Out of My League

Let those two titles soak in! (I’ll wait…)

It’s the thanksgiving season and I have a little bit of idle time.

I was counting my blessings today. The list is endless. Life is very good!

I went to see North Texas play Western Kentucky today. I only got to see half of the game because my two companions were ready to abandon ship during the first quarter. It was raining. They were cold. I made them hold out until halftime. They got colder… they couldn’t get wetter. We left. It hasn’t been a good season for my Alma Mater. While I was making dinner, a trip to sonic, I was listening to the post game show… North Texas 27… Western Kentucky 26.

I missed out on a great second half of football. I let me two companions know what they made me miss… they are twelve… they will forget about it… what? They already have. My Dad made me change the channel during the 1979 Cotton Bowl because the University of Houston was spanking one of my favorite teams, Notre Dame. Notre Dame won. Probably the greatest come back in Cotton Bowl history… I didn’t get to see it. I haven’t forgotten.

Today made me think about all the things I have been able to do in my life… and all the things I need/want to do in the time I have left.

In his book, Lou talks about his list of things he wanted to accomplish. He broke this list into five categories… including financial, professional, spiritual, husband/father, and excitement. Lou listed the following from his excitement category;

            Jump out of an airplane

            Land a jet fighter on an aircraft carrier

            Travel the ocean in a submarine

            Go white-water rafting on the Snake River at Hell’s Canyon

            Be on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

            Attend a White House dinner with the president

            Meet the pope

            Go on an African Safari

            Become a scratch golfer and play the Top 50 golf courses in the world

            Run with the bulls in Pamplona

In the five categories… Lou listed 107 goals… achieving 99 at the publishing of his book.

So… that’s what I’m going to do… start a list… of things to do and places to see… and see how many I can scratch off before I wear out my last pair of shoes… the list starts below. Feel free to leave a comment with suggestions… I might just add it to my list.

     Jump out of an airplane (yes… a perfectly good airplane)

     Bungee jump

     White water raft

     Throw out the first pitch at a major league baseball game (without the one hop)

     Play one on one with Mark Aguirre (my basketball hero)

     Earn a doctorate in education

     Finish my career as a high school principal

     Live in a foreign city for six months to a year.

     Spoil my grandchildren (this one can wait about 20 years)

Halloween

I have to rely on my fellow principals to keep me out of trouble. In secondary schools we don’t have party days. In elementary, I have found that we do. We get a couple a year. So, I have had to ask the questions to keep me out of trouble. Trouble lurks… waiting… I’m on the look out.

I sent an e-mail to my distinguished colleagues in my district asking them about HalloweenFall Harvest and I got many different responses. My favorite was from a principal who will remain anonymous. He/She said that he/she loves Halloween and starts singing songs  a few weeks in advance. For the life of me I can only think of one Halloween Fall Harvest Song. Come on, you know it, it’s Monster Mash.

I was delighted to find the little red light illuminated one morning about a week before Halloween Fall Harvest. (I’m lying. The little red light of doom never makes me happy, but for this story to sound good, it made me happy. Just for the record… if that light is on… there is trouble!) When I played my messages and made my way through the phone tree hierarchy of the ones from unhappy people… I found this… and I’m sharing with you…

          anonymous principal message about Halloween Fall Harvest 1

On my birthday the day before Fall Harvest I had another message.

          anonymous principal message about Halloween Fall Harvest 2

Just a question for my anonymous friend… do you know any Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus Winter Holiday Songs?

According to Wikipedia,

Zorro is an extremely agile athlete and acrobat, using his bullwhip as a gymnastic accoutrement to swing through gaps between the city’s roofs, and is very capable of landing from great heights and taking a fall. Although he is a master swordsman and marksman, he has more than once demonstrated his more than able prowess in unarmed combat, even against as many as twenty armed opponents.

He never uses brute strength, more his fox-like sly mind and well-practiced technique to outmatch an opponent.

I tell you this because Zorro visited our school today. One of our high school assistant principals (his name will not be mentioned to maintain his Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent identity) came to read to a kindergarten class. He brought his own book. A book that he has read to his daughter so many times that she can recite it word for word. He had the kids eating out of the palm of his hand. Talk about engaged learning… Phil would have been proud!

Time for an analogy… if I had only taught English…

teaching : kindergartners : : herding : cats

I have a fabulous group of kindergarten teachers. I am amazed at what they have accomplished with the students this far in the year. They work well together. They plan well together. They are truly a team. When I watch them work with those kids I am amazed. Everything is so well planned. They operate so smoothly. It’s much like cowboys/cowgirls/cow-people? working a monstrous herd of cattle. You keep the whole group moving the same general direction while simultaneously looking for the strays and bringing them back into the fold.

I get to practice this daily when I relieve the K teachers for their conference period. They dismiss their kids to the parents and I take the few kids that are left waiting for a ride. It’s never very many. I don’t have the skill that those teachers have. The look like seasoned ranchers out on the range. I look like a city boy herding cats. Have you every tried to get more than one cat to do what you want? Have you ever tried to get one cat to do what you want? Do you even like cats?

Zorro had those kids in the palm of his hand today. He was reading a book called, “Skippy jon Jones” by Judy Schachner. A wondrous book by a wonderful author read by a fantastic educator. Today was the cherry on top for the week!

And Zorro… wherever you are… thanks for reading to my kids!