Be Imaginative

Recently I watched the movie The Imitation Game that tells how Alan Turing created a machine to break the code on the Enigma machine during WWII. One quote really stuck with me.

“Sometimes it’s the very people who no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. - Christopher Morcom”

Many students spend too much time and energy trying to be like everyone else. Yet, they will never be like someone else because each person is unique.

I was the student who was the last person to be picked for a sports team. I wasn’t very confident in my abilities.

I hated to work in groups because I was shy and not very confident that I measured up to everyone else.

No one would have ever imagined I would actually be a teacher. It was a dream of mine but even I wasn’t certain that I deserved to be a teacher. How could I teach others when I was so afraid to take a risk? Gradually my yearning conquered my fear and I worked hard to become a teacher.

I believe I have made a difference in many student’s lives. Although no one thought I could be capable of anything, I was capable of whatever I worked hard to accomplish.

Many of my students have doubts and fears also. It is my job to help the students to imagine the possibility of achieving whatever they want to do. I need to help them push fear to the back and help them work towards success.

I want students to look at successful individuals and ask them if they think the person just woke up one day and was successful. No, it took hard work and possibly multiple attempts before they were able to accomplish their goals.

How do you help your students imagine the possible? Please share.

Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash

Adding Yet to Your Sentence

In A simple missing word from Seth Godin's Blog, Seth Godin shares,

“And along the way, “Yet” turns “can’t” into “haven’t.””

It is too easy to think we can’t do something. Many of my students quickly tell me why they can’t do something. They immediately have the mindset that they are not capable of doing something. I think it is the easy way out.

If we really want to do something, we need to add the word “yet” to the end of our sentences.

By putting the word yet at the end, it changes my mindset that anything is possible if I want to pursue it. I might learn how to do something and then decide that I don’t want to continue practicing it but I can learn how to do anything if I put my mind to it.

I don’t know how to quilt…yet.

I don’t’ know how to fix a screen…yet.

When I teach a new skill, I need to have my students put their thoughts in a sentence and add the word yet to the end.

I think this gives the learner hope. It says the learner is capable and can achieve the goal eventually.

I might learn how to do something and then decide that I don’t want to continue practicing it but I can learn how to do anything if I put my mind to it.

By putting the word yet at the end, it changes my mindset that anything is possible if I want to pursue it.

Photo by John Benitez on Unsplash

Looking Back or Forward

In Packing Up the Old... Headed to the New from Sioux's Page, Sioux Roslawski asks,

“Are you stuck in the past or are you plodding forward?”

I have to confess that I sometimes get stuck in the past. It is so easy to do things because that is the way I’ve always done things or that is the way it has always been done. It is easier to do things that way because I know what needs to be done and usually the outcome can be predicted.

Plodding forward involves risks. I may be trying something new that I don’t know how to do. This opens the possibility of mistakes or failure.

But the keyword is possibilities.

I don’t know what possibilities may occur for the positive as well as negative. So many more good things could happen that I’m unaware of. Opportunities may present itself that wasn’t an option by getting stuck in the past. I need to get past the fear of failure and look towards the future.

Moving forward can be a scary thing. When a child takes their first steps or a teenager gets behind the wheel of a car or leaves for college, these moments are scary!

Many of my students have experienced this firsthand and are not anxious to repeat the process. It is my job to help the students get past this feeling. I want to show them that in the past, they didn’t have my support and knowledge. They are not alone, and I will help them move forward by being with them. I will be their safety net. Even if mistakes happen, or they are not successful on the first try, it will not affect how I feel about them. I want my students to feel that we are in this together and there is safety in numbers.

How do you help your students leave the past and move forward? Please share.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Do You Believe?

In Paranormal Experiences: What do you believe? From Lisa Ricard Claro – Author by Lisa Ricard Claro asks,

“Do you believe in the mystical, the paranormal? Numerology, astrology, spirit guides, ghosts? Guardian angels? Do you believe in psychics and mediums? Life after death? Do you believe there is the possibility for communication beyond the grave?”

I absolutely believe in the mystical and guardian angels. I’m not sure I believe in numerology, astrology, psychics, and mediums though.

When my oldest sister died in August of 1974, I was only 14 years old. She had been dealing with lupus for about 9 years and it finally took her life. We were extremely close and this was a traumatic time for me.  I remember the day she passed away and our family and relatives were all in our house waiting for the phone call. When my parents got the call, my middle sister’s 2 ½-year-old daughter, was in the back bedroom taking a nap. She woke up and then told us all that, “Aunt Betsy came and gave her a kiss goodbye.” We were all stunned. As I walked down the hallway in our house right then, I smelled the hospital smell from my sister’s hospital room. It was like she had come to tell us all goodbye.

I smelled this smell several times in my life. I smelled it at my sister’s funeral and a couple of times during high school when I was extremely upset. I smelled it when I started my first day of college,  when I graduated college, and the last time was when I got married. I believe my sister was letting me know that she was there with me and was watching over me.

At first, I was very scared when I smelled that smell but mother told me that I had nothing to fear from my sister because she loved me. I realized that she was right. You see, my mother believed in life after death and reincarnation. I’m not sure about either one of them but every time I talk to my niece, she is so much like my oldest sister, I’m amazed.  A lot of her mannerisms and ideas are so similar to my oldest sister and I feel comforted by this even after 40 years.

I think we shouldn’t disregard what we don’t know. I feel that anything is possible and since there is no way to prove something isn’t possible, it should be a possibility.

Learning is kind of the same way in my mind. We don’t really know exactly what will work or not work with individual students. Everyone’s brains are different and react to things differently. So, with learning, anything is possible.

Do you believe? What do you believe is possible or not possible? Please share.