Imagine what you CAN do when you are inspired!! Please read the following article and watch the video clip. [From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly] I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay For their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck. Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in Marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a Wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and Pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back Mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. On a bike. Makes Taking your son bowling look a little lame, right? And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.This love story began in Winchester , Mass. , 43 years ago, when Rick Was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him Brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. "He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him And his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an Institution.'' But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes Followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the Engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was Anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.'' "Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a Lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed Him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his Head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the School organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want To do that.'' Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran More than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he Tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore For two weeks.'' That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, It felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!'' And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly Shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon. ``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a Single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few Years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then They found a way to get into the race Officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the Qualifying time for Boston the following year. Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?'' How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he Was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick Tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii . It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud Getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you Think? Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with A cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together. This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best Time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world Record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to Be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the Time. ``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.'' And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a Mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries Was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' One doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life. Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass. , always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day. That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. ``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

Teaching With Humor That HealsQuotes From Page 153"Is it possible that a portion of our current discipline problems stems from a serious, heavily regulated approach to the learning process?"
"When a classroom is a lively , creative environment where laughter abounds, students of every age have a natural outlet where their curious minds can flourish. In our experience, a laughing classroom evokes delightful forms of play in the learner, while a tight-reigned classroom evokes devious forms of play (a blend of creativity mixed with rebellion)."
Page 155 The Up-Tight Test--See How You Do
Please Reply To the Following Question:
What is the greatest gift you can give your students?

Once again, some fantastic comments in each posting. Please take the time to read the posts of others from the class--they are very enlightening, insightful, and sometimes humorous.

Please continue to read the text (if you have not already went ahead).
Pay close attention to:

• Section 18 Thanks To You (page 55)--quite a tribute to you as an educator
• Section 20 Humor Homework (pg. 61)-- some great ideas to possibly implement as part of your final project.
• Section 21 Play Sheet--Ways to influence your classroom and school environment

Please post AHAS and thoughts from these sections.

"Humor can act as a social lubricant or a social retardant in the educational setting. It can educate or denigrate, heal or harm, embrace or deface. It's a powerful communication tool, no matter which side is chosen."

"Joy Master vs. Joke Maker vs. Life Mocker vs. Fun Meister

It is crucial for us to identify our humor style--it is such a powerful tool--we need to use it in an empowering manner! Please discuss ways we can utilize this information to make our classrooms, colleagues, and schools better.

Does your humor style bring you closer to your students?
Does it enliven them or deaden them?
Is it helping you reach your teaching goals?
Is it enhancing and promoting a learning environment in your classroom?

Please Click On Comments TO Leave Your Entry

"Wise Teachers Make Learning A Joy"
-Chinese Proverb

Assignments:

• Read the introduction and through page 11 of the text.
• Please reflect on any ahas or main points.
• Share what you are already doing in your classrooms or daily lives that foster a "Fun-damental" Attitude.
• After going over the Pop Quiz on pages 10 and 11 reflect on your personal results.
  Click on comments to add your thoughts, feelings and ideas

Please feel free to comment on your thoughts from this article in the 1970's. Ideas you agree with or disagree...


YOU MEAN A RABBIT CAN BE TAUGHT TO FLY?
As an individual you must not be satisfied with just becoming like everybody else.
By Leo Buscaglia, Ph.D.




Busscaglia: "I teach seminars in graduate school. It's amazing how people have learned to parrot by then."
A rabbit, bird, fish, squirrel, duck and so on, all decided to start a school. The rabbit insisted that running had to be in the curriculum. The bird insisted that flying be in the curriculum. The fish insisted that swimming be in the curriculum. The squirrel insisted that perpendicular trees climbing be in the curriculum.
All the other animals wanted their specialty to be in the curriculum, too, so they put everything in and then made the glorious mistake of insisting that all the animals take all of the courses. The rabbit was magnificent in running; nobody could run like the rabbit. But they insisted that it was good intellectual and emotional discipline to teach the rabbit flying. So they insisted that the rabbit learned to fly and they put her on this branch and said, "Fly, rabbit!" And the poor old thing jumped off, broke her leg and fractured her skull. She became brain-damaged and then she couldn't run very well, either.
The same way with the bird -- she could fly like a freak all over the place, do loops and loops, and she was making an A. But they insisted that this bird burrow holes in the ground like a gopher. Of course she broke her wings and everything else, and then she couldn't fly.
We know this is wrong, yet nobody does anything about it. You may be a genius. You may be one of the greatest writers in the world, but you can't get into a university unless you can pass trigonometry. For what? Look at the list of drop outs: William Faulkner, John F. Kennedy, Thomas Edison. They couldn't face school. "I don't want to learn perpendicular tree climbing. I'm never going to climb perpendicularly. I'm a bird. I can fly to the top of the tree without having to do that."
"Never mind, it's good discipline."
As an individual, you must not be satisfied with just becoming like everybody else. You must think for yourself. For example, art supervisors. I can remember when they used to come to my classroom in elementary school, and I'm sure you can remember it, too. You were given a paper, and the teacher would put up the drawing in front of you and you were really excited. It was going to be art time. You had all the crayolas in front of you, and you folded your hands and you waited. And soon the art teacher would come running in, because she had been to fourteen other classrooms that day teaching art. She ran in, and she'd huff and puff and she'd say, "Good morning girls and boys. Today we are going to draw a tree." And all the kids would say, "Goody, we're going to draw a tree!" And then she'd get up there with a green crayola and she'd draw this great big green thing. And then she put a brown base on it and a few blades of grass. And she'd say, "There is a tree." And all the kids would look at it and they'd say, "That isn't a tree. That's a lollipop." But she said that was a tree, and then she's pass out these papers and say, "Now, draw a tree." She didn't really say, "Draw a tree" -- she said, "Draw my tree." And the sooner you found out that's what she meant and could reproduce this lollipop and hand it to her, the sooner you would get an A.
But here was little Janie who knew that wasn't a tree, because she'd seen a tree such as this art teacher had never experienced! So she got magenta, and orange, and blue, and purple, and green, and she scribbled all over her page and happily brought it up and gave it to the teacher. She looked at it and said, "Oh my God...."
How long does it take somebody to realize that what they're really saying is, "To pass, I want you to reproduce my tree." And so it goes through the first grade, second, third and right on into seminars in graduate school. I teach seminars in graduate school. It's amazing how people have learned to parrot by then. Think? Don't be ridiculous. They can give you the facts, verbatim, just as you've given it to them. And you can't blame those students, because that's what they've been taught. You say to them, "Be creative," and they're fearful. And so what happens to our uniqueness; what happens to our tree? All this beautiful uniqueness has gone right down the drain. Everybody is like everybody else, and everybody is happy. R.D. Laing says, "we are satisfied when we've made people like ourselves out of our children.
Excerpted from the book, LIVING, LOVING & LEARNING by Leo Buscaglia

After reading the articles Fun and the Immune System and Lighten Up please reflect on your thoughts and feelings. (These articles were emailed to you as an attachment)

The following questions were created to be thought provoking:
( you do not have to answer them all but they may aid you in your responses/reflections)

1) What were some of the AHA's that you encountered? (if any)

2) How can you utilize this information in your own personal life?

3) How can this information make you a more effective teacher/counselor/parent?

**Click on comments to read and leave your personal ideas**