignment? 

Request granted.  In the closing week of our trimester, after days of exam prep and brain pain, we decided to end our trimester with the same theme with which we started:  Death.  Welcome back Death.  Can you help me with this assignment?  I need some inspiration.  At the end, each student wrote at least thirty things they want to do before they pass away.  Some wrote as many as one-hundred and twenty.  Some topics were bizarre:


Fill an old swimming pool with Jello
Go to a random stranger and say, “You’re the best friend I ever had.”
Go to Wal-Mart in Darth Vader costume and “Force Choke” some people. 
Draw a perfect circle freehand
Tee-pee my grandparent’s house
Invent a helicopter boat-house
Walk through a “drive-thru”
Chest bump a sumo wrestler

Others sent warmth through my veins:


Foster a child
Discover my life’s purpose
Have a college education
Help a struggling family have a merry Christmas by leaving toys and food on their doorstep
Find love
Hug 50 strangers in one day
Be able to support my brother
Tell a stranger, “You’re beautiful”
Donate everything I have before I die
Go through high school and college without drinking alcohol
Raise a thousand dollars for cancer research

These students are starting to live.  And, best of all, we are now engaged in a community of accountability. Our classes, though disbanded for the new trimester, are still in contact and sharing successes and accomplishments with their lists.  Because, it's one thing to write a list.  It's another to live a list. 

So, how are you making the most of your moments?  Because, today could be your last.  Make it count.

*The piece, This Is It! was created and developed by The Quantum Learning Network's ridiculously talented curriculum writers and facilitators.  Much credit.  Much love.   

Ripple Affect

"Teens are apathetic."  How many times have you heard this phrase?  How many times have you said this phrase?  I'd be lying if I claimed that I've never said it.  Really though, how often could this phrase be said about any adult given certain situations.  Give any human a task in which he/she is not interested and prepare for a barrel of apathy.

Idea:  Why don't we challenge students with realistic tasks that actually benefit those around them?  What if they could see a direct impact on their work -- more than just a cute lil' "A" with a smiley face sticker?  How would they respond?

I'll tell you how.  Our 9th grade students were given the challenge to make the largest splash possible on the world around them.  The idea that one person can't change the world was challenged.  One person can change the world if he/she starts a ripple that rages into a wave.  The question:  Do you want to stay out of the water, pin drop in the pool, or cannonball like a beast and soak everyone in sight?

Students began by writing "legacy" statements that gave the thesis of how they want to be remembered when they die.  Then, they manned up/womanned up and started their legacies.  Want to be remembered as a giving person?  Prove it.  Want to be a leader?  Step up.  You've got one month and a team of 6-8 peers.  What can you do today to draft your legacy?

Students presented and persuaded each other on issues of need, collaborated to set goals, organized campaigns, wrote persuasive letters, and pushed their commitment for a month straight.  Here are their results:

-- $1,400 and 600+ canned food items donated to Christian Neighbors through a football game food drive;
-- $450 raised for a local family battling cancer and a homeless shelter through can deposit collection;
-- 100 pairs of shoes donated to Souls for Soles, a group providing shoes to needy in Africa;
-- 1400 meals donated to Feeding America through Snickers sales and donation code entry;
-- 20,000 + grains of rice donated through a Freerice.com class competition.

Jessica Carper, Graham Hubbell, Shelby Vanburen, J.D. Nord, Jordan Cox, Noah Rietkerk, John Klein, and Kelsey Phillips (Not Pictured): Raised $1400 and 600+ canned goods in one night.

All of this was done by 50 Freshmen.  Other classes donated hundreds more dollars and supplies to local charities. And some say character can't be quantified. . . 

I can honestly acknowledge that I've never been so impressed with a group of teenagers in my life.  I will never again say, "teens are apathetic."  Give them a worksheet and watch them become bored like any human.  But, give them a real challenge and marvel at their results.  Our students are changing lives. Our students are defining their legacies.

Failing . . . Epically

I miss kindergarten.  Not necessarily because of all the nap times, snack times, and book times.  Not necessarily because of the sand box or toys.  I miss kindergarten because of the excitement.  Every day you'd walk in and no matter what the topic was, you'd love every minute of it.  The alphabet? Glorious.  Numbers?  Incredible.  Singing songs?  Yes, please.  And no matter what the challenge, you were geeked to try to overcome it.  You'd raise your hand with such fury that it was a battle to be the one chosen to answer.

Then something happened.  With each new year the excitement would be lost.  You'd raise your hand less and hold your thoughts more.  You'd let your wrong answers weigh on you like gravity. Now in high school, there are those who might go an entire year without ever once asking a question or trying to answer one.  Disturbing.

There are many potential reasons why people lose that kindergarten excitement in life.  The most influential reason: we become afraid to take risks.  We become afraid to learn.  We are so worried about getting something wrong or being judged by others that we don't even try to advance ourselves.  We are forever haunted by that infamously powerful word: failure.

What is failure? Stupidity? Thomas Edison failed at making a successful light bulb literally thousands of times (sources range from 1,000 to 10,000 prototypes).  Colonel Sanders knocked on the doors of over 1,000 restaurant owners before finding one who would try his recipe for fried chicken (and lived out of his car while doing so).  Abraham Lincoln lost eight different political elections before becoming president. What a bunch of failures, right? 

Every great person -- every innovator of thought, advancer of society -- knows the truth: Failure is feedback.  Failure is life's greatest teacher.  Failure is the attempted risk that always reaps a reward. That reward? Knowledge.  Information.  Understanding.

With this in mind, our classes were put to the test.  How do they respond to failure?  How do they respond to negativity in the face of taking risk?  How do they communicate frustration?

The task was simple: old school memory game.*  The twist?  Everyone participates.  No one talks.  By the end of the activity there was visible frustration (even yelling).  Yet, they were hugely successful.  They completed the task.  They didn't do it perfectly the first time.  That was exactly the point.  Perfection is a myth.  Learning is reality.  

Life isn't about how perfect we are.  It's about how we seek perfection by never giving up.  Every mistake provides an opportunity to persevere or an opportunity to surrender.  We either cherish the mishap and add it to our knowledge base or let it wear away our initiative.  Imagine if Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Whelp, if they aren't going to listen, I'm going home. Whatevs."  Or if the Wright brothers said, "We messed that one up.  Flying is a joke. Screw you birds!"  What if Michael Jordan was like, "Cut me from a high school team? Psshh.  Didn't want to drop nasty dunks on people anyway."  Instead they took every failure as a learning lesson that drove them to success.

So at what point do you surrender to defeat?  At one point do you wuss out on life and stop taking risks?  How are you responding to the moments that don't go your way?  Are you a quitter or a fighter?  Take a risk.  Fall down.  Learn from it.  Love it.  Failure is feedback.

Welcome back kindergarten . . .

*Special thanks to Amanda Wildes, Nicole Schremp, and Quantum Learning Network for the aided development of this activity!

Appreciative Inquiry

  Imagine your furnace breaks in the middle of a freezing winter night. You journey down to try to fix the problem with just your bare hands and a little dose of dedication.  Will you be successful? Probably not (burn).  Most likely you will struggle because you don't have tools (unless you are RoboCop). 
     Okay, so say you aren't RoboCop but you bring your tool box with you.  Will you be successful? Probably not (dang . . .double-burn). Most likely you will still struggle because you aren't trained to fix these things.  Therefore, you go back upstairs, bury yourself in blankets, and hope you don't end up looking like Jack at the end of The Shining. 
    What's the point of this debbie-downer story?  Without knowing what tools you have and how to use them, challenges you face are overwhelming. 
    No-brainer right?  So why do we often go into tasks only focusing on what the problems are?  Think sports: season begins and we focus on how out of shape we are, how little skill we have, how much work is ahead of us.  Think business: how rough the economy is, how little resources we have.  Think education: how little funding we have, how controlling standards are, how difficult students can be. We become obsessed with the negatives. Our energy is consumed by the problems before we even give it our best effort. That is the real Debbie Downer. 
    This is where the concept of Appreciative Inquiry comes into play.  Instead of starting with the problems, we start with our strengths.  We build a list of every asset each individual and group can bring before even thinking about our coming challenges.  This list then becomes our "tool-box" for overcoming obstacles that stand in our way.
   Today we experimented with appreciative inquiry in our English 9A class as we prepared for the challenges facing us with our service projects.  One group focused on challenges, the other on strengths.  Guess which group was overwhelmingly more optimistic?  Team Strength.  Why?  They saw potential not problem.  We looked at all the tools at our disposal and realized there wasn't a single challenge we couldn't overcome -- as long as we use our assets wisely and stay committed. 
    So, what tools are in your box? What assets do you bring to life?  Have you taken inventory of every connection, skill, and character trait at your disposal?  Give it a shot. Build a tool-box and there won't be a single challenge you can't overcome.  Except fixing a stupid furnace.  Hopefully "Repairman" is on your connection list.

Commitment

Experiment of the day: Commitment.  Challenge: predict how long you can keep your arm straight up.  Write it down.  Prove it.

Yesterday our 9th graders got real with the concept of commitment.  Commitment is internal dialogue that leads to external results.  If a person can control and empower him/herself internally, external commitments can be guaranteed. 

So, how committed are you?  What thoughts reach you internally? Do you say, "This sucks," "I can't," "This is impossible"? Or do you say "I am learning and growing," "I can," "This is possible"?  Better yet, do you change your "I can" statements to "I will"?

Would you have held your arm up for an hour and a half -- through hallways of teenagers and a whole other class? Some of these kids did. 

Commitment is a habit that is cultivated.  Make your internal dialogue empower you.  It's time to stop quitting and start succeeding.

No need to edit . . .

    Allow this first post to be an explanation of the title of this blog.  No, I have not mistaken my spelling of "effective."  An effect (n) is an idea or event caused by something.  "Affect" (v) is to influence something -- to create an "effect."  I don't teach to create effects.  We don't learn to experience effects.  We advance our brains to affect the world around us -- to shape, to influence, to empower. 

   The future of this blog is about sharing the affects we are creating in education.  It is a track record of learnings, experiences, and efforts to affect the world around us in a positive way.  Cheers to creating ripples that turn into waves of positivity.