There was a lot of FRUSTRATION in my classroom yesterday, which led to a lot of really good conversation...about concepts that I believe are at the heart of what teaching (especially teenagers) is all about. It was one of those days where you are provided with multiple "teachable moments", and can only pray that somehow what you are saying is getting through and making an impact somewhere in their brains.

A little bit of background. I have one girl in my class who turned 16 a little over 2 months ago. She has decided that she is going to get her GED. Here is the baffling part...she is one of the most capable, most intelligent students I have had, has a good home, has done well in school in the past (A's, into sports, lots of friends), and has no crisis in her life (not pregnant, homeless, has to work to support the family, etc). She got frustrated when she was told yesterday that, even with getting her GED, she still needs to complete the state-required Transition credits. She doesn't see the importance of moving past her GED. She says she has no need for college, for a diploma. In the class discussion, I kept repeating the phrase, "You have no idea!"...no idea what college is like, how different college life is from high school life; no idea how your choices now are going to affect your long-term happiness and abilities; no idea that there are more options in life than the limited vision they have right now. In reality, I didn't have a clue when I was their age, either, but at least I had people who had given me glimpses of what could be out there for me. I knew there were endless opportunities, and I knew that I could head in whatever direction I chose to go. I wasn't afraid to try out life and see where it might lead me.

Which leads me to the next topic...

FEAR. One of my other girls came over to my desk, and one of her comments was "I'm not good at anything". And the worst part of that thinking is that she is afraid to try new things because she is afraid of failing. She gets so nervous that she will fail that she sometimes refuses to start. What they seem to not get is that failure is not really failure at all...as long as you are learning and growing as a result of "failing". Thomas Edison "failed" to create a light bulb after many, many attempts, but when asked if he felt like giving up, he replied: "Young man, why would I feel like a failure? And why would I ever give up? I now know definitively over 9,000 ways that an electric light bulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp." Michael Jordan failed to make the varsity squad as a sophomore at his high school in North Carolina. Abraham Lincoln was defeated for Speaker of the House, for the Senate, and for the Vice Presidency before he was elected President of the United States. Did the first plane the Wright Brothers made fly? The first "hot chocolate" was terrible...they hadn't added sugar yet, and it was made with bittersweet chocolate. Walt Disney tried to get MGM to distribute Mickey Mouse...and was told it would never work because Mickey would terrify women! Coke was invented to be a cure for headaches...but when is the last time we had to have a doctor's prescription to get Coke? Penicillin was the result of someone who "failed" to clean up his work area. And I could go on and on! Time after time in life we will "fail" to achieve what we started out to achieve, but that doesn't mean we have failed. We are constantly learning, and like Edison, figuring out what DOESN'T work. In my own life, I started off in college to be a Marine Biologist. I "failed" to get there, but love where my life has taken me. If you set a goal of walking 1000 miles, and yet only travel 999miles, you are still 999 miles further than you would have been if you had never started at all! There is nothing in life that says that a decision we make now, for the direction our life is going, has to remain a decision forever. We are free to make alterations, to take new courses, to follow where our hearts lead us. When we come to a fork in the road, we get to choose which path we want to take. We just have to be willing to put ourselves out there enough to START, to take that first step, to make that initial leap of faith. This is my new goal for my classroom...that I can somehow get my kids to see that the only failure in life is failing to try.