My Pirate Code poster (outlining for my students desired classroom behaviours), amongst other things, uses two ideas from the 15 All Black Principles' poster which I love:
Keep a blue head (keep calm under pressure essentially)
Sweep the sheds (be humble, be responsible, take a lead, look after the small things).
They apply to everyone don't they?
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| Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash |
Students are back at Hastings' Boys High School, next week, where I am teaching English.
The Chinese story about the stonecutter comes to mind:
“There was once a stonecutter who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life.
One day he passed a wealthy merchant’s house. Through the open gateway, he saw many fine possessions and important visitors. “How powerful that merchant must be!” thought the stonecutter. He became very envious and wished that he could be like the merchant.
To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever imagined, but envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. Soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. “How powerful that official is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be a high official!”
Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around. It was a hot summer day, so the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. “How powerful the sun is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be the sun!”
Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. “How powerful that storm cloud is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be a cloud!”
Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. “How powerful it is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be the wind!”
Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, feared and hated by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it – a huge, towering rock. “How powerful that rock is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be a rock!”
Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed. “What could be more powerful than I, the rock?” he thought.
He looked down and saw far below him the figure of a stonecutter.”
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| Photo by Emanuel Rincon Restrepo on Unsplash |
I'm reading two books concurrently Stillness Is The Key (Ryan Holiday) and The McCartney Legacy (Kozinn/ Sinclair).
Ryan's advice when things get really tough:
In 1969 at the height of Beatle business issues, McCartney escaped London, with his wife Linda and their two children, and went to his remote Scottish farm called High Park near Campbeltown.
By all accounts, while there he was at a low ebb ('a dark place' in the current parlance). By his own admission he was close to a mental breakdown. He drank a lot, he licked his wounds, and he slowly recovered by doing something he has always been able to do - make music.
When they returned to their London home he started making some home recordings that became McCartney (his first solo album).
Music appears to be his stillness. There is a pattern - he did this solo thing again in 1980 after his drug bust in Japan (and produced the terrible McCartney II as a result, but that's by the by).
I can tick off all of Ryan's list as I put myself in Macca's shoes, and I can certainly relate it to other times in my own personal and professional life.
Stillness is the key.
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| Myles Lewis-Skelly - age 18 |
The January transfer window means players like Manchester City's Kyle Walker (aged 34) are looking to transfer to a new club.
It will be unlikely that a big club will look at Walker because of his age. So, he's probably looking to manage his last few years playing at a lower league, then transition to something else in or out of football.
The life of a modern footballer is pretty short. Even someone like Arsenal's Myles Lewis-Skelly, who is 18, will only expect to play until his mid 30s. After 14 years he's going to be tired!
Arsene Wenger explains the reality of this using a data metric called Top Score (points are awarded for actions such as the direction of passes):
We realised that at the age of 32 a midfielder had a defensive score that was going down but an offensive score that was rising, that he had less energy to go into battle but more to express himself, to be more tactical. Rationality makes it possible to better understand the world around us.
Teachers and administrators can relate to this. There are different ways to express yourself. Experience can do that.
I'm looking forward to my 43rd year as a teacher in 2025.
As I gear up for a return to school in a few weeks time, I remembered this bit in Colin Prentice's book (When People Matter Most):
In the first assembly of the year I would lay out the school rules to the whole school and say: Look, here's the line, put your big toe on the line and you're fine. Put your big toe over the line and you're telling me that you're looking for a fight. I won't disappoint you. Moreover, I'll win, because the Board of Governors has agreed with these rules and the way we run it here. So it's not worth fighting.
These rules he speaks of, at Macleans College, were more guidelines to protect and maintain order, generate freedom from oppression, bullying, and offensive social behaviour.
As he said: the rights of the child to a peaceful, orderly, and productive education have to be preserved.
As I work on my guidelines for my classes I always keep this in mind.
In The Beach Boys (by The Beach Boys), Carl Wilson describes the higher purpose and the altruism inherent in the songs on the Pet Sounds album:
The idea of making music that could really make people feel better became like a crusade.
The Band's song King Harvest (has Surely Come) supplies the title for the post.
[I'm reading Robbie Robertson's autobiography, Testimony, at the moment and listening to those early albums by The Band.]
Like a lot of The Band's songs there is a depth of feeling to King Harvest. Set in the 1930s Dust Bowl context, it is a song about hope, dashed hopes and the will to keep going despite it all.
The calendar quote for yesterday was:
If you can imagine it, you can achieve it;
If you can dream it, you can become it.
William Arthur Ward
Robbie definitely imagined it, achieved it, dreamed it, became it.
It's a good way to start a new year isn't it. Plenty of hope, plenty of healthy realism, plenty of ifs to medicate on.
