Laughing, I answered, "Right in the driveway." Now we knew where we had parked the car, but we still walked outside, hoping that maybe the car had miraculously backed out the driveway and parked itself by the curb, but it hadn't.
Stunned, we called the police and filed a report that supposedly activated our high-tech tracking system. To be on the safe side, I also called the tracking system company. They assured me they had a 98 percent recovery rate within two hours. In two hours, I called again and asked, "Where's my car?"
"We haven't found it yet, Mr. Harris, but we have a 94 percent recovery rate within four hours."
Two more hours passed. I called again and asked, "Where's my car?"
Again they answered, "We haven't found it yet, but we have a 90 percent recovery rate of finding it within eight hours."
At that point I told them, "Your percentage rate means nothing to me when I'm in the small percentage, so call me when you find it."
Later that day, a commercial aired on television with the automaker asking, "Wouldn't you like to have this car in your driveway?"
I responded, "Sure I would! I had one yesterday."
As the day unfolded, Tere became increasingly upset as she remembered more and more of what had been in the carour wedding album, irreplaceable family photos from past generations, clothes, all of our camera equipment, my wallet and our checkbooks, just to name a few. These were items of little importance to our survival, yet they seemed of major importance at that moment.
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Anxious and frustrated, Tere asked me, "How can you joke about this when all of these things and our brand new car are missing?"
I looked at her and said, "Honey, we can have a stolen car and be all upset, or we can have a stolen car and be happy. Either way, we have a stolen car. I truly believe our attitudes and moods are our choice and right now I choose to be happy."
Five days later our car was returned without a trace of any of our belongings, and with over $3,000 worth of damage to the car. I took it to the dealer for repair and was happy to hear they would have it back to us within a week.
At the end of that week, I dropped off the rental and picked up our car. I was excited and relieved to have our own car back. Unfortunately, these feelings were short-lived. On the way home, I rear-ended another car right at our freeway exit ramp. It didn't hurt the car I ran into, but it sure hurt oursanother $3,000 worth of damage and another insurance claim. I managed to drive the car into our driveway, but when I got out to survey the damage, the left front tire went flat.
As I was standing in the driveway looking at the car, kicking myself in the tail for hitting the other car, Tere arrived home. She walked up to me, looked at the car, and then at me. Seeing I was beating myself up, she put her arm around me and said, "Honey, we can have a wrecked car and be all upset, or we can have a wrecked car and be happy. Either way, we have a wrecked car, so let's choose to be happy."
I surrendered with a hearty laugh and we went on to have a wonderful evening together.
Bob Harris
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5
ON LEARNING AND TEACHING
One hundred years from now it will not matter what kind of car you drove, what kind of house you lived in, how much you had in your bank account, or what your clothes looked like. But the world may be a little better because you were important in the life of a child.
Margaret Fishback Powers
Copyright © 1995 by Margaret Fishback Powers.
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The Magic Pebbles
It is the habitual thought that frames itself into our life. It affects us even more than our intimate social relations do. Our confidential friends have not so much to do in shaping our lives as the thoughts which we harbor.
J.W. Teal
"Why do we have to learn all of this dumb stuff?"
Of all the complaints and questions I have heard from my students during my years in the classroom, this was the one most frequently uttered. I would answer it by recounting the following legend.
One night a group of nomads were preparing to retire for the evening when suddenly they were surrounded by a great light. They knew they were in the presence of a celestial being. With great anticipation, they awaited a heavenly message of great importance that they knew must be especially for them.
Finally, the voice spoke. "Gather as many pebbles as you can. Put them in your saddle bags. Travel a day's journey and tomorrow night will find you glad and it will find you sad."
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After having departed, the nomads shared their disappointment and anger with each other. They had expected the revelation of a great universal truth that would enable them to create wealth, health and purpose for the world. But instead they were given a menial task that made no sense to them at all. However, the memory of the brilliance of their visitor caused each one to pick up a few pebbles and deposit them in their saddle bags while voicing their displeasure.
They traveled a day's journey and that night while making camp, they reached into their saddle bags and discovered every pebble they had gathered had become a diamond. They were glad they had diamonds. They were sad they had not gathered more pebbles.
It was an experience I had with a student, I shall call Alan, early in my teaching career that illustrated the truth of that legend to me.
When Alan was in the eighth grade, he majored in "trouble" with a minor in "suspensions." He had studied how to be a bully and was getting his master's in "thievery."
Every day I had my students memorize a quotation from a great thinker. As I called roll, I would begin a quotation. To be counted present, the student would be expected to finish the thought.
"Alice Adams'There is no failure except . . .'"
"'In no longer trying.' I'm present, Mr. Schlatter."
So, by the end of the year, my young charges would have memorized 150 great thoughts.
"Think you can, think you can'teither way you're right!"
"If you can see the obstacles, you've taken your eyes off the goal."
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"A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
And, of course, Napoleon Hill's "If you can conceive it, and believe it, you can achieve it."
No one complained about this daily routine more than Alanright up to the day he was expelled and I lost touch with him for five years. Then one day, he called. He was in a special program at one of the neighboring colleges and had just finished parole.
He told me that after being sent to juvenile hall and finally being shipped off to the California Youth Authority for his antics, he had become so disgusted with himself that he had taken a razor blade and cut his wrists.
He said, "You know what, Mr. Schlatter, as I lay there with my life running out of my body, I suddenly remembered that dumb quote you made me write 20 times one day. 'There is no failure except in no longer trying.' Then it suddenly made sense to me. As long as I was alive, I wasn't a failure, but if I allowed myself to die, I would most certainly die a failure. So with my remaining strength, I called for help and started a new life."
At the time he had heard the quotation, it was a pebble. When he needed guidance in a moment of crisis, it had become a diamond. And so it is to you I say, gather all the pebbles you can, and you can count on a future filled with diamonds.
John Wayne Schlatter
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We're the Retards
On my first day of teaching, all my classes were going well. Being a teacher was going to be a cinch, I decided. Then came period seven, the last class of the day.
As I walked toward the room, I heard furniture crash. Rounding the corner, I saw one boy pinning another to the floor. "Listen, you retard!" yelled the one on the bottom. "I don't give a damn about your sister!"
"You keep your hands off her, you hear me?" the boy on top threatened.
I drew up my short frame and asked them to stop fighting.
Suddenly, 14 pairs of eyes were riveted on my face. I knew I did not look convincing. Glaring at each other and me, the two boys slowly took their seats. At that moment, the teacher from across the hall stuck his head in the door and shouted at my students to sit down, shut up and do what I said. I was left feeling powerless.
I tried to teach the lesson I had prepared but was met with a sea of guarded faces. As the class was leaving, I detained the boy who had instigated the fight. I'll call him Mark. "Lady, don't waste your time," he told me. "We're the retards." Then Mark strolled out of the room.
Dumbstruck, I slumped into my chair and wondered if I should have become a teacher. Was the only
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cure for problems like this to get out? I told myself I'd suffer for one year, and after my marriage that next summer I'd do something more rewarding.
''They got to you, didn't they?" It was my colleague who had come into my classroom earlier. I nodded.
"Don't worry," he said. "I taught many of them in summer school. There are only 14 of them, and most won't graduate anyway. Don't waste your time with those kids."
"What do you mean?"
"They live in shacks in the fields. They're migratory labor, pickers' kids. They come to school only when they feel like it. The boy on the floor had pestered Mark's sister while they were picking beans together. I had to tell them to shut up at lunch today. Just keep them busy and quiet. If they cause any trouble, send them to me."
As I gathered my things to go home, I couldn't forget the look on Mark's face as he said, "We're the retards." Retards. That word clattered in my brain. I knew I had to do something drastic.
The next afternoon I asked my colleague not to come into my class again. I needed to handle the kids in my own way. I returned to my room and made eye contact with each student. Then I went to the board and wrote ECINAJ.
"That's my first name," I said. "Can you tell me what it is?"
They told me my name was "weird" and that they had never seen it before. I went to the board again and this time wrote JANICE. Several of them blurted the word, then gave me a funny look.
"You're right, my name is Janice," I said. "I'm learning-impaired, something called dyslexia. When I began school I couldn't write my own name correctly. I couldn't spell words, and numbers swam in my head.
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I was labeled 'retarded.' That's rightI was a 'retard.' I can still hear those awful voices and feel the shame."
"So how'd you become a teacher?" someone asked.
"Because I hate labels and I'm not stupid and I love to learn. That's what this class is going to be about. If you like the label 'retard,' then you don't belong here. Change classes. There are no retarded people in this room.
"I'm not going to be easy on you," I continued. "We're going to work and work until you catch up. You will graduate, and I hope some of you will go on to college. That's not a jokeit's a promise. I don't ever want to hear the word 'retard' in this room again. Do you understand?"
They seemed to sit up a little straighter.
We did work hard, and I soon caught glimpses of promise. Mark, especially, was very bright. I heard him tell a boy in the hall, "This book's real good. We don't read baby books in there." He was holding a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Months flew by, and the improvement was wonderful. Then one day Mark said, "But people still think we're stupid 'cause we don't talk right." It was the moment I had been waiting for. Now we could begin an intensive study of grammar, because they wanted it.
I was sorry to see the month of June approach; they wanted to learn so much. All my students knew I was getting married and moving out of state. The students in my last-period class were visibly agitated whenever I mentioned it. I was glad they had become fond of me, but what was wrong? Were they angry I was leaving the school?
On my final day of classes, the principal greeted me as I entered the building. "Will you come with me, please?" he said sternly. "There's a problem with your
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room." He looked straight ahead as he led me down the hall. What now? I wondered.
It was amazing! There were sprays of flowers in each corner, bouquets on the students' desks and filing cabinets, and a huge blanket of flowers lying on my desk. How could they have done this? I wondered. Most of them were so poor that they relied on the school assistance program for warm clothing and decent meals.
I started to cry, and they joined me.
Later I learned how they had pulled it off. Mark, who worked in the local flower shop on weekends, had seen orders from several of my other classes. He mentioned them to his classmates. Too proud to ever again wear an insulting label like "poor," Mark had asked the florist for all the "tired" flowers in the shop. Then he called funeral parlors and explained that his class needed flowers for a teacher who was leaving. They agreed to give him bouquets saved after each funeral.
That was not the only tribute they paid me, though. Two years later, all 14 students graduated, and six earned college scholarships.
Twenty-eight years later, I'm teaching in an academically strong school not too far from where I began my career. I learned that Mark married his college sweetheart and is a successful businessman. And, coincidentally, three years ago Mark's son was in my sophomore honors English class.
Sometimes I laugh when I recall the end of my first day as a teacher. To think I considered quitting to do something rewarding!
Janice Anderson Connolly
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A Scoutmaster Saves the Day
For weeks the troop had been engaged in expectant preparation for its Parents' Night program. Everything was in order. The walls were filled with displays, the scouts with enthusiasm and the tables with good things to eat.
The toastmaster was well under way. The crowd sang with that respectably restrained enthusiasm that typified a Parents' Night program.
Then Jimmie Davis arose to give his oration. This was the moment he had looked forward to for many weeks. As he arose, he caught a glimpse of his mother's beaming face and his father's stolid assured countenance. He started with a great burst of enthusiasm. He waxed more eloquent, conscious that his listeners were paying a high tribute to him by their careful attention.
Then something happened. The world seemed to swim before him. He slowed downfalteredstopped. His face flushed, his hands sought each other frantically and in desperation he looked helplessly toward his scoutmaster.
And ever prepared, having heard that boyish masterpiece rehearsed again and again, the boy's leader supplied the missing words and the lad went on. But somehow it was different now. The masterpiece had been marred.
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Jimmie paused againand the scoutmaster prompted him again. For the remaining two minutes, the oration seemed more the scoutmaster's than the boy's.
But Jimmie finished it. In the heart of the lad who sat down, knowing that he had failed, there was a heavy load. Chagrin was plainly written on the face of the boy's mother, and a twitch of the father's face indicated a pained consciousness of shame.
The audience applauded in a perfunctory way, sorry for and pitying the boy who they thought had failed.
But the scoutmaster was on his feet. His quiet eyes twinkled. All listened tensely, for he did not talk loudly. What was he saying?