If I could say the right thing at the right time

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Teachers need to know when to inspire, challenge, chide or advise. I certainly don't claim to bat 1.000%, but I also try to observe and maintain the courage to say the things students need to hear. And I'm a firm believer that prompting a student to wonder what the hell I mean is a powerful move. 

At the risk of sounding pretentious, I'm including a list of aphorisms. I share it not to suggest I'm clever or wise, but, as always, to encourage reflection. 


Your value as a human being is not defined by a test score or a grade. 

Your teachers don't have all the right answers. If they say they do, they're lying to you and themselves. 

School won't save you, but it will expand you. 

The research schools show you is data that correlates to what they call success. The research they don't show you often unravels that definition of success.

You are the pinnacle of millions of years of evolution. Your presence is a miracle. You are surrounded by miracles. Embrace the miraculous.

What most people call belief is often the opposite; it's insulation, a psychic sedative. 

The negativity you often feel is not you. It's someone else trying to colonizing you with their insecurity.

Welding is poetry. Research is a brisk walk. Music is magic. And science is believing. Math is great for reading novels.

Put the phone down. 

You know everything you need to survive. You don't know everything you need to live.

You don't need more stuff.

Your outside reality and your inside reality are mutually arising.

Being good at school isn't about being smart. 

Addition by subtraction is one of the most important lessons you learn in math. 

Find someone you want to learn from. The person is as important as the material.

You learn everything you need by the end of eighth grade. The rest of school is learning how much more complicated it all is. If you stick with it, it all gets simple again.

Put the phone down.

You don't need to do more things, but you might need to do some better than you are right now.

If the people around you don't celebrate you, find new people. It doesn't mean there was something wrong with them or you, but there are harmonies in relationships. Find the harmonies. 

Compassion, passion and perseverance are contagious. So are idiocy, ignorance and lethargy. You might not catch them, but if you do, don't use a horse tranquilizer. 

You are capable of far, far more than you realize.

Learn the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge might get you accolades, but wisdom will bring you joy.

I don't care what you think. I only care why you think it. 

Thoughts, words and actions all carry inertia.

Never sing, laugh, cry or dance in order to be done singing, laughing, crying or dancing. If the point of doing something is to be done with it, then you’ll only ever be in the process of becoming finished.

The details matter. Always. 

Sometimes you just have to make sure you aren't closing doors in your future with your actions right now. 

There are a lot of people here that care very much about you.





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