Today would have been my father’s 67th birthday. He passed in 1994.

Never met my wife.
Never met my daughter.
Never saw me win Teacher of the Year for the state of California or publish a book… much less 9 of them (to date).

Died at the age of 51 from diabetes. (He was a juvenile diabetic.)

In many ways the life of my father was an absolute train wreck. And the shadow he cast over my life still colors vast amounts of psychological real estate in my own world today.

And yet, to oversimplify it all as if things are all black and white, as if he was a purely calamitous influence on me wouldn’t be right. (Though tumult, he did bring.)

But man, did my dad have a great laugh. And wow, was he smart. Wicked smart. Not quite smart enough to realize that being the smartest guy in the room could be a booby trap instead of a catapult but smart enough to graduate high school 2 years early and go to law school at UPenn.

It’s over 15 years since he passed and I still find myself thinking of him, being influenced by him, seeing the lives of my siblings being influenced by him so, so frequently.

Does the son ever stop being living underneath the umbrella of their father? And even if we could, would we want to? Though the pain was great, the love was great, too. I never doubted that my dad loved me but WOW, did he blow it over and over and over again.

You know, I know there are no guarantees in life but on days like today, I gotta admit, that if I only get 51 years on this planet, that would leave me with only about 8 more to go.

Geesh, if that thought won’t wake you up in the morning, nothing will. Sure brings some of this school nonsense I deal with on a daily basis into perspective though, huh?

Dads: they certainly cast a shadow, don’t they? Happy B-Day Pop.

(Note: that’s my dad’s headstone in the b.g. — it’s his mother’s headstone, my grandmother’s who just passed away this January in the foreground.)

New Year’s Eve is — and always has been — one of the most over-rated holidays on the calendar for me. Perpetual disappointment. (Actually, is it even an official holiday or is it just riding the coattails of Christmas in some way?) And while I am totally a night owl and will happily stay up chatting about most anything with folks until 3:00 a.m. if the topic/company warrants it — yep, been know to do it on school nights, too — getting obliterated, counting backwards from 10 to 1 and then pretending that I wished I were in Times Square watching the ball drop live, well… it’s just not my thing.

Times Square in January at midnight is cold and people are drunk. Mobs of people are drunk. Mobs of tourists are drunk. Call me old, but unless you’re a pick-pocket, being immersed in mobs of drunk tourists is, well… over-rated to say the least.

For me, my New Year always revolves around a school calendar anyway. That’s the true sundial of my life.

The approach of September is when new life feels as if it is about to bloom in me. There’s the back-to-school shopping I try to do in late August. (Often it goes like this: I know I should really get a new shirt or two but screw it, I don’t wanna go to the mall — so I am going back to Staples because, truth be told, school supply shopping brings me glee and in a hundred years it’s not gonna matter anyway).

There are the can’t really sleep the night before school jitters I still feel even though I’ve been at this so long my wife is bored with my, “I’m nervous about tomorrow, what if the kids don’t like me” neurosis.

I mean, face it… I could list a hundred little things that only a teacher would get. Essentially, I love the routine, the “plans”, the projects, the books, the conversations, and so on that swirl through my head this time of year. My life revolves around this calendar much more than it revolves around a January 1. I mean if I never saw another ball drop in Times Square (on TV or live — done both), I don’t think I’d really feel like I was missing anything in life. But if I didn’t have that, “it’s the first day of school next week, oh how I don’t want summer to end but oh how I’m excited to get back into the classroom again” inner conflict going in my life, I’d feel empty.

Lost.

I don’t even know if I could function without this sort of educational bio-rhythm. It brings order to my world. January 1 isn’t when the year starts — it’s when the year is about 42% over.

The year starts right about now and only the suckers who are forced to actually work “real jobs” don’t know it.

Look, I am a small, petty person prone to grudges and outbursts against the follies of people who I believe are negatively affecting the quality of life for others — especially when I believe they could be doing better (if only their intention was to do so).

Therefore, as a teacher, it’s hard to like the job Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing as the governor of California in terms of the way he is captaining our educational agenda. It just doesn’t seem to me as if he values our schools as much as I would like. To wit, click here.

However, as a man, a person, a real human being, he’s not all black and white. There are a few things I do admire about him. (Did I mention “How I Dislike Agreeing with Someone With Whom I Usually Do Not Agree”? See, I like putting people/things in a mental box… and then when they don’t fit, I am forced to change my own way of thinking. And if you know me, you know how I hate thinking… especially re-thinking. Arrggh!)

A few months ago Ah-nold gave the commencement speech at my alma mater, the University of Southern California (GO TROJANS!) and he laid out Schwarzenegger’s Six Rules for Success.

And while my initial inclination would be to mock them, after thinking about them, I have to say, it’s some good stuff.

And I would love it if my students took more of these things to heart.

Rule 1: Trust yourself.
Schwarzenegger advocates listening to your own heart to follow your own passions… passionately. On this we see eye-to eye.

Rule 2: Break the rules.
Again, this vibes with my own thinking a great deal. After all, if you want to make an omelet, ya gotta break some eggs and when I took out on the horizon, I see the status quo as something that perpetually needs to have its feet held to the fire… for if there is a better way to do something, go do it. And nothing ever really gets “invented” unless someone, as the Governator points out, “breaks some rules.”

Rule 3: Don’t be afraid to fail.
Fear of failure paralyzes people and often prevents them from giving their best effort. It wasn’t until I totally tried my hardest and BOMBED as a professional writer that I was able to re-group, re-evaluate and become a published author. Having just inked a deal for my 7th novel — after a series of rejections, mind you, from other very prestigious book publishers — I signed a new deal with Penguin. (Pretty spiffy, huh?) Getting rejected hurts, failing stings but not giving up and learning from our mistakes is critical. And often in life, one “Yes” will outweigh 20 “No’s” We have to be more willing to fail for it is the only real road I’ve personally ever known to successs.

Rule 4: Don’t listen to the naysayers
See rule 3 for more of my thoughts on this.

Rule 5: Work your butt off
There is no substitute for hard work in this world and while people may think I am a freak for saying so, I relish the feeling of giving a great effort. It feels good for my soul. And when I see students really lay it on the line and develop this muscle of “really trying when it comes to their pursuits” I feel confident in their abilities to become a success after they leave my classroom. There is no substitute for hard work. Ah-nold and I, once again, agree.

Rule 6: Give back
Teachers make a career out of giving. Matter of fact, that’s often how we measure ourselves. “Did I give enough to this student? Did I impart enough to that one?” …and so on. Seems to me that my own life functions better when I am trying to serve the needs of others — and when I get bogged down in getting what I want — especially when it comes to pursuing material goals — that’s when my life feels clogged and sputter-y. But when I am working to “give to others” I just feel good. It feeds me.

And so, there it is, Schwarzenegger and I agree… and who said pigs wouldn’t one day fly.

Here’s a story about one of my best friend’s in the world.

He got a parking ticket. And didn’t pay it. And then another. And didn’t pay that either. And then a few more. Never paid any of them.

So the other day, he was in a rush — had to get a package off to Fed Ex to meet a HUGE business deadline, the kind that causes cold sweats when big deals are on the line.

And he rushed to his car after getting the final documents notarized and poof! his car was gone.
Towed. Impounded. Hasta la vista, Bay-bee!!

He didn’t get the docs off, he literally “blew” the big business deal and he can’t get his car for another 6 days because that’s the earliest the DMV will schedule a time for him to pay his fines and clear all the “infractions” up.

Plus, it’s gonna cost him over two thousand bucks.

My dear, dear friend is the master of letting small little things turns into big, problematic headaches that end up costing him way, way more of a usurious tax than he ever thinks he is going to pay when he first decides to be slovenly about the “little” things in life.

He parks in red zones and doesn’t always feed meters because of the inconvenience factor. He doesn’t deal with his parking tickets for a few reasons. The first one, he figures, “Well, it’s just one little parking ticket… screw them anyway!… and he tosses it away.”

The second one, it’s kinda the same thing.

But then the third and fourth one come and since he didn’t deal with the first two, why bother to deal with these? (This is when the lying to himself starts, the ol’, “I’ll just deal with all of them at one time next week and be done with it.” Of course, he doesn’t deal with this stuff.)

And then he gets another ticket or two… and then he needs to go to Fed Ex with a do or die business scenario… and that’s when the cruel little Trickster that is life comes in and causes a meter maid to notice this guy’s car has expired registration — you thought otherwise? — and calls the tow truck.

The Domino Theory — and the last one falls with a bang!

My friend is a brilliant thinker, a great business person (yep, he really is… well, almost) and a guy who has declared bankruptcy twice in his life. Why? Because of the little things. They always get him. And he’s in his 40′s now, living a life of couldda, wouldda, shouldda... all because he thinks that life’s wee little parking tickets don’t need to be dealt with.

Kids and small homework assignments… in my class, they matter a ton. And I bust out the sledgehammer when stuff like this isn’ dealt with properly in my room because when students think that the “small” things won’t undo them in this world, it’s because they often don’t see how it absolutely ends up crippling people like one of my best friends on this planet.

A guy who, by the way, dismissively hits me with the”hard to get an old dog…” line when I try to talk to him about this stuff.

“Hard to get an old dog… MY ASS!” I tell him… as I drive him to him to the DMV. Geesh!

I just ate a hotel restaurant — not a fancy hotel by any stretch, very much a burger and sandwich type of place — and was stricken by what seems to be a far receding quality in our country today.

Good ol’ fashioned “I Give a Damn-ness”.

Our waiter had it. He was friendly, nice, attentive, jocular and genuinely affable. But not intrusive. Not heavy-handed. He was just a notably good waiter, which is not rare if you are eating at a 5 star restaurant, but the lower you go on the cost scale of the food service industry, the lower (invariably) the service you expect.

And I am sorry, but all of us have eaten at the mall or the airport or wherever and just been shocked by how incredibly absent the sense of “I Give a Damn-ness” is.

And why does it seem to me that more and more of my experiences of patronage — when I fly, when I check out at the local grocery store, when I drop big bucks at Target stocking up on stuff I need in my life — are suffering from a giant lack of Good ol’ fashioned “I Give a Damn-ness”?

Because, make no mistake, it is lacking. Of this I am convinced. And then I realize, well, it ain’t like we are teaching Good ol’ fashioned “I Give a Damn-ness” in our schools.

I mean sure, some of us are. And sure, I think it’s kind of implied that we ought to teach this in our national school system. But teaching Good ol’ fashioned “I Give a Damn-ness” is not some kind of overt, direct objective. It’s not mandated. It’s not a… dare I say it… a standard.

And personally, I kinda gotta ask, why not? (Otherwise you get people who write things using words like “kinda gotta” — it’s calamitous!!)

I mean Good ol’ fashioned “I Give a Damn-ness” applies to everyone and everything and I believe if you can cultivate this quality in a kid and help them to make it a habit in their life, for the rest of their life — no matter what they ever decide to professionally pursue — they will be better off for it.

Plumbers who exhibit Good ol’ fashioned “I Give a Damn-ness” make for better plumbers than those who do not display Good ol’ fashioned “I Give a Damn-ness”. Cooks who display Good ol’ fashioned “I Give a Damn-ness” make for betters cooks than those who do not display Good ol’ fashioned “I Give a Damn-ness”. From police officers to manicurists to, yep… you guessed it, TEACHERS and LIBRARIANS, those that display Good ol’ fashioned “I Give a Damn-ness” inevitably perform their job at a much higher level than those who do not display this quality.

Matter of fact, can one ever really ascend to the top of their chosen arena without Good ol’ fashioned “I Give a Damn-ness”?

That’s rhetorical, cause I am not sure you can. Talent and skill are simply not enough. In this world, you gotta have Good ol’ fashioned “I Give a Damn-ness” … or you ain’t gonna have much at all.

3 Years Ago Today My Life Changed Forever. Why? Because that was the day my daughter, Sienna, was born.

What I discovered was that every cliche’ about parenthood was true. And really, I doubt that there’s anything I can truly add to the pantheon of conversation as far as what it means to be a dad. There’s nothing I would not do for my daughter, no sacrifice I would not make, and on and on and on. She is the center of my life’s wheel and I never knew what joy in life meant until I knew what it felt like to have Sienna smile at me.

It melts all the other shenanigans away.

If only we, in our schools, could remember that every kid in every one of our classrooms is someone’s child — and if we simply sought to educate these children the way we would ask that our own children be educated so much of the nonsense would simply fall away.

There are many parts to the educational equation and if any of them are out of balance or not functioning well, all the balls that are in our academic air risk tumbling. Here’s a Top Ten List of What We Need in order to be effective as an American institution.

We need good teachers.
Simply put, it’s absolutely beyond refute that America needs high quality teachers leading our classrooms. The data proves it, the kids know it and only someone who is trying to sell you something would try to diminish the importance of an awesome educator at the front of the room.

We need students who are open and hungry to learn.
Give me a kid who is eager to learn and I can teach them how to punctuate an appositive phrase. Give me a kid who ditches class, shows up unprepared (or on drugs or seething with anger from emotional issues in other areas of their life which are eating their soul) and I am going to struggle to get that kid to do squat, just like most every other teacher there is. You can lead a student to water, but you can’t make them think.

We need parents to be involved.
Parent involvement can take a vareity of forms. Providing a quiet space for homework, storming to Board Meetings to advocate for the students, reading to toddlers so that they come to school with a few fundamental literacy schools, showing up to Back to School Night, and so on. But parents who cede the education of their children to public education with a “now go teach my kid” mentality are leaving a void no one in a child’s life other than a parent can really fill. To our credit, schools will try… but we often will not be very successful.

We need administration to properly support us.
I know a heck of a lot of administrators and the truth is, they are being kicked and worked over and abused about as badly as anyone in the world of our schools. While teachers get cut slack in some corners of the world (i.e. he’s a great math teacher, she really is a wizard at getting those kids to learn science) administrators are so often the punching bag of almost everyone. That being said, they need to support us, empower us and take a step back and let us do our jobs as if we really were professionals. Micro-managing and hyper-legislating a classroom from an ivory tower (or cubicle without a window) simply doesn’t work. The best administrators I know view teachers as an ally. The worst view us as the problem, an enemy, an unruly gaggle of tenured miscreants that need to be tamed.

We need kids to be in possession of certain skill sets before they come to our classrooms.
Is it just me, or should kids not be expected to know their multiplication tables before they show up to an Algebra 1 class? Or how about knowing how to indent a paragraph before, say, high school English class? Social promotion is a policy which is failing our nation. We need gatekeeping and we need checkpoints and if kids do not have a certain set of skills in 4rth grade and then 8th grade, they should not be granted access to 9th grade because chances are too low that those who are deficient in both 4rth and 8th will ever graduate and we are trying to do too much recovery work in high school when the opportunity to be more effective avails itself to us much earlier on in the process of public schooling.

We need the community to support our schools.
When is the last time our business leaders actually came into the local schools and said, “How can I help?” I mean, they are the folks who are going to need the talent a few years out we are currently nurturing. Internships, mentorships, and so on. It’s not money we’re asking for — though that’d be nice as well — but the currency of their intellect is valuable and sharing it with the local kids would go a heck of a long way.

We need the politicians to make intelligent policy.
Do I need to even address this point? I mean we see how the policies of Dubya have taken schooling into a dark and dreary place. Politicians matter — and it’s really tough to admit that since they are so problematic in so many ways to try and support.

We need great teaching materials.
Handing out 5 pound books six times over to kids during the first week of school (and then measuring their intellectual growth through inane bubble tests) is the foremost means by which we “educate” many of today’s kids. Throw both of those two things away and then let’s see how far we go, that’s what I say. But whether you believe that last statement or not, it’s simply a sad fact of life these days that most teachers are being provided with low quality materials. Great chefs use great cookware. Teachers are, by and large, being given crappy tools. We need to reinvent our teaching materials because many of them are simply not effective. (And isn’t that the ultimate barometer of a tool?)

We need reasonably sized classes.
Ever try teaching at 41 to 1? There’s not a person in the world who can sell me the argument that class size does not matter. 20 to 1 versus 40 to 1 is an immense difference and if you extrapolate it out over the course of either an educator’s career or a student’s trip through our school system, there is little doubt that the numbers will not add up to favor the student/teacher who gets to operate in a world of smaller classrooms. Not that all these layoffs are really going to matter or anything, though.

We need safety on campus.
Without discipline, without order, without a sense that school can be a place where students are not fearful of their own physical and emotional safety, we are fools to think any real between the ears strides are going to be made in our classrooms. Kids who are worried about being jumped in the halls don’t concentrate in class. This is probably the greatest difference between so called high achieving schools and low ones: the levels of violence on campus. Without safety, kids will not academically perform at a consistently high level and we are lying to ourselves if we believe that our lowest performing schools are not also our most violent houses of learning. Without discipline on campus a school can’t function. Without discipline in a classroom an educator can’t really teach. Schools need to feel like places where the adults are in charge — not the kids.

Well, that’s 10. I have a feeling I could find a few more. (Love to hear other thoughts.)

Oh, BTW, this is not in any kind of order.

I just read some very interesting commentary from a guy named Barry Kibrick, a real dynamo of a person who hosts a public television tv show about books called Between the Lines.

I could not recommend it more highly. He gets top-flight authors from all realms and does truly in-depth interviews that are riveting. There ya go, that’s my plug for Barry. He’s top-notch!

Anyway, in regards to the “hysteria” surrounding the swine flu, he said this today…

I want to comment about some of the hysteria revolving around the “Swine-flu” concern. If this actually becomes a pandemic, or just a mild case of the flu, obviously certain precautions for good health must always be a part of a daily regimen. However, panic never leads to anything. For overall good health I leave you with these words by Dr. Edward Schneider, a past guest on Between the Lines with his book What Your Doctor Hasn’t Told You and the Health Store Clerk Doesn’t Know

Surely take appropriate precautions during this time, but please don’t stop “plunging into life’s offering”, for they are a wonderful tonic for overall good health.

How awesome is this advice? And being that it is so good, how come we don’t teach this stuff in school? I mean I try to but I am certainly made to feel by the state mandates that I am “off topic” when I do. It certainly isn’t in the standards anywhere. Bubble tests never make inquiries into this kind of stuff.

And so I wonder, why are our schools so out-of-touch with what is valuable to making a good life? And how great would it be if we had a pandemic that swept our nation which actually decided to eliminate the buffoonery of so many of the ill-guided attempts at schooling currently in place.

A pandemic to be solved by a vaccine characterized by common sense.

Ah, when pigs fly…

I saw John Wooden on PBS last night, the legendary coach of UCLA basketball who won like a ba-zillion NCAA championships. His feats are almost unparalleled in the world of sports but the reason I think he is still so darn interesting to so many people — he’s nearly 100 years old and still speaks, signs and does appearances — is because he developed a sort of life philosophy that transcends mere sports.

He calls it the Pyramid of Success and without a doubt it is a tool from which ALL YOUNG PEOPLE (heck, all people) in this country can derive tremendous benefit.

There are so many things that this triggers for me that I could write a book about his book — it’s truly that spectacular. But out of all the things I could address right now, the thing that spoke most to me last night was when Coach Wooden said, “Above all, parenting is the first profession.”

Wow. I mean this is a guy who is Hall of Fame huge in his professional accomplishments and the number one area in his own career, the arena which he considered professionally preeminent above all, was being a good parent. And this outlook on life is what he considered to be the core foundation to all his other “life success”.

Values drove the way he lived his life. And if you look at the pyramid, you see that each and every element is something that falls under an individual’s control. Success was a by-product of proper conduct, proper living, proper preparation, right attitude and right effort. He talked about how bad breaks were inevitable, both in the world of sports and in the game of life, but how one responded to the inevitable adversity almost always trumped the circumstances of the adversity itself.

He raised his own kids from this perspective, he coached his team from this perspective, and his legacy to us all will be, not the banners that hang from the rafters which proclaim him a “winner” many, many times over, but rather the ability he provides all of us to bring these tools into our own lives.

How much would education change if the parents of this nation took the counsel of Coach Wooden to heart? And if the parents won’t do it, then does it not falls to us, the teachers of this nation, to pick up the slack? If every student owned — rather took ownership over applying the principles illuminated by Wooden’s Pyramid — I think fantastical strides for our schools and our nation could be made.

Funny how we have all these great tools at our disposal, but, I wonder, if they go unused, what’s the point in even having them?

Parents, teachers, administrators and lay folks — seize the pyramid! I know my own life is better for having worked hard to do so.

It’s too easy to forget that these can be the best times of our lives… if we let them be. To that end, I found a few secrets (stashed away where no one could ever think to look for them… on the internet!)

Maybe there’s something here for you to brighten your day? I hope so…

1. Happiness is making others happy
Like Oscar Wilde said: “Some cause happiness wherever they go; some whenever they go.”

2. Happiness is doing what you love (even if you’re not doing it)
“Success is getting what you want,” says Warren Buffett. “Happiness is wanting what you get.”

3. Happiness is a few Cheerios
From Anna Quindlen’s “A Short Guide to A Happy Life:” “Get a life in which you pay attention to the baby as she scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger. Turn off the cell phone. Turn off your regular phone, for that matter. Keep still. Be present. Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you.”

4. Happiness is getting lost in whatever you’re doing
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says: “Isn’t it funny? I’ve been studying happiness for at least 40 years, but I still don’t have a definition of it. The closest one would be that happiness is the state of mind in which one does not desire to be in any other state. Being deeply involved in the moment, we do not have the opportunity to think about anything but the task at hand — hence, by default, we are happy.”

5. Happiness is faking it so good you really are happy
In “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior,” Socrates tells his young disciple: “A fool is ‘happy’ when his cravings are satisfied. A warrior is happy without reason. That’s what makes happiness the ultimate discipline … This is the final task I will ever give you, and it goes on forever. Act happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love, and do what you will.”

6. Happiness is knowing when ‘enough is enough’
Thich Nhat Hanh says: “The Buddha says happiness can only be possible in the here and now, so go back and examine deeply your notions and ideas of happiness. You may recognize that the conditions of happiness that are already there in your life are enough. Then happiness will be instantly yours.”

9. Happiness is not being attached to money and stuff
Remember Henry Miller’s famous opening line in “Tropic of Cancer:” “I have no money, no resources, no hopes, I am the happiest man alive.”

10. Happiness is spending less than you earn
Charles Dickens’ famous formula: “Annual income, 20 pounds; annual expenditure, 19 pounds; result happiness. Annual income, 20 pounds; annual expenditure, 21 pounds; result misery.”

11. Happiness is doing what you really love
“Why is it that only a minority of our population love their work? …. If you make one major decision correctly,” says Thomas Stanley in “The Millionaire Mind,” “if you are creative enough to select the ideal vocation, you can win, win big-time. The really brilliant multimillionaires are those who selected a vocation they love.”

12. Happiness is being of service
In “The 7 Spiritual Laws of Success,” Deepak Chopra says: “Everyone has a purpose in life, a unique gift of special talent to give others … ask yourself, ‘How am I best suited to serve humanity?’ Answer that question and put it into practice. Discover your divinity, find your unique talent, serve humanity with it, and you can generate all the wealth you want.”

Hope something here sparks a feeling of warmth for you.