Monday Mush

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmMFIganRQY (:46)

I love this movie, and I love this concept.  If you haven’t seen “We Bought a Zoo,” I would suggest you add that to your queue.  It is a great true story that details a family that made some radical choices with some very cool outcomes. 

Throughout the movie, he discusses this concept.  That it takes 20 seconds of crazy courage to change your life.   Think back in your life to times that you had to make a change or that you wanted something so bad, you broke out of your comfort zone to accomplish it.  Maybe you started a relationship, stopped a relationship, quit a job, found a  job, or a whole host of other possibilities.

Courage is a concept that is important to all of us.  We all need it from time to time…it got us where we are today.  We need to make sure that our students know that they have it.  They have to know they have the courage and awareness to make their own decisions.  They can control their destiny as well as control how the world views them.  We want both of those to be positive. 

As you go along this week, look for ways to show kids they have courage…look for ways they can grow and change by simply making the decision to trying it.

If you are looking for something personally yourself, maybe it is time to invest 20 seconds to get there…..

Happy Monday!

www.mushandflush.blogspot.com

Friday Flush

Love this quote….it can be truly life changing in so many ways.  I think that we all have our comfort zones….I love my comfort zones and my ruts.  I feel safe there…and all quantities are known variables.  Also the most I can achieve or the best I can is also a known variable.  I am a bad golfer…always have been…I know that I will play the day with about 1/3 good shots and the rest all bad.  I will shoot about a 95.  That is all known.  Now, if I truly wanted to be good, I would have to change something.  I would have to practice that change.  I would have to “ride the storm” of change so to speak.  I would have to be willing to go play several rounds where my game might be worse as I try to change a bad habit in my swing.  I might score over a hundred or what if I go through all of that and I score the same? 

That is a simple (and admittedly bad) example, but in life (and teaching), we have to change something to get something we never had.  If we do what we have always done, we get the same things we always had.  It is simple and timeless.  We have to make ourselves stretch in order to grow.  But, we aren’t “growing” just because it is fun or makes us a better person.  We are growing because it gives our kids more…it helps them.  If we want them to be a class like we have never had before that achieves things we never thought possible, we have to change in ways that makes us uncomfortable for a time.  We have to take risks to be better for them.

I hope this weekend that you do 2 things.  1.  Look back on your life and think of a time you changed something that gave you a result you would never had gotten otherwise.  How did that feel?  What did it take to do it?    2.  What is something that you want change professionally?  What do you need to do differently to do that?

I know that life sometimes feels like a hamster wheel…we are always moving...but we aren’t going nowhere….Education is a very slow moving process, but we are moving forward.  Look at how far we have come as a campus….look at all you have personally overcome and changed in your life.

Happy Friday!

Monday Mush -- taking out the trash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXAxBnQuHwI

Admittedly, I haven’t seen this movie, but I came across this clip.  I think it has a great message as today we start the second half of the year.  It is time to “take out the trash.”  But, we also need to see where in our lives personally that can come into practice. 

The future is where we have our goals…that should be our focus.  If we focus on the past, we don’t achieve anything.  We need to jettison those issues in the past that our holding us back and look to what is possible for us in the future.

I know that we all have regrets in the past….that makes us human.  We also have relationships that we don’t need or habits that it is time to break….that all can start with a simple decision.

When you take out the trash, you stop what you are doing and separate the good from the trash.  Then you take it somewhere that it won’t come back in.  We don’t simply sweep trash against the wall and call that good…we bag it, and take it out to the curb. 

In life, our trash needs to be dealt with in the same manner.  We can’t ignore it or sweep it to the side.  We have to intentionally “bag it” and find a way to make sure it is gone.  We need room in our “house” for the good…

Thank you for all you do…looking forward to a great second half.

Happy Monday!!

Friday Flush

I love this quote, and I think it is a great reflection piece for over the weekend. 

One of the burdens that we carry as educators is that every kid that we are over reaches their full learning potential.  We want to make sure they leave us with all the knowledge and all the skills that are possible.  We truly want them to be successful in all that we do….that is a lot of pressure…that is a big burden.  But, there is for sure another way to look at it.  We primarily have a job to inspire and to create a thirst for knowledge for our students.  We don’t necessarily have to show them “what to see” as much as “where to look.”

What a child will “see” or learn will surprise you.  Investigation is the way we all learn best.  If you touch the stove and it hurts, you don’t touch the stove again.  If I want to see how a clock works, I have to take it apart.  Trial/Error and exploration give us the motivation for learning.  Our kids need to have time to explore, time to research, and time to mess up.  In a video game, if I die because a stalactite fell on me while in the gloomy cavern level, then I will quickly learn to watch out next time.  Does is shake before it falls?  Can I run under?  I am more aware of what is going on.

The same is true of our learning….if we mess up, and we have to go back and fix it, we are more aware…we pay better attention.  I have heard of basketball coaches that make the player that misses a shot stay exactly where they are on the court.  If the ball can be rebounded offensively, then they get the next shot.  Many times, that player is most likely to make it because he felt the “wrong shot” and can correct it.  He is more likely to make it if given the second chance. 

I hope this weekend  you think of a couple practical ways to point a child’s eyes to learning.

Happy Friday! 

Monday Mush

I hope everyone found time to rest this weekend….weekends are so great for recharging, catching up, and enjoying family.  I hope you got to do something that you enjoy!  The weekends are also a great time for reflection. 

I thought this quote was perfect to remember during reflection.  I sometimes have a hard time seeing everything that needs tweaking or fixing.  This is at work, is my leadership, as a dad, as a spouse, or as a friend.  There are lots of things to improve.  But, the good news is I don’t have to be perfect. 

I think we all have real life heroes.  We often put them on a pedestal, but we also can see by looking at their lives, that they weren’t perfect.  A lot of times there were faults that actually made them stronger…made them “real.”

I am proud of you guys every day….I am proud that you want today to be better than yesterday…but I also know that we have to give ourselves and each other the grace to not be “perfect.” 

Thank you for all you do! 

Happy Monday!

Friday Flush -- Stay in Your Lane

“Stay in Your Lane”

I didn’t play special teams much when I played football, but we still occasionally practiced for if I ever had to step in and play during a kickoff/punt.  My job was to run down the field and tackle the guy with the ball.  Sounds easy.  There were 10 other guys trying to do the same thing with me…how hard could it be? 

The problem was this.  The guy catching the ball…well he is really fast….I mean way faster than me…he also really doesn’t want to be tackled.  Oh, and then he has 10 guys that know which way he is running that are bigger than me….and they don’t want me to get near him.  Ok, so not as easy as it sounds. 

I can still hear coaches yelling for us to “stay in your lane” as we are running down the field.   After doing enough wind sprints after practice, I finally learned what that meant.  We were “drawn” to the ball and the player carrying the ball….if all 11 of us ran directly to the ball, then that leaves a whole side of the field open.  Since he is faster, he could change directions and score easily .  But, if we stay in our lane, we create a “net” that moves down the field…no matter where he jukes or runs, there is a team mate there to stop him.  This works, but it can be very difficult.  When I was on the far right side of the field and the ball was kicked to the left side of the field, it was very hard to run straight with nothing in front of you.  It seems that I was missing out on the action….it felt like I wasn’t being helpful….but it was exactly where I needed to be.

How does that have ANYTHING to do with us as educators besides fitting with our football theme?  I am sure you are starting to see some ways.

Here are some I thought of:

·         We often get caught off guard paying attention to something out of our lane.  When we are drawn to that, we are pulled away from our mission.

·         We don’t help our team, when we don’t do our job.  The “net” only works when everyone does what they said they were going to do.

·         We often “get burned” when we try to take a shortcut.  It seems easier to chase the action, but once we are out of our lane, we create a hole in our team.

·         Together we can do something that none of us can do individually.  

·         We serve a purpose even though sometimes it may not feel like it.

·         We need others.

·         I think we become weaker as a team when we focus on what others have or do, what gossip is out there, what things we don’t like, etc.  Staying in our lane means keeping our head up and looking at OUR responsibility, not that of others. 

Thank you for being on our team….I hope that we all have a great weekend.  Thank you for how you “stay in your lane.” 

Happy Friday!

First Monday Mush of 2014

I hope everyone had a wonderful break!  I am looking forward to an AMAZING 2015, and I know we are going to some great things in the months to come!

One of the things I love about the new year is everyone’s focus on what “could be.”  There is so much hope and positive energy….there is so much potential…and there is goal setting all around!  I love that people are proactive about thinking about what they want for their lives and looking at how to achieve that end result.  That is a wonderful thing for us to do personally as well as in our careers.  We want to seek to start fresh…I am sure we had some things that weren’t going well for us.  We can simply start again….we can choose to reboot and try it another time.  I hope that we do that with our students.  Maybe we ended before the break not knowing what else to try to help a struggling student….but now after we stepped back and took a breath, we can be ready to try again.  We have fresh tires and an open road! 

Last year, we focused on the differences of boys/girls learning styles.  One of the videos I showed was Mark Gungor discussing the “tale of two brains” which is here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XjUFYxSxDk (13:34).   That really has no bearing on today’s mush, but wanted to give you a great video if you wanted it and a reference point.

I had the pleasure of hearing him speak today, and while his message is designed for marriage, it is applicable to us in any form of relationship.  It can be with our spouses, our parents, our kids, our friends, our team mates, or our students.

He message was simple…I love simple…yes because I am simple minded, I know.  He clearly defines the way that we can have better relationships by making CHOICES.  I am choosing in 2015 to focus on these…His “rules” are these:

1.       Be Nice – Simply choose to take the higher road and be nice.  Not because someone deserves it, but because it makes you a happier person too.  You can feel justified to treat people badly, but that is stooping to a low road…take the high road and be nice…don’t choose to treat people based upon your feelings as they are often wrong and change often.  Treat people nicely simply because it is the right thing to do.

2.       Be Content – Don’t wait for your life circumstances to change to be happy.  You never will then.  Life throws curveballs only, so be content knowing you will hit some and strike out some too.  Don’t let what happens to you define you.

3.       Be Connected – Find friends…find support group…he said that you can save a lot of money on therapy by simply having a group of people that you can talk with and be yourself around.  Focus on building relationships and being a good friend to those around you. 

4.       Be Prepared – Taking time on the front end ALWAYS saves time on the back end.  Make sure that you are prepared for life’s curveballs.  He talked about instilling character in our children, and focusing on character for our lives.  He said some people focus on beauty over character, but “sexy has a shelf life” and character doesn’t.  That is good advice for us to focus on with our students.

5.       Be Proactive – Don’t wait for others to take iniative…they might not.  If you see a need, meet that need.  That is what leaders do.  Many of you might not define yourself as a leader, but you are everyday.  Choosing to make high road choices is being proactive.

6.       Be Clear – Relationships are often muddled by miscommunication.  How many times do we see that in work situations with a badly worded email or a frustrated comment made too rapidly.  What works is clarity…if we focus on what our objectives are together, we are much more likely to get there.  Students need to know CLEARLY what is expected of them.  The better we do that as teachers, the better their education.

7.       Be Doers – Rarely if not never does success fall into someone’s lap.  Successful people do what they must to achieve their goals.  The same applies to us…if we want something to change, it is up to us to change it.

8.       Be Patient – Good things comes to those who wait….that is probably one of the hardest concepts to me.  It is very hard to plant seeds and wait for them to grow.  In education, we are doing that….we have to daily do what we know is best even without seeing the end results.  

I hope 2015 blesses you….but more so, I hope that no matter what 2015 throws at you, you become stronger and more content.  I also hope that we continue to grow as a team and support one another for our students’ benefit.  I know that we don’t rest at Huggins because we want the absolute best for each kid, and I appreciate your drive in that.

Thank you for all you do every day.

Happy Monday!