A clarifying moment...

I'm starting to look at life different...

The more time I spend with people...

The more I realize that there are basically two types of people in the world...

People who aspire for greatness...

And everyone else who wastes their lives making excuses for why they don't...

And there's not a damn thing that I can do to lift peoples' aspirations...except to suggest that they set their sights higher...and either work to achieve those dreams...or don't...

And such is life...

In the meantime...I aspire to do great things with my life...I have very little patience for mediocrity, frankly...and I do my best to not let others settle for mediocrity, either, in my presence...

Most people talk a good game about excellence...Ronald Reagan's warning against a tide of mediocrity in American education comes to mind, here...mentioned after Mr. Reagan had dedicated his own education and acting career to mediocrity, doing B-movies with very little to contribute, substantively, to anyone's learning, nevertheless to his own...

But very few people actually pursue it...

And they spend their lives making excuses for why they're not smarter than they are...and why it doesn't matter, when it clearly does...

People who lack virtues regularly waste their time making excuses for why those virtues don't really matter, anyway...and intelligence is no different...

I need to serve my time doing education reform work in K-12 schools, I think...

And then I need to either finish up a Ph.D. (in policy, if I do)...or get work as a professor teaching and writing and lecturing, etc. in policy...and spend more time with much smarter and higher aspiring folks...I don't know, yet, where that would best be done...I'm quite clear that there is no intellectual or other kind of utopia...

But I would like to find a place where a lot of folks take learning and thinking and studying seriously...but not so seriously that they don't have a life outside of it all, as well...and where that virtue is best nurtured and rewarded (the first more than the second)...

A place where I buy a little house where I can walk...and write...and think...and contribute...

And a place where I can work with lots of different folks in lots of different fields...to make contributions to their efforts and learn from theirs, as well...international and domestic policy, psychology, economics, education, and criminology are all areas that I know I have contributions to make...

And it would nice to find a place where folks are humble enough to just have those conversations and exchanges in a way that facilitates all of our learning...rather than being big pissing contests...or turf wars...or pecking orders...or whatever stupid reasons that people have to arrogantly avoid new opportunities to learn...

There's got to be a place like that, I say to myself...a university, likely...surely there's got to be a faculty where learning is more important than ego...

I've never met that faculty...but surely it's got to out there, somewhere, right?...or at least one willing to aspire...

But in the meantime...

My identity is no longer tied to the opinions of any faculty or field or students or whatever...

I will make my contributions...I will think and write and give what I have to give...and if I'm persuaded that I'm wrong about anything that I happen to be wrong about...then I will spend time with that and learn from it and be open to changing my mind in the most substantial ways I can muster...

And then I'll go home...and walk...and think...and talk with at least one companion, at some point, I hope...and write...and find people who can have serious conversations without making it be about them...having those conversations as if the stakes really mattered as much as they do...so no egos are really necessary nor really all that useful...

But the point is...I'll have a life of my own...my life is not tied to my work, in the same way, anymore...

I want to persuade people to take the important ideas in life seriously...

But I realize, now, that I may/will not always be successful in persuading people of that...

And in the meantime...the work is too important to get hung up on whether someone objects...without really putting much substantial thinking into the matter...which is most people, I'm discovering...

And I'm definitely figuring out that my expectations for a partner in my life have definitely been far too low...

And just because noone in my immediate vicinity is living up...doesn't mean I shouldn't keep my expectations high...they will be high no matter who I fall in love with, after all...so I might as well be keeping my sights high as I look for that person, in the meantime...

And I'll know love when I experience it, I have no doubt...

In the meantime...

I just need to keep following the only instincts that I trust most, at this point...

Mine (along with the best wisdom that others have to offer)...

I got to get some sleep:):)...

Have a great day, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

You ever get the feeling that people want to fail?

I finally decided, today...that some people, I'm growing convinced...just maybe want to fail...or maybe just to find enough excuses for why they didn't pursue success...

It makes me much more realistic about what we can achieve in schools...

I can do everything I can to set as many kids up, as possible, to succeed...but...ultimately...either they'll chase their dreams...with all the bumps and bruises, as much as the great parts of that journey...or they won't...

And I just create as many conditions, as possible, to make that a possibility...

Today, I had my first evaluation with my principal...everything went great...I told her about the efforts we've made to improve expectations for all students, including special education students, for behavior and academics...and the success we've had with it...along with the frustrations...

My principal is the person, other than me, with the highest expectations for students in the building...

And even she doesn't really have the highest expectations for students, sometimes...

The one really sour note in the meeting...was that somehow...that in the midst of the argument that the counselor and I had about the I.E.P. meeting I was in...the fact that I told her in a later private meeting that she was bullshitting me -- which I think she was, in retrospect -- about whether she was impugning a decision I had made with a kid earlier in the day to send him out of the room after a series of events that she was just not privy to, frankly -- the word "bullshit" got around to the principal...

And I realized...that if I have someone on my hands who's a tattle-tale...this is not someone I should trust...nor do I...if it was the counselor who passed on my comment...I was talking to someone I thought was a friend...and, as I told Dr. Ogburn...if she's not a friend...then there's no reason for me to talk with her like she is...

After that meeting...we had a S.I.T. meeting -- which basically means we were deciding if he should get special education help or not -- for a student...

And as I sat around this table...with so many bullheaded people...thinking that they were "right" about what was going on with this kid...this kid who was having conflict with some teachers, some of which the teachers are responsible for, I think...but the burden of the education being on the student, ultimately, fair or not...

I realized...that there was no way for me to move this entire school...or district...or even education, generally, necessarily...

I can put the ideas out there...and either people will run with them or they won't...just like with the kids...

And in the meantime...my identity is no longer...at any level...as a teacher...as a thinker...as a person...

...wrapped up in whether or not people pick up those ideas or not...

I have a life...separate from teaching...separate from thinking...separate from anything professional...

Which is all my own...

And where I could give two shits if people like my ideas...like my contributions...like my accomplishments...or even like me...or not...

I have a life that is my own...

And after I make these two calls...I'm going to go enjoy it, a little:):)...

Have a great day, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben