What I learned today

This week, I'm attending a special ed. conference downtown. Right now, I feel almost as good as if I'd spent the day at the spa. There's just something about being reminded of why I'm passionate about what I'm passionate about--by other people who share my passion!

This morning I learned a bunch of new stuff in educational law. Fun stuff for me, no kidding! I'm a dork, definitely.

Then this afternoon, I got my warm fuzzy fix. The part where we're reminded that our involvement and effect on kids' lives lasts longer than just throughout the school year. Our keynote speaker had been an abused child. He grew up close to where I did. He showed snapshots of the barn he lived in, of the place where his step-dad tried to commit suicide, and of the junkyard he hid in. I recognized nearly every bit of scenery in the photos from my own childhood. Now he's Deputy Superintendent of a county here in Kentucky. He was really humble, clearly Christian, and attributed his success to teachers who went to bat for him. I had goosebumps on my cheeks, even. How many times have I thought that all the nurturing & high expectations in the world at school won't make up for a bad home life? And here this guy was, saying that I've been wrong. Pretty cool.

He also told us that in North Korean prison camps, there are no armed guards & no barbed wire. Yet, POWs don't try to escape. He said that instead, the prison attendants set up a negative culture. You get rewarded for ratting on your fellow prisoners, and you have to stand up daily in front of your peers and shout out everything you did wrong, and what you should have done instead. The only mail the prisoners receive are overdue bills and decrees for divorce--the attendants weed out anthing that may boost morale. Eventually, the prisoners feel so defeated that they never even try to leave. Many commit suicide.

Obviously, he was sharing this story for us as educators, so that we would evaluate the climate in our own classrooms.

I'm wondering, though, if all of us quit reading political blogs and newspapers, would the morale throughout our country also be raised? I mean, there are so many good people out there! What if we paid more attention to them, and less to the idiots and talking heads?

So then I'm thinking about THAT, and I passed the lake I always pass on the way home from work, and I swear there were swans on it. Which made me wonder if they're always there, but I'm too preoccupied to notice? (Worrying about educational law and politics and the like.) :)

SO...this week I'm not reading the newspaper. Or anybody's blog. Especially not the political ones! In fact, the only reading I'm going to do for the rest of this week is the kind you do with your children on your lap. When you're telling them again how thankful you are for them, and you're pointing out all the beauty in the world that's all around us. If we just take the time to notice.