An Amazing Feeling

When I got home the other day, I had an email from my principal that was entitled, "compliment".  When I opened it up and read it, she told me a compliment that a fellow faculty member said about my teaching.  Now, I am not going to tell you what the compliment was, because that is besides the point.  But what I will tell you is the feeling that I got when I read the compliment.  A feeling of accomplishment, happiness, and pure joy over came me.  I have no idea who gave me the compliment and it doesn't matter.  What does matter is that they saw something that they thought was worthy of a compliment and made sure that it made its way to me.  For this, I thank that person (whom ever you may be).

But the reason I am telling you about the email is this; I want you to think about the last time you received a compliment and remember how it made you feel. (pause for thinking time :)  done? good)  Now, I know you remembered good feelings.  Because of that, I am challenging myself, and all of you out there, to give someone that same feeling this week.  Go out of your way to compliment someone for something that they have done or did, no matter how small.  However, there is one twist to my challenge.  This person should not be someone close to you, like a husband, wife, girl/boyfriend, or close friend.  Try to compliment a stranger or someone that you are not very close to.  If you compliment someone who is not "close to you", the feeling that they will feel will be that much stronger!  But if complimenting a stranger is "not your thing", then at least compliment someone.

Until next time,

Mr. Ryan

SNOW DAYS!!!

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY UNTIL 7PM FRIDAY NIGHT

Those are the words that I read in the bottom right hand corner of my TV screen last night.  What is the very first thing that comes to mind when YOU see that warning on your TV?  My thoughts exactly, SNOW DAY! (Well, you might have had that thought if you were a teacher)  But, I am NOT a fan of snow days, because unlike senors in high school, I still have to make them up! I would rather have more summer days than winter days, but that's just me.

However, what I AM in favor of are late starts and early outs!  And I got my wish today, an early out! (Let alone on a Friday!)  But what this first, hopefully not last, early out really has me thinking about, besides an early drink, are the days of old, my childhood snow days.

Weren't those the best days?  You would wake up early and watch the TV to see if school was cancelled. (Which wasn't very often for me, because Des Moines stinks when it comes to snow days!)  Then it would scroll across the bottom and you would start jumping up in the air.  Then you would start thinking about all of the adventures you were going to have in the snow.

One of my favorite snow days was when I lived on 29th street in DSM.  The day started off with a big breakfast with eggs and bacon (thank you parents!).  Then I was off to go sledding with one of my best friends, Tommy.  The hill we sledded on was no ordinary hill.  It was the MONSTER of all hills.  Which means that by the time you were halfway down it, you were already going 55 MPH! (I don't over-exaggerate at all)  

Drake University used to dump all of the snow that they took off of their campus into the parking lot, which happened to be right next to the MONSTER hill.  So, when we got board of sledding, we would make forts in and around the mountains of snow.  Once our forts were set, we would have amazing snow ball fights.  Sometimes they would last for hours, or what seemed like hours.  When we finally were too cold to stay out any longer, we would move inside to have some hot cocoa and watch some TV.

Those days are long gone, but my inner child will never be gone.  In fact, I think I need to go dust off my sled and go find another MONSTER hill.  I hope that you find your inner child too!

Until Next Time,
Mr. Ryan

Never Forget.....

"I love you.  I think you are a good kid.  I may get frustrated with you and I may discipline you, but that does not mean that I don't love you.  That does not mean that I think you are a bad kid.  Never forget, you are special."

That is what I told one of my students last Thursday.  He had been having a rough morning, behavior wise, and had to go to the office.  Once he was up there, he and I had a talk about how he should be acting in class.  Then, out of the blue, he started crying and absolutely broke down.  I had no idea why (at the time).  When he finally calmed down a little, he told me why he was upset. "They are fighting again," he said. The "they" that he is referring to are his parents.  As I continued to talk with him, I found out that he felt that his parents were blaming him for fighting, and that he could do nothing to get them to stop.

When the conversation was over he felt better, but was still very upset, and rightfully so.  My heart goes out to him.  He should not feel like that.  He should be a happy go lucky kid, with no worries.  But that is not reality or how the world works.  Sometimes kids see, hear, and feel things at a much too young age.  Most of the time, however, it is NOT their fault.  It is the parent(s) fault.

Undoubtedly, Katie and I will eventually have a big argument (I will continue to hope not however).  But when/if that happens, I will NOT let my children think that it is their fault.  If I have an suspicion that they think it is their fault, I will talk with them about it and help them see that it isn't their fault that Mom and Dad had an argument.

I am not a parent yet, and do not presume to have all of the answers.  I will make mistakes.  But I just hope that I do a good enough job, so that my children grow up to be accepting, truthful, and loving people.

Until Next Time,
Mr. Ryan

Teardrops...

The past few days have been a major improvement over the first few days of the swear jar.  Only $0.75 total the last 3 days! Now I need to get that down to $0.  Baby steps.  Baby steps.

I am lucky enough to have a smart board in my classroom (it is basically a 5ft x 4ft Ipad).  Because of that I am able to have a class message every morning on it for my students.  It usually consists of reminders and some small things that I want them to accomplish that morning.  But I also have a "quote of the day" section.  In this section, not only do I put a quote, I put a picture of the person and some life information about them.  Every morning (or almost every) we spend about 2-3 minutes talking about the quote and what it means to them.  So, needless to say, I am always looking for quotes for them.  If you have any suggestions, post them please.

But what that leads me to this; have you ever listened to a song or read a quote that just makes you think about life?  I recently downloaded the new Coldplay CD (yes I know what that makes me, via the movie the 40 Year-Old Virgin), and found a fabulous song that just makes me think about life.  The song is called Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall.  I can't really explain the feeling the comes over me, but it is a great one.  But what I really love about it, are the lyrics.  The lyrics bring the song to life.  To me this song makes me want to help people and try to be the best person I can, which fits right into my resolution!

So I hope that you enjoy this song as much as I do.  Don't just "hear" it, actually "listen" to it, and let it take you over.

Until next time,
Mr. Ryan

No Love Lost

$2.75
That is the amount of money that I had to put in the swear jar yesterday.  However, as of 2:00 PM today, $0 is the amount! Small improvements, but improvements none the less.  Hopefully I can keep it at $0 for the rest of the day.

Yesterday my parents, Katie, and I went to DSM to help my grandparents organize their basement and to have dinner with family for my Aunt Connie's birthday (Happy Birthday Connie!).  We had a wonderful time helping family out and enjoying each other's company.  However, Pa Walt and I got into a relatively strong argument.

SIDEBAR:  Pa Walt used to have his own construction business, and I worked for him.  While working for him, he and I would would sometimes get into small arguments and yell at each other.  But no love was ever lost.  Then, a few years ago, he suffered a stroke and has never totally been the same.  At times he is his normal self, but at other times he is somebody completely different.  Often times I have struggled with the fact that I can no longer interact with my grandpa like I have always known.


Having said that, the topic of the discussion doesn't matter.  But what does matter is that I lost my patience.  I should have kept it much longer than I did.  And that disappoints me.

After the argument, I couldn't help but get incredibly upset with myself.  I also wasn't understanding why I was upset.  I had never really gotten upset with him before over a worksite argument, so why now?  But, looking back at it, I now know why I was so upset.  It was was the first time that Pa Walt and I have yelled at each other since his stroke.  I am incredibly afraid of losing him, because I love him so much, and I don't want to have something happen to him, especially if we hadn't resolved an issue that was between us.

After we left Pa Walt and Grandmommy Kathleen's place I got a phone call from Pa asking if Katie and I were coming back to their house.  I told him no, but hopefully soon.  When I asked him why he called, he just wanted to give me a movie that he thought I might like :)  When we hung up, I knew that no love was lost and that I had made a big deal out of a small argument.  The argument truly was just a worksite one, and, in a weird way, having an argument with him made him feel like he was back on the job.

Love you Pa

Until next time,
Mr. Ryan

HELP!!!!

Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink. That would be the sound of a quarter hitting the bottom of the swear jar.  Needless to say, I have not been doing a very good job on cleaning up my mouth.  This is proving much harder than I thought.  Not that I thought it would be easy!

I was talking with a fellow teacher after school this week, and we were talking about what we have been doing well and things that we need to work on.  When we were done, we were just shooting the s*** (clink), and I told her about my blog and how I am trying to reflect on what I have been doing well and what I need to work on.  I also told her about trying to clean up my mouth.  She was hilarious in the fact that she rolled her eyes and gave me a look that said, "About time!"  But she also gave me a good idea, a swear jar.  Every time I swear I have to put a quarter in the jar.  So I think I am going to run with it!

HOWEVER, I have absolutely no idea what to do with the money that goes into the jar.  That is what I need help with.  Any ideas????

Did That Just Happen?

"Get up off the couch!"

I'm good.

"Come on Kirk, it's not that hard."

I know, but I am comfortable, and wanna watch the game.

"You can get updates on the game at the gym.  Better yet, there are TVs there so you can even watch it while you are lifting weights!"

True. True.  But then again, I would have to leave the comfort of my couch and go out into the cold.

 "GET UP!!!"

This is an example of one of the internal conversations that I had with myself yesterday (and yes, I did answer myself, but not out loud, so it is ok!).  If you didn't realize, there was a lot of football on yesterday, and all I wanted to do was sit on the couch and watch it.  Unfortunately, that is basically all that I did.  At least until I had enough of my internal self bugging me (internal conversations suck!).  So I ended up going to the rec center and playing 2 1/2 hours of basketball. Which I loved!

That story brings me to a point (obviously).  When I was playing, I was playing with a lot of young fathers, who happened to bring their young children to the gym (not a smart move).  Needless to say, while we were playing, a lot of profanity was used, myself included.  I didn't really notice it until I saw a young father swearing up a storm (F*** this, F*** that) while he was changing the diaper of one of his children, and then proceeded to yell profanity and his 5 (about) year old son for not doing what he asked!  All I could think while observing was, "What the F*** is he doing?" (get the irony?)

I know that I have a potty mouth, but have usually been able to use it when it is appropriate (and yes I know that some of you think that NEVER is an appropriate time).  But now that I am going to be a dad, I am starting to look at situations in a totally different light.  "What if I talk like that around my child?"  

That question scares me a little bit, because I don't want to teach my child language like that.  I will leave that up to my great grandfather, Pa Walt (he taught me (: ).  But seriously, I want to be a great father and role model, just like I had! (Thanks Dad, and MOM!)  So now I am going to try and clean up my mouth.  I know this is going to be hard.  But if it was easy, it wouldn't be worth doing.

Until next time,

Mr. Ryan

And It Begins...

And so it begins.  With a new year comes many new things, and, like I talked about last time, resolutions.  I have had some time to think about what I want my new years resolution to be and I have come up with one.  But before I tell you, I have one last thing to say about resolutions.

I received a comment from a friend that got me thinking about deeper resolutions.  He, Jay, said that he feels that people don't achieve their resolutions because they only reflect on themselves, and decide to make a change, once a year.  He's right!  If people reflected more than once a year, maybe they would have a better chance of reaching that goal and truly changing themselves for the better.

As teachers, Jay and I, find ourselves reflecting on daily basis about our teaching.  We do this in order to improve our teaching and to best help our students learn.  Now if I could only do that more in my daily life; and that is what I am going to do.

My New Year's resolution this year is to reflect daily on how I live my life and the choices that I make.  Now some of you might think that this is not a good resolution, because it isn't something concrete that I can achieve (like losing a certain amount of lbs).  But what I like about it, is the fact that I am going to be making an effort everyday to reflect on what happened that day and how I could have acted/reacted/listened/etc. more or better.

I am going to be doing this through my blog, along with thoughts on things and events that happen outside of my direct life.  With that being said, my first challenge to all of you is to join me in my journey. Comment on my blog posts about how you have reflected on your life and tried to change for the better.  I will be here to give you my thoughts (if you want) and listen to you.

Make sure to become a follower of my blog. :)

Until next time,

Mr. Ryan