K The Ken Bradbury Foundation

← Speeches & Workshops

June 2016

Leah Brock…IEA Springfield

3440 Liberty Dr, Springfield, IL 62704

Communicating: David. .basketti Beginning a speech: Bummy Teen Prostitution..selling yourself.

I’m not a professional speaker.. I’m a teacher, just like you.. 44 years now. “Teacher” isn’t a legal term. . it’s a moral imperative. It’s not a job, it’s a calling. . a destiny.

Speaking at a church in Rochester, Illinois..stopped. .picked out 4 of 5 teachers in audience.

Every teachers’ conference talks about change… encourages you to change your methods in some way… I won’t.

I come to encourage you today. The more strange the world becomes, the more I love and admire and sometime fear for our profession.

If I’ve learned one thing  We can’t do our best.... fulfill our purpose, until we learn to get rid of what’s holding us back. Success is not so much a process of “putting stuff in” as “taking stuff off”.... especially for adults... We’ve spent more time loading it on.

Me: Speech on weight loss… Like Donald Trump teaching Manners How to BEND instead of break…taking the strss off yourself.

LET ME TALK TO YOU ABOUT LOSING WEIGHT... MENTAL WEIGHT... THE THINGS THAT HOLD US BACK.... HOW TO BEND, BEFORE WE TIP

First, a warning…people are watching you.

My teachers: Piano…Mildred, finger Trumpet: Jimmy Zimmerman You’re being watched every moment.

Our head football coach..former student. Biggest shock of his life. First year..tough guy..chewed kids out… Then the day when he divided the frosh up among the seniors..same attitude. Weight reduction…dropping the stress…. This is a smorgasbord … take what you like and leave the rest.

  1. Thou Shalt Not Rehash the Negative

Our teacher’s lounge For once, don’t get if off your chest Teacher I know..kids drive her crazy.. ..meet her in IGA...guess what she talks about...

Corrie Ten Boom “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorry, It empties today of its strength.” To lose weight, skip your morning calisthenics. Every morning I do calisthenics...

  1. Realize that no matter what happens to you today, YOU are still the one who determines how the day will go. Mom: Alcatraz … boats in harbor My last senior class who had been the terror of our school ever since Jr High. I saw the list and it looked like a prison break. I never dreamed they’d make it this far alive. And when class begins, I was still the main determining factor of how that class goes.

You have lived through many changes of educational philosophies. . you’ve endured countless workshops on plans that you knew wouldn’t work. . all in an effort to make education teacher-proof.

But you survived because you had a stronger voice than Common Core down in your heart. If you did no more than teach your students how to be civil…be human.. then you had a successful career.

  1. If life’s bumming you out, chances are you aren’t giving enough of yourself. This is the opposite of what the self-help books preach. “Take care of your inner child.” …Whiney brat

Self-centeredness : depression. Becky...funeral... Carl Menninger JHS girl: CFS

A. Sweitzer: “The only ones among you who will be truly happy as those who will have sought and found out how to serve.” If life is bumming you out because you’re asked to give so much, give more.

  1. Collect Interesting and enthusiastic people As a profession, we are terrible about validating each other.. pumping each other up. So often, our teaching is judged by popularity …thus: jealousies. Ed A: constant validation….

Collect interesting and enthusiastic people. Marie...salt and pepper shakers.

Friendships don’t have to simply be things that happen...They can be created... Not alphabetical. I hope you have a support group among your colleagues. Recently spoke to a group of teachers at the beginning of the year because they simply didn’t like each other very much. Tough Crowd…principal who asked me to come…reading a newspaper.

Nuture friends who encourage you. Who take joy in your joy. Even if you must go outside your own faculty.

Tony Compello “Five years from now you’ll be pretty much the same as you are now except for two things: The books you’ve read and the people you’ve met.

And the best way to do this is to become an encourager yourself. My schedule… tonight I rush back to Jacksonville to do a piano concert, I have two plays to produce in the next month, I continue to teach part-time and each week I have to get a newspaper column out to 16 Midwest papers. . . What do I need? Encouragers! People who tell me how we CAN get a job accomplished, not those who tell me why it won’t work.

architect Johnstone: (Charlie Rose show) 90 years old. Hottest place in hell for whiners and complainers ..... “If life were 100 times longer, there would still excuse for every getting bored by it.” Cultivate friends who are not bored by life.

  1. Don’t get so busy with the important things in your life that you forget the important things in your life. James Dobson..monopoly Dad...hay ...rain....
  1. Choose carefully whom you try to please. Quest...Inner-Outer Self

HINEY THE MULE

  1. Lighten up.... Jim Kern...MRS. BROWN Matt…baritone I sent this plan to the State....NEW SIP..No reply. --Minus 10 points if your athletic facility is at least 40 times bigger than your special ed room --tour classes..2 points for every smile seen in class... --minus 10 points for every hour paperwork takes away from teaching time. --deduct 20 points if school still serves peanut better sandwiches with chili... no reason but it makes as much sense as the rest of the SIP --School earns 100 points for every teacher who’s been there for over 10 years...says something about the school --double school’s points for every parent who comes to the school for anything other than a ballgame or to complain. --1000 points for every teacher given the boot because they couldn’t teach. Now THAT would give you a score that told you something about the school.

Seriously … I’d love to make a trip around the state and give each faculty one message… as both the state and federal gov. are now determined to make teaching a science, RESIST! Think of the finest teachers you ever had… it was not the goals of the Illinois Manufacturers Association which made them great. Keep the art in your teaching.

Lighten UP: PHYSICAL CHECKUP... Illinois Power

LIGHTEN UP.... ....go barefoot more often ....turn off the TV some night and pull taffy. ...eat nothing but ice cream for a whole day. ...wear underwear backwards...will break into uncontrollable giggles for no reason every time you think about it. ....walk up to biggest grouch you know and say “I just want you to know that I feel great!” It’ll throw them off all day. ...do some serious coloring ...start teaching to succeed instead of fearing failure... ...break the dress code occasionally. Your own, not the schools. .....McDonnald’s “Have a nice Day” Why? … plan an all-out attack on your most serious behavior problem..bother them with affection, with attention, with love.. cause some real trouble in their life. (Kidnapping kids at camp)

3 things in life are real...WHEN YOU’RE BORN, WHEN YOU DIE WHEN YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN A CHILD’S LIFE.. in everything else...LIGHTEN UP.

  1. Don’t take yourself too seriously.. chances are, no one else does.

Chillochothe...”probably dead” Lincoln Museum…piano..wax figures Church lady...music at her funeral. Jeff W...Free Spirit..Robbed and tied. Travel LIghter...Your anxieties? Look in your purse or pocket or billfold...ME: comb. Roger Ebert.

  1. Start living in the present. . The ability to live in the present. Some of you during my speech have been thinking about how long...., tomorrow, this weekend. When you drive home from school today, enjoy the moment you’re in.

Show at New Salem one night.. turn out the lights and look at the moon. As Americans, our live is so filled with “things” that we seldom leave time to enjoy where we are and what we’re doing.

  1. If you have faith, use it. No matter what you’ve heard, it’s not against the law. Please....please, drop the chains of stress and worry that you hang around your neck. You are still the life-saving figure in the life of your kids…You must learn how to bend before you tip…before you break. I repeat…if we can simply help them become civil, loving people, you will have passed all the state mandates that are important.

Once a year..my college fraternity meets.2 bankers, 1 builder, 1 prison warden, 2 Insurance executives, one lawyer, 1 impliment dealer, one state worker.. I am by far the lowest paid diner at the table…and the happiest.

Next year, don’t hire a long-winded speaker like me. Sit in small groups and talk about these things… Your favorite teacher… describe them. Your fondest memory of teaching. What you learned from your mother that made you a better teacher. A teacher whom you admire.

Encourage each other. There are enough forces working against us…let’s not be one of them. If the kids are the hope for tomorrow, then you are the hope for our kids.

. . And don’t worry if you don’t receive much thanks. . Conway Twitty.

I simply come to encourage you. No one in your entire community makes a greater impact on our future. Keep it up. Please. Please.

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