Committed Teacher Quotes

Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed.

Why Not You? Today, many will awaken with a fresh sense of inspiration. Why not you? Today, many will open their eyes to the beauty that surrounds them. Why not you? Today, many will choose to leave the ghost of yesterday behind and seize the immeasurable power of today. Why not you? Today, many will break through the barriers of the past by looking at the blessings of the present. Why not you? Today, for many the burden of self doubt and insecurity will be lifted by the security and confidence of empowerment. Why not you? Today, many will rise above their believed limitations and make contact with their powerful innate strength. Why not you? Today, many will choose to live in such a manner that they will be a positive role model for their children. Why not you? Today, many will choose to free themselves from the personal imprisonment of their bad habits. Why not you? Today, many will choose to live free of conditions and rules governing their own happiness. Why not you? Today, many will find abundance in simplicity. Why not you? Today, many will be confronted by difficult moral choices and they will choose to do what is right instead of what is beneficial. Why not you? Today, many will decide to no longer sit back with a victim mentality, but to take charge of their lives and make positive changes. Why not you? Today, many will take the action necessary to make a difference. Why not you? Today, many will make the commitment to be a better mother, father, son, daughter, student, teacher, worker, boss, brother, sister, & so much more. Why not you? Today is a new day! Many will seize this day. Many will live it to the fullest. Why not you?

Relational trust is built on movements of the human heart such as empathy, commitment, compassion, patience, and the capacity to forgive.

You say: "There are persons who lack education" and you turn to the law. But the law is not, in itself, a torch of learning which shines its light abroad. The law extends over a society where some persons have knowledge and others do not; where some citizens need to learn, and others can teach. In this matter of education, the law has only two alternatives: It can permit this transaction of teaching-and-learning to operate freely and without the use of force, or it can force human wills in this matter by taking from some of them enough to pay the teachers who are appointed by government to instruct others, without charge. But in the second case, the law commits legal plunder by violating liberty and property.

When we black people commit ourselves to living simply as a political action, as a way of breaking the stress caused by unrelenting hedonistic desire for material objects that are not needed for survival, or essential to well-being, we will not be talking about ebonics. We will be out in the streets demanding that the public schools have enough teachers so that all kids, cross color, can read and write in standard English and in Spanish too.

Love gives insight, Maggie, and insight often gives foreboding. Listen to me, let me supply you with books; do let me see you sometimes, be your brother and teacher, as you said at Lorton. It is less wrong that you should see me than that you should be committing this long suicide.

Lan Xichen! All my life, I’ve lied to countless people and I’ve harmed countless others. It’s just like you said. I killed my father, killed my brothers, killed my wife, killed my son, killed my teachers, killed my friends—I’ve committed every crime there is!” He inhaled deeply, then rasped out, “But never have I ever wanted to hurt you!

Teachers, let me tell you, are born deceivers of the lowest sort, since what they want from life is impossible — time-freed, existential youth forever. It commits them to terrible deceptions and departures from the truth. And literature, being lasting, is their ticket.

Page 112 The Honorable Schoolboy He was attended this morning by his wife, a former Bible School teacher from Borneo, a dried- out shrew in bobbed hair and ankle socks who could spot a sin before it was committed.

think of the words of Dr. Maya Angelou: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Doing our best now is an active thing, and so is knowing better. We don’t show up and then wait to magically know better. We show up and then, when we are corrected, we keep working. We listen hard so we can know better next time. We seek out teachers so we can know better next time. We let burn our ideas about how good and well-meaning we are so we can become better next time. Learning to know better is a commitment. We will only know better if we continue unbecoming.

We accept responsibility for ourselves when we acknowledge that ultimately there are no answers outside of ourselves, and no gurus, no teachers, and no philisophies that can solve the problems of our lives. They can only suggest, guide, and inspire. It is our dedication to living with open hearts and our commitment to the day-to-day details of our lives that will transform us.

The child tends to be stripped of all social influences but those of the market place, all sense of place, function and class is weakened, the characteristics of region and clan, neighborhood or kindred are attenuated. The individual is denuded of everything but appetities, desires and tastes, wrenched from any context of human obligation or commitment. It is a process of mutilation; and once this has been achieved, we are offered the consolation of reconstituting the abbreviated humanity out of the things and the goods around us, and the fantasies and vapors which they emit. A culture becomes the main determinant upon morality, beliefs and purposes, usurping more and more territory that formerly belonged to parents, teachers, community, priests and politics alike.

There is no such thing as the perfect relationship. You can however, create a relationship which is perfect. Perfection comes from your commitment to being a teacher and a student. Being as curious and playful as children. Having the maturity of an adult, and being a friend, partner, and lover. Perfection often comes from imperfection. So, embrace the challenges and learn to grow together, not apart….

American students, we are told, are falling behind in reading and math; on test after test, they score below most European students (at the level of Lithuania), and the solution, rather than seeking to engage their curiosity, has been testing and more testing— a dry and brittle method that produces lackluster results. And so resources are pulled from the “soft” fields that are not being tested. Music teachers are being fired or not replaced; art classes are quietly dropped from the curriculum; history is simplified and moralized, with little expectation that any facts will be learned or retained; and instead of reading short stories, poems and novels, students are invited to read train schedules and EPA reports whose jargon could put even the most committed environmentalist to sleep.

One of the acid tests of our integrity is whether or not we keep the commitments and promises we have made or whether there are loopholes in our word. We might appropriately ask: Do we live the honor code with exactness, or are there loopholes in our word—cracks in our foundation of integrity? Do we honor our commitments as home teachers and visiting teachers, or are there loopholes in our performance? In other words, is our word our bond?

Let me tell you a story. There was a student who asked his teacher, what is love? The teacher said go into the field and bring me the most beautiful flower. The student returned with no flower at hand and said, “I found the most beautiful flower in the field but I didn't pick it up for I might find a better one, but when I returned to the place, it was gone.” We always look for the best in life. When we finally see it, we take it for granted and after some time start expecting a better one, not knowing that it's the best for us.

Teaching, if it is to be done well, must be built on vision and commitment; learning, if it is to be meaningful, depends on imagination, risk taking, intention, and invention.

Racism is a systematic, societal, institutional, omnipresent, and epistemologically embedded phenomenon that pervades every vestige of our reality. For most whites, however, racism is like murder: the concept exists, but someone has to commit it in order for it to happen.

If churches are to be healthy, then pastors and teachers must be committed to discovering the meaning of Scripture and allowing that meaning to drive the agenda with their congregations.

Ask the river about it, my friend! Listen to it, laugh about it! Do you then really think that you have committed your follies in order to spare your son them? Can you then protect your son from Samsara? How? Through instruction, through prayers, through exhortation? My dear friend, have you forgotten that instructive story about Siddhartha, the Brahmin's son, whiuch you once told me here? Who protected Siddhartha the Samana from Samsara, from sin, greed and folly? Could his father's piety, his teacher's exhortations, his own knowledge, his own seeking, protect him? Which father, which teacher, could prevent him from living his own life, from soiing himself with life, from loading himself with sin, from swallowing the bitter drink himself, from finding his own path? Do you think, my dear friend, that anybody is spared this path? Perhaps your little son, because you would like to see him spared sorrow and pain and disillusionment? But if you were to die ten times for him, you would not alter his destiny in the slightest.

If you read many of my Middle Grade and YA book series, you would notice the common theme of how the main characters always choose to be good. That's because when you write for YA, as an author, you automatically become a person of authority. Be a good role model yourself as a YA author. Help teens grow up into responsible and good adults. YA Authors - Don't get accused of sexual harassment (like some authors) or of encouraging your teen readers to gang up on and bully /harass an author. I've been the receiving end of that kind of behavior, and it is cyberbullying and harassment. Authors and anyone in a position of authority who encourage teens and kids to cyberbully another human being is not a good role model. Parents and Teachers should help their kids choose books and role models. When a teen has committed cyberbullying as a minor, but grows it, they can still be held accountable for that. In many states, cyberbullying is a crime. - Strong by Kailin Gow

Hardship in our present life is an atonement for sins committed in our previous existence, or the education necessary to prepare for a higher place in the life to come. That is what your teachers have taught you, haven’t they?

I once heard of a class teacher who’d punish every student wearing a blue shirt whenever a student wearing blue shirt had committed a mistake. I thought that was pretty bad. I then heard of a class teacher who’d punish every student wearing a blue shirt whenever someone in blue shirt committed a mistake somewhere else. Clearly, the worst is not a reality.

Progress is hardly ever dramatic; in fact, it is usually very slow. As every parent and teacher knows, education is never a matter of ten-step plans or quick formulas, but of faithful commitment to the mundane challenges of daily life: getting up from the sofa to spend time with our children, loving them and disciplining them, becoming involved in their lives at school and, most important, making sure they have a wholesome family life to return to at home. Maybe that is why Jesus teaches us to ask for strength little by little, on a daily basis - "Give us this day our daily bread" - and why he stresses the significance of even the smallest, humblest beginnings: "Wherever two of you agree about anything you ask for, it shall be done for you... For where two or three come together in my name, I shall be with them" (Mt. 18:19-20).

Every social practice is the expression of fundamental assumptions about what it means to be human. When a society accepts, endorses, and approves the practice, it implicitly commits itself to the accompanying worldview. And all the more so if those practices are enshrined in law. The law functions as a teacher, educating people on what society considers to be morally acceptable. If America accepts abortion, euthanasia, gender-free marriage, and transgender policies, in the process it will absorb the worldview that justifies those practices—a two-story fragmentation of the human being that denigrates the body and biological bonds such as the family. And the dehumanizing consequences will reach into every aspect of our communal life.

Even though we long for community-for places of common vision, shared purpose, cooperative effort, and personal fulfillment within collective commitment-we most often settle for institutions. That is, we generally find ourselves in impersonal places characterized by interchangeable parts, hierarchy, competition, and layers of supervision.

Imagine how safe it would feel to know that no one could ever commit a crime of violence and go unnoticed, ever again. Imagine what it would mean to us to know – know for certain – that the plane or the bus we’re travelling on is properly maintained, that the teacher who looks after our children doesn’t have ugly secrets. All it would cost is our privacy, and to be honest who really cares about that? What secrets would you need to keep from a mathematical construct without a heart? From a card index? Why would it matter? And there couldn’t be any abuse of the system, because the system would be built not to allow it. It’s the pathway we’re taking now, that we’ve been on for a while.

We've met before - a thousand times. I am the girl the world forgets. It started when I was sixteen years old. A slow declining, an isolation, one piece at a time. A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A teacher who forgets to chase my missing homework. A friend who looks straight through me and sees a stranger. No matter what I do, the words I say, the people I hurt, the crimes I commit - you will never remember who I am. That makes my life tricky. It also makes me dangerous...

We pay with love for the love we have been given.

The difference between teachers and activist teachers is one is dedicated to offering the ability to think clearly and the other is often committed to destroying that clarity.

Children need teachers who are passionate, curious, joyful, and committed to being fully mindful.

My white teachers had an unspoken commitment to the belief that we are all the same, a default setting that masked for them how often white culture bled into the curriculum.

In Tibet to kill one’s teacher was seen as the worst crime one could commit.

Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the somber renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings. I mean long journeys across gray space. I mean danger, the edge of every void, the circumstance of one man imparting an erotic terror to the dreams of the republic. Understand the man who must inhabit these extreme regions, monstrous and vulval, damp with memories of violation. Even if half-mad he is absorbed into the public's total madness; even if fully rational, a bureaucrat in hell, a secret genius of survival, he is sure to be destroyed by the public's contempt for survivors. Fame, this special kind, feeds itself on outrage, on what the counselors of lesser men would consider bad publicity-hysteria in limousines, knife fights in the audience, bizarre litigation, treachery, pandemonium and drugs. Perhaps the only natural law attaching to true fame is that the famous man is compelled, eventually, to commit suicide. (Is it clear I was a hero of rock'n'roll?) Toward the end of the final tour it became apparent that our audience wanted more than music, more even than its own reduplicated noise. It's possible the culture had reached its limit, a point of severe tension. There was less sense of simple visceral abandon at our concerts during these last weeks. Few cases of arson and vandalism. Fewer still of rape. No smoke bombs or threats of worse explosives. Our followers, in their isolation, were not concerned with precedent now. They were free of old saints and martyrs, but fearfully so, left with their own unlabeled flesh. Those without tickets didn't storm the barricades, and during a performance the boys and girls directly below us, scratching at the stage, were less murderous in their love of me, as if realizing finally that my death, to be authentic, must be self-willed- a succesful piece of instruction only if it occured by my own hand, preferrably ina foreign city. I began to think their education would not be complete until they outdid me as a teacher, until one day they merely pantomimed the kind of massive response the group was used to getting. As we performed they would dance, collapse, clutch each other, wave their arms, all the while making absolutely no sound. We would stand in the incandescent pit of a huge stadium filled with wildly rippling bodies, all totally silent. Our recent music, deprived of people's screams, was next to meaningless, and there would have been no choice but to stop playing. A profound joke it would have been. A lesson in something or other. In Houston I left the group, saying nothing, and boarded a plane for New York City, that contaminated shrine, place of my birth. I knew Azarian would assume leadership of the band, his body being prettiest. As to the rest, I left them to their respective uproars- news media, promotion people, agents, accountants, various members of the managerial peerage. The public would come closer to understanding my disappearance than anyone else. It was not quite as total as the act they needed and nobody could be sure whether I was gone for good. For my closest followers, it foreshadowed a period of waiting. Either I'd return with a new language for them to speak or they'd seek a divine silence attendant to my own. I took a taxi past the cemetaries toward Manhattan, tides of ash-light breaking across the spires. new York seemed older than the cities of Europe, a sadistic gift of the sixteenth century, ever on the verge of plague. The cab driver was young, however, a freckled kid with a moderate orange Afro. I told him to take the tunnel. Is there a tunnel?" he said.

My white teachers had an unspoken commitment to the belief that we are all the same, a default setting that masked for them how often white culture bled into the curriculum. For example, when teachers wanted to drive home the point that we should do something daily, they often likened it to how you wash your hair every morning. It never occurred to them that none of the Black girls in the class did this. Knowing it was true for white people, and having gotten used to white teachers' assumption of universality, we would all nod our heads and move on. Who had time to teach the teacher?

Anyone who utters “salvation only through Christ” inadvertently commits to the greatest blasphemy of all, which is differentiation, and this in turn diminishes the very essence of the title Christian.

Would you actually believe that you had committed your foolish acts in order to spare your son from committing them too? And could you in any way protect your son from Sansara? How could you? By means of teachings, prayer, admonition? My dear, have you entirely forgotten that story, that story containing so many lessons, that story about Siddhartha, a Brahman's son, which you once told me here on this very spot? Who has kept the Samana Siddhartha safe from Sansara, from sin, from greed, from foolishness? Were his father's religious devotion, his teachers warnings, his own knowledge, his own search able to keep him safe? Which father, which teacher had been able to protect him from living his life for himself, from soiling himself with life, from burdening himself with guilt, from drinking the bitter drink for himself, from finding his path for himself? Would you think, my dear, anybody might perhaps be spared from taking this path? That perhaps your little son would be spared, because you love him, because you would like to keep him from suffering and pain and disappointment? But even if you would die ten times for him, you would not be able to take the slightest part of his destiny upon yourself.

Any man has the capability of making a baby, but the responsibility of fatherhood is a gift bestowed upon those wise enough to realize that it is a lifelong commitment that will bring one a joy no amount of money on this earth can buy. One cannot fully understand the unconditional love of Jesus Christ until they can love something greater than themselves. There is no better teacher of this lesson than fatherhood. -Chad Judice

And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; Aesculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre? And what kind of deeds are recorded of each of these reputed sons of Jupiter, it is needless to tell to those who already know. This only shall be said, that they are written for the advantage and encouragement of youthful scholars; for all reckon it an honourable thing to imitate the gods. But far be such a thought concerning the gods from every well-conditioned soul, as to believe that Jupiter himself, the governor and creator of all things, was both a parricide and the son of a parricide, and that being overcome by the love of base and shameful pleasures, he came in to Ganymede and those many women whom he had violated and that his sons did like actions. But, as we said above, wicked devils perpetrated these things. And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire.

Founded in 1876, the Ethical Culture Society inculcated in its members a commitment to social action and humanitarianism: “Man must assume responsibility for the direction of his life and destiny.” Although an outgrowth of American Reform Judaism, Ethical Culture was itself a “non-religion,” perfectly suited to upper-middle-class German Jews, most of whom, like the Oppenheimers, were intent on assimilating into American society. Felix Adler and his coterie of talented teachers promoted this process and would have a powerful influence in the molding of Robert Oppenheimer’s psyche, both emotionally and intellectually.

If you’re asking the schools to be the answer, you’re also asking a lot. If you take a kid from a bad background and expect the overburdened teachers to turn him around in seven hours a day, it might or might not happen. What about the other seventeen hours in a day? People often ask us if, through our research and experience, we can now predict which children are likely to become dangerous in later life. Roy Hazelwood’s answer is, “Sure. But so can any good elementary school teacher.” And if we can get them treatment early enough and intensively enough, it might make a difference. A significant role-model adult during the formative years can make a world of difference. Bill Tafoya, the special agent who served as our “futurist” at Quantico, advocated a minimum of a ten-year commitment of money and resources on the magnitude of what we sent into the Persian Gulf. He calls for a wide-scale reinstatement of Project Head Start, one of the most effective long-term, anticrime programs in history. He doesn’t think more police are the answer, but he would bring in “an army of social workers” to provide assistance for battered women, homeless families with children, to find good foster homes. And he would back it all up with tax incentive programs. I’m not sure this is the total answer, but it would certainly be an important start. Because the sad fact is, the shrinks can battle all they want, and my people and I can use psychology and behavioral science to help catch the criminals, but by the time we get to use our stuff, the severe damage has already been done.

The pat on the back becomes more important than the music or the skating. One part of us becomes ever more committed to earning the pat on the back, while another subversive part—that we try to ignore—kicks and screams and resists the teacher’s authority. This is the part that gives us all kinds of excuses for not practicing.

De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period.” The narrator of the story, a teacher at a correspondence-based art school, writes a letter to his one talented pupil, urging her to invest in good oils and brushes, to commit to the life of the artist. “The worst that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.

Failure is a good teacher, and Bill learned from these experiences that loyalty and commitment are easy when you are winning and much harder when you are losing. But that’s, as Dan’s story highlights, when loyalty, commitment, and integrity are even more important. When things are going badly, teams need even more of those characteristics from their leaders.

Encouragement during the early years is crucial because beginners are still figuring out whether they want to commit or cut bait. Accordingly, Bloom and his research team found that the best mentors at this stage were especially warm ans supportive: 'perhaps the major quality of these teachers was that they made the initial learning very pleasant and rewarding. much of the introduction to the field was as playful activity, and the learning at the beginning of this stage was like a game'. A degree of autonomy during the early years is also important. Longitudinal studies tracking learners confirm that overbearing parents and teachers erode intrinsic motivation. Kids whose parents let them make their own choices about what they like are more likely to develop interests later identified as a passion.

Conversely, the first step into any sin, when there is a definite inducement to sin, is the eradication of our sense of the immediate presence of God. Think about it. Many of the sins we commit would be prevented or stopped by simply the presence of another human being. If you are having a spat with your wife, what happens when a fellow human being, not even necessarily a Christian, comes to the door? The presence of another person is enough to check your words, and suddenly you can become very sweet. Or you could be cheating at school and think that nobody sees you. As soon as the teacher stands over your shoulder, however, you stop. Why? Because of the presence of another person. What effect would it have on us if we had an all-pervasive sense of the presence of God? We see what it did for Joseph. It kept him from sin. God’s

If you ask the other John and Peggy (my parents) how they’ve managed to stay married for well over half a century, they’ll credit an uncompromising level of honesty with each other. If you press them, though, you’ll learn that their commitment to the truth did not extend to their children. Indeed, when it came to raising three boys on a public school teachers salary, my parents lied like rugs./ It was a strange sort of snobbery to develop at such an early age - this sympathy for the more fortunate - but that’s precisely what my parents engendered. With duplicity and guile, they Turn envy to pity. By the time I was eleven, I felt nothing but compassion for classmates of mine who had been forced to wear the latest fashions. Sadly, they had no older cousins to provide them with a superior wardrobe of “softer, sturdier, broken-in alternatives.

What are all these people, by the way?” “They’re people whose gardens verge on or touch the garden of the house where the murder was committed.” “Sounds like a French exercise,” said Beck. “Where is the dead body of my uncle? In the garden of the cousin of my aunt. What about Number 19 itself?” “A blind woman, a former school teacher, lives there. She works in an institute for the blind and she’s been thoroughly investigated by the local police.

And, if we teachers are honest with ourselves, it may be easier to assign a zero when a student misses an assignment than to pressure and support the student to complete it. It can be time-consuming and exhausting for the teacher to call parents and caregivers or require students to stay after school until assignments are completed. Yet if we’re committed to making our grades accurate, we can’t give a grade until we have sufficient evidence of a student’s actual level of achievement.

I am criticizing the professionalization of teaching children because these young human beings are not cogs in a machine, And I am trying to identify the root of the problem for all those wonderful adults who went into teaching thinking that they could commit to nurturing the lives of many children only to end up having the system squash their excellent motives. Our current school system replicates factories and requires classroom managers more than teachers. Teachers are appreciably frustrated.

First-century discipleship was expressed as a servant-master relationship (see Matthew 10:24). Once accepted as a disciple, a young man started as a talmidh, or beginner, who sat in the back of the room and could not speak. Then he became a distinguished student, who took an independent line in his approach or questioning. At the next level, he became a disciple-associate, who sat immediately behind the rabbi during prayer time. Finally he achieved the highest level, a disciple of the wise, and was recognized as the intellectual equal of his rabbi.'" 2. Memorizing the teacher's words: Oral tradition provided the basic way of studying. Disciples learned the teacher's words verbatim to pass along to the next person. Often disciples learned as many as four interpretations of each major passage in the Torah. 3. Learning the teacher's way of ministry: A disciple learned how his teacher kept God's commands, including how he practiced the Sabbath, fasted, prayed, and said blessings in ceremonial situations. He would also learn his rabbi's teaching methods and the many traditions his master followed. 4. Imitating the teacher's life and character: Jesus said that when a disciple is fully taught, he "will be like his teacher" (Luke 6:40). The highest calling of a disciple was to imitate his teacher. Paul called on Timothy to follow his example (see 2 Timothy 3:10-14), and he didn't hesitate to call on all believers to do the same (see 1 Corinthians 4:14-16; 1 1:1; Philippians 4:9). One story in ancient tradition tells of a rabbinical student so devoted to his teacher that he hid in the teacher's bedchamber to discover the mentor's sexual technique. To be sure, this is a bit extreme, yet it demonstrates the level of commitment required to be a disciple. 5. Raising up their own disciples: When a disciple finished his training, he was expected to reproduce what he'd learned by finding and training his own apprentices. He would start his own school and call it after his name, such as the House of Hillel.

STATEMENT AT YOUTH MARCH FOR INTEGRATED SCHOOLS As June approaches, with its graduation ceremonies and speeches, a thought suggests itself. You will hear much about careers, security, and prosperity. I will leave the discussion of such matters to your deans, your principals, and your valedictorians. But I do have a graduation thought to pass along to you. Whatever career you may choose for yourself—doctor, lawyer, teacher—let me propose an avocation to be pursued along with it. Become a dedicated fighter for civil rights. Make it a central part of your life. It will make you a better doctor, a better lawyer, a better teacher. It will enrich your spirit as nothing else possibly can. It will give you that rare sense of nobility that can only spring from love and selflessly helping your fellow man. Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in. April 18, 1959, Washington, D.C.

Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed. —Terence McKenna

Nor is it to be wondered at that the loosening of moral ties between the large human units has had a pronounced effect upon the morality of the individual, for our conscience is not the inexorable judge that teachers of ethics say it is; it has its origin in nothing but "social fear." Wherever the community suspends its reproach the suppression of evil desire also ceases, and men commit acts of cruelty, treachery, deception, and brutality, the very possibility of which would have been considered incompatible with their level of culture.

[I]n addition to being a Spirit person, healer, and wisdom teacher, Jesus was a social prophet. There was passion in his language. Many of his sayings (as well as actions) challenged the domination system of his day. They take on pointed meaning when we see them in the context of social criticism of a peasant society. His criticisms of the wealthy were an indictment of the social class at the top of the domination system. His prophetic threats against Jerusalem and the temple were not because they were the center of an “old religion” (Judaism) soon to be replaced by a new religion (Christianity) but because they were the center of the domination system. His criticism of lawyers, scribes, and Pharisees was not because they were unvirtuous individuals but because commitment to the elites led them to see the social order through elite lenses. Jesus rejected the sharp social boundaries of the established social order and challenged the institutions that legitimated it. In his teaching, he subverted distinctions between righteous and sinner, rich and poor, men and women, Pharisee and outcasts. In his healings and behavior, he crossed social boundaries of purity, gender, and class. In his meal practice, central to what he was about, he embodied a boundary-subverting inclusiveness. In his itinerancy he rejected the notion of a brokered kingdom of God and enacted the immediacy of access to God apart from institutional mediation. His prophetic act against the money changers in the temple at the center of the domination system was, in the judgment of most scholars, the trigger leading to his arrest and execution.

My white teachers had an unspoken commitment to the belief that we are all the same, a default setting that masked for them how often white culture bled into the curriculum. For example, when teachers wanted to drive home the point that we should do something daily, they often likened it to how you wash your hair every morning. It never occurred to them that none of the Black girls in the class did this. Knowing it was true for white people, and having gotten used to white teachers’ assumption of universality, we would all nod our heads and move on. Who had time to teach the teacher?

I opened the curtain and entered the confessional, a dark wooden booth built into the side wall of the church. As I knelt on the small worn bench, I could hear a boy's halting confession through the wall, his prescribed penance inaudible as the panel slid open on my side and the priest directed his attention to me. "Yes, my child," he inquired softly. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my First Confession." "Yes, my child, and what sins have you committed?" .... "I talked in church twenty times, I disobeyed my mother five times, I wished harm to others several times, I told a fib three times, I talked back to my teacher twice." I held my breath. "And to whom did you wish harm?" My scheme had failed. He had picked out the one group of sins that most troubled me. Speaking as softly as I could, I made my admission. "I wished harm to Allie Reynolds." "The Yankee pitcher?" he asked, surprise and concern in his voice. "And how did you wish to harm him?" "I wanted him to break his arm." "And how often did you make this wish?" "Every night," I admitted, "before going to bed, in my prayers." "And were there others?" "Oh, yes," I admitted. "I wished that Robin Roberts of the Phillies would fall down the steps of his stoop, and that Richie Ashburn would break his hand." "Is there anything else?" "Yes, I wished that Enos Slaughter of the Cards would break his ankle, that Phil Rizzuto of the Yanks would fracture a rib, and that Alvin Dark of the Giants would hurt his knee." But, I hastened to add, "I wished that all these injuries would go away once the baseball season ended." ... "Are there any other sins, my child?" "No, Father." "For your penance, say two Hail Mary's, three Our Fathers, and," he added with a chuckle, "say a special prayer for the Dodgers. ...

And just as no adult is able to observe all those rules, it is also difficult for a child to observe all the rules. As the saying goes, if you brush someone, there is always dust. Children live from day to day committing innumerable petty offenses that correspond to adult breaches of the law or adult immorality. For not following the counsels or weekly instructions of the principal for not doing what the teacher said or what the student council had decided for not carrying the entreaties of parents or elders or for not observing what society considered to be acceptable behaviour-for these kinds of offenses, I became the object of the most rigid application of the regulations.

Only in America do we ask our writers to believe they don't matter as a condition of writing. It is time to end this. Much of my time as a student was spent doubting the importance of my work, doubting the power it had to reach anyone or do anything of significance. I was already tired o hearing about how the pen was mightier than the sword by the time I was studying writing. Swords, it seemed to me, won all the time. By the time I found that Auden quote -- "poetry makes nothing happen" -- I was more than ready to believe what I thought he was saying. But books were still to me as they had been when I found them: the only magic. My mother's most common childhood memory of me is of standing next to me trying to be heard over the voice of the page. I didn't really commit to writing until I understood that it meant making that happen for someone else. And in order to do that, I had to commit the chaos inside of me to an intricate order, an articulate complexity. To write is to tell a ticket to escape, not from the truth, but into it. My job is to make something happen in a space barely larger than the span of your hand, behind your eyes, distilled out of all that I have carried, from friends, teachers, people met on planes, people I have only seen in my mind, all my mother and father ever did, every favorite book, until it meets and distills from you, the reader, something out of the everything it finds in you. All of this meets along the edge of a sentence like this on, as if the sentence is a fence, with you on one side and me on the other. When the writing works best, I feel like I could poke one of these words out of place and find the writer's eye there, looking through to me. If you don't know what I mean, what I mean is this: when I speak of walking through a snowstorm, you remember a night from your childhood full of snow, or from last winter, say, driving home at night, surprised by a storm. When I speak of my dead friends and poetry, you may remember your own dead friends, or if none of your friends are dead, you may imagine how it might feel to have them die. You may think of your poems, or poems you've seen or heard. You may remember you don't like poetry. Something new is made from my memories and yours as you read this. It is not my memory, not yours, and it is born and walks the bridges and roads of your mind, as long as it can. After it has left mine. All my life I've been told this isn't important, that it doesn't matter, that it could never matter. And yet I think it does. I think it is the real reason the people who would take everything from us say this. I think it's the same reason that when fascists come to power, writers are among the first to go to jail. And that is the point of writing.

When Benjamin Bloom studied his 120 world-class concert pianists, sculptors, swimmers, tennis players, mathematicians, and research neurologists, he found something fascinating. For most of them, their first teachers were incredibly warm and accepting. Not that they set low standards. Not at all, but they created an atmosphere of trust, not judgment. It was, “I’m going to teach you,” not “I’m going to judge your talent.” As you look at what Collins and Esquith demanded of their students—all their students—it’s almost shocking. When Collins expanded her school to include young children, she required that every four-year-old who started in September be reading by Christmas. And they all were. The three- and four-year-olds used a vocabulary book titled Vocabulary for the High School Student. The seven-year-olds were reading The Wall Street Journal. For older children, a discussion of Plato’s Republic led to discussions of de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Orwell’s Animal Farm, Machiavelli, and the Chicago city council. Her reading list for the late-grade-school children included The Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov, Physics Through Experiment, and The Canterbury Tales. Oh, and always Shakespeare. Even the boys who picked their teeth with switchblades, she says, loved Shakespeare and always begged for more. Yet Collins maintained an extremely nurturing atmosphere. A very strict and disciplined one, but a loving one. Realizing that her students were coming from teachers who made a career of telling them what was wrong with them, she quickly made known her complete commitment to them as her students and as people. Esquith bemoans the lowering of standards. Recently, he tells us, his school celebrated reading scores that were twenty points below the national average. Why? Because they were a point or two higher than the year before. “Maybe it’s important to look for the good and be optimistic,” he says, “but delusion is not the answer. Those who celebrate failure will not be around to help today’s students celebrate their jobs flipping burgers.… Someone has to tell children if they are behind, and lay out a plan of attack to help them catch up.” All of his fifth graders master a reading list that includes Of Mice and Men, Native Son, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, The Joy Luck Club, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Separate Peace. Every one of his sixth graders passes an algebra final that would reduce most eighth and ninth graders to tears. But again, all is achieved in an atmosphere of affection and deep personal commitment to every student. “Challenge and nurture” describes DeLay’s approach, too. One of her former students expresses it this way: “That is part of Miss DeLay’s genius—to put people in the frame of mind where they can do their best.… Very few teachers can actually get you to your ultimate potential. Miss DeLay has that gift. She challenges you at the same time that you feel you are being nurtured.

As far as I can see, it is only the monotheistic, that is to say Jewish, religions whose members regard self-destruction as a crime. This is all the more striking in that neither in the Old nor in the New Testament is there to be found any prohibition or even definite disapproval of it; so that religious teachers have to base their proscription of suicide on philosophical grounds of their own invention, which are however so poor that what their arguments lack in strength they have to try to make up for by the strength of the terms in which they express their abhorrence; that is to say, they resort to abuse. Thus we hear that suicide is the most cowardly of acts, that only a madman would commit it, and similar insipidities; or the senseless assertion that suicide is ‘wrong’,

Everybody make words,' he continued. 'Everybody write things down. Children in school do lessons in my books. Teachers put grades in my books. Love letters sent in envelopes I sell. Ledgers for accountants, pads for shopping lists, agendas for planning week. Everything in here important to life, and that make me happy, give honour to my life.' The man delivered his little speech with such solemnity, such a grave sense of purpose and commitment, I confess that I felt moved. What kind of stationery store owner was this, I wondered, who expounded to his customers on the metaphysics of paper, who saw himself as serving an essential role in the myriad affairs of humanity? There was something comical about it, I suppose, but as I listened to him talk, it didn't occur to me to laugh.

We know that a loving Father has allowed us to live in a time when Jesus Christ has called prophets and others to serve as judges in Israel. Because of that we listen to a prophet's voice or sit in counsel with a bishop with the hope that we will hear correction. . . . We know He has placed servants to offer us both His covenants and His correction. We see the giving and the taking of correction as priceless and sacred. That is at least one of the reasons why the Lord warned us to seek as our teachers only men and women who are inspired of Him. And that is one of the reasons why we welcome prophets to lead us. . . . Because He loves us and because the purpose of the plan is to become like Him, He requires exactness of us. And the promises He makes to us always include the power to grow in our capacity to keep covenants. He makes it possible for us to know His rules. When we try with all our hearts to meet His standards, He gives us the companionship of the Holy Ghost. That in turn increases our power both to keep commitments and to discern what is good and true. And that is the power to learn, both in our temporal studies and in the learning we need for eternity. . . . For the child of God who has enough faith in the plan of salvation to treat it as reality, hard work is the only reasonable option. Life at its longest is short. What we do here determines the rest of our condition for eternity. God our Father has offered us everything He has and asks only that we give Him all we have to give. That is an exchange so imbalanced in our favor that no effort would be too much and no hours too long in service to Him, to the Savior, and to our Father's children. Hard work is the natural result of simply knowing and believing what it means to be a child of God.

As far as I can see, it is only the monotheistic, that is to say Jewish, religions whose members regard self-destruction as a crime. This is all the more striking in that neither in the Old nor in the New Testament is there to be found any prohibition or even definite disapproval of it; so that religious teachers have to base their proscription of suicide on philosophical grounds of their own invention, which are however so poor that what their arguments lack in strength they have to try to make up for by the strength of the terms in which they express their abhorrence; that is to say, they resort to abuse. Thus we hear that suicide is the most cowardly of acts, that only a madman would commit it, and similar insipidities; or the senseless assertion that suicide is ‘wrong’, though it is obvious there is nothing in the world a man has a more incontestable right to than his own life and person. Let us for once allow moral feelings to decide this question,

The California Board of Education provides, through its virtual libraries, a book intended for kindergarten teachers to read to their students: Who Are You? The Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity by Brook Pessin-Whedbee.19 The author begins with a familiar origin story: “Babies can’t talk, so grown-ups make a guess by looking at their bodies. This is the sex assigned to you at birth, male or female.”20 This author runs the gamut of typical kindergarten gender identity instruction. Who Are You? offers kids a smorgasbord of gender options. (“These are just a few words people use: trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gender fluid, transgender, gender neutral, agender, neutrois, bigender, third gender, two-spirit….”) The way baby boomers once learned to rattle off state capitals, elementary school kids are now taught today’s gender taxonomy often enough to have committed it to memory. And while gender ideologues insist they are merely presenting an objective ontology, it is hard to miss that they seem to hope kids will pick a fun, “gender-creative”21 option for themselves.

How do you build peaks? You create a positive moment with elements of elevation, insight, pride, and/ or connection. We’ll explore those final three elements later, but for now, let’s focus on elevation. To elevate a moment, do three things: First, boost sensory appeal. Second, raise the stakes. Third, break the script. (Breaking the script means to violate expectations about an experience—the next chapter is devoted to the concept.) Moments of elevation need not have all three elements but most have at least two. Boosting sensory appeal is about “turning up the volume” on reality. Things look better or taste better or sound better or feel better than they usually do. Weddings have flowers and food and music and dancing. (And they need not be superexpensive—see the footnote for more.IV) The Popsicle Hotline offers sweet treats delivered on silver trays by white-gloved waiters. The Trial of Human Nature is conducted in a real courtroom. It’s amazing how many times people actually wear different clothes to peak events: graduation robes and wedding dresses and home-team colors. At Hillsdale High, the lawyers wore suits and the witnesses came in costume. A peak means something special is happening; it should look different. To raise the stakes is to add an element of productive pressure: a competition, a game, a performance, a deadline, a public commitment. Consider the pregame jitters at a basketball game, or the sweaty-hands thrill of taking the stage at Signing Day, or the pressure of the oral defense at Hillsdale High’s Senior Exhibition. Remember how the teacher Susan Bedford said that, in designing the Trial, she and Greg Jouriles were deliberately trying to “up the ante” for their students. They made their students conduct the Trial in front of a jury that included the principal and varsity quarterback. That’s pressure. One simple diagnostic to gauge whether you’ve transcended the ordinary is if people feel the need to pull out their cameras. If they take pictures, it must be a special occasion. (Not counting the selfie addict, who thinks his face is a special occasion.) Our instinct to capture a moment says: I want to remember this. That’s a moment of elevation.

Fake it till you become it. My first Argentine tango was with Lil’ Kim, and again, I was completely learning it as I went along. Now it’s become one of my favorite dances to do. Whenever people say to me, “You’re such a great choreographer,” or I look at my Emmy learning it in my apartment, I remind myself that I came into DWTS with no experience, no education in many of these dances, and certainly no clue how to teach anything to anybody. I simply committed to learning them and then taught them to my partners. I drew upon how I had been taught and what I thought my partners would respond to. I felt my way along, just as they did, till I became the teacher I wanted to be. I threw myself into the effort without hesitation because I had no choice. There were only two options: I could go out there and throw my hands up and say, “Just kidding! I’m a phony,” or get it done. I couldn’t let myself or my partners down. This was the stage I was given, and I always want to be the best at whatever I’m doing. I never wanted my partners to feel they couldn’t rely on me. I had to go in there and make it happen. With that mentality, I found a way.

Well, let me weave together various sorts of tales, using the Milesian mode as a loom, if you will. Witty and dulcet tones are going to stroke your too-kind ears—as long as you don’t turn a spurning nose up at an Egyptian papyrus scrawled over with a sharp pen from the Nile. I’ll make you wonder at human forms and fortunes transfigured, torn apart but then mended back into their original state. Now to my preface. ‘Who’s writing there?’ you ask. In a few words: my ancient stock is from Attic Hymettus and the Ephyrean Isthmus and Spartan Taenarus. All that fertile sod has been immortalized by books more fertile still. There, as my boyhood began, I served my first tour of literary duty in the Athenian tongue. Then as a foreigner in the Latian city I invaded the speech native to the Quirites’ curriculum, settled on it, and worked it for all it was worth – and it was harrowing, as I had no teacher walking ahead and pointing out what to do. So here I am, pleading in advance to be let off if I commit some offense, as I’m still a greenhorn: to me, the speech of the Roman forum is outlandish. But this very change of language suits the genre-jumping training I have undertaken. The story we are starting has a Greek original, you see. Give heed, reader: there is delight to be had.

17 uAnd as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and  vknelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to  winherit eternal life?” 18And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19You know the commandments:  x‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20And he said to him, “Teacher,  yall these I have kept from my youth.” 21And Jesus,  zlooking at him,  aloved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go,  bsell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have  ctreasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 dDisheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. 23And Jesus  elooked around and said to his disciples,  f“How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter  gthe kingdom of God!” 24And the disciples  hwere amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again,  i“Children,  jhow difficult it is [2] to enter  gthe kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter  gthe kingdom of God.” 26And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, [3] “Then who can be saved?” 27Jesus  klooked at them and said,  l“With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.

You either are a Christian or you are not — you either are united to him by faith or you are not — because being a Christian is, first of all, a “standing” with God. However, we also acknowledge that coming to this point of uniting to Christ by faith often works as a process, not only as an event. It can occur through a series of small decisions or thoughts that bring a person closer and closer to the point of saving faith. In a post-Christendom setting, more often than not, this is the case. People simply do not have the necessary background knowledge to hear a gospel address and immediately understand who God is, what sin is, who Jesus is, and what repentance and faith are in a way that enables them to make an intelligent commitment. They often have far too many objections and beliefs for the gospel to be readily plausible to them. Therefore, most people in the West need to be welcomed into community long enough for them to hear multiple expressions of the gospel — both formal and informal — from individuals and teachers. As this happens in community, nonbelievers come to understand the character of God, sin, and grace. Many of their objections are answered through this process. Because they are “on the inside” and involved in ongoing relationships with Christians, they can imagine themselves as Christians and see how the faith fleshes out in real life.

We hear about the way middle-school teachers and such live, and it all seems terribly sad, but the only ones who really feel sad are the men themselves. That’s because modern-day people are fond of facts but they habitually throw out the sentiments that accompany the facts—which is all they can do, because society is pressing in on us so relentlessly we’re forced to throw them out. You can see this in the newspaper. Nine out of ten human interest stories are tragedies, but we have nothing to spare, nothing that enables us to feel them as tragedies. We read them only as factual reports. In the newspaper I take I often see the headline, ‘So-and-so Many Die,’ under which the name, address and cause of death of everyone who has died of unnatural causes that day is listed in small type, one line per person. It’s the ultimate in concision and lucidity. There’s also a column called ‘Burglaries at a Glance,’ in which all the burglaries are lumped together so that you can tell literally at a glance what kind of burglaries have been committed where—another great convenience. You have to realize that everything is like this. It’s the same with a resignation. To the man concerned, it might be an incident bordering on tragedy, but it’s important to face the fact that others don’t feel it with the same intensity. You would probably do well to keep this in mind when searching for work.

Word lessons in particular, the wouldst-couldst-shouldst-have-loved kind, were kept up, with much warlike thrashing, until I had committed the whole of the French, Latin, and English grammars to memory, and in connection with reading-lessons we were called on to recite parts of them with the rules over and over again, as if all the regular and irregular incomprehensible verb stuff was poetry. In addition to all this, father made me learn so many Bible verses every day that by the time I was eleven years of age I had about three fourths of the Old Testament and all of the New by heart and by sore flesh. I could recite the New Testament from the beginning of Matthew to the end of Revelation without a single stop. The dangers of cramming and of making scholars study at home instead of letting their little brains rest were never heard of in those days. We carried our school-books home in a strap every night and committed to memory our next day’s lessons before we went to bed, and to do that we had to bend our attention as closely on our tasks as lawyers on great million-dollar cases. I can’t conceive of anything that would now enable me to concentrate my attention more fully than when I was a mere stripling boy, and it was all done by whipping,—thrashing in general. Old-fashioned Scotch teachers spent no time in seeking short roads to knowledge, or in trying any of the new-fangled psychological methods so much in vogue nowadays.

This may seem odd, coming from a Center of Action and Contemplation that works to improve people’s lives and is committed to social change, but after eight years at the center I’m convinced that I must primarily teach contemplation. I’ve seen far too many activists who are not the answer. Their head answer is largely correct but the energy, the style, and the soul are not. So if they bring about the so-called revolution they are working for, I don’t want to be part of it (especially if they’re in charge). They might have the answer, but they are not themselves the answer. In fact, they are often part of the problem. That’s one reason that most revolutions fail. They self-destruct from within. Jesus and the great spiritual teachers primarily emphasized transformation of consciousness and soul. Unless that happens, there is no revolution. When leftists take over, they become as power-seeking and controlling and dominating as their oppressors because the demon of power has never been exorcised. We’ve seen this in social reforms and in many grassroots and feminist movements. You want to support them and you agree with many of their ideas, but too often they disappoint. I wonder if Jesus was not referring to this phenomenon when he spoke of throwing out the demons (leaving the place “swept and tidy”) and then seven other demons returned making it worse than before (Matt. 12:45). Overly zealous reforms tend to corrupt the reformers, while they remain incapable of seeing themselves as unreformed. We need less reformation and more transformation

For the bus ride, which Delaney estimated would be ninety minutes, she had prepared a mix of happy journeying music, which she activated as they pulled out of the campus gate. The first song was by Otis Redding, and the first message came via her phone. Woman-hater, it said, with a link to an unsigned and evidence-less post hinting that he had been unkind to an ex-girlfriend who he’d met shortly before the bay and the dock and the sitting. Thanks for the early-morning pick-me-up! the writer said, meaning that Delaney had ruined the day and tacitly endorsed Redding’s newly alleged misogyny. Delaney skipped to the next song, Lana Del Rey’s “High by the Beach,” and then quickly figured it was too big a risk so skipped ahead. The third song, the Muppets’ “Movin’ Right Along,” was unknown to most on the bus, and survived its three-minute length, during which a handful of passengers furiously tried to find a reason the song was complicit in evil committed or implied. Delaney skipped the next song, by Neil Diamond, thinking any Jewish singer dubious in light of the Israeli sandwich debacle, skipped songs six and seven (from Thriller), briefly considered the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” but then remembered Phil Spector, and so finally settled on a young Ghanian rapper she’d recently discovered. His first song was hunted down quickly in a hail of rhetorical buckshot—as a teen, the rapper had zinged a borderline joke about his female trigonometry teacher—so Delaney turned off the shared music, leaving everyone, for the next eighty-one minutes, to their earbuds and the safety of their individualized solitude.

We are praying to the God of our people, whom we call Hashem, literally, “the Name.” The true name for God is devastatingly holy and evocative; to utter it would represent a death wish, so we have safe nicknames for him instead: the Holy Name, the One, the Only, the Creator, the Destroyer, the Overseer, the King of All Kings, the One True Judge, the Merciful Father, Master of the Universe, O Great Architect, a long list of names for all his attributes. For the sake of this divinity I must surrender myself each morning, body and soul; for this God, my teachers say, I must learn silence so that only his voice can be heard through me. God lives in my soul, and I must spend my life scrubbing my soul clean of any trace of sin so that it deserves to host his presence. Repentance is a daily chore; at each morning prayer session we repent in advance for the sins we will commit that day. I look around at the others, who must sincerely believe in their inherent evil, as they are shamelessly crying and wailing to God to help them expunge the yetzer hara, or evil inclination, from their consciousness. Although I talk to God, it is not through prayer. I talk to him in my mind, and even I will admit that I do not come to God humbly, as I should. I talk to him frankly, as I would to a friend, and I’m constantly asking him for favors. Still, I feel like God and I are on pretty good terms, relatively speaking. This morning, as everyone sways passionately around me, I stand calmly in the sea of young girls, asking God to make this day a bearable one. I’m very easy to pick on. The teachers know I’m not important, that no one will defend me. I’m not a rabbi’s daughter, so when they get angry, I’m the perfect scapegoat. I make sure never to look up from my siddur during prayer, but Chavie Halberstam, the rabbi’s daughter, can elbow her friend Elky to point out the toilet paper stuck to the teacher’s shoe and it’s as if nothing happened. If I so much as smirk, I’m singled out immediately. This is why I need God on my side; I have no one else to stick up for me.

-Write out a conversation with your inner voice. Begin the entry with a question directed to yourself, then write your mental response. It may help to label the different voices A and B. Dialogue writing is a very effective way to get to the heart of the matter. The following passage is an example of typical dialogue writing: A: Tomorrow is a big day. You have an interview at a college. How do you feel? B: I am really nervous. This is the first interview and I don’t know what it is going to be like. A: What are you afraid of? B: I’m afraid I’ll stutter and say something stupid. I’m worried the person will ask a question and I won’t know what to say. A: What do you want to discuss? B: I think it is good that I was on the basketball team for four years. That shows commitment and dedication. I also got decent grades and earned a blue ribbon at the science fair. A: What about your hobbies outside of school? B: I really like to read. I could mention that. I could talk also about the vacations my family has taken. They are pretty interesting. I enjoy my part-time retail job. A: It sounds like you do a lot. B: I guess I am good at organizing my life and accomplishing what needs to be done. Hey, that would sound good in an interview! -Try focused “freewriting.” Pick one topic, such as school, friends, or family, and write everything that comes to mind about that topic. Write for at least ten minutes or until you’re certain that you have run out of things to write. -Write your belief system. Start by writing “I believe…” at the top of a clean page. Then write whatever comes to mind. It may help to ask yourself questions when you get stuck such as “What do I believe about friendship?” “What is my personal style?” or “What are my gifts and abilities?” -Write about an event from your perspective, then write about the same event from someone else’s point of view. For example, if you had a hard time answering a question during class, write about how you felt, what you thought, and how you behaved. Next, pretend you are the teacher writing about the same event. What do you think he or she was thinking? How did he or she act? This exercise is a great way to show that there are multiple ways of seeing the same situation.

In our family, we live by the Hard Thing Rule. It has three parts. The first is that everyone—including Mom and Dad—has to do a hard thing. A hard thing is something that requires daily deliberate practice. I’ve told my kids that psychological research is my hard thing, but I also practice yoga. Dad tries to get better and better at being a real estate developer; he does the same with running. My oldest daughter, Amanda, has chosen playing the piano as her hard thing. She did ballet for years, but later quit. So did Lucy. This brings me to the second part of the Hard Thing Rule: You can quit. But you can’t quit until the season is over, the tuition payment is up, or some other “natural” stopping point has arrived. You must, at least for the interval to which you’ve committed yourself, finish whatever you begin. In other words, you can’t quit on a day when your teacher yells at you, or you lose a race, or you have to miss a sleepover because of a recital the next morning. You can’t quit on a bad day. And, finally, the Hard Thing Rule states that you get to pick your hard thing. Nobody picks it for you because, after all, it would make no sense to do a hard thing you’re not even vaguely interested in. Even the decision to try ballet came after a discussion of various other classes my daughters could have chosen instead. Lucy, in fact, cycled through a half-dozen hard things. She started each with enthusiasm but eventually discovered that she didn’t want to keep going with ballet, gymnastics, track, handicrafts, or piano. In the end, she landed on viola. She’s been at it for three years, during which time her interest has waxed rather than waned. Last year, she joined the school and all-city orchestras, and when I asked her recently if she wanted to switch her hard thing to something else, she looked at me like I was crazy. Next year, Amanda will be in high school. Her sister will follow the year after. At that point, the Hard Thing Rule will change. A fourth requirement will be added: each girl must commit to at least one activity, either something new or the piano and viola they’ve already started, for at least two years. Tyrannical? I don’t believe it is. And if Lucy’s and Amanda’s recent comments on the topic aren’t disguised apple-polishing, neither do my daughters. They’d like to grow grittier as they get older, and, like any skill, they know grit takes practice. They know they’re fortunate to have the opportunity to do so. For parents who would like to encourage grit without obliterating their children’s capacity to choose their own path, I recommend the Hard Thing Rule.

Punishment is not care, and poverty is not a crime. We need to create safe, supportive pathways for reentry into the community for all people and especially young people who are left out and act out. Interventions like decriminalizing youthful indiscretions for juvenile offenders and providing foster children and their families with targeted services and support would require significant investment and deliberate collaboration at the community, state, and federal levels, as well as a concerted commitment to dismantling our carceral state. These interventions happen automatically and privately for young offenders who are not poor, whose families can access treatment and hire help, and who have the privilege of living and making mistakes in neighborhoods that are not over-policed. We need to provide, not punish, and to foster belonging and self-sufficiency for our neighbors’ kids. More, funded YMCAs and community centers and summer jobs, for example, would help do this. These kinds of interventions would benefit all the Carloses, Wesleys, Haydens, Franks, and Leons, and would benefit our collective well-being. Only if we consider ourselves bound together can we reimagine our obligation to each other as community. When we consider ourselves bound together in community, the radically civil act of redistributing resources from tables with more to tables with less is not charity, it is responsibility; it is the beginning of reparation. Here is where I tell you that we can change this story, now. If we seek to repair systemic inequalities, we cannot do it with hope and prayers; we have to build beyond the systems and begin not with rehabilitation but prevention. We must reimagine our communities, redistribute our wealth, and give our neighbors access to what they need to live healthy, sustainable lives, too. This means more generous social benefits. This means access to affordable housing, well-resourced public schools, affordable healthcare, jobs, and a higher minimum wage, and, of course, plenty of good food. People ask me what educational policy reform I would suggest investing time and money in, if I had to pick only one. I am tempted to talk about curriculum and literacy, or teacher preparation and salary, to challenge whether police belong in schools, to push back on standardized testing, or maybe debate vocational education and reiterate that educational policy is housing policy and that we cannot consider one without the other. Instead, as a place to start, I say free breakfast and lunch. A singular reform that would benefit all students is the provision of good, free food at school. (Data show that this practice yields positive results; but do we need data to know this?) Imagine what would happen if, across our communities, people had enough to feel fed.

There are many types of teachers out there from many traditions. Some are very ordinary and some seem to radiate spirituality from every pore. Some are nice, some are indifferent, and some may seem like sergeants in boot camp. Some stress reliance on one’s own efforts, others stress reliance on the grace of the guru. Some are very available and accessible, and some may live far away, grant few interviews, or have so many students vying for their time that you may rarely get a chance to talk with them. Some seem to embody the highest ideals of the perfected spiritual life in their every waking moment, while others may have many noticeable quirks, faults and failings. Some live by rigid moral codes, while others may push the boundaries of social conventions and mores. Some may be very old, and some may be very young. Some may require strict commitments and obedience, while others may hardly seem to care what we do at all. Some may advocate very specific practices, stating that their way is the only way or the best way, while others may draw from many traditions or be open to your doing so. Some may point out our successes, while others may dwell on our failures. Some may stress renunciation or even ordination into a monastic order, while others seem relentlessly engaged with “the world.” Some charge a bundle for their teachings, while others give theirs freely. Some like scholarship and the lingo of meditation, while others may never use or even openly despise these formal terms and conceptual frameworks. Some teachers may be more like friends or equals that just want to help us learn something they happened to be good at, while others may be all into the hierarchy, status and role of being a teacher. Some teachers will speak openly about attainments, and some may not. Some teachers are remarkably predictable in their manner and teaching style, while others swing wide in strange and unpredictable ways. Some may seem very tranquil and mild mannered, while others may seem outrageous or rambunctious. Some may seem extremely humble and unimposing, while others may seem particularly arrogant and presumptuous. Some are charismatic, while others may be distinctly lacking in social skills. Some may readily give us extensive advice, and some just listen and nod. Some seem the living embodiment of love, and others may piss us off on a regular basis. Some teachers may instantly click with us, while others just leave us cold. Some teachers may be willing to teach us, and some may not. So far as I can tell, none of these are related in any way to their meditation ability or the depths of their understanding. That is, don’t judge a meditation teacher by their cover. What is important is that their style and personality inspire us to practice well, to live the life we want to live, to find what it is we wish to find, to understand what we wish to understand. Some of us may wander for a long time before we find a good fit. Some of us will turn to books for guidance, reading and practicing without the advantages or hassles of teachers. Some of us may seem to click with a practice or teacher, try to follow it for years and yet get nowhere. Others seem to fly regardless. One of the most interesting things about reality is that we get to test it out. One way or another, we will get to see what works for us and what doesn’t, what happens when we do certain practices or follow the advice of certain teachers, as well as what happens when we don’t.

The process of receiving teaching depends upon the student giving something in return; some kind of psychological surrender is necessary, a gift of some sort. This is why we must discuss surrendering, opening, giving up expectations, before we can speak of the relationship between teacher and student. It is essential to surrender, to open yourself, to present whatever you are to the guru, rather than trying to present yourself as a worthwhile student. It does not matter how much you are willing to pay, how correctly you behave, how clever you are at saying the right thing to your teacher. It is not like having an interview for a job or buying a new car. Whether or not you will get the job depends upon your credentials, how well you are dressed, how beautifully your shoes are polished, how well you speak, how good your manners are. If you are buying a car, it is a matter of how much money you have and how good your credit is. But when it comes to spirituality, something more is required. It is not a matter of applying for a job, of dressing up to impress our potential employer. Such deception does not apply to an interview with a guru, because he sees right through us. He is amused if we dress up especially for the interview. Making ingratiating gestures is not applicable in this situation; in fact it is futile. We must make a real commitment to being open with our teacher; we must be willing to give up all our preconceptions. Milarepa expected Marpa to be a great scholar and a saintly person, dressed in yogic costume with beads, reciting mantras, meditating. Instead he found Marpa working on his farm, directing the laborers and plowing his land. I am afraid the word guru is overused in the West. It would be better to speak of one’s “spiritual friend,” because the teachings emphasize a mutual meeting of two minds. It is a matter of mutual communication, rather than a master-servant relationship between a highly evolved being and a miserable, confused one. In the master-servant relationship the highly evolved being may appear not even to be sitting on his seat but may seem to be floating, levitating, looking down at us. His voice is penetrating, pervading space. Every word, every cough, every movement that he makes is a gesture of wisdom. But this is a dream. A guru should be a spiritual friend who communicates and presents his qualities to us, as Marpa did with Milarepa and Naropa with Marpa. Marpa presented his quality of being a farmer-yogi. He happened to have seven children and a wife, and he looked after his farm, cultivating the land and supporting himself and his family. But these activities were just an ordinary part of his life. He cared for his students as he cared for his crops and family. He was so thorough, paying attention to every detail of his life, that he was able to be a competent teacher as well as a competent father and farmer. There was no physical or spiritual materialism in Marpa’s lifestyle at all. He did not emphasize spirituality and ignore his family or his physical relationship to the earth. If you are not involved with materialism, either spiritually or physically, then there is no emphasis made on any extreme. Nor is it helpful to choose someone for your guru simply because he is famous, someone who is renowned for having published stacks of books and converted thousands or millions of people. Instead the guideline is whether or not you are able actually to communicate with the person, directly and thoroughly. How much self-deception are you involved in? If you really open yourself to your spiritual friend, then you are bound to work together. Are you able to talk to him thoroughly and properly? Does he know anything about you? Does he know anything about himself, for that matter? Is the guru really able to see through your masks, communicate with you properly, directly? In searching for a teacher, this seems to be the guideline rather than fame or wisdom.

When one commits to a spiritual teacher, one automatically benefits from the energetic field of that teacher. All one has to do is to sincerely say to oneself that one is a student of a certain person and it is so. One is then entitled to that teacher’s energetic field. Likewise, if one wishes to extricate oneself from a particular teacher, all one has to do is to sincerely say so to oneself and it is so. The energetic bond is then broken. It does not matter if the teacher is living or deceased. It does not matter if one physically sees the teacher or not. Such things are invisible, beyond space and time, and are nonmaterial.

In every previous classroom, I had been responsible for decoding teachers’ references to white middle-class experiences. It’s like when you’re sailing…or You know how when you’re skiing, you have to…My white teachers had an unspoken commitment to the belief that we are all the same, a default setting that masked for them how often white culture bled into the curriculum. For example, when teachers wanted to drive home the point that we should do something daily, they often likened it to how you wash your hair every morning. It never occurred to them that none of the Black girls in the class did this. Knowing it was true for white people, and having gotten used to white teachers’ assumption of universality, we would all nod our heads and move on. Who had time to teach the teacher?

It was as though his voice came to me from another world. The man continued skillfully to draw a terrible picture of a werewolf who had been the reason for two girls committing suicide, had wrecked the life of a married woman and killed his own wife — an egoist whose whole life had been directed to the quest of pleasure. Once it occurred to me in my stupor, as I sat there listening to my former teacher, Professor Maxwell Foster- Keen, trying to save me from the gallows, that I should stand up and shout at the court: "This Mustafa Sa’eed does not exist. He’s an illusion, a lie. I ask of you to rule that the lie be killed." But I remained as lifeless as a heap of ashes.

Do blacks drop out of school? Teachers are insensitive to their needs. Do black women have children out of wedlock? Slavery broke up the black family. Are blacks more likely than whites to commit crimes? Oppression and poverty explain it. Are ghetto blacks unemployed? White businesses are prejudiced against them. Do blacks have IQ scores fifteen points lower than whites? The tests are biased. Are blacks more likely to be drug addicts? They are frustrated by white society. Are half our convicts black? The police are racist.26 There is scarcely any form of failure that cannot, in some way, be laid at the feet of racist white people. This kind of thinking denies that blacks should be expected to take responsibility for their own actions. More subtly, it suggests that they cannot do so. When whites make excuses for the failures of blacks—excuses they would scorn for themselves or for their own children—they treat blacks as inferiors, whether they mean to or not.

Though not a man of action himself – it was one of Camus’s more hurtful gibes that Sartre ‘tried to make history from his armchair’ – he was always encouraging action in others, and action usually meant violence. He became a patron of Frantz Fanon, the African ideologue who might be called the founder of modern black African racism, and wrote a preface to his Bible of violence, Les Damnés de la terre (1961), which is even more bloodthirsty than the text itself. For a black man, Sartre wrote, ‘to shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone, to destroy an oppressor and the man he oppresses at the same time.’ This was an updating of existentialism: self-liberation through murder. It was Sartre who invented the verbal technique (culled from German philosophy) of identifying the existing order as ‘violent’ (e.g. ‘institutionalized violence’), thus justifying killing to overthrow it. He asserted: ‘For me the essential problem is to reject the theory according to which the left ought not to answer violence with violence.’59 Note: not ‘a’ problem but ‘the essential’ problem. Since Sartre’s writings were very widely disseminated, especially among the young, he thus became the academic godfather to many terrorist movements which began to oppress society from the late 1960s onwards. What he did not foresee, and what a wiser man would have foreseen, was that most of the violence to which he gave philosophical encouragement would be inflicted by blacks not on whites but on other blacks. By helping Fanon to inflame Africa, he contributed to the civil wars and mass murders which have engulfed most of that continent from the mid-1960s onwards to this day. His influence on South-East Asia, where the Vietnam War was drawing to a close, was even more baneful. The hideous crimes committed in Cambodia from April 1975 onwards, which involved the deaths of between a fifth and a third of the population, were organized by a group of Francophone middle-class intellectuals known as the Angka Leu (‘the Higher Organization’). Of its eight leaders, five were teachers, one a university professor, one a civil servant and one an economist. All had studied in France in the 1950s, where they had not only belonged to the Communist Party but had absorbed Sartre’s doctrines of philosophical activism and ‘necessary violence’. These mass murderers were his ideological children.

Despite all the challenges and opportunities Zen Buddhism has faced in the modern era—including the rise of a more socially conscious and committed Engaged Buddhism, the breakdown of a clear distinction between monastics and lay practitioners, and the dissolution of gender discrimination in Western adaptations of Zen institutions (see Chapters 14, 16, and 18)—arguably there have not been any fundamental doctrinal challenges on a level comparable to the contemporary questioning of the very meaning of "God" by many progressive Christian theologians and philosophers. A possible exception is a preference for metaphorical-psychological over literal-cosmological interpretations of Buddhist doctrines such as the Six Realms of Rebirth and the Pure Land by many modern Zen teachers, but even this is hardly without traditional precedent (see Chapters 12 and 23).

It was reputed that more than one teacher who accidentally stumbled over the words committed suicide to atone for the insult to the sacred document.

[fictional speech] As a woman. And as a woman in psychology, I’m expected to absorb the problems of the world. My super power is taking the world’s negative energy and giving that energy back to the world in a new positive form. With great power comes great responsibility. With great responsibility comes a strict commitment. So I’ve committed every day to keeping the world calm. I wake up and pour into the world. Wake up pour into the world. Wake up again and pour into the world. A process I love, but then I come back with an empty cup. So I have to refill, and repeat again. Super woman! We are super women in psychology. But what happens when the world has drained out all of our power? How do we recharge? We know how to pour into the world, but have we forgotten about ourselves? Are we allowed to put our pitcher down and pull out our glass? Are we allowed to be selfish? I want to challenge what we think about the word selfish. I want to change the way that we think about caring for self. As we know it today, the word selfish means being devoted to or caring only for oneself. In other words committed to self care. So if the definition only means this, where did the word go wrong? Being selfless, self....less, is defined alongside words like noble, charitable, and generous; while self interest is looked down upon. We can be self interested without the expense of hurting others. If indeed we change the world by changing ourselves then it is productive to the world to be selfish. If we are constantly meeting the demands of the world, are we satisfying ourselves? I agree that as a society it is more beneficial for the majority for everyone to work together, but the world also works on balance. I want everyone to go out into the world and uplift it, but I also want everyone to put that same amount of energy into themselves. Our place that we call home should be a place where we can be selfish. A place that we can have full peace and not worry about the politics of the world. A place that we are held to our own standard and not the standard that the world sets for us. [time passes] Ladies, you are beautiful. You are strong. You are intelligent; and you are committed. You are the foundation of the world and everything enters through you. You are the nurturers. You are the healers. You are the teachers. Your job is much more greater than your career in psychology. You are magic. While letting the world borrow some of your magic, don’t forget about healing, nurturing, teaching, and providing for yourselves. Thank you.

Alas, put no faith in such a bond of union. Interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires, men distort their own nature, for many senseless and foolish desires and habits and ridiculous fancies are fostered in them. They live only for mutual envy, for luxury and ostentation. To have dinners, visits, carriages, rank and slaves to wait on one is looked upon as a necessity, for which life, honor and human feeling are sacrificed, and men even commit suicide if they are unable to satisfy it. We see the same thing among those who are not rich, while the poor drown their unsatisfied need and their envy in drunkenness. But soon they will drink blood instead of wine, they are being led on to it. I ask you is such a man free? I knew one "champion of freedom" who told me himself that, when he was deprived of tobacco in prison, he was so wretched at the privation that he almost went and betrayed his cause for the sake of getting tobacco again! And such a man says, "I am fighting for the cause of humanity." How can such a one fight? what is he fit for? He is capable perhaps of some action quickly over, but he cannot hold out long. And it's no wonder that instead of gaining freedom they have sunk into slavery, and instead of serving the cause of brotherly love and the union of humanity have fallen, on the contrary, into dissension and isolation, as my mysterious visitor and teacher said to me in my youth. And therefore the idea of the service of humanity, of brotherly love and the solidarity of mankind, is more and more dying out in the world, and indeed this idea is sometimes treated with derision. For how can a man shake off his habits? what can become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself? He is isolated, and what concern has he with the rest of humanity? They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.

What’s Slipping Under Your Radar? Word Count: 1096 Summary: Ben, a high-level leader in a multi-national firm, recently confessed that he felt like a bad father. That weekend he had messed up his Saturday daddy duties. When he took his son to soccer practice, Ben stayed for a while to support him. In the process, though, he forgot to take his daughter to her piano lesson. By the time they got to the piano teacher’s house, the next student was already playing. This extremely successful businessman felt like a failure. Keywords: Dr. Karen Otazo, Global Executive Coaching, Leadership Article Body: Ben, a high-level leader in a multi-national firm, recently confessed that he felt like a bad father. That weekend he had messed up his Saturday daddy duties. When he took his son to soccer practice, Ben stayed for a while to support him. In the process, though, he forgot to take his daughter to her piano lesson. By the time they got to the piano teacher’s house, the next student was already playing. This extremely successful businessman felt like a failure. At work, one of Ben’s greatest strengths is keeping his focus no matter what. As a strategic visionary, he keeps his eyes on the ongoing strategy, the high-profile projects and the high-level commitments of his group. Even on weekends Ben spends time on email, reading and writing so he can attend the many meetings in his busy work schedule. Since he is so good at multi-processing in his work environment, he assumed he could do that at home too. But when we talked, Ben was surprised to realize that he is missing a crucial skill: keeping people on his radar. Ben is great at holding tasks and strategies in the forefront of his mind, but he has trouble thinking of people and their priorities in the same way. To succeed at home, Ben needs to keep track of his family members’ needs in the same way he tracks key business commitments. He also needs to consider what’s on their radar screens. In my field of executive coaching, I keep every client on my radar screen by holding them in my thinking on a daily and weekly basis. That way, I can ask the right questions and remind them of what matters in their work lives. No matter what your field is, though, keeping people on your radar is essential. Consider Roger, who led a team of gung-ho sales people. His guys and gals loved working with him because his gut instincts were superb. He could look at most situations and immediately know how to make them work. His gut was great, almost a sixth sense. But when Sidney, one of his team of sales managers, wanted to move quickly to hire a new salesperson, Roger was busy. He was managing a new sales campaign and wrangling with marketing and headquarters bigwigs on how to position the company’s consumer products. Those projects were the only things on his radar screen. He didn’t realize that Sidney was counting on hiring someone fast. Roger reviewed the paperwork for the new hire. It was apparent to Roger that the prospective recruit didn’t have the right background for the role. He was too green in his experience with the senior people he’d be exposed to in the job. Roger saw that there would be political hassles down the road which would stymie someone without enough political savvy or experience with other parts of the organization. He wanted an insider or a seasoned outside hire with great political skills. To get the issue off his radar screen quickly, Roger told Human Resources to give the potential recruit a rejection letter. In his haste, he didn’t consult with Sidney first. It seemed obvious from the resume that this was the wrong person. Roger rushed off to deal with the top tasks on his radar screen. In the process, Sidney was hurt and became angry. Roger was taken by surprise since he thought he had done the right thing, but he could have seen this coming.

Among his peers, Pablo Guzmán had a unique upbringing. He graduated from one of New York’s premier academic high schools, Bronx Science, where students were engaged with the political debates of the day, from the Vietnam War to the meaning of black power, thanks to the influence of a history teacher. Guzmán had also been politicized by his Puerto Rican father and maternal grandfather, who was Cuban. Both saw themselves as members of the black diaspora in the Americas. The job discrimination and racist indignities they endured in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and in New York turned them into race men committed to the politics of black pride and racial uplift. When Guzmán was a teenager, his father took him to Harlem to hear Malcolm X speak.188 He also remembers that his Afro-Cuban grandfather, Mario Paulino, regularly convened meetings at his home to discuss world politics with a circle of friends, many of whom were likely connected through their experience at the Tuskegee Institute, the historic black American school of industrial training, to which Paulino had applied from Cuba and at which he enrolled in the early 1920s.189 Perhaps because of the strong black politics of his household, Guzmán identified strongly with the black American community, considered joining the BPP, and called himself “Paul.” His “field studies” in Cuernavaca, Mexico, during his freshman year at SUNY Old Westbury, however, awakened him to the significance of his Latin American roots.

The oral (agraphous) traditions of the papists, for they speak diversely of them. Sometimes tradition is used by them for the 'act of tradition' by which the sacred books were preserved by the church in an uninterrupted series of time (also a perpetual succession) and delivered to posterity. This is formal tradition and in this sense Origen says 'they learned by tradition that the four gospels were unquestioned in the church universal.' Second, it is often taken for the written doctrine which, being at first oral, was afterward committed to writing. Thus Cyprian says, 'Sacred tradition will preserve whatever is taught in the gospels or is found in the epistles of the apostles or in the Acts' (Epistle 74 'To Pompey'). Third, it is taken for a doctrine which does not exist in the Scriptures in so many words, but may be deduced thence by just and necessary consequence; in opposition to those who bound themselves to the express word of the Scriptures and would not admit the word homoousion because it did not occur verbatim there. Thus Basil denies that the profession of faith which we make in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be found in the Scriptures meaning the Apostles’ Creed, whose articles nevertheless are contained in the Scriptures as to sense (On the Spirit 8:41, 43). Fourth, it is taken for the doctrine of rites and ceremonies called 'ritual tradition.' Fifth, it is taken for the harmony of the old teachers of the church in the exposition of any passage of Scripture which, received from their ancestors, they retained out of a modest regard for antiquity because it agreed with the Scriptures. This may be called 'tradition of sense' or exegetical tradition (of which Irenaeus speaks, Against Heresies 3.3, and Tertullian often as well, Prescription Against Heretics 3:243–65). Sixth, they used the word tradition ad hominem in disputing with heretics who appealed to them not because all they approved of could not be found equally as well in the Scriptures, but because the heretics with whom they disputed did not admit the Scriptures; as Irenaeus says, 'When they perceived that they were confused by the Scriptures, they turned around to accuse them' (Against Heresies, 3.2). They dispute therefore at an advantage from the consent of tradition with the Scriptures, just as we now do from the fathers against the papists, but not because they acknowledged any doctrinal tradition besides the Scriptures. As Jerome testifies, 'The sword of God smites whatever they draw and forges from a pretended apostolic tradition, without the authority and testimony of the Scriptures' (Commentarii in prophetas: Aggaeum 1:11).

There seems to be a silent acknowledgment among most players that we have a certain responsibility as teachers or healers, and although we all have different ways of honoring this commitment, it is certainly something we are all aware of.

Engaged students are excited about what’s happening at their school and about what they’re learning. They contribute to the learning environment and are psychologically committed to their school. Engaged students feel safe at school, have strong relationships with teachers and other students, feel recognized on a regular basis, and are learning important things that connect them to a positive future.

As the driving force behind schools, administrators exhibit strong leadership skills and a commitment to fostering positive and inclusive learning environments.

He glanced away. His jaw ticced twice. “That isn’t something I’ve done.” I gasped. “You’re kidding. Why haven’t you?” “I’m not a whore about kissing, but I suppose I am about that. I’ve never been inclined to French kiss a pussy.” “Too personal?” “Yes. The idea of getting down on my belly with my face between a girl’s thighs has never appealed to me. Maybe it’s because I was with the wrong girls.” His nod was sharp and slight. “I will on you, though. You can teach me exactly how you like it.” “Why on me?” He lifted a shoulder. “Because I know you’re not going to fall in love with me when I eat your pussy so good you don’t remember you have legs, much less how to use them.” My thighs instantly clamped together. “Big words for someone who didn’t come close to getting me off the first time.” “I wasn’t dedicated to the job then. Now, it’s about pride, Delilah.” He canted his head. “Besides, don’t you think it’s your responsibility as a woman to send me out into the world well trained?” “I would roll my eyes, but I would most likely injure myself from doing it too hard.” He took my hand in his, bringing it to his mouth. “I’m committed to this endeavor. I won’t ask to fuck you until I’ve mastered the art of making you come. You’ll be my teacher, and I’ll be your attentive student.” I shook my head. “I’m busy.” “You aren’t too busy for me to lick your pussy.” “You’re ridiculous.

The school fee structure reflects the school's commitment to providing a high-quality education while maintaining financial sustainability and accountability.

Through the school fee structure, families gain insight into the financial commitments required for their child's education, enabling them to budget effectively and plan for the future.

Transparent communication of the school fee structure demonstrates the school's commitment to accountability and fosters trust between the school administration and parents.

The school's commitment to transparency is reflected in its efforts to communicate the fee structure through various channels, leaving no room for ambiguity or misunderstanding.

A transparent admissions process fosters trust and confidence among applicants and their families, reflecting the school's commitment to fairness.

Flexible, customized payment plans demonstrate a school's commitment to individualized support, tailoring fee arrangements to meet the specific needs of each family.

On May 27, Bryn Mawr awarded 167 bachelor of arts degrees. Sixty percent of the class was headed straight to graduate or professional school. My friends and teachers had assumed I would go to law school, but I could not imagine devoting myself to the details of torts or civil procedure. If I decided to pursue further education, I knew it would be for graduate work in history. What had always captured me intellectually was the broad sweep of ideas and social forces. And having grown up in a changing and not-changing Virginia, I knew how those assumptions and circumstances exerted their power through time, often creating silences and blindnesses that undermined human possibility. From at least when I had written to Eisenhower as a nine-year-old, I had recognized the force and the burden of history; I understood the words of the white southern poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren: “History is what you can’t / Resign from.”11 Coming to terms with the past would ultimately become an intellectual and professional commitment as well as a personal necessity. I grew up to be a historian. My page in the Bryn Mawr college yearbook, 1968. On my right wrist I am wearing the bracelet my grandmother gave me the night my mother died. But not yet. I had decided I needed to be in the real world for a while. I had loved school since I began kindergarten at the age of four, and at Bryn Mawr I had become caught up not just in learning

Choosing the right enrolment and admissions processes for your school requires careful consideration of the school's values, goals, and commitment to diversity and inclusivity.

Timely communication of admission status demonstrates respect for applicants' time and commitment, enhancing their overall experience with the school.

Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ Jesus didn’t reply, ‘Well, you’ve got a Bible verse. If the Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it. Where are the rocks? Let’s get this stoning started!’ No, Jesus says something new: ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ That wasn’t what the Law said, but Jesus was revealing the heart of God, not giving a conservative reading of the Torah. Jesus gives us a new ethic of life-affirming mercy, which sets aside the old ethic that supported death penalties. Biblicists who desire to condemn sinners to death can quote the Bible by citing Moses. But Jesus says something else. [...] We cannot create Christian ethics while ignoring Christ!

start on time? Is the bathroom clean? Are your feelings positive in that space? You won’t find perfection anywhere, nor do you need it. Just go in with a humble attitude and soak up everything you can. Come a few minutes early and sweep the floor or tidy the bathroom. Bring fresh flowers. Contribute, and learn whatever you can, and when the time comes to move on, leave on good terms with everyone. Don’t show up at all unless you’re willing to commit to at least six months of humble receptiveness. And don’t quit without notifying the instructor and thanking him or her sincerely. Present a small gift, nicely wrapped, to cement what should be a lifelong relationship. In China, they say a teacher for a day is a parent for a lifetime.

This caveat applies to teachers, too! In one study, we taught students a math lesson spiced up with some math history, namely, stories about great mathematicians. For half of the students, we talked about the mathematicians as geniuses who easily came up with their math discoveries. This alone propelled students into a fixed mindset. It sent the message: There are some people who are born smart in math and everything is easy for them. Then there are the rest of you. For the other half of the students, we talked about the mathematicians as people who became passionate about math and ended up making great discoveries. This brought students into a growth mindset. The message was: Skills and achievement come through commitment and effort. It’s amazing how kids sniff out these messages from our innocent remarks.

Keiko leans forward and says, “Coraline informed me of your visceral relationship and pending nuptials. I would be remiss if I didn’t say I predicted your coupling, but my projection was off. I assumed you would be joined in a committed union a few months ago and would be feverously having coitus by now.

Clearly outlining roles for the student, teacher, and parents is vital for successful implementation in reversing student underachievement.

Achieving the right balance in vision and mission statements showcases the school's commitment to setting ambitious goals while acknowledging its current resources and capabilities.

A school's reputation and image are greatly enhanced by compelling vision and mission statements, especially when backed by consistent action and commitment.

A School’s vision and mission statements are not just words on paper; they embody the school’s commitment to shaping the future of education.

A school’s vision and mission statements aim to communicate her values, aspirations, and commitment to excellence, thereby attracting those who share her vision for the future.

Cato may have been Rome’s Iron Man, but in the end he was challenged by only one emperor. Thrasea was utterly fearless, but his friend Gaius Musonius Rufus was also unafraid, and, as it happens, endured a life so challenging as to make Thrasea’s ordeal under Nero seem fun. Born a member of the equestrian class, in Volsinii, Etruria, during the reign of Tiberius, Musonius Rufus quickly made his reputation as a philosopher and as a teacher. Even in a time and after a long history of brilliant Stoics, Musonius was considered above the rest. Among his contemporaries, he was the “Roman Socrates,” a man of wisdom, courage, self-control, and a marrow-deep commitment to what was right. It was fame that transcended his times, and we find Musonius mentioned admiringly by everyone from Christians like Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria to Marcus Aurelius.

Savannah Sugg stands out as a grad student at Middle Tennessee State University, driven by her passion for sports. Excelling academically and as a dedicated volleyball coach and substitute teacher, her multifaceted profile reflects a fearless pursuit of her dreams and a commitment to impact others positively.

attachment theorists argue that the mother-infant bond forms a kind of relationship template which the developing person then transfers to his or her important relationships later in life. How much adaptive sense would this really make? The quality of your attachment to your mother is very important for your relationship with your mother, which is a very important relationship. But there is no reason to believe that the type of interaction provided within this one relationship is going to turn out to be predictive of all the interactions you encounter throughout your life. Your mother might be eccentric, or ill, or have heavy commitments other than you. It would make little evolutionary sense to calibrate your whole personality on something so idiosyncratic. This is consistent with the evidence from attachment studies. Children of depressed mothers are unusually subdued in interaction with their mothers. However, this disappears when they are with their nursery teachers, with whom they behave normally. Of course; what they learn from their interactions with their mothers is what their mothers are like, not what the world is like.7

Many people have felt the effects of favoritism on the part of parents, teachers, employers, or in other contexts. This is one thing we never need to worry about with our heavenly Father. God loves each one of his children equally. He doesn’t dispense either his favor or his discipline on a whim. If we see another believer who seems to be especially favored, perhaps they’ve positioned themselves to receive more of God’s blessings by obeying his guidelines for living. If someone seems to have a closer relationship with God than we do, it’s probably because they’re more committed to the disciplines that foster spiritual growth. In any case, God never shows partiality; we’re all his favorite children.

It is not necessary for district leadership to make a choice between structural and cultural change; both are absolutely necessary. But in many districts, efforts to uniformly implement RTI place a greater emphasis on compliance with paperwork and protocols than on high levels of engagement and ownership among its teachers. RTI is as much a way of thinking as it is a way of doing; it is not a list of tasks to complete, but a dynamic value system of goals that must be embedded in all of the school’s ongoing procedures. This way of thinking places a higher priority on making a shared commitment to every student’s success than on merely implementing programs.

I once complained to my teacher Munindra-Ji about being unable to maintain a regular practice. 'When I sit at home and meditate and it feels good, I'm exhilarated, and I have faith and I know that it's the most important thing in my life,' I said. 'But as soon as it feels bad, I stop. I'm disheartened and discouraged so I just give up.' He gave me quite a wonderful piece of advice. 'Just put your body there, ' he said. 'That's what you have to do. Just put your body there. Your mind will do different things all of the time, but you just put your body there. Because that's the expression of commitment, and the rest will follow from that.

Serbs don’t forget, as the graffito goes, the atrocities that the Croatian ustashas committed against them in World War II. That was repeated in school over and over by history teachers when I was a pupil in Croatia. Many Croats don’t forget the slaughters that the Serb nationalist chetniks committed on the Croatian rural population, although that lesson was passed over in silence in our history lessons. My brother-in-law—who died of stomach cancer, and who had spent the recent war two hundred yards away from the Serb border toward Vukovar, from where his street was shelled almost daily—told me that when he was a child, during World War II, he ran into a ditch full of Croatian peasants massacred by chetniks. He never forgot, and wasn’t even allowed to talk about it because he would be jailed for spreading nationalist propaganda. He told me this in the park after my father’s funeral, at a moment when we were both talking about life, death, and souls. Which is better, to forget or to remember? Of course, to remember, but not to abuse the memories as Serbian leaders have done to spur their armies into aggression against Croats and Muslims. Croats will remember Vukovar. Muslims will remember Srebrenica. And what is the lesson? Not to trust thy neighbor? But that’s perhaps where the trouble began and will resume.

There are no shortcuts. Teachers must commit to being committed. They must wake up knowing they can and will do what is necessary to change a student’s life for the better.

Pierre asked his confessor: “Is it a sin to marry someone you don’t love?” Father Moineau was a square-faced, heavyset priest in his fifties. His study in the College des Ames contained more books than Sylvie’s father’s shop. He was a rather prissy intellectual, but he enjoyed the company of young men, and he was popular with the students. He knew all about the work Pierre was doing for Cardinal Charles. “Certainly not,” Moineau said. His voice was a rich baritone somewhat roughened by a fondness for strong Canary wine. “Noblemen are obliged so to do. It might even be a sin for a king to marry someone he did love.” He chuckled. He liked paradoxes, as did all the teachers. But Pierre was in a serious mood. “I’m going to wreck Sylvie’s life.” Moineau was fond of Pierre, and clearly would have liked their intimacy to be physical, but he had quickly understood that Pierre was not one of those men who loved men, and had never done anything more than pat him affectionately on the back. Now Moineau caught his tone and became somber. “I see that,” he said. “And you want to know whether you would be doing God’s will.” “Exactly.” Pierre was not often troubled by his conscience, but he had never done anyone as much harm as he was about to do to Sylvie. “Listen to me,” said Moineau. “Four years ago a terrible error was committed. It is known as the Pacification of Augsburg, and it is a treaty that allows individual German provinces to choose to follow the heresy of Lutheranism, if their ruler so wishes. For the first time, there are places in the world where it is not a crime to be a Protestant. This is a catastrophe for the Christian faith.” Pierre said in Latin: “Cuius regio, eius religio.” This was the slogan of the Augsburg treaty, and it meant: “Whose realm, his religion.” Moineau continued: “In signing the agreement, the emperor Charles V hoped to end religious conflict. But what has happened? Earlier this year the accursed Queen Elizabeth of England imposed Protestantism on her wretched subjects, who are now deprived of the consolation of the sacraments. Tolerance is spreading. This is the horrible truth.” “And we have to do whatever we can to stop it.

Maybe it’s that same gentleman in me that still carries a handkerchief, but my idea of love and relationships don’t fit with today’s hook-ups and casual encounters. I believe in a one and only. Complete devotion, loyalty, honesty and commitment.

Teacher Wei’s situation was very bad. She was a junior high school math teacher, and before the Cultural Revolution she had been a Model Teacher. Her study wall was covered with certificates of merit. Now she was called a black model, and because her father was a capitalist and her mother had committed suicide, she was criticized all the more.

Teacher Wei’s situation was very bad. She was a junior high school math teacher, and before the Cultural Revolution she had been a Model Teacher. Her study wall was covered with certificates of merit. Now she was called a black model, and because her father was a capitalist and her mother had committed suicide, she was criticized all the more. The Red Guards at her school held struggle meetings to criticize her almost every day. During those struggle meetings they beat her and whipped her with their belts.

One group of early Christians, the Bereans, stood out from the rest. “They received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). They checked in scripture to confirm what Paul taught them was true. They were so committed to this that they did it daily. It’s a mistake for us to accept the message of Christian teachers just because they’re humorous, dynamic, on television or radio, or have written books. The content of their message must be true, and it’s good for us to validate it from our own study. Bible teachers should never be offended that people do this; they should encourage it.

A Hard Left For High-School History The College Board version of our national story BY STANLEY KURTZ | 1215 words AT the height of the “culture wars” of the late 1980s and early 1990s, conservatives were alive to the dangers of a leftist takeover of American higher education. Today, with the coup all but complete, conservatives take the loss of the academy for granted and largely ignore it. Meanwhile, America’s college-educated Millennial generation drifts ever farther leftward. Now, however, an ambitious attempt to force a leftist tilt onto high-school U.S.-history courses has the potential to shake conservatives out of their lethargy, pulling them back into the education wars, perhaps to retake some lost ground. The College Board, the private company that develops the SAT and Advanced Placement (AP) exams, recently ignited a firestorm by releasing, with little public notice, a lengthy, highly directive, and radically revisionist “framework” for teaching AP U.S. history. The new framework replaces brief guidelines that once allowed states, school districts, and teachers to present U.S. history as they saw fit. The College Board has promised to generate detailed guidelines for the entire range of AP courses (including government and politics, world history, and European history), and in doing so it has effectively set itself up as a national school board. Dictating curricula for its AP courses allows the College Board to circumvent state standards, virtually nationalizing America’s high schools, in violation of cherished principles of local control. Unchecked, this will result in a high-school curriculum every bit as biased and politicized as the curriculum now dominant in America’s colleges. Not coincidentally, David Coleman, the new head of the College Board, is also the architect of the Common Core, another effort to effectively nationalize American K–12 education, focusing on English and math skills. As president of the College Board, Coleman has found a way to take control of history, social studies, and civics as well, pushing them far to the left without exposing himself to direct public accountability. Although the College Board has steadfastly denied that its new AP U.S. history (APUSH) guidelines are politically biased, the intellectual background of the effort indicates otherwise. The early stages of the APUSH redesign overlapped with a collaborative venture between the College Board and the Organization of American Historians to rework U.S.-history survey courses along “internationalist” lines. The goal was to undercut anything that smacked of American exceptionalism, the notion that, as a nation uniquely constituted around principles of liberty and equality, America stands as a model of self-government for the world. Accordingly, the College Board’s new framework for AP U.S. history eliminates the traditional emphasis on Puritan leader John Winthrop’s “City upon a Hill” sermon and its echoes in American history. The Founding itself is demoted and dissolved within a broader focus on transcontinental developments, chiefly the birth of an exploitative international capitalism grounded in the slave trade. The Founders’ commitment to republican principles is dismissed as evidence of a benighted belief in European cultural superiority. Thomas Bender, the NYU historian who leads the Organization of American Historians’ effort to globalize and denationalize American history, collaborated with the high-school and college teachers who eventually came to lead the College Board’s APUSH redesign effort. Bender frames his movement as a counterpoint to the exceptionalist perspective that dominated American foreign policy during the George W. Bush ad ministration. Bender also openly hopes that students exposed to his approach will sympathize with Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s willingness to use foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution rather than with Justice Antonin Scalia�

consider that you can commit to little as five minutes a day. The highest form of discipline is consistency: powerful transformation can come from regularity.

Like the shaman, a teacher has to have a clear vision so that a student can come to believe that he or she sees something real that can be shared. The teacher’s message must be “I know something you don’t know, something you don’t have, but I am committed to sharing it with you and bringing you on this journey.

The inclusion of the meaning "adherent" at the time of Christ and the early church made mathetes a convenient term to designate the followers of Jesus, because it didn't emphasize learning or being a pupil but adherence to a great master. So a "disciple" of Jesus, designated by the Greek term mathetes, was a person who adhered to his master, and the master himself determined how the disciple followed' Of course, that leads us to Jesus' call to all who were interested: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23). Five hundred years before Jesus was born, a disciple was one who committed his all to follow a master teacher. The meaning remained the same until the time of Jesus, providing our first major clue about what Jesus meant when he told his disciples to "make disciples.

Practicing As a man in his last breath drops all he is carrying each breath is a little death that can set us free. Breathing is the fundamental unit of risk, the atom of inner courage that leads us into authentic living. With each breath, we practice opening, taking in, and releasing. Literally, the teacher is under our nose. When anxious, we simply have to remember to breathe. So often we make a commitment to change our ways, but stall in the face of

It doesn't matter the materials but what you do and how you interact. Relationships are the most important in the art of teaching. A school can have the most beautiful "stuff" but it's the care and commitment of a teacher. What matters most is a true teacher with the real stuff inside and helping others discover that real stuff inside themselves.

Virtuoso Teachers teach as the virtuoso player plays: with a heightened sense of awareness, with passion and energy, with profound involvement and genuine commitment. Virtuoso

Jesus (to the disciples): Let the children come to Me, and don’t ever stand in their way, for this is what the kingdom of God is all about. 15Truly anyone who doesn’t accept the kingdom of God as a little child does can never enter it. 16Jesus gathered the children in His arms, and He laid His hands on them to bless them. 17When He had traveled on, a young man came and knelt in the dust of the road in front of Jesus. Young Man: Good Teacher! What must I do to gain life in the world to come? Jesus: 18You are calling Me good? Don’t you know that God and God alone is good? 19Anyway, why ask Me that question? You know the Commandments of Moses: “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not slander, do not defraud, and honor your father and mother.”* Young Man: 20Yes, Teacher, I have done all these since I was a child. 21Then Jesus, looking at the young man, saw that he was sincere and responded out of His love for him. Jesus: Son, there is still one thing you have not done. Go now. Sell everything you have and give the proceeds to the poor so that you will have treasure in heaven. After that, come, follow Me. 22The young man went away sick at heart at these words because he was very wealthy, 23and Jesus looked around to see if His disciples were understanding His teaching. Jesus (to His disciples): Oh, it is hard for people with wealth to find their way into God’s kingdom! Disciples (amazed): 24What? Jesus: You heard Me. How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God [for those who trust in their wealth]!* 25I think you’ll see camels squeezing through the eye of a needle before you’ll see the rich celebrating and dancing as they enter into the joy of God’s kingdom! 26The disciples looked around at each other, whispering. Disciples (aloud to Jesus): Then who can be liberated? Jesus (smiling and shaking His head): 27For human beings it is impossible, but not for God: God makes everything possible. Peter: 28Master, we have left behind everything we had to follow You. Jesus: 29That is true. And those who have left their houses, their lands, their parents, or their families for My sake, and for the sake of this good news 30will receive all of this 100 times greater than they have in this time—houses and farms and brothers, sisters, mothers, and children, along with persecutions—and in the world to come, they will receive eternal life. 31But many of those who are first in this world shall be last in the world to come, and the last, first.

Forget it once. *** Knock, knock! Who's there? Accordion! Accordion who? Accordion to the TV, it's going to rain tomorrow. *** Yo momma so stupid she tried to commit suicide by jumping off a building but got lost on the way down. *** Teacher: Why is the Mississippi such an unusual river? Student: Because it has four eyes and can't see! *** Teacher: "Why are you on the floor?" Johnny: "Because you said to do this math problem without tables!" *** How do you make an elephant float? Take one elephant, two tons of ice cream, and one ton of soda. Blend. *** In

A Nation at Risk. The report’s unforgettable introduction artfully deployed the militant language of the Cold War in service of school reform: If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves.… We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.

There is a way to transform punishment, to generate creative means of social control, which provides viable rehabilitation for delinquent youths and which does not spill over and affect young people who have yet to commit crime. It will take imagination and the courage to adopt successful models that attempt to transform the punitive way in which young people are treated in marginalized communities. There are a few individuals, such as my teacher, Ms. Russ, and Officer Wilson, who have broken away from punitive social control and aim to change the way young people are treated, and they can serve as examples. Maybe then a new generation of former gang members and delinquents will read names from an old refrigerator and celebrate multiple high school graduations and college

This is 2014 . . . standardizing our work across all schools is not the answer. That’s the factory / assembly line mentality that got public schools into this mess. We need a diversity of thought, similar to a “crowd sourcing” approach, if we are to solve the problems of the 21st century. Above all, commit to the principle that “one size fits all” does not work. We would never accept that from individual teachers in their work with students, why should we accept “one size fits all” for very different school districts across the state? There are indeed alternative approaches that fit the context and needs of individual districts.

Occasionally, he has been asked about entering politics—and he has not completely ruled it out. “I am a teacher,” he said recently. “And I believe in making a difference. If I felt that could be done in politics I might end up there, but I’m not making any plans around it.” After his eloquent eulogy last week, some Canadians no doubt wished for a firmer commitment—as the nation struggled with its loss. 

In India, in the past, the sacred books were committed to memory, and handed down from teacher to student, for ages. And even to-day it is no uncommon thing for the student to be able to repeat, word for word, some voluminous religious work equal in extent to the New Testament.

Korie: When I was a student at Ouachita Christian School, my senior-year Bible teacher, David Matthews, adopted a little five-year-old boy. In class that year, we talked a lot about how important it was for Christians families to adopt and that children should never be left without a home and loving parents. The idea always stuck with me. James 1:27 says: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” When we were dating, like most couples, Willie and I talked about how many kids we wanted to have. I told Willie about my desire to adopt and he was all for it. We both grew up with big families so we decided we wanted to have four kids, with at least one of them through adoption. We never knew how that would happen. We didn’t know if we would adopt a boy or a girl or a newborn baby or older child. We decided we would remain open, and if God wanted it to happen, it would happen. There were several families at White’s Ferry Road Church that adopted children, including one couple that had adopted biracial twins. Their lawyer came to them and asked if they were interested in adopting another biracial child who was about to be born. They told her they couldn’t do it at the time, but they remembered that we had expressed an interest in adopting a child. Their lawyer called Willie and me and told us how difficult it was to place biracial children in homes in the South. We were shocked. It was the twenty-first century. We committed to being a part of changing that in our society. Skin color should not make a difference.

Then, in the 1400s, medical education began including dissection of human corpses in a new, realistic approach to anatomy. But even then, students were not allowed hands-on participation. Typically, the teacher sat and lectured while a barber did the cutting and students observed. Not for several hundred years thereafter were students themselves permitted to do dissections. But as the practice spread, it became harder to obtain bodies for teaching. Enter the grave robbers, or resurrectionists as they were called, who by the eighteenth century turned a good profit supplying bodies for physicians to study. They robbed the graves of the poor and unclaimed, those who were least likely to be missed. Some took their practice a bit far, as witness the notorious Burke and Hare, who committed several murders to procure corpses for sale. So, absent those who took the career too seriously, grave robbers may actually have contributed to medical understanding.

When people—couples, coaches and athletes, managers and workers, parents and children, teachers and students—change to a growth mindset, they change from a judge-and-be-judged framework to a learn-and-help-learn framework. Their commitment is to growth, and growth takes plenty of time, effort, and mutual support. Learn

After studying self-awareness for 15-years, it is more than a feeling, and it is more than a thought. It’s that space in time where we ‘think less and we live more’ abundantly in the story of the moment’s gift. Self-awareness is, thus, a three-part connection. We must understand it, feel it, and live it through its living, breathing, daily adapting commitment in our heart that’s a micro reflection of life itself. In Cinderella In Focus, her invisible crown teacher her to be her own kind of brave through a new focus: To love deeply is to live freely. Cindy's Secret...

Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.

There are a whole host of ways to do this. One of the best is the public pledge. Tell everyone you know that you will lose the excess weight or write that novel or whatever your goal might be. Once you make your goal known to the world, there will instantly be pressure on you to work towards its fulfillment since no one likes to look like a failure. In Sivana, my teachers used more dramatic means to create this positive pressure I speak of. They would declare to one another that if they did not follow through on their commitments, such as fasting for a week or getting up daily at 4:00 a.m. to meditate, they would go down to the icy waterfall and stand under it until their arms and legs went numb. This is an extreme illustration of the power that pressure can exert on the building of good habits and the attainment of goals.

In the classroom, conversations carry more than the details of a subject; teachers are there to help students learn how to ask questions and be dissatisfied with east answers. More than this, conversations with a good teacher communicate that learning isn't all about the answers. It's about what the answers mean. Conversations help students build narratives - whether about gun control or the Civil War - that will allow them to learn and remember in a way that has meaning for them. Without these narratives, you can learn a new fact but not know what to do with it, how to make sense of it. In therapy, conversations explore the meanings of the relationships that animate our lives. It attends to pauses, hesitations, associations, the things that are said through silence. It commits to a kind of conversation that doesn't give "advice" but helps people discover what they have hidden from themselves so they can find their inner compass.

Because the white teacher is volunteering her labor, her courage and commitment are made visible, while the antiracist labor of the African American teacher is taken for granted.

Over the years, I’ve attached myself to teachers in my own commitment to wilderness backpacking as a spiritual practice. Submitting to these spiritual guides in a penetratingly physical way is a life-changing experience. In wilderness (wherever you find it), there’s always a risk, but the physical challenge is the least part of it. Out on the trail, I find myself longing for an unsettling beauty, for a power I cannot control, for a wonder beyond my grasp. I can’t begin to name the mystery that sings in the corners of an Ozark night. But I can be crazy in love with it, scribbling, in turn, whatever I’m able to mumble about the experience.

Neufeld tracked Mercado and her colleagues as part of a year-long series in The Baltimore Sun, including a special report when two Filipino teachers committed suicide within 6 months of each other during the 2006 school year.

Having acknowledged that a man must master his circumstances or otherwise be mastered by them, the Count thought it worth considering how one was most likely to achieve this aim when one had been sentenced to a life of confinement. For Edmond Dantes in the Chateau d'If, it was thoughts of revenge that kept him clear minded. Unjustly imprisoned, he sustained himself by plotting the systematic undoing of his personal agents of villainy. For Cervantes, enslaved by pirates in Algiers, it was the promise of pages as yet unwritten that spurred him on. While for Napoleon on Elba, strolling among chickens, fending off flies, and sidestepping puddles of mud, it was visions of a triumphal return to Paris that galvanized his will to persevere. But the Count hadn't the temperament for revenge; he hadn't the imagination for epics; and he certainly hadn't the fanciful ego to dream of empires restored. No. His model for mastering his circumstances would be a different sort of captive altogether: an Anglican washed ashore. Like Robinson Crusoe stranded on the Isle of Despair, the Count would maintain his resolve by committing to the business of PRACTICALITIES. Having dispensed with dreams of quick discovery, the world's Crusoes seek shelter and a source of fresh water; they teacher themselves to make fire from flint; they study their island's topography, its climate, its flora and fauna, all the while keeping their eyes trained for sails on the horizon and footprints in the sand.

The real teachers and coaches may offer a charismatic model—they probably have to—but then they insist that all the magic they have to offer is a commitment to repetition and perseverance. The great oracles may enthrall, but the really great teachers demystify. They make particle physics into a series of diagrams that anyone can follow, football into a series of steps that anyone can master, and art into a series of slides that anyone can see. A guru gives us himself and then his system; a teacher gives us his subject, and then ourselves.

Meditation is the art of learning to listen to our own heart. Meditation is the art of learning to listen to the intuition, the inner guide. Meditation is the art of learning to not listen to the voice of the outer spiritual teacher, but one's own inner spiritual teacher.  Our intuition, the inner guide, the spiritual teacher within, is always available within ourselves. Our intuition, our inner guide, our spiritual teacher within, is our being, which always wants to talk to you. In each situation, it gives you a message, which is always right. The being shows you what to do and in which direction to move. You will always be able to see the light by listening to the being. In the inner being, there is immense light and clarity.  The inner being is already in contact with the whole. But mostly we live on the periphery, because our mind is the periphery. So slowly we forget that there is something inside ourselves, which has significant messages to us. Meditation is the process of moving within to the inner being. Rather than listen outside we have to listen inside. To be in contact with the inner being is going the right way.  God is your inner voice. You have to move within to hear the still, silent voice of God.  When you have learnt to hear it, your whole life is transformed. Then you have learnt to listen to your being and to follow your own heart. One who can listen to your inner being has learnt a new language. One who can  listen to his being has become capable of listening to the being of the whole  existence. He can hear the song of the birds, he can hear the wind passing through the trees and he can hear the silent whisperings of the trees.  The meditator has to begin with himself. The meditator begins to listen to his own being, and ends with listening to the being of the world. The day that you realize that your being and the being of the world are not separate, but one is the day of enlightenment. This is the ultimate fulfillment of life.  The meditator has to make a commitment to put his energy into realizing the phenomenon called God, Tao, dhamma and truth. 

7. The closer we are to Self-realization, or enlightenment, the more ordinary we become. Only seekers striving for liberation as if it were a trophy glamorize the yogic process and themselves. They want to be extraordinary, whereas liberated beings are perfectly ordinary. They are as happy washing dishes as they are sitting quietly in meditation or teaching their disciples. For this reason, Yoga has from the beginning celebrated not only the path of the world-renouncing ascetic (samnyāsin) but also that of the world-engaging householder (grihastha) who uses the opportunities of daily life to practice the virtues of a yogic lifestyle. 8. In all Yoga practice, there is an element of pleasant “surprise” or favorableness. In the theistic schools of Yoga, this is explained as the grace (prasāda) of the Divine Being; in nontheistic schools, such as Jaina Yoga or certain schools of Buddhist Yoga, help is said to flow from liberated beings (called arhats, buddhas, bodhisattvas, tīrthankaras, or mahā-siddhas). Also, gurus are channels of benevolent energies, or blessings, intended to ripen their disciples. The process by which a guru blesses a disciple is called “transmission” (samcāra). In some schools, it is known as shakti-pāta, meaning “descent of the power.” The power in question is the Energy of Consciousness itself. 9. All Yoga is initiatory. That is, initiation (dīkshā) by a qualified teacher (guru) is essential for ultimate success in Yoga. It is possible to benefit from a good many yogic practices even without initiation. Thus, most exercises of Hatha-Yoga—from postures to breath control to meditation—can be successfully practiced on one’s own, providing the correct format has been learned. But for the higher stages of Yoga, empowerment through initiation is definitely necessary. The habit patterns of the mind are too ingrained for us to make deep-level changes without the benign intervention of a Yoga master. All yogic practices can usefully be viewed as preparation for this moment. 10. Yoga is a gradual process of replacing our unconscious patterns of thought and behavior with new, more benign patterns that are expressive of the higher powers and virtues of enlightenment. It takes time to accomplish this far-reaching work of self-transformation, and therefore practitioners of Yoga must first and foremost practice patience. Enlightenment, or liberation, is not realized in a matter of days, weeks, or months. We must be willing to commit to an entire lifetime of yogic practice. There must be a basic impulse to grow, regardless of whether or not we will achieve liberation in this lifetime. It is one of Yoga’s fundamental tenets that no effort is ever wasted; even the slightest attempt at transforming ourselves makes a difference. It is our patient cumulative effort that flowers into enlightenment sooner or later.

The concrete experience stage of Kolb’s experiential learning cycle plays a predominant role in didactic approach, as learners are expected to hurriedly absorb information into their heads through sensory cortex, mostly by auditory means. There will be less time, if at all, expended on reflective observation and abstract conceptualisation stages. All the learners are expected to commit the information divulged to memory in an identical manner promoting conformity ahead of creativity (Kaufman & Gregoire, 2016); there will be no encouragement for unique, personalised knowledge creation internally in the head of the learner. Further, the teacher demonstrates an authoritative role, resembling knowing everything (as an omnipotent god) and attempting to fill the empty heads of students with something disregarding the notions of social-emotional learning altogether. Didactic teaching-learning environments have a negative impact more specifically on visual-spatial or creative/gifted learners, firstly because they usually resist authoritarianism, possibly due to their higher sensitivity levels, and secondly because they tend to grasp knowledge slowly in a deeper sense via reflective observation and abstract conceptualisation phases; visual-spatial learners will be more relaxed and emotionally stable in a nonauthoritative environment with an appropriate pace of presentation that would help them to think/reflect/conceptualise in pictures and objects than pure auditory means.

restrictions designed to prevent impulsive choices are all around us: speed limits, laws against drug use, laws against texting while driving, and even standard, spaced-out homework deadlines. But normally these kinds of restrictions are imposed on us by a presumably benevolent third party, such as a government or a teacher. What makes commitment devices weird is that they’re self-imposed—we’re handcuffing ourselves!

Writing teachers always tell students “Write what you know.” What do I know? I know myself—my struggles, my doubts, my moments of glory and victory, my times of defeat. I know what it means to feel out of place. I know what dreams are made of, and how they can die, or change, or be fulfilled in ways beyond imagining. I know love—not just the heady giddiness of romance, but commitment and friendship and the sometimes difficult interactions with those we call family. I know the love and infinite patience of God, and the thousands of ways God’s grace sneaks up on me when I’m not looking. I know that life doesn’t always work out the way we want it to. And I know that God brings hope, even during times of darkness and despair. (As quoted on p. 282 of Behind the Stories, by Diane Eble.)

I have not said your values are wrong. But neither are they right. They are simply judgments. Assessments. Decisions. For the most part, they are decisions made not by you, but by someone else. Your parents, perhaps. Your religion. Your teachers, historians, politicians. Very few of the value judgments you have incorporated into your truth are judgments you, yourself, have made based on your own experience. Yet experience is what you came here for—and out of your experience were you to create yourself. You have created yourself out of the experience of others. If there were such a thing as sin, this would be it: to allow yourself to become what you are because of the experience of others. This is the “sin” you have committed. All of you. You do not await your own experience, you accept the experience of others as gospel (literally), and then, when you encounter the actual experience for the first time, you overlay what you think you already know onto the encounter.

This brings me to the second part of the Hard Thing Rule: You can quit. But you can’t quit until the season is over, the tuition payment is up, or some other “natural” stopping point has arrived. You must, at least for the interval to which you’ve committed yourself, finish whatever you begin. In other words, you can’t quit on a day when your teacher yells at you, or you lose a race, or you have to miss a sleepover because of a recital the next morning. You can’t quit on a bad day.

PE Scholar provides outstanding resources, courses and insight to bridge the gap between research and practice and consequently help physical education thrive. We are a digital platform for physical educators around the world. We aim to ensure all young people get the very best PE, school sport and physical activity experience to ignite a passion for movement in life. We help teachers make this happen by closing the research practice gap via insight posts, teaching resources and expertly led professional development. We build supportive communities of practices where you can connect with, collaborate, and learn from others including the very best in our sector via online and face to face training and consultancy. Our team of practitioners, researchers and teacher educators are here to ensure that PE stands for positive experiences and are committed to helping our subjects thrive.

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) provides one example of what leveraging public equities at a system level looks like in practice. It has determined that climate change is a systemic risk and developed a multiyear, multi-asset-class, internally managed Low-Carbon Index (LCI) for passive equity management. Launched in 2017 with a $2.5 billion commitment, the LCI is made up of stocks in all industries in all markets (US, developed, and emerging) around the world. CalSTRS’s goal is for these holdings to have reduced carbon emissions and reserves in each market by between 61 percent and 93 percent in the coming years.4 Since passive index funds hold hundreds, if not thousands, of stocks across all industries, the CalSTRS index will paint a picture of what the future should look like in all companies around the world, in effect setting a benchmark and model for the environmental performance of large corporations on climate change.

Genesis 3:5 TWISTED SCRIPTURE Since the King James Version translates this verse as “ye shall be as gods,” both Mormons and New Age followers have interpreted this to mean that humans have the potential to become gods. Second Nephi 2:25 in the Book of Mormon says Adam needed to commit the first sin in order for humans to become gods in the next life. This assumes that Satan was telling the truth in Genesis 3:5, but the Bible says Satan “is a liar and the father of liars” (Jn 8:44) and “a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour” (1Pt 5:8). Genesis 3:22 shows that Adam and Eve became like God only insomuch as they learned the difference between good and evil. Thus Satan misled Adam and Eve by telling a half truth. Paul compares the “cunning” serpent in the garden to false teachers who twist the gospel (2Co 11:3-4). Rather than earning godhood, in Adam and Eve’s fateful choice we see that “death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rm 5:12).

It’s clear to me now that there are three crucial elements all humans need for their personal development: a practice, or a way to “try on” the teachings in a way that easily translates to real life; a lineage, or a teacher who can connect us to the heart of the teachings and show us how to connect to our own hearts; and a community, or more specifically, a group of people who are also committed to this work whom we can interact with regularly.

There are lies that are committed in an environment that may affect the law and legal matters as well. Noble lies can be lies that are told by authority figures in order to maintain safety and adherence to rules or laws. A teacher or police officer may tell a harmless lie to a child in order to convince the child to behave in a manner that is more socially acceptable. If a plaintiff or defendant lies while they are in a court hearing, he or she can be charged with the crime of committing perjury on the stand and can face stiff consequences for doing so.

You should never be shamed by them. Hold your head high for the woman you are. Innuendo, supposition and accusations of others have no role in your life. Anger, hatred and bitterness are lethal poisons. They cause a slow, painful emotional death that only you suffer. Self-destruction will never defeat an enemy or create justice. Be prepared to live with the consequences of your actions. If you will not be proud of an act, don’t commit it. In times of struggle, always remember that when the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear. You will always have help should you need it. Words can start wars, so be careful what you say and whom you say it to. Again, if you are afraid to own those words in a public forum, they are best never said. Remember these things and you will have a safe, fulfilling and satisfying life. Be true to yourself, my darling Eliza. Let each step bring you closer to your ultimate destination.

EXPERIENCE IS THE BEST TEACHER Experience is truly the best teacher.....that is what they usually say; it is getting clearer to me now. However, you gather experience through your environment; either social or economic environment. It can be through the elites, leaders (the emulable ones), colleagues (older or younger), friends (disciplined ones) and also your past and present mistakes. Literarily, you gather motivation, ambition, determination, commitment, goal chasing ability, and desperation (when needed) through “experience”. Note: Sometimes, you don’t have to talk when you are with elites or scholars; all you need is to listen, except they ask for your opinion. Your listening ability will definitely help you in making so many marks in the society because you will surely learn a lot........ That is LEGACY CREATION!

Sports are the perfect venue to develop character and core values based upon universally accepted social and ethical principles. I am speaking about things such as grit, commitment, integrity, humility, fairness, excellence, and self-control. Sports are a venue to teach kids that failure is a part of learning and that overcoming challenges is a part of life. Youth sports are a microcosm of the challenges, obstacles, and situations our children will face throughout their lives. They are the perfect place to encounter tough teachers and coaches, difficult situations, and events beyond their control. They are a great educational tool.

In the following days, the first opposition party was founded and my parents revealed the truth, their truth. They said that my country had been an open-air prison for almost half a century. That the universities which had haunted my family were, yes, educational institutions, but of a peculiar kind. That when my family spoke of the graduation of relatives, what they really meant was their recent release from prison. That completing a degree was coded language for completing a sentence. That what had been referred to as the initials of university towns were actually the initials of various prisons and deportation sites: B. for Burrel, M. for Maliq, S. for Spaç. That the different subjects of study corresponded to different official charges: to study international relations meant to be charged with treason; literature stood for 'agitation and propaganda'; and a degree in economics entailed a more minor crime, such as 'hiding gold'. That students who become teachers were former prisoners who converted to being spies, like our cousin Ahmet and his late wife. Sonia. That a harsh professor was an official at whose hands many people had lost their lives, like Haki, with whom my grandfather had shaken hands after serving his sentence. That f someone had achieved excellent results, it meant the stint had been brief and straightforward; but being expelled meant a death sentence; and dropping out voluntarily meant committing suicide.

My bullies sought to make me worry, tried to degrade my value, and even had the audacity to go to my teachers and demand to know why an immigrant girl like me received top grades. I was told to “go back” to my country, that I should commit suicide, that I was evil (because my work ethic was not convenient for them), and that the world would be better off without me. I was not white enough for the white students and I was not enough of a minority for the minorities.

Liam Scott, based in Toowoomba, Australia, is a skilled music educator driven by a lifelong passion for music. Beginning with guitar playing as a personal sanctuary, Liam pursued advanced music studies and now shares his knowledge as a committed music teacher, enriching the lives of students with his deep understanding and love for music.

The defense of freedom as the ideal for civil legislation or social relations ironically results in the loss of that very freedom. The tolerance of absolutely all opinions in a society will lead to relativism and to the destruction of the society as a body of men who relate by recognized laws to each other; for that reason the government requires its teachers to vow that they are not committed to its overthrow and passes laws against sedition. Just where freedom should begin and be curtailed, then, is an unavoidable problem for the liberty ideal. And it cannot be resolved without applying the principles of an underlying moral system.

As the driving force behind schools, administrators exhibit strong leadership skills and a commitment to fostering positive and inclusive learning environments.

MASTERY Mastery in one’s career and consciousness growth simply requires that we constantly produce results beyond and out of the ordinary. Mastery is a product of consistently going beyond our limits. For most people, it starts with technical excellence in a chosen field and a commitment to that excellence. If you are willing to commit yourself to excellence, to surround yourself with things that represent this, and miracles, your life will change. (When we speak of miracles, we speak of events or experiences in the real world, which are beyond the ordinary.) It’s remarkable how much mediocrity we live with, surrounding ourselves with daily reminders that the average is the acceptable. Our world suffers from terminal normality. Take a moment to assess all of the things around you that promote your being “average.” These are the things that keep you powerless to go beyond a “limit” you arbitrarily set for yourself. The first step to mastery is the removal of everything in your environment that represents mediocrity, removing those things that are limiting. One way is to surround yourself with friends who ask more of you than you do. Didn’t some of your best teachers, coaches, parents, etc.? Another step on the path to mastery is the removal of resentment toward masters. Develop compassion for yourself so that you can be in the presence of masters and grow from the experience. Rather than comparing yourself and resenting people who have mastery, remain open and receptive; let the experience be like the planting of a seed within you that, with nourishment, will grow into your own individual mastery. You see, we are all ordinary. But a master, rather than condemning himself for his “ordinariness,” will embrace it and use it as a foundation for building the extraordinary. Rather than using it as an excuse for inactivity, he will use it as a vehicle for correcting, which is essential in the process of attaining mastery. You must be able to correct yourself without invalidating or condemning yourself, to accept results and improve upon them. Correct, don’t protect. Correction is essential to power and mastery. Stewart Emery

That’s the really nasty thing about death: all of the possibilities you lose. Though most no one ever will, there is the feeling that you could change. You could suddenly quit being a doctor or teacher and go make art, just like you always wanted to do. You could fly across the world and learn a new language, or commit a crime and go to prison for twenty years. Life could go in so many different directions, but that’s the contingency there—it’s life. You have to be alive for it.

Second, the gospel leads to emotional freedom. Anyone who believes that our relationship with God is based on keeping up moral behavior is on an endless treadmill of guilt and insecurity. As we know from Paul’s letters, he did not free Gentile believers from the moral imperatives of the Ten Commandments. Christians could not lie, steal, commit adultery and so on. But though not free from the moral law as a way to live, Christians are free from the it as a system of salvation. We obey not in the fear and insecurity of hoping to earn our salvation, but in the freedom and security of knowing we are already saved in Christ. We obey in the freedom of gratitude. So both the false teachers and Paul told Christians to obey the Ten Commandments, but for totally different reasons and motives. And unless your motive for obeying God’s law is the grace-gratitude motive of the gospel, you are in slavery. The gospel provides freedom, culturally and emotionally. The “other gospel” destroys both.

Vasana is determinism that feels like free will. I’m reminded of my friend Jean, whom I’ve known for almost twenty years. Jean considers himself very spiritual and went so far in the early nineties as to walk way from his job with a newspaper in Denver to live in an ashram in western Massachusetts. But he found the atmosphere choking. “They’re all crypto Hindus,” he complained. “They don’t do anything but pray and chant and meditate.” So Jean decided to move on with his life. He’s fallen in love with a couple of women but has never married. He doesn’t like the notion of settling down and tends to move to a new state every four years or so. (He once told me that he counted up and discovered that he’s lived in forty different houses since he was born.) One day Jean called me with a story. He was on a date with a woman who had taken a sudden interest in Sufism, and while they were driving home, she told Jean that according to her Sufi teacher, everyone has a prevailing characteristic. “You mean the thing that is most prominent about them, like being extroverted or introverted?” he asked. “No, not prominent,” she said. “Your prevailing characteristic is hidden. You act on it without seeing that you’re acting on it.” The minute he heard this, Jean became excited. “I looked out the car window, and it hit me,” he said. “I sit on the fence. I am only comfortable if I can have both sides of a situation without committing to either.” All at once a great many pieces fell into place. Jean could see why he went into an ashram but didn’t feel like he was one of the group. He saw why he fell in love with women but always saw their faults. Much more came to light. Jean complains about his family yet never misses a Christmas with them. He considers himself an expert on every subject he’s studied—there have been many—but he doesn’t earn his living pursuing any of them. He is indeed an inveterate fence-sitter. And as his date suggested, Jean had no idea that his Vasana, for that’s what we’re talking about, made him enter into one situation after another without ever falling off the fence. “Just think,” he said with obvious surprise, “the thing that’s the most me is the thing I never saw.” If unconscious tendencies kept working in the dark, they wouldn’t be a problem. The genetic software in a penguin or wildebeest guides it to act without any knowledge that it is behaving much like every other penguin or wildebeest. But human beings, unique among all living creatures, want to break down Vasana. It’s not good enough to be a pawn who thinks he’s a king. We crave the assurance of absolute freedom and its result—a totally open future. Is this reasonable? Is it even possible? In his classic text, the Yoga Sutras, the sage Patanjali informs us that there are three types of Vasana. The kind that drives pleasant behavior he calls white Vasana; the kind that drives unpleasant behavior he calls dark Vasana; the kind that mixes the two he calls mixed Vasana. I would say Jean had mixed Vasana—he liked fence-sitting but he missed the reward of lasting love for another person, a driving aspiration, or a shared vision that would bond him with a community. He displayed the positives and negatives of someone who must keep every option open. The goal of the spiritual aspirant is to wear down Vasana so that clarity can be achieved. In clarity you know that you are not a puppet—you have released yourself from the unconscious drives that once fooled you into thinking that you were acting spontaneously.

glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ and transforming believers into the image of Christ (John 16:7–9; Acts 1:5; 2:4; Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 2:22). We teach that the Holy Spirit is the supernatural and sovereign agent in regeneration, baptizing all believers into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). The Holy Spirit also indwells, sanctifies, instructs, empowers them for service, and seals them unto the day of redemption (Rom. 8:9–11; 2 Cor. 3:6; Eph. 1:13). We teach that the Holy Spirit is the divine teacher who guided the apostles and prophets into all truth as they committed to writing God’s revelation, the Bible (2 Pet. 1:19–21). Every believer possesses the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit from the moment of salvation, and it is the duty of all those born of the Spirit to be filled with (controlled by) the Spirit (Rom. 8:9–11; Eph. 5:18; 1 John 2:20, 27). We teach that the Holy Spirit administers spiritual gifts to the church. The Holy Spirit glorifies neither himself nor his gifts by ostentatious displays, but he does glorify Christ by implementing his work of redeeming the lost and building up believers in the most holy faith (John 16:13–14; Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 12:4–11; 2 Cor. 3:18). We teach, in this respect, that God the Holy Spirit is sovereign in the bestowing of all his gifts for the perfecting of the saints today and that speaking in tongues and the working of sign miracles in the beginning days of the church were for the purpose of pointing to and authenticating the apostles as revealers of divine truth, and were never intended to be characteristic of the lives of believers (1 Cor. 12:4–11; 13:8–10; 2 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 4:7–12; Heb. 2:1–4).

Isn’t it strange then that the focus in our profession is on teaching techniques and classroom activities, not learning techniques, motivation and self-study activities? The focus in course books, training courses, workshops, articles and websites tends to be on supporting teachers in creating effective classroom events (teacher goals) rather than supporting students in achieving their ambitions with the language (learner goals). Good lessons will always help students, of course, and can contribute to student commitment to learning the language, but if we focus exclusively on lessons, we will miss the opportunity to leverage the potential every student has to practise more and make quicker progress.

According to the Wall Street Journal, teachers are leaving their positions in greater numbers than ever before. Truth: educators do not commit their passion to teach believing untold wealth awaits them. The purposely concealed story: national teacher shortage is due to a dominating hostile work environment, created by the entitled parent/incompetent administrator syndrome.

Yet the structure we have built to protect and nurture these children actually does the opposite. Imagine an impoverished six-year-old boy who rarely gets a healthy meal and rarely has parental supervision. He finally goes to school and falls in love with the first person who has ever been there every day for him—his first-grade teacher. She loves and encourages and teaches him. She won’t let the kids bully one another, and she makes sure he gets a good breakfast, lunch, and an after-school snack. Only the weekends are scary. The sixyear-old has a daily routine that includes a committed relationship for the very first time. Life is good; hope is learned. Then the school year ends, and this wonderful teacher says, “Good-bye. You will have a great teacher in second grade.” So the seven-year-old survives the short summer and begins the process all over. But now he has a homeroom teacher, a math and science teacher, a language arts teacher, and a music teacher. Which one is he to fall in love with? Who will fall in love with him? Each of these teachers has dozens of students to care for an hour at a time. And so, at the end of second grade it’s a little less painful to part with his teachers because he never really got to know them. But at least he was physically safe and was fed every day. And so, by the end of third grade, he hardly notices his teacher because he has formed a strong attachment to the friends who move along from class to class with him. They share multiple hours together daily. Instead of taking his signals of proper behavior from a committed adult, since he has none at home or school, he models his life after the future football captain, just as the girls in his class likely emulate the future prom queen. This child from an impoverished culture was taught, in effect, that no adult cares enough to hang out and teach him for more than the 150 hours required to complete a credit. And as he got older, he also learned that the teachers were not quite as able to physically protect him as when he and his classmates were small, and it’s humiliating to have to eat the government-provided free lunch. Even our elementary

The Bible introduces us to a group of sincere, devout people whose primary objective in life was to be good. In their passionate desire to please God, they committed themselves to earnestly seeking how to best follow God’s commands. They were people of prayer, giving, and devotion to God’s Word. Models of spiritual maturity, they set an example for others to follow in their zeal to obey God. Jesus often interacted with these folks, otherwise known as the Pharisees, and had some very choice words to describe their approach to the spiritual life: Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. (Matt. 23:25–26)

The purpose of education should be to nourish and strengthen a student's capacity, not to force-feed all students the same material, till they either pass some baseless test, or drop out of education altogether, - or commit suicide.

Contrary to the judge’s evaluation of the man, Walendy had earned a “Diplom-Politologe’ certificate in 1956 affirming his specialized field of academic study and knowledge, having also graduated from the prestigious German Institute of Political Science as well as the Aachen School of Journalism. Additionally, Walendy worked for a time as a teacher in the employ of the German Red Cross and served as director of the Volksschule in Herford. In spite of all the impressive credits to his name and reputation as an educator and scholar, his unswerving commitment to historical accuracy inevitably led to a collision with Germany’s “Holocaust-denial” laws. As the German translator and publisher of Professor Arthur Butz’s Hoax of the Twentieth Century, which was later banned by German authorities, Walendy was arraigned before a court and convicted of ‘incitement’ - presumably against Jews. His subsequent conviction resulted in a 15-month penalty tacked onto his previous conviction, both sentences to run concurrently. For a man of Walendy’s age, this could very well amount to a sentence of death in prison.

The world is committed to its pleasures, desires, and beliefs. It will seek out and listen to its own teachers. Children of God must listen to the spirit of God.

The churches placed a greater priority on religious commitment than on teaching ability.205 Because the pay was so low, many of the teachers lacked any qualification to teach.

Small Groups LOLMD (Journey) Groups Knowledge transfer Life transformation Leader prepares Everyone prepares Low commitment, low cost High commitment, high cost Members sign up Leader selects members Teach, Pray, Care, Share Truth, Equipping, Accountability, Mission, Supplication Size: 8 – 25 Size: 4 – 10 Produces community Produces mature and equipped followers of Christ Non-Christians and Christians Christians Mixed-gender group Men with men Women with women Leader is a teacher Leader is a disciple, coach, mentor Missional hope Missional experience Fellowship Leader development

As a career college teacher, I want our coddling, authoritarian universities to end all involvement with or surveillance of students’ social lives and personal interactions, verbal or otherwise. If a real crime is committed, it should be reported to the police. Otherwise, college administrations should mind their own business and focus on facilitating and funding education in the classroom.

Being a working mother back then was to be a double-agent; you lied for a living. A male colleague who announced he was off to his son's rugby match was a hero; a women who did exactly the same was Lacking in Commitment... In the end, what made me quit EMF was the thought that my kids were suffering from the punishingly long - unnecessarily long, stupidly, inhumanely long - hours I spent away from them. They needed me, yes, but it turned out I needed them too. And our family was running on empty and the only person who could fill that emptiness was me. ... Winter. It must have been because all the commuting fathers, who had come straight from the station, were hurrying in with their thick dark coats and their briefcases. Each man stopped to ask me where they might find their child's classroom, They knew the name if their kid - he, credit where it's due! - but generally, that was the limit of their knowledge. They didn't know who the child's teacher was, sometimes didn't know what year group they were in. They had no clue where the little coats and bags were hung up, or what was in those bags. And I stood there in that cold, dark playground thinking, how could this ever possibly be fair? How could a woman compete when men were allowed to be so oblivious? One parent not knowing who the teacher was, not knowing what went in the lunchbox, not knowing which child in the class had the nut allergy, not knowing where the PE bag was, or which stinky little socks needed washing. OK, one parent could be oblivious. But not two. One parent has to carry the puzzle of family life in their head, and mostly, let's face it, it's still the mum. Professionally, back then I was competing with men whose minds were clear of all the stuff that small children bring.

WAFs, along with other emotional pain and hurt, are not your enemies. They are your teachers. Think about that for a moment. Without experiencing disappointment, you’d never learn patience. Without the hurt and frustration you receive from others, you’d never learn kindness and compassion. Without exposure to new information, you’d never learn anything new. Without fear, you’d never learn courage and how to be kind to yourself. Even getting sick once in a while has an important purpose—strengthening your immune system and helping you to appreciate good health.

The board would have to end the meeting early, so Kenny’s speaking time would be cut to three minutes and there would be no time for the survivors to speak. Kenny knew he couldn’t explain his findings in three minutes, so when he stepped forward, he abandoned his script. I had intended to talk about the investigation today. The problem is that my remarks will be a little different than originally intended. You see, certain members of this board and the superintendent have tried by every means possible to subvert our message. For weeks, we have had additional speakers scheduled. Just an hour ago, I received word that all of our seven additional speakers would be cut and my time would be cut in half. A board and superintendent who insist on their commitment to transparency have decided to deny a voice to survivors and families of the victims who intended to speak tonight. This is no surprise after the fiasco I was involved in yesterday, though. It was requested that I meet with the superintendent and families of victims to discuss my report. When I arrived, I was denied the right to have an attorney present, I was refused the opportunity to record the meeting, and I was told that this was because the superintendent wouldn’t have any representation of his own. The meeting was stacked with ten district officials in addition to the superintendent. We spoke for a total of two hours. You can call me a skeptic, but I have a hard time believing that a superintendent and ten district officials who represent two hundred thirty-four schools, fifteen thousand teachers, and two hundred seventy thousand students had the time to meet with a nineteen-year-old for two hours if they didn’t believe that I was holding onto something crucial.… Something doesn’t smell quite right in Broward, and this school district is the epicenter. Luckily, our report will be going live on The Hill and other national media outlets at around 6 p.m. today, and it will make clear the failures of the school system, and in particular the superintendent, in protecting our schools. Thank you.19 The audience erupted in applause.

It’’s very hard to know who is going to commit an act of violence. But... prevention does not require prediction. It does require, however, that we increase overall access to brain health interventions. ... A... tiered system is already working in some schools. At the tier-one level, everyone should have access to brain health screenings and first aid, to conflict resolution programs, and to suicide prevention education. Peer intervention programs teach kids to seek help from trained adults for friends they’re worried about without fear of repercussion. A second tier of attention is trained on kids going through a hard time—a student grieving a lost parent, one who has suffered teasing or bullying, or those in known high-risk populations. For instance, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender kids are at disproportionate risk for bullying, so special efforts might be made to connect those kids to resources. The third level of intervention comes into play when a child has emerged as a particular concern. Perhaps he or she has an ongoing emotional disorder, has talked about suicide, or—as Dylan did— has turned in a paper with violent or disturbing subject matter. The student is then referred to a team of specially trained teachers and other professionals who will interview him or her, look at the student's social media and other evidence, and speak to friends, parents, local law enforcement, counselors, and teachers. The real beauty of these measures is not that they catch potential school shooters, but how effectively they help schools to identify teens struggling with all different kinds of issues: bullying, eating disorders, cutting, undiagnosed learning disorders, addiction, abuse at home, and partner violence — just to name a few. In rare cases, a team may discover that the student has made a concrete plan to hurt himself or others, at which point law enforcement may become involved. In the overwhelming majority of these cases, though, simply getting a kid help is enough.

Clearly education is in part a product of the effectiveness of the government in running schools and funding education. A government good at delivering education is probably good at other things as well; maybe the roads are better in the same countries where teachers show up to work. If we find growth is faster where education is higher, it could be due to these other policies it tends to be bundled with. And of course it is likely that people feel more committed to educating their children when the economy is doing well, so perhaps growth causes education, and not just the other way around.

When I say that samaya is a trick, I mean that it tricks us into realizing that our relationship with the phenomenal world has always been choiceless. We don’t really have a choice. The choice that we think we have is called ego. This choice that we think we have is what’s keeping us from realizing that we’re in sacred world; this choice that we think we have is like blinders, earplugs, and noseplugs. We are thoroughly conditioned so that the minute the seat gets hot, or we even think it’s going to get hot, we jump off. The trick is to sit on the hot seat and have a commitment to our experience of hot-seatness. With or without a formal samaya with a teacher, this remains the main point.

Mrs. Hatzung, my teacher, said if we committed something to memory, no one could ever take it away from us.

And at some point, those two pilgrims realized that their mysterious walking partner was no ordinary man. He could tell them the story because He wrote the story. “Because He was the story. “We are told that ‘their eyes were opened.’ “And this is what the pair subsequently recalled when they spoke of their seven-mile walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. “‘Our hearts burned within us.’ Their hearts burned within them.” Father Lundy allowed the phrase to linger in silence for a few seconds before he resumed. “We all walk roads of various descriptions in life. The long and winding road. The road to ruin. Easy Street. The road less traveled. “Along the way, there are questions, there is news, there are concerns and fears and uncertainties that furrow our brows, trouble our souls, and break our hearts. Death terrifies many of us. “But God, in His sublime goodness, has always sent others, mysterious others, to walk with us — prophets, preachers, friends, teachers, artists, storytellers, wives and husbands, children, songbirds and rivers, even hardship and loss — to help us see clearly. They are ones who make our hearts burn within us, who call us out of our indifference, our lethargy, our death and defeat. They call us to be fully alive, or at least more alive than we were before we met them. “And so . . . Theo. “For a year, he was in our midst and now, looking back, can’t we say that, when we were with him, our hearts burned within us, our souls stood on tiptoe, our eyes recognized something good and true, and our minds could believe, if not fully, then ever so slightly, that love and heaven and forgiveness are the most real things that we can know in this world? “I think we are only beginning to understand and appreciate what a unique man Theo was. Can you call to mind anyone who quite so beautifully integrated the concrete and the spiritual? Who lived with such a winsome commitment to the seen and the unseen, the ultimate and the proximate, the wide grace and the narrow way?

Neither camp appears ever to have considered whether maybe the way prescriptive SWE was traditionally taught had something to do with its inutility. By “way” here I’m referring not so much to actual method as to spirit or attitude. Most traditional teachers of English grammar have, of course, been dogmatic SNOOTs, and like most dogmatists they’ve been extremely stupid about the rhetoric they used and the audience they were addressing. I refer specifically to these teachers’58 assumption that SWE is the sole appropriate English dialect and that the only reasons anyone could fail to see this are ignorance or amentia or grave deficiencies in character. As rhetoric, this sort of attitude works only in sermons to the choir, and as pedagogy it’s disastrous, and in terms of teaching writing it’s especially bad because it commits precisely the error that most Freshman Composition classes spend all semester trying to keep kids from making — the error of presuming the very audience-agreement that it is really their rhetorical job to earn. The reality is that an average US student is going to take the trouble to master the difficult conventions of SWE only if he sees SWE’s relevant Group or Discourse Community as one he’d like to be part of. And in the absence of any sort of argument for why the correct-SWE Group is a good or desirable one (an argument that, recall, the traditional teacher hasn’t given, because he’s such a dogmatic SNOOT he sees no need to), the student is going to be reduced to evaluating the desirability of the SWE Group based on the one obvious member of that Group he’s encountered, namely the SNOOTy teacher himself. And what right-thinking average kid would want to be part of a Group represented by so smug, narrow, self-righteous, condescending, utterly uncool a personage as the traditional Prescriptivist teacher?

Mary never committed a sin in her whole life," my teacher said. "And that's why she was chosen to be the mother of God." I held my breath and tried to count all of the sins I had already committed. I would never be chosen and I had barely even begun.

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It's been over 20 years since the protests where I was arrested. Like all activists and politically-committed scholars I've had to learn the hard way (which is the only way, really) will encounter more contradictions than resolutions in your work, especially when your privileges become salient. […] I'd be the first to say that sometimes you just need to be a body out in the streets. Rights aren't won and defended in a classroom, on social media or even via electoral politics. The work has to happen on the ground. History is clear that social change doesn't happen without some form of protests, and indeed most of the improvements in women's lives and cities can be traced back to activist movements. Not every woman will participate in some form of protest; in fact, most never will. But all of our lives have been shaped by them. For me, activist spaces are my greatest teachers. I wouldn't be able to articulate what a feminist city aspires to without those experiences. I've learned a lot about how to protest over the years, but more importantly, I've learned that a feminist city is one you have to be willing to fight for.