Aug20

A Lesson for Teachers

Posted on August 20, 2012 by daunaeasley

From Caterpillars to Butterflies

Jennifer walked into my early childhood education class in her senior year planning to fail. No, she didn’t announce this goal to me or to the class. I guess you could say it was a secret goal, but she had her strategy all mapped out. She even knew exactly when she was going to fail; November. I had exactly two months to change the course of her destiny, but she didn’t even give me the benefit of telling me this.

The Countdown

She was busy stacking all the evidence (data) to support her decision to fail. It was powerful data, hard to ignore. In her sophomore and junior years she had been absent over thirty days each year. At this time in our state she was required to pass proficiency tests in four subject areas in order to prove she had the ability level of at least a ninth grader or she would not receive a high school diploma even if she had passed all her classes. Though she had taken these tests twice a year since the ninth grade, she had continued to fail three of the four every time. Neither of her parents had graduated from high school and they wanted her to graduate because they knew what if felt like to go through life without a high school diploma. However, without any serious illness, they still allowed her to stay home more than thirty days per year. In November Jennifer would be eighteen and she would no longer need her parents’ signature to drop out. In November she would be out the door and I wasn’t even aware of the plan. Even worse, the class I taught was in early childhood education. Jennifer wanted to work in a child care setting with young children. In our state you have to earn a high school diploma to do that. Why had she signed up for my class if she had no chance to graduate? The answer was simple. She had to spend those two months somewhere. But by November the charade would be over.

A Plan Thwarted

Here’s how the U turn happened. As soon as I found out Jennifer still needed to pass three of the four proficiency tests, I signed her up for tutoring sessions every day of the week. No, she didn’t want to go. She argued long and hard about the futility of it. Hadn’t she already proven six times that it was impossible for her to pass those tests? But I refused to allow her to skip those tutoring sessions. However hard she complained and dragged her feet, I still insisted she attend. She went for tutoring during a portion of my class and during her lunch break, crabbing about it every step of the way.

I had another really lucky break. In this particular school where I was teaching at the time, we had a significant number of at-risk kids. With this type of enrollment one of the silly things that I noticed was that a substantial number of them failed to come on the first few days of school. They would just pretend that they didn’t know when school started. This behavior baffled me, because when I was growing up it seemed like everyone enjoyed the first few days of school.

But for whatever reason in this particular class everyone showed up for the first three days of school. The first week was a short week of only three days. I made a really big deal of having perfect attendance for a whole week. I can’t remember the specific treat I brought in, but they really loved it. Somehow this group of students latched on to that humble success and started seeing how long they could go with the whole class having perfect attendance. They really put pressure on one another not to break that chain. It was a lucky break for me and Jennifer. I don’t know if I could even recreate this set of circumstances. I rewarded them every Friday with a treat and talked it up all around the school bragging about them to others when I knew my students could hear me.

Perfection!

At the end of the first quarter at our awards program I asked our administrator to make a big deal out of their attendance. He had the whole class stand up and told everyone in the packed room (full of their peers from other programs) that this was what “perfect” looked like. I’ll never forget that line. The members of my class were far from perfect, but they had managed to accumulate perfect attendance for a full quarter. They just beamed. I’m certain Jennifer had never had the benefit of going to school regularly in her whole life.

In October Jennifer retook those three proficiency tests. She wouldn’t find out the results until December. She decided not to drop out until she had gotten those results. So without my knowing about the plan to fail, I was given a one month’s reprieve. Just before the holiday break, she found out she had passed two of the three tests! Encouraged but still wary she quietly decided to stay until March when she would have just one more chance to pass that final test. She continued to go for tutoring, but by now she could concentrate all her efforts on just one subject in which she was still deficient.

Let the Magic Begin

That extra time gave us the window for magic to take hold. Buoyed with her successes and reinforced with perfect attendance, Jennifer’s self esteem started to bloom. She put together a project and competed in the regional competition and won. She advanced to state competition and won. In February my class began their final senior project. Each student was required to put together a plan for an entire school. Jennifer latched onto this project of planning a child care center with a commitment she had never shown in school before. She named her child care facility From Caterpillars to Butterflies. The project was outstanding in every way. Step by step she poured all of her creativity into the project. She drew a floor plan, wrote a philosophy, created a marketing strategy that included a logo and a slogan, developed an inventory and made a tri-fold display board about her school. Her project was voted the best all around by hundreds of visitors who came to see our finished projects on display. Jennifer, the loser, became Jennifer the star. Her peers looked to her for advice on their projects.

Becoming a Butterfly

She found out in early May that she had passed her final proficiency test she had taken in March. She would be graduating with all of her peers, despite her total intention to fail when she first walked into my room. How do I know all this? In May she told me all about her original plan. During our end of the year program with parents, employers and advisory council members in the audience, I gave Jennifer a small butterfly decoration. I told everyone how I had watched Jennifer change from a caterpillar into a butterfly during that school year. (Just like the process she had named her child care facility). She and her family were very touched.

On graduation night, during the graduation ceremony someone tapped me on my shoulder. I ignored the tap. I thought it was going to be one of my students asking to leave the ceremony to go to the restroom and I didn’t want to honor that request. But the tap was repeated and over my shoulder was passed a flower arrangement from Jennifer’s mother and a card from Jennifer. Inside the card Jennifer had included a butterfly necklace for me to wear. She had also written me a poem. I never saw Jennifer after the graduation ceremony. I suppose the family had graduation celebration plans they had to rush off to implement, or perhaps Jennifer was too emotional for even a good-by hug. But the necklace and the poem brought tears to my eyes. Though the poem is very simplistic its words touched my deeply. I have recited its words to teacher audiences many times when I speak.

The best teacher for me would be

The wonderful Mrs. Easley.

She listened as I talked

She even pushed me as I walked.

She pushed me to my limit

I didn’t even know I had it.

I was going nowhere and fast

I thought I’d never last.

I kept remembering failures of my past.

She turned my life around.

Now I might be college bound.

How do I repay something like this?

I keep remembering her words…

The lectures I’m going to miss.

Now because of her I believe

That “teacher” means much more to me.

A Question and a Challenge

How could a young woman who was two months away from dropping out of school write words I would be happy to have on my headstone when I die?

She listened as I talked

She even pushed me as I walked.

What teacher wouldn’t be honored to have a student write those words about her?

But there are two other lines in that poem that should scare every teacher in America.

She pushed me to my limit

I didn’t even know I had it.

How and why would a young lady in America make it all the way to her senior year in high school without even really knowing that she “had it?” Jennifer had the ability all along. Isn’t that our main job as teachers? We have to reveal for students that they “have it” within them to succeed.

We must push them to their limit until they realize that they have it.

I learned that from a poem written by an 18-year-old girl who was two months away from walking away from an education. Those are her words. We must listen.

Jennifer’s story and many others…

plus classroom activity ideas to build success in life for our students…

are in my newest book for teachers.

TEACH…To Change Lives.

Available at Amazon.com

Aug13

Teaching Strategies

Posted on August 13, 2012 by daunaeasley

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The Lesson

We were going to make a memory. I mentally pictured one of those warm and fuzzy moments between my students and me. Planning all the little details was giving me a great deal of pleasure. On our high school career campus where I taught at the time, all the buildings surrounded a courtyard. The landscaping in this opening was minimal, especially at this time of year. It was autumn and most of the trees had shed their leaves, but one spectacular tree was left. Its leaves shone a brilliant crimson in the sunshine. I decided to take my class outdoors under this single beautiful tree to make the moment memorable. I knew they would enjoy the break from our windowless classroom. this would alert them to the importance of the occasion and help cement the memory.

Why?

Something positive and significant had happened. It was an event of great importance to me; I had just had my first article published. Admittedly, it was published in a small local newspaper. Technically, I hadn’t sold the article. No money was offered or expected. Yet still I felt high on success. An article I had written had been published with my own byline. They even spelled my name correctly… a rare event. This had been a long-term personal goal and a sense of pride was flowing through me. I wanted to mark this milestone with my class.

Goal setting is something I try to model for my students. I didn’t realize until I started teaching teenagers how lucky I had been in my life. Setting goals was something my mother taught me at home. I was surprised and sorry to note that this skill was particularly lacking in many of my adolescent students. How fortunate for me that my mother had taught me all the steps. First dream. Then visualize your dream. Begin to make it real by finding a picture of what you want and displaying it. In my mother’s home, this meant the kitchen refrigerator. List the steps toward accomplishing this dream and take the first step. As soon as possible, take another step.

Role models are the best teachers, I believe. Sharing my dreams, my accomplishments, and my setbacks with my students is one of the most powerful things I bring to the classroom. My students knew that I wanted to be a published writer. My frequent failures and rejections I shared with them too. How better to make them capable of facing failures in their future than to admit my own and let them watch me continue working the steps toward a dream, even after a failure? They teased me about my dreams, but they humored me too. Naively, I visualized how excited they were going to be for me…how this tiny but significant event in my life would motivate them to set new goals and give them the courage to dream a little larger. I could mentally hear the song ‘I believe I can Fly’ serenading my soul. I looked forward to the last class of the day when this tremendous bonding moment would take place.

I Had Forgotten One Thing

Teenagers sometimes use automatic weapons to burst your bubble when a pin would do the job nicely. Oh, but it was a humbling experience. When I told them we were holding our class outside under a beautiful tree, amazingly but immediately the complaining began…

Why do we have to go outside?

It’s freezing out here!

Where are we supposed to sit?

There’s not enough room on this bench!

I’m not sitting on the concrete!

Why are we doing this?

This is soooo dumb!

And my personal favorite….

Do we get a grade for this?

Disappointed and through clenched teeth, I growled. I mean I really growled. (Clench your teeth and snarl when you read this). We…are…making…a…memory!

Though it wasn’t audible, you could feel the expletive at the end of that sentence. Some of the students quieted down, but several continued to grumble throughout the whole activity. I told them the about the significance of the occasion. I showed them my byline in the newspaper with my name on it. They were not impressed. I read the story aloud to them. It was a touching story about planting tulips with my daughter and about how the reappearance of those tulips each spring signaled that she had survived another year cancer free. They were not touched. I talked briefly about the importance of having meaningful goals and celebrating successes when they occurred. The exact moment I paused in my speaking someone said,

Can we go in now?

Totally deflated, I nodded. A few of them actually sprinted for the door. I had never before seen them run. They sure didn’t run when they were coming to my class. I walked back to the building slowly, feeling completely rejected. I made a mental note never to try anything which even remotely resembled this activity ever again. My self-esteem couldn’t survive it. My wonderful lesson felt like it had been ground through the garbage disposal.

The Revelation

About a year and a half later, Edie, one of my new graduates came to school to visit me. While we were catching up I shared some of my current good news with her. I had just received a book that contained an article I had written for A Fourth Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul. I showed her the book autographed by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. She gave me the most startled look and said something quite odd as she extended her arm in my direction.

Mrs. Easley, feel my arm.

I was puzzled but I wrapped my hand around her arm as she went on…

I have goosebumps. Can you feel them? You’ve given me goosebumps.

Then she said something even more surprising…

“I can remember the day you took our class outside into the courtyard to read us your article that was in the newspaper.” Her voice was full of awe as she continued. “You told us on that day that you wanted to have a story published in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. I can’t believe you have accomplished this! I’m so proud of you.” She gave me a big hug and then sat down to read the story. I watched her read as I blinked back tears.

How different were our memories of that day. I was certain that I had reached no one. Frankly, it was a horrible memory for me. And yet here was proof that my message had been heard. I have no recollection of telling my students that one of my goals was to be published in Chicken Soup for the Soul. I’m certain I did, but only because Edie shared her memory with me. What an incredible lesson she taught me on that day.

In even our bleakest moments as teachers,

we may truly be accomplishing so much more than is apparent.

Edie taught me that. I will try and remember this forever. Quite by accident, I learned about the positive impact I had made on an afternoon I felt was a total failure. I had literally seen and felt the evidence. Goosebumps are not to be taken lightly.

A Celebration!

Just this week my second book for teachers, TEACH…To Change Lives has become available on Amazon.com. Woo-hoo! Purchase a copy to thank or encourage a teacher or future teacher.

It is full of classroom ideas and inspiring true stories.

Each MONDAY in August and up through September 10th, I will post an inspiring true story about teaching. Please pass the word along to all your teacher friends.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Aug6

The Empty Truck

Posted on August 6, 2012 by daunaeasley

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Are You Kidding Me?

All the prospective teachers in my classroom were angry. You could feel the tension hanging in the air within the classroom walls. I was teaching in a Teacher Academy program for high school juniors and seniors. I had just shown my group of high school aged future teachers an article that compared teacher salaries to the yearly income of a wide variety of other professions. But this activity backfired. The reality didn’t just inform them, it infuriated them.

Heated comments fueled by adolescent hormones were flying around the room. “Why should we work this hard to learn about a profession that pays so poorly”? “What makes accountants and salesmen more valuable than teachers?” “How come basketball players and sports figures are worth so much more than teachers who educate our country’s children?” They looked at me with indignation. They seemed to blame me as though I had written the economic reality of my own profession.

In that moment I sensed I was poorly prepared to answer them. I chose the escape route of a chicken. If you don’t know the answer, pose a question.

“Maybe it’s a good time to revisit the question I asked you on the first day of school,” I challenged them. “Why do you want to teach?”

I paused and waited for their answers. But they weren’t falling for it. They didn’t feel like sharing those touchy-feely stories again. If society didn’t value teachers were they preparing for the wrong career? Their body language said it all. They leaned back in their chairs and crossed their arms over their chests. They were daring me to defend a profession that was seemingly undervalued by our American culture.

I paused even longer, and not just because I know that an effective teacher gives students time to formulate answers. I waited because I knew I had to say exactly the right thing to this group at this moment. I couldn’t come up with the right words. I started to sweat.

Finally seventeen-year-old Chelsea began to speak. “My real dad is jealous of my step dad,” she began.

Every head in the room swung to look at her like she was nuts. Why in the world was she talking about her two dads at a time like this? But she read their body language and continued, “Wait, just a minute, hear me out. My real dad is jealous of my step dad. I know this is true because he told me so. My real dad said he is jealous for two reasons. First, my step dad gets to live with me. My real dad claims he’s jealous because my step dad gets to spend more time with me.”

“The second reason he says he’s jealous is because my step dad is an engineer who designs toys. He first designs a toy. If that toy design is selected by the big toy company he works for, he gets to watch the whole toy development process. He watches them produce the toy, choose packaging for it, and market the toy through ads and television commercials. He even gets to see his finished toy on the toy store shelf and watch kids take it home to play. My real dad thinks that would be such a cool way to make a living.

You see, my real dad drives a delivery truck. One day when we were having one of those kind of serious father/daughter talks, he told me that in his job at the end of a really good day all he has to show for it is an empty truck. He told me that he doesn’t care what profession I choose, but he wants me to choose carefully so that at the end of the day I will have something more than an empty truck.”

She paused to let that sink in and then she continued, “That’s why I want to teach. Because as a teacher, at the end of a day of helping students learn, I’ll feel a sense of accomplishment that will be so much more than an empty truck.”

I had a lump in my throat when she stopped speaking. I thought about the courage of her father. How tough it must have been to so eloquently admit his jealousy for her stepfather. He was so focused on his daughter choosing a career with meaning that he put his own self-esteem on hold to share an analogy she will never forget. She internalized his message so completely that she could pull it out and share it with others at just the right moment. It changed the whole climate of my classroom in an instant. My students sensed the complete truth in that story. I didn’t have to add a word.

Isn’t that, after all, why all of us teach? At the end of a day, a school year or even a career we will have so much more than an empty classroom. In this profession we build relationships that can honestly span a lifetime and touch generations to come. When we prepare a student to enter a profession with meaning because we have first helped him believe in himself, we help define not just his life, but the way he raises his family as well. As a career teacher, I admit not every day is easy. On those tough days I like to think about Chelsea’s story of the empty truck. I make myself stop, close my eyes, and actually visualize that truck. Then I take a deep breath and just keep on truckin’.

Today Chelsea is a teacher and has her own students in Hamilton, Ohio. I have written my second book for teachers titled TEACH…To Change Lives and Chelsea’s story is only one of the stories in it. It is now available at Amazon.com.

Jul30

Full Circle

Posted on July 30, 2012 by daunaeasley

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Full Circle

A True Story

Dedicated to All Teachers Who are Returning to their Classrooms in August

When I began to teach about the profession of teaching with high school students, I gave my students a unique assignment. I asked them to write a thank you letter to the best or most memorable teacher they had ever experienced. The power of this assignment was amazing. It required my students to focus on the qualities of great teachers and describe those attributes in written words. We could never find all of the teachers my students wanted to thank, of course, but it was a triumph every time one of them received a response from one of their treasured teachers. They would bring those letters to class and share them orally with everyone. All the other class members would start hoping anew that they would be the next one to receive a reply.

The first time I ever tried this activity with high school students, I tried to locate Mrs. Harriet Ranson, my former high school science, biology and physiology teacher. As a teenager back in William Mason High School in Mason, Ohio I have to confess, I thought she was boring. It wasn’t until I attended college that I discovered, too late, just what a great teacher she had been.

At Miami University in the 1960s anatomy and physiology was what we fearfully called a ‘flunk out’ class. If you are from my era, you know the kind of class I’m describing. The students gathered in a huge auditorium. The professor was way down in front, barely visible, giving prolific notes, never pausing to explain. The text was as thick as an unabridged Bible. Then on test day you’d discover that nothing in the notes or the book had anything to do with the questions you were expected to answer for a grade on the test. Brilliant students were failing the course.

It wasn’t far into this potential nightmare that I came to an amazing realization. I was having no trouble with the material. While students much brighter than I were at their wit’s ends, I simply somehow knew the answers. It was an astonishing discovery for me, a triumph I owed completely to Mrs. Ranson. In high school she had quite frankly taught me everything I needed to know about college level anatomy and physiology.

I knew then what I didn’t have the maturity to realize in high school. Mrs. Ranson was an incredible teacher. I started feeling guilty. I promised myself I would write her a thank you letter and tell her so. My home town of Mason was small at the time. I even knew exactly where she lived. But weeks turned into months, then years, and too quickly even decades. I never did write that letter.

It wasn’t until I gave my own students this assignment that I decided to finally follow through and write Mrs. Ranson a long overdue letter of gratitude. I wondered if she remembered me. I thought it would be neat to bring in a letter from one of my own former teachers and read it to my students. But I had waited too long. People can move quite a bit in twenty-five years. I tried hard but I simply couldn’t find her.

Even more years slipped away until later at my thirty-year high school reunion, I finally received a clue that helped me locate her. I was asked to be the speaker at our reunion. What a compliment! I was pleased but also more nervous than when I speak in front of an audience of strangers. Though I was forty-eight years old I felt like a gawky teenager. But once I began speaking I relaxed; my friends laughed in all the right places and we had a ball. But it was during this speech, in a poignant moment, I decided to thank Mrs. Ranson. She wasn’t there, of course, but at least I had the chance to express my gratitude in front of an audience who knew her and would understand. As I talked about my college experience with the physiology class and the debt that I owed Mrs. Ranson, you could see heads nodding all around me. It was clear, we all agreeed. Mrs. Ranson was a great teacher. And yet, how many of us actually took the time to say ‘thank you’?

One of the big surprises of the reunion evening was that Mrs. Kathy Ross, our old English teacher, actually attended our reunion. We couldn’t believe it. Most of us had assumed she was dead. But we learned that evening that while we had been seventeen and eighteen, she had been only twenty-three and twenty-four. She had aged well too. That night we were asking her questions like, “Were you in my chemistry class?” And she would respond, “I was your teacher!”

About a week after my reunion speech, I received a nice card and a note from Mrs. Ross. A complete thrill. She told me what a great speech she thought I had made. Is there anything better than your high school English teacher complimenting you on a speech? Nothing. Even when you are pushing fifty that still feels wonderful. I felt like a high school kid again soaking up a teacher’s compliment.

But that card also included two challenges. First she asked me for a copy of my speech. I was in trouble there, because I don’t really write out my speeches. I know the stories I’m going to tell and the points I’m going to make, but I never completely write it out because I don’t want my speech to sound memorized. But how do you tell your old English teacher you didn’t write it down? So I quickly sat down and typed up what I could remember about what I had said.

Mrs. Ross also wrote, “If you are really sincere about thanking Mrs. Ranson, I have her address. She moved to Florida years ago, but we still exchange Christmas cards.”

The Letters

There it was in front of me more than thirty years later – Mrs. Ranson’s address. Thankful for the second chance I immediately sat down and wrote Mrs. Ranson a letter. I told her about my college course and let her know how indebted I was to her. I even sent her a copy of my reunion speech. (Thanks to Mrs. Ross’s assignment, I now had a written version). Amazingly in only two weeks I received a reply. The answer was handwritten on a yellow legal pad by her husband.

Dear Mrs. Easley,

Thank you so much for your letter and the speech you made at your thirty year class reunion. They could not possibly have arrived at a better time. Harriet is currently in the hospital…My wife has not responded to the medication and has been unable to communicate with even me for several weeks.

I took your letter and a copy of your speech to the hospital. She was unable to read them, of course, so I read them aloud to her. When I told her who they were from she immediately began talking… all about you. She told me all about your science project. She remembered and told me that you were a very good student. This is the first conversation I have been able to have with her except for a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ in three weeks.

I have made copies of your letter and your speech and sent them to our sons and their families. Again thank you so much for taking the time to write. I know these are things we will keep forever.

Sincerely,

George Ranson

A teacher and her student

Reaching out to each other

Reconnecting after thirty years,

Each validating the importance of the other.

Did you ever doubt that there is a special bond

Between teachers and their students?

I don’t…not anymore.

The Story Continues…

Mrs. Harriet Ranson
1965

Dauna Easley
1965
Look at the length of cheerleading skirts back then!

For many years the story ended this way. I had the opportunity to travel the country talking to and encouraging teachers and this was one of the stories I always shared. It never failed to moisten a few eyes. Many amazing things happened along the way. When I was speaking in Los Vegas a gentleman came up to me following my speech and revealed that he had been George Ranson’s business partner for years. He thanked me for sharing such a wonderful story about Harriet and George. Always after I spoke teachers approached me from the audience and wanted to share stories of special teachers from their past. Many promised to go home and write to them. And they did.

When I wrote my first book for teachers, Teachers Touch Eternity, I included the Mrs. Ranson story. I tried to send the Ranson family a copy of the book. But the Florida address was no longer current. I had lost them again. It took me many months to locate them once more. I finally learned that George had passed away and Harriet came home to Mason and lived in her son’s home. She was bed ridden and not always cognizant by then. But I went to her son’s home and gave them a copy of the book.

Once they read the story, they were so touched, that they read the story aloud to Harriet many nights before she went to sleep. They claimed that she loved hearing it. The family was so moved by the story which was about their mother and contained a letter from their father, that they bought several copies of my book as a memorial tribute to their parents. They passed them out as a surprise to the extended family members on Christmas Eve that year, and read the story orally to all of them. That scene gives me goose bumps when I think about it.

Then when Harriet passed away, the Ranson family asked me…her student…to give her eulogy.

I was proud to do so.

Never, ever underestimate the power of the bond between a teacher and a student. I believe teaching is a profession like no other. If you enter into it with a desire to honor and elevate not just your students’ knowledge but also their entire lives, you have chosen the right profession.

I’ve just written my second book for teachers. TEACH…To Change Lives.

Mrs. Ranson’s story is only one of the stories and classoom activities I share in the book.

Available at Amazon.com

Jul26

Taking the Leap

Posted on July 26, 2012 by daunaeasley

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Can I Do It?

Sooner or later it happens to all of us. We’re standing on one side of a ditch, or challenge, or life situation, and trying to imagine what it would be like to make the leap to the other side. The chasm looks too wide. The water looks too deep. The distance is daunting when we get up close. It was OK to dream about it, sure. But dreaming and doing aren’t the same. Doing is scary. As we flex to make the jump everything inside of us is screaming, “NO! You will fail.”

We may be dissatisfied with where we are in life, but the risk involved in change keeps us paralyzed. We may feel frustrated, but we feel a little bit safe also. This life is what I know! What if I leave this job and fail in my next job? I don’t like my current position, but it may be better to stay put than to move to a new organization and lose all my seniority. This marriage isn’t satisfying but what if I never find anyone else to love? What if no one else ever loves me? I’d like to enter a writing contest, but what makes me think I could possibly win? Rejection may hurt too much and I’ll stop writing altogether.

“I’m afraid of failure. I’m afraid I’ll feel humiliated. I’m afraid I can’t support myself or my family.” We say it all. Blah, blah, de blah, blah, blah.

The Good News

Here’s the thing you never learn until you take the leap. Standing between two choices is incredibly hard. You are using double the energy it would take to commit to one. Half of your psyche is committed to one outcome. The other half of you is pleading with yourself to make the change. That mental dichotomy is absolutely exhausting. Everything in your life seems twice as hard and half as satisfying. As soon as you make the leap, even if you completely wipe out, things get easier. You can turn your entire focus toward making your new venture a success. Your chances of succeeding in your new choice explode forward. You find out you CAN do it after all. It was only your doubt holding you back.

The Bad News

Most people are like this cow.

So who are you?

The cow or the surfer?

Only you can make the choice.

Jul18

The Secret Dream

Posted on July 18, 2012 by daunaeasley

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Some Dreams We Share with the World

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to become a teacher. This dream was conceived unintentionally by observing an enthusiastic third grade teacher named Mrs. Waggoner. She didn’t prepare a lesson about careers. She didn’t ask us to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. She simply taught with joy.

Looking back I realize that my parents’ philosophy of child rearing -had they chosen to write it down- would have read like this: “Do your chores and then go play.” I had no complaints about that style of parenting. I did my chores and then ran outside to play until the lightning bugs appeared. I loved being outdoors and enjoyed a large circle of neighborhood playmates.

But in third grade I discovered a teacher named Mrs. Waggoner. She was unlike any other adult I had ever encountered. What made her unique? She actually enjoyed playing with children. She would enter whatever game we had devised and laugh with us. Noise didn’t bother her. Messes didn’t annoy her. Instead of telling us to simply sit down and draw a picture during those long winter indoor recesses, she would have us push back all the desks and she taught us how to square dance. She’d holler out the square dance calls and dance with us, clapping as she skipped around the room. I was mesmerized by her and studied her like she was some kind of a science experiment.

Consequently it was when I was only eight that I decided I wanted to grow up and enter a profession in which I could find as much joy and fun as Mrs. Waggoner. I began to fashion child sized classrooms on the porch, or in the garage. That dream of becoming a teacher I made public and I rushed toward that goal as though racing along a zipline. By age twenty I was teaching third grade myself. Thank you, Mrs. Waggoner for revealing a career path I would love for decades.

The Secret Dream

But I also had a secret dream. Maybe you have one too. I wanted to become a writer. I can’t pinpoint when this dream was conceived within me. It wasn’t as clear-cut as meeting Mrs. Waggoner. I just knew I enjoyed writing stories for fun. I wrote stories for myself and sometimes shared them with my family. As a teenager, I wrote a collection of very mediocre poems that I kept hidden away. No one encouraged me in this dream. In fact, I rarely revealed this interest to anyone.

Why? Every time I wrote a story or an essay for an assignment I was given a grade of a B minus. B minus people don’t excel. B minus people need to look elsewhere to succeed. So I kept this interest tucked away in a private place. This dream percolated on the back burner, just below the surface of public admission for many years.

Ironically, it was once again a teacher who finally gave me “permission” to allow my writing dream to begin to grow. She wasn’t royalty, but her name was Miss Throne. Really.

Miss Throne’s Threat

She was my freshman composition professor at Miami University.

She issued a threat on the first day of class. She circumvented any effort at tact and told us that most of us would fail her class. We glanced at each other stunned. She pointed out that we weren’t in high school anymore. While we may have been making an ‘A’ in high school English, that didn’t impress her one iota. She was the Marine drill sergeant equivalent of a college English prof.

I had never seen an A for my high school writing efforts and I felt my already sagging confidence plummet. In fact she claimed that most of us would make an ‘F’ on our first writing assignment. Worse. All our writing would be done during class with the topic only provided on the day of the assignment. No opportunity to refine and improve would be granted.

It was a grim group of students who showed up for that first classroom writing assignment. She didn’t smile nor did we. She distributed our blank blue books and then chalked our essay title in giant letters on the blackboard.

I Am An Eccentric

Decades later I still remember that title and the fear. We wrote furiously until she ordered us to stop. The next class day was even more sullen as, sure enough, she began to hand back those blue books. I saw, F, F, D, D-, D- – . I even spotted an F- ! She wrote those grades in HUGE red pencil on the covers of the booklets. Public condemnation with no apologies.

What did my booklet say? She didn’t even return it to me. I said absolutely nothing. I figured she had ripped it to shreds in frustration. You could hear a fly sweat in that classroom. Silently Miss Throne made a throne of the desk in the front of the room as she perched on top of it and stared at us. No one said a word.

Then quietly she began to read to us orally. My essay. I slid down as far as possible in my seat. It was several minutes before I realized with astonishment that she liked it. I have never been more surprised or embarrassed by anything in my life…not even to this day. My grade? It was an A minus, minus. Miss Throne adored minuses. But the grade was no longer of any importance.

That was the day that I realized with stunning clarity that taste in good writing is subjective. That was the day that I knew that I would allow my writing dream to continue to percolate and grow. That was the day that I internalized that one day I would have the courage to write and make my words public. It didn’t happen quickly, but it did happen. First I became a teacher. But, now also, I had permission to write.

Please understand that as a teacher myself, I do not approve of Miss Throne’s methods. I don’t believe you get your best results from students through intimidation. I tell this story to prove another point. Miss Throne does not remember me. She doesn’t remember my name. She doesn’t remember that day. But notice the power one teacher had in my life, in one hour of one day. I no longer felt that I had to squelch my secret dream. That one day gave me the courage to write my first book. My third book Teach…To Change Lives will be available at Amazon.com soon. And Miss Throne is in it.

Never give up on a secret dream too soon.

Jul9

Questions from Teens

Posted on July 9, 2012 by daunaeasley

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Why Me?

I could have a lot of fun listing questions teens love to ask. In fact that may be a great topic for a future post. Teens are full of questions from the ridiculous, to the obvious and beyond the embarrassing. But one question that would fall consistently within the top three is, “Why me?”

Why are you asking ME to do that?

Don’t you see all these other kids doing nothing?

Look at them goofing off!

Why aren’t you asking THEM to do anything?

Okay. Sue me. Life isn’t fair. The truth is, “Yeah I see those other turkeys goofing off.” I’m not blind. Look at their body language. Everything about them says, “Don’t even THINK about asking me to do something.” The classroom unfortunately mirrors life. Here comes a life truth I’m slinging at you.

5% of the people breathing air are doing 95% of the work.

This isn’t a pretty thought. Actually it is disconcerting and maddening. It is blatantly unfair. But it is the truth. You’ll find it in the work place. You will find it in the home. You will find it wherever you go. I’m not sure if it is a universal truth; I only possess the American experience. Open your eyes and look around you. You’ll be giving me a high-five for my astute observational skills.

But There is Good News

What can be the good news about you always picking on me and asking me to do all the dirty work?

What is fair about that?

Answer that question.

I dare you.

Okay I will. Here comes another life truth you probably also don’t want to hear. We often have to work a job before we are actually offered the job. When you have an entry-level job your boss will always be asking you to do extra things. He (or she) will look around and see others goofing off and then will ask YOU to do something no one else wants to do.

“What is the good news about that??!!”

You have already been identified as a leader. Your teacher already sees it. Your attitude has placed you in that 5% that will always be asked to do more. While it seems like the slackers are winning momentarily, you are winning in the long run.

Why? Whenever you do something extra… willingly, you are proving your leadership potential. You will be the one your boss thinks of when a promotion opportunity happens. YOU will frequently be promoted over someone with more experience, skills or seniority. YOU will have already demonstrated your ability to work at the next level, because you will have been performing a supervisor’s responsibilities and demonstrating a management attitude.

Yep. Short term, the slackers seem to be winning. I’ll grant you that. But that is the attitude of the 95%. Believe me there is a price to pay for passivity, just getting by. The cost? Lower self-esteem, acceptance of mediocrity, lack of pride in accomplishments. Long term? Regret.

When I ask you to do something no one else wants to do I’m really calling you a winner. Congratulations! Now say, “Thank you,” and just do what I asked you to do with a smile. 🙂

Jul2

I’m Not Oprah

Posted on July 2, 2012 by daunaeasley

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I’m Not Oprah

Clearly. I’m not Oprah so unfortunately not too many people will care what I think. There is no magazine or TV show with my name on it. But let’s talk about Oprah for just a second. In her magazine on the very last page she writes a feature every month titled ‘What I Know for Sure.’ She came up with the idea because someone on TV asked her that question, and she couldn’t formulate a good answer on the spot.

She found that the question, “What do you know for sure?’ really intrigued her and she reflected on it quite a bit. She decided she would use the last page of her magazine to answer that revealing question differently each month. She later confessed that she lived in minor fear of not being able to come up with a new idea each month; but I’m proud of her because she has stuck with it.

In case Oprah is reading this (stop laughing, it could happen) I’d like her to know that the last page is always the first page of her magazine that I read each month. It IS a wonderful question to answer. So….with a nod to Oprah…here are my answers.

What I Know for Sure

Wisdom comes only slowly. And frequently it can only be located at all by looking in the rear view mirror. I’m astonished…as the decades accumulate…how I can have a whole new vantage point and understanding of something that happened way in my past. Wisdom reveals itself when you least expect it. “Why did that have to happen?” becomes, “Oh, now I get it. If X hadn’t happened then Y would never have been an option.” The challenging part is waiting for the wisdom. It can’t be forced. Believe me I’ve tried to force it. A new understanding will just occur when you are ready to believe it.

Regrets usually come from the things I didn’t do. Over time mistakes dim. You take a risk. You fail. You recover and learn from it. But not stepping up to an opportunity, not even trying, that inaction becomes a regret. From my vantage point regrets hurt much more than mistakes.

Often the way people treat you has absolutely nothing to do with you. This is such an amazing lesson that I have to keep learning it every day. While it is true that if we treat people well, we also hope that they will value us, it isn’t always so. When people treat you badly, or talk behind your back, it often is a product of their own insecurities. They don’t feel good about themselves and can’t accept your good intentions. It frequently has nothing to do with you at all. I wish I could have understood this when I was much younger. OK I admit it, even today I have to continue to remind myself of this truth, even though I’ve reached the age our parents used to call “You’re old enough to know better.”

The amount of money a person earns does not determine their value. This seems obvious to a young person, but in our capitalistic culture it becomes fuzzy to us as we age. Especially in America where our value system is so skewed, we have to keep our personal definition of value separate from income. In this country we seem to worship celebrities and people who can kick, hit or dunk a ball. America gives a thumbs down to someone who is “just” a teacher, especially recently. Celebrities are assigned ghost writers so they can claim to be authors and plagiarize the talents of true designers to claim their own line of fashions. Reality TV has taken the word celebrity to a new lower level. The family most willing to publicly display their dysfunction becomes rich quickly. Income seems completely unrelated to value anymore. If we tie our personal worth to income, people of real value frequently lose self-respect.

The education you give yourself is more important than all the degrees you can accumulate. I’m a career teacher, so it is a little difficult to admit this. Earning a degree shows perseverance and an initial thirst for knowledge. However, if we allow learning to stop at age 22 or 35, we’ve missed the most valuable education of all. The real goal of earning a degree should be to make us become life long learners. I’ve learned a hundred times more from the books I’ve read than the degrees I’ve earned. A PhD doesn’t mean you are well-educated. Continually seeking knowledge throughout your life makes you well-educated. Nothing else does.

Messages that come from your parents early in life are the hardest to change. Even when you understand that, it is still hard to break the hold those messages have on you. I’ve been the recipient of both the positive and negative sides of that truth. My parents thought I was incredibly intelligent and frequently voiced this. I was in my thirties before I realized that I wasn’t as smart as my parents believed. But by then my confidence in my intelligence already had a firm hold on me. However, my father was hypercritical about women’s appearances and especially critical of weight. None of his three children will ever feel attractive as a result of those early messages.

We are all responsible for surrounding ourselves with a circle of people who are encouragers. To live life with some success we all need our own group of cheerleaders. We all know people who lift and people who discourage. We know blamers, doubters, dreamers, and winners. We have to be selective and surround ourselves with people who encourage us to take positive risks, and people who believe in our ability to soar. In our vulnerable moments we must turn to our encouragers and away from the naysayers. It can mean the difference between living the life we dream of or a life of mediocrity.

Thank you Oprah, for giving us your answers to this insightful question each month. But mostly thank you for challenging me to reflect on my OWN life. These are the things Dauna Easley has learned for sure…so far.

Jun24

The Comfort? Zone

Posted on June 24, 2012 by daunaeasley

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Learning from Students

Recently I had a pleasant lunch with a former student. This happens more frequently than you would imagine. I enjoy staying connected with former students to see how their lives are progressing.

Josh is a former high school student of mine who is now a college junior. He is an aspiring writer who has all the talents to make his goal a reality. He had recently attended a writing seminar that greatly motivated him and he wanted to share what he had learned with me. The conference premise was that our entire life is a story. If we give the way we live our lives the same thought and importance that we would use on a story we are writing, the world would become a better place. Donald Miller, the conference speaker, said. “The best way to change the world is to tell a good story with your life.”

This concept resonated with Josh and he chatted for maybe half an hour sharing what he had learned. Josh even brought me my own copy of the conference workbook because he knew this topic would intrigue me also. He was right. I’ve been working my way through the activities the workbook suggests.

It was during this lunch Josh told me about one of my classroom lessons that had also wormed its way into his psyche. These are the moments a teacher lives for. A golden nugget. A student recounts a classroom conversation that has really become a part of the way a student lives.

Let me share that classroom conversation/lesson with you.

What is Comfortable?

I start by asking students to list words or things that they think of when I say the word comfortable. They usually list items like slippers, robes or sweat pants. Some go in the direction of comfort foods and list hot chocolate, mashed potatoes, pizza or warm brownies. Others describe a place like a comfy chair, their bed or lying on the beach. Once they’re deep into the conversation about comfort I pose a new question. “Is comfort ever a bad thing?”

Most immediately say, “No.” I wait. One time after a long silence one teen girl finally spoke up and said, “Well there is that old boyfriend that you’ve dated for years. You break up and get back together over and over again. Deep down you know he’s not really right for you anymore, but you keep going back to him because he’s comfortable.”

Bingo.

As soon as one person breaks through others chime in with their own examples.

“You know the outfit doesn’t flatter you, but it’s comfortable.”

“You have a friend you’ve outgrown. That friend is making poor choices, but their friendship is comfortable.”

Once we get that conversation flowing, I tell them the bad news about the comfort zone. We think if we are comfortable all is well. But when we are completely comfortable we aren’t growing. For a while this feels okay. But eventually we learn that if we aren’t growing we aren’t really even standing still. Our world is shrinking. We stagnate. And that no longer feels good.

It’s important if we want to live fully, that we make a conscious effort to push outside our comfort zone. Is it easy? Not usually.

The Teacher Learns

I never went into a restaurant to eat alone until I became a professional speaker. I thought I’d be too self conscious…look too pathetic…eating alone. I had to push outside that discomfort. Now it’s possible for me to drive through the city to an airport, fly into another city I’ve never visited before, rent a car and using Mapquest or GPS, drive hours to a speech location. Once there I check into a hotel, go to a restaurant alone, sleep and then give a speech in front of thousands. Sometimes I venture from one state to another in a series before traveling home to my comfort zone again. Increasing the size of our comfort zone opens up a world of possibilities. Confession: What remains as my only crutch? I still need to carry a book into that restaurant and read as I eat alone.

We much teach young people AND remind ourselves about the perils of the comfort zone and encourage them to expand their own. If you’re too afraid to drive into the city, before you know it you’ll be avoiding the interstate. Next you’ll avoid high traffic times on the state routes. If you’re not careful to force yourself through the discomfort, you’ll find yourself giving up more and more activities that you may have enjoyed. Your freedom goes down the drain. Comfort, packaged attractively, may keep us from living the lives we want.

Thanks Josh, for taking that lesson in and living accordingly. And even greater thanks for telling your teacher that you remembered. It was always my goal while in the classroom to share lessons that would change people’s lives.

Jun17

What I’ve Learned from Blogging

Posted on June 17, 2012 by daunaeasley

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Celebrating My First 50 Blog Posts

The last blog post I wrote about Father’s Day was my 50th post! This is quite a celebration for me. Why? I was dragged into blogging kicking and screaming. “No way!” I’d holler when people told me how much I’d enjoy it.

The only thing I knew about the word blog was that it rhymed with fog. And I was OK with that. I loved to write but techie stuff bamboozled my brain. I wrote blogs for two months before I knew how to attach a picture. I couldn’t figure out how to edit, tag, or link. I just wrote. When people talked about SEO I thought they were talking about the president of a corporation. I just wrote. When they talked about engaging, I thought they were talking about getting married. Where was the diamond? I wanted to know.

What Blogging Has Taught Me So Far

Blogging is like any other adventure or challenge. Starting is the hardest part. Once you have started you can figure out the rest of the stuff as you go. Just write. I used to blog about the things I didn’t know how to do. “Help!” I’d say. I don’t know how to attach a picture. Someone would email me and tell me how. Some of my greatest encouragers even came to my house to show me how to do things.
The more I write, the more ideas I have for writing. The longer I go without writing, the harder it is for me to come up with ideas. Anytime an idea pops into my head now, I just capture it on a new post. I may only have a title but I’ll save a draft until I’m ready to go on.
I discovered I’m better at writing humor than I ever knew. A blog is a perfect place to write humor.
Brief writing is often better writing.
If you read blogs featured on Freshly Pressed, you’ll get better at blogging. When I started I honestly had no idea what blogging was. I faithfully looked over the blogs featured on Freshly Pressed. It showed me how to improve. One of my dreams is to be featured on that site. A gal can dream.

People from all over the world read my blog. Isn’t that a riot? I don’t even really understand how they know I’m writing. Like I say, some of the bigger mysteries of blogging elude me. But I did discover when I post in the middle of the night, people from Scotland and the Netherlands are in the middle of the day. One guy from the Netherlands commented on my blog. I said, “I see you are up in the middle of the night like me.” He said, “I’m in the Netherlands and it is the middle of the day. Your post popped up on a readomatic. I still don’t know what a readomatic is. I just keep writing.
Ironically while writing this blog, bragging about my new skills, I’ve encountered many challenges. For instance, it somehow automatically ‘published’ before I finished it. ?? I don’t know why. Perhaps I’ll figure out that mystery before I write my 75th blog.
I’ve learned that people who knew me well already knew I would enjoy blogging. They kept suggesting it to me. They were right. I was wrong. Bless the naggers in my life. You know who you are.
Blogging is fun. Take it from the Queen of Reluctance. Don’t fight it. Just write.