Paradise...

         As I was spending a beautiful time with family and friends this weekend I began to feel the strange pang of nostalgia. It wasn’t simply yearning to relive certain memories or wanting to go back to a certain time. It was a yearning to back to a time when life appeared simpler and everything/ anything seemed to float in the realm of possible. As we get older sometimes it appears that we become more able, while becoming less able at the same time. How you may ask? When your little you need people to help you do the simplest things from walking to talking, but we never need any one to tell us how to imagine. We can imagine the most beautiful things when we are little; we can believe in anything and it seems that as we get older we lose sight of this. The ability to imagine and believe almost has to be rediscovered and retaught. It is a journey within itself to get past all that we learn as we grow and hold unto our imagination. We have to be careful not to be disillusioned and feed into the urge to see things as impossible. Rather we have to take what, we have learned and move things that seem impossible to the realm of possibility.

     Sometimes I feel like this kind of combination can help us to “be the change we want to see in the world”. I don’t want to sound unrealistic or idealistic, but I’m always thinking about people and what it means to be human? What does it mean to be loved and/or give love?, what does it mean to understand and/or be understood?, what does it mean to make a difference and/or be the difference?, what does it mean to need and/or to be needed?, what does it me to believe and/ or to be believed in? Maybe I think too much but there is so much that good people can do with ingenuity and imagination. The issue is, how do we hold unto the imagination that made us believe everything can be done if we simply try. The song Paradise by Coldplay came out very recently and I can’t get it out of my head. I think it captures some of the sentiments I’m attempting to express in this blog. The most beautiful and sad line in this song is “the wheels break the butterfly”. This is going to sound cheesy, but I honestly think as educators we can all be butterflies and help our student to become butterflies, but we have to navigate so that “wheels” of life may roll over us, move us, change us, but never break us. If you haven’t heard this song, I think you'll enjoy itJ

Paradise by Coldplay lyrics
When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach so
She ran away in her sleep
and dreamed of
Para-para-paradise, Para-para-paradise, Para-para-paradise
Every time she closed her eyes

When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach
and the bullets catch in her teeth
Life goes on, it gets so heavy
The wheel breaks the butterfly
Every tear a waterfall
In the night the stormy night she'll close her eyes
In the night the stormy night away she'd fly
and dreams of
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise

Oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh
She'd dream of
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh-oh
lalalalalalalalalalala
And so lying underneath those stormy skies
She'd say, "oh, ohohohoh I know the sun must set to rise"
This could be
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh
This could be
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
This could be
Para-para-paradise
Oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh-oh

Some thoughts on "What are we going to do...?"

     In her blog last week Jana discussed the issue of bullying. As Jana pointed out we are seeing the issue and the irreversible repercussions of it in the media and in the schools. At the end of her blog Jana asked "what are we going to do about it?"; this struck me as a sort of call to action for us as future educators. I agree that this is something that we will have to contend with in the school environment and we have to decide what approach we are going to take. This is very challenging because there are so many sides and possible causes of these issues. This begs the question of how do we rally against something, when it comes from so many directions, some of which we cannot directly see or change?
   When I read the part about their being a website, dedicated to the sole purpose of calling young females sluts after others post their picture on the site, I began to realize the bullying culture that we have come to know is not accident.
      We are a society, that is in many ways built on competition; people, especially children/ adolescents, and pushed to be "better than", "do better than", or "look like" someone. The media is not solely to blame even though there is a lot to be said for an entity that does not hesitate to call a healthy looking young actress "overweight" then wonder why our young girls/ women have body issues. A television or magazine shouldn't be raising us so, where are the parents or families of the young people? Sadly they are sometimes right beside their children, making fun of or putting down someone else. Where are the roots of the culture of bullying? Is from a competitive mentality as a society that has gone to far? Is a quest to fit in the has taken on a violent persona? Is it a breakdown of support that pushes a person to victimize or become a victim? Is it the media's blatant disregard for its influence and the responsibility that comes with that? These are all questions that as we confront the issue of bullying, we have to contend with and try to understand.

How Much can you or I change?

     As I was doing some research for one of my other classes I came across this quote, "There will always be men struggling to change, and there will always be those who are controlled by the past." ~Ernest Gaines It got me thinking about that state of the world and how things are happening? It is always a struggle for those who want to make a positive change in the world to move forward, because the amount of things that are "wrong" with the world can be very overwhelming. Is our history and our present paralyzing us? It seems that there is a strange balancing act the people who seek to do go have to play of learning from the past and moving “past” the past. The past or history is like a prescription for good, take the right dose and you move on (feel better), take too much and you become stuck and immobile, or take too little and the urge to “do something” is not there. It is essential that we combat this dilemma, if we want to make “the world a better place”. Sorry for the cliché but how can we create a better place without becoming suffocated by the overwhelming realities of what makes the world a not so great place.

     As a future teacher I hope to do my part in making my students feel that they can and must play an active part in the world for themselves and everyone else. The problem I am still grappling with my relationship with the world. I think a lot of people struggle with this idea. There are many attempts to “heal the world” if we buy a wristband here or a shirt there we can help the issues faced today. I buy quite a few things following the idea that I am contributing to a “noble” cause.  But is this enough? I’m still trying to figure work this out and I will be for some time to come.

"Two Rivers that Meet..." (STAR Revision)

    The trees smile down on as you come back to each other, barely letting the other breathe. You two are a metaphor of love because when the darkness creates uncertainty in your waters you inevitably come back to one another. Maybe, humans could learn something from you two rivers...that always meet. The ground beneath you two is always moving because you two crash into each other and stir it up. Always meeting with the same urgency and flow, unless an unexpected wind happens to blow.

     The saturated ground is constantly moving under the two of you; it never gets a chance to breathe as you collide one into the other, ending in a place where two makes one. The two of you are constantly pushing against each other, one bending to the other's will. You two are eventually meshing into a single movement that picks up or pushes away everything in its path. You upheave the boulders otherwise called "life". Together you both teach us loyalty, faithfulness, and honesty. Teaching loyalty to another human being, faithfulness to the truth, and honesty about what motivates us to come together.