The Best at Being You...

Hi Readers,

The second last day of the holidays, a time where I originally had thought that I'd pump out more posts than I have, but then again, I only publish when I feel that I have something that you might find even just a little bit interesting.

Or not !

I've mentioned a few times that sometimes ideas just fall into one's lap at the most opportune times, or even at the least expected times. This idea presented to me today when I was looking through Ben Crowe's website.

For those unfamiliar with his work, he does so much on developing positive mindsets, something that has become so important to me over the past 18 months.

One of his main ideas is that:

You can't work out what you want until you work out who you are. 

This resonates so strongly with me and is one of the main reasons why I persist with this blog. It has helped me through difficult times and has been the greatest therapy to help me through not just what has happened in the past 18 months, but also in what is ahead of me.

It does sound very self centred, possibly even selfish, but I don't want it to be about me. But it does help me, and in a way I hope that in the smallest way I can provoke thinking in others that helps them too.

There you go, my deep and meaningful sermon done and dusted in the first few paragraphs!!

Enough of me, back to Ben Crowe. I came across a short interview on his Instagram between Conan O'Brien and Chris Martin from the band Coldplay (one of my favourites)

This prompted me to research this interview further, and the more I found the more I was inspired by much of what Chris Martin had to say.

Basically, the one line that he said that just captured me was:

"It's the best at being me"

So what is this all about?

Through watching these interviews with Chris Martin I was just blown away by his humbleness as he spoke about where he is now as compared to where he came from.

When he first started playing music and performing in his early days even he acknowledged how much work he needed to do. At an early performance he was severely heckled by a patron, and this really made him question what he was choosing to do. Was he really any good at it after all?

But he also had a music teacher who refused to entertain the same thoughts that Martin was having and who was a continual source of support and encouragement.

Martin adopted the philosophy that he didn't necessarily have to be good at what he was doing, but that he should just keep on exploring it. Even now he doesn't consider himself to be great at what he does, but I'd suggest that there are millions of us who would beg to differ!!

He goes on to talk about how our limitations can become our strengths, and in doing so we see people displaying who they really are. This is raw honesty as we can easily identify our weaknesses whereas we rarely try and highlight our strengths.

This I can relate to so well. At school, since coming back to the classroom after so many years out of it I can list my limitations so quickly and easily, and if I started now I'd still be banging on about them an hour later. In particular, my ability to teach Literacy as capably as my colleagues in the team I'm in. Sure, my kids get to 'read and write', and I see evidence of progress, but when it comes to the nitty gritty of identifying specific skills or responding to results provided by the kids I often find myself  pulling my hair out trying to find a solution. If you saw how much hair I have now you'd understand this!!

I could have easily tried to cover this up and pretend to look as if I know what I'm doing, but in the same way that Martin was supported and encouraged by people in his life, my peers do likewise for me. But this only works because I have made the choice to suck in my pride, accept my limitations and work within them.

A quote from Ben Crowe inspires me here and gives me the confidence to keep working at it.

"You can't change your past, but you can create your future"

By finding common ground with the people I work with I manage to find ways to develop myself, ever so slowly mind you, but at least there are small steps being made.  It's amazing how having just a few people saying the right things to you can boost you to continue and persevere rather than throwing in the towel and putting everything in the too hard basket.

On the upside, while I severely doubt my literacy knowledge and skills, I feel that I am holding ground when it comes to teaching maths and sport. In recent years I have presented workshops at the annual Maths Conference and my focus has tended to be on identifying your own passions and using those as a springboard for creating more engagement in the classroom. We have another conference coming up in the next few weeks and I'm presenting a workshop again. This time my focus is on "Falling in Love with Maths Again", where I hope to use the experiences of the past few years where we have had Covid lockdowns, and then I missed a year of school being with Jen throughout her illness. How do we get our mojo back again after prolonged absences from school due to situations and conditions that had such a prolonged effect on so many?

This is where 'being the best at being me' has turned my life around, and hopefully will make me a better teacher.

I have been fluffing about with this blog for a number of years, but only in the past 18 months have I begun to take it more seriously and realise how much of 'me' I actually put into it now. I hadn't read many books for the past 30 years, but last year I really got into books that deal with coping with adversity and developing positive mindsets. I've always considered myself to be a positive person, but last year tested this to the limit, and still does every day.

Authors that I've already mentioned in previous posts continue to inspire me.

Ant Middleton ( the SAS guy) The tv show may paint one picture of him, but his books are the total opposite. One of his books has helped me so much that I'm currently reading it again and taking in everything with a new perspective. That book came to me at the perfect time.

Hugh van Cuylenburg - The Resilience Project. He alone has prompted me to be more 'me' when I'm writing. I've always felt that I struggle with my writing, but the way that he shares so much about himself in the way he writes just blew me away. His accounts are not fictitious, but real life. In particular, the way that he describes encounters in his life and the discussions he has had with people makes one feel as if they are actually there with him at the time.

Dave Burgess- The author of the "Teach Like a Pirate", "Lead Like a Pirate" books. Yep, I hear you saying "Who???" This guy keeps it very simple and talks a lot about using your own passions to get your mojo back. His work is what I resonate with so much and has been the backbone of many of the conference workshops I have done in recent years.

So how do you know if what you are doing is any good?

I still get comments from people along the lines like "Why do write about that stuff?

At first this really bugged me, and I crept back into my shell a bit and just wrote about 'stuff' of no particular relevance or significance.

However, as I started to reveal a little bit more about where I was coming from, being more vulnerable and open, I began to feel so much better about writing. I was also getting people telling me to keep at it, that it had prompted them to think about some things a bit more and so on. There became less doubt about what I was doing, and more belief in what I was banging on about. If enough people say the right things to you that encourage you to persist, it encourages one to take further steps.

Think back to Chris Martin and his music teacher versus the heckler!

I'm not for a second implying that my writing is any good for anyone, but it's good for me and in a way that's all that matters to me. In my mind I keep reminding myself that I don't actually have to be good at it, but I want to keep exploring it.

Today I've only used my blog writing as an example. I have sooooo many other limitations that I could elaborate on, but I made the choice to expand upon the one that has turned out to give me the most joy now as a result. I would never have known how much it has helped me until i stopped to think about it more and took little steps to work with it. 

Maybe I can try and channel my passion for writing here into teaching literacy better with my Gr 5's!!!! 😳

Now for something much lighter to give you a break from my rambling!

I look back on this today and just laugh at my immediate response, and am glad that common sense prevailed!!

I received an email during the holidays and my first reaction was one of total frustration and bewilderment, and thankfully I didn't respond at all.

So what did I do?

I hopped in the car and went down to the car yards nearby and searched for a twin cab ute and a caravan, because in my mind I had decided I'd had enough of doing what I was doing and that I was going to pack up and take off !!

That's it. I'm gone!!

I have a new car on order, hopefully it will be here soon. However, it is too small to tow the size of caravan that I was looking at, so I went looking at bigger twin cab utes that would tow it. The van I looked at is precisely what Jen and I would have bought if she was still here, as we had been looking, but after cooling my jets I weighed up all the other things involved with buying it:

- Where would I store it (no room at our place)

- Another registration and insurance bill to have

- Would I actually use it enough?

- I'd be going to places just to warrant having it 

BUT... I'd still like to have it, but I'm going to hold back on both the van and the ute for the time being. It just might be cheaper to hire one whenever I get itchy feet.

I'll wait for my new car and see what it is like and whether or not having it will change my mind. I could still sell it and get the ute and maybe get the van down the track, who knows.

But what this episode did tell me is that i'm not prepared to sit out the last few years of my teaching career marking time. I don't see it as the end of something, I'm looking at starting something else, whatever, and wherever that may be.

So Readers, in a convoluted way, I'm trying to encourage others to embrace their limitations and rather than try and avoid them, use them as a springboard for something better. So when you read this blog, this is me.

It took something tragic to get me to this place, but it is something that is enabling me to move forward. A day at a time.

I'm not saying you have to put YOU out there like this, but perhaps stop and think about who the real You is.

Fair bit of waffle here today, but if you'd like to see a great interview

https://youtu.be/bfJuBVhs84Q

Until my next post,

Cheers 😁

 What We Value...

Hi Readers,

Here I am a week into my holidays and thinking where did that week just go? I was thinking that I'd get lots of posts done in the two week break, and even though I have lots to write about I really need to think carefully about each post as I might give away more than I might originally intend.

You should see the post-it notes laying around the house and on my bedside table, each one has a different idea on it. Some lay there for ages, some I act upon while others get tossed out the next day with me saying to myself "What the hell was I thinking about when I wrote that??!!"

I had so many ideas this week that I just couldn't get started. I didn't quite have writer's block, more likely. writer's overload!

Until something that happened today. I've mentioned in previous posts how some things just fall into your lap without warning and today was one of those occasions.

First of all some background to the day. I have some security cameras placed around the house but lately they seem to have gone on the frizz. A bit like me I suppose. After 3 days of farting about trying to get them to work again with limited success I decided to bite the bullet and just replace them. As soon as I looked online and saw the massive range available, as well as the associated costs I still felt like I was getting nowhere. I had nothing else to do as I've been pretty much housebound again for the past few days after some trouble with my leg, so mustered up some strength and headed into town to check out the range at some local stores.

I settled on something new and as I was paying for it I ran into a lady whose daughters I had taught many years ago. I would also go running with her husband who was also a running nut who loved to do marathons. Like me, I think he's given that away, but he's in far better physical shape than me I'd guess!!

I got on so well with this couple while I taught their kids and this friendship has lasted many years. Added to this, their girls were just the greatest to teach!! 

We hadn't seen each other for a few years so we had a lot to talk about quickly. It's amazing what things can crop up in such a quick space of time.

We chatted about what each of us was doing now, what our kids were doing, where our lives were heading and so on. The inevitable discussion came up about how I was after losing Jen, and other customers must have been wondering what the hell was going on with these two people chatting in the shop with tears in their eyes!!

She then told me that she had been doing some cleaning out at her home since their 3 girls had all left home now. One of her daughters had these three special jugs where she kept her precious things. As she was checking each jug to see what was in them, she found 6 pieces of paper, about 10 cm x 8 cm with a cartoon character on one side, and some notes on the other side. She said that I had written them many years ago when I taught this daughter and that she just would,'t throw them out.

So what were they?

More background needed here, so stay with me.

As you'd al know, teachers give out various awards etc to kids in their classes, for various things on a weekly, daily or monthly basis. Different rules for different schools and teachers and I'm no different.

For some weird reason I have always loved the cartoon character Muttley, the chuckling companion of Dick Dastardly from Wacky Races fame. Don't ask me why, I don't know still, but I've always loved him. As I said, weird.

More than 20 years ago I decided to include my Muttley fascination with something else that I strongly believe in, that being regular positive reinforcement.

To do this I decided to give out a small daily award to one person in the class and write down what they had done that day that added value to the class or showed that they were doing things that made them a better person. One side is blank, the other side has a picture of Muttley.

That's it in a nutshell. I photocopied copious amounts of Muttley and at the end of each day I'd give out the Muttley Award. It was only a small gesture, but every year since where I have done it, the kids get so into it that they never let me to forget it each day. We do the weekly awards still, but this means that it could be 15 weeks or more between receiving an award and I feel that some kids 

(actually all) deserve more regular recognition. In this way they get the opportunity to receive one every 4 weeks or so.

I'm fully aware that in other classes and other schools there are reward systems that operate differently where children receive 'monetary' rewards for getting things done, and as they build up their 'accounts' they can then bid at 'auctions' for various goods or whatever at the end of the term. I have no problem with that, but I choose not to do it as my approach is that I'd like kids to do these things because they see the need to do them, rather than do them in order for the 'monetary' rewards associated.

When my kids ask if we are going to participate in one of these schemes I very carefully explain my reasons for not wanting to do it, and why I do Muttley awards instead.

I've never had an issue once I explain my reasons. It does put me at odds with colleagues I suppose, but not for a second am I being critical of them or the schemes they use, I just use a different one that has proven to work best for me and the kids I teach.

The relevance hit home recently when one of the kids in my class gave me a small Muttley  badge, like the type of magnetic name badge that we wear at school. His dad got it made, and this made it clear to me how much that family valued Muttley's, all based on what their son had told them about it.

Last year I introduced "Peer Muttleys". After discussing with the kids how I make my selection each day, and how it is based around our class expectations (which they formulate at the start of the year) I secretly give a blank Muttley to a different child each morning and during the day they keep an eye out for a worthy recipient and present it to that child at the end of the day when I give mine out. 9 times out of 10 they are very genuine in who they give it to and why, and I feel so proud when I hear them read out the reasons why they chose this person. Of course we sometimes get the occasion when it is given to their 'besty' for no other reason than that person is their 'besty'!!

Back to the meeting at the Officeworks checkout...

This lady's daughter ( I hate saying it like that but I need to preserve their identity) had kept all the Muttleys that I had given to her nearly 20 years ago and just couldn't part with them. I was so touched to hear this, and this has happened with so many other young adults that I taught back in the day when I catch up with them unexpectedly. They will often refer back to the Muttley's that they received.

For me the reward is that although I might not remember what I wrote on them, I can see how it made them feel so may years later.

Which is why I still persist with them in my class this year even though I still get the odd raised eyebrow from colleagues who still think it's a bit strange. That's okay though, because they haven't been through the build up and discussions held while introducing it.

A massive plus that I have seen is the way that they appreciate so much being given the opportunity to give out the Peer Muttley, it's nearly as good as winning the daily Muttley.

So Readers, in a long winded way I have sort of come back to explaining the focus of this post, being What We Value.

When I give mine out each day I don't just read it out, I explain what I have been looking for that day and I expand upon what I have written. The Peer Muttley is done totally apart from mine and in the past few weeks we have had some "Double Banger" days, where the same person has been awarded both Muttleys!!

On these day I use it as an opportunity to explain that not only have I been noticing great things about that person, but so have others. The kids are receiving daily reminders from me about what I value in them, and they get the same from their peers.

I love it!!

I was cleaning up some things at our place recently and I even saw a Muttley that one of our boys received from me many years ago when I taught him. Even my own sons are not immune from getting them!!

Readers, there is nothing radically deep and meaningful about this post, I'm just hoping to encourage you to stop and think about the things that you value in others, and whether or not you take the time to let them know? I'm not suggesting you start giving out Muttley's to your friends and family as they might want to get you locked up!  It might just be a little comment, or a thank you, but with a brief add-on what you are thanking them for. Or even just saying something like " "I like the way that acknowledge others", "You go about things in such a great way" or "You're just so patient" etc. They might not respond at all, but they might think about it later. And for you? You get the satisfaction of knowing you said it !

My own personal circumstance over the past 10 months have taught me so much about valuing what I have, would like to have, what has been taken from me and what might be potentially ahead of me. In thinking about each it also makes me feel, in different ways, lucky, unfortunate, selfish, grateful, positive, empty just to name a few.

How?

What I have - Wow! Where do start and where do I end? My boys and I have been overwhelmed with so much genuine love and support from too many people to mention during and after Jen's illness. And for the four of us to have each other. We have always been close, this brought us even closer sadly. I have my health, although looks may be deceiving right now! I'm not sick, just broken. I have so much that I value, my family and friends top the list.

How about you? What tops your list?

What I'd like to have-  Money? The best job? The best car? The best house? This is something that I often think about. I don't really want for much at all. I do get people saying to me that I need people around me and that I must be so lonely being on my own. I am lonely, but not for people to be around me as I'm quite content with my own company. I'm only lonely for the company of one person who I thought I'd grow so much older with. That's probably the only thing in this world I wish that I could have.

Think beyond your first responses and you might realise what is really the MOST important thing/s for you.

What has been taken away- Well the obvious doesn't need to be said. For the best part of 45 years I have been so active just about every day, and to have that taken away last November has made me value the opportunity to be active again. Whereas I would give the body a fair old flogging in the belief of "No Pain, No Gain", today I'd be thrilled just for the chance to walk properly. Ironically, when I walk now I still get the 'Pain' aspect!! That day will come, but now I just value the simple aspect of movement so much. Not complaining, just eagerly awaiting. Is there something that you would struggle with if it was taken from you today? How would you approach it?

What is ahead of me- I have been so fortunate that Jen had been so good at setting things up for our eventual retirement together. Even though I face this on my own now, I really value everything that has been put in place, especially as I have always been a total nuffy when it comes to anything financial. I absolutely value the prospect of watching our 3 boys continue to grow into the fine young men that they have become, and to continue to grow in the role of being a grandparent and father in law. My teaching career is definitely in the last quarter and I have some plans to pursue as soon as my hands and leg recover that give me something to look forward to eagerly. What is ahead of me is not the ending of something, I see it as the start of something new.

Is there something that you are actively looking forward to? Or dreading? How will you prepare yourself for either option?

So Readers,

A somewhat bland post this time around, as I read back through it I feel that it may come across as self indulgent, I'm sorry if that's the case. All I have done in this post is to try and celebrate something that I have been able to implement in my teaching career that has had long lasting effects on many children that I have taught and that they have valued. Because of this, I value it even more and will persist with it in my remaining time as a teacher, however long or short that may be.

Feel free to leave comments in the box below.

Until my next post,

Cheers 😁