K The Ken Bradbury Foundation

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March 2008

Pike County Teachers

Let me be honest… Teacher’s Institutes were never the highlight of my year. They used to be fun. They used to be encouraging. Now they about the latest state mandate.

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

Memories of this stage… ---A young Pittsfield actor named David Harmison wearing a girdle … Annie Get Your Gun… coming offstage and fainting ---David Awbry in Fiddler, trying to sing the part of the Rabbi while holding his beard on.. ---My brother playing Captain Von Trapp in Sound of Music with a cast on his leg… “Edelweiss” ---My favorite: Edna Mae Brown, my piano teacher.. fingers curved..

I’m not a professional speaker.. I’m a teacher, just like you.. Taught 37 years in public schools and now teach a few college courses.

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

Now that you’ve had your donuts, I want to speak to you about weight loss.

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 Madonna teaching Sunday School

LET ME TALK TO YOU ABOUT LOSING WEIGHT... MENTAL WEIGHT... THE THINGS THAT HOLD US BACK.... In other words, how to remove some of the stress from your job. (I thought about asking you to name the one thing, that if removed from your job, would make it less stressful..but afraid you’d name somebody in this room.)

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. Let me give you a list of resolutions for the new school year. 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..(originally: Nebo) ..meet her in IGA...guess what she talks about...

Corrie Ten Boom “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, It empties today of its strength.”

To lose weight, skip your morning calisthenics. Every morning I do calisthenics... It just brings you down and it’s a pain in the butt to the rest of us, so get off it!

  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.

In spite of the School Improvemennt Plan, inspite of President Bush’s totally unrealistic goals for education, in spite of your administration and board and parents, you are in charge of your class’s education this year. You know her. She comes into your classroom with a pout. She’s trying very hard to cry so you can ask her why she’s crying so she can say, “Nothing.” She just broke up with her boyfriend. She won’t talk, but she wants the entire world to know that she’s miserable. You have absolutely no right to make her happy today. By saying she wants no attention, she wants everybody’s attention. You try to get a smile from her. She refuses. She has won. Your mood turns sour because of her boyfriend. Wrong! You’re the adult in the room, honey! You determine your own mood! No matter what happens to you tomorrow, you are completely and totally in charge of your reaction.

  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. “Inner Child”

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.

You are either in this profession because your are a hopeless, totally addicted GIVER or you have become one by being in this profession. It’s an addiction. Give into it. Give more. It’s a simple equation: If your students see you take joy in giving, they will become givers. When I feel too busy teaching to teach, I think of Gwen Woods, my high school math teacher. Taught all high school math, two years of Latin, 3 P.E. classes, did the school plays, and had 30 minutes free for lunch ..went home and cooked lunch for her husband Mervin. And every day…she was happy. She was addicted to giving. You had teachers like that, and I’ll bet you like ‘em.

  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.

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. Me: Curry. Garrett. Do we still teach kids that the whole world is alphabetical? Always confused me..How could George Washington be our first President? His name’s at the end of the alphabet.

I hope you have a support group among your colleagues. Some teachers try to create one among their students.. seldom successful … often dangerous.

Our Green Pastures Workshop….3 on 3. Fingerpainting. Nature walk. Share groups.

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… I’m currently working on four plays..for Quincy, Springfield, Jacksonville, and one independent production. I have a new play opening this weekend, and another two weeks after that. Tomorrow I’m speaking in St. Louis, right now my Lincoln Land class is meeting without me, and this afternoon I have to fall off a horse five times in a TV commercial.. I don’t need your help. I need your encouragement. “Okay, Ken, you can do this.”

What do we 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.

Yes, you work with people who annoy you. Yes, you are not crazy about your work load compared to others. Yes, you are forced to waste a lot of time following programs that will be dead in three years……., but let me tell you a secret…. Parents will encourage you only when their children are successful… Your students will encourage you perhaps ten years after they graduate or when hell freezes over…whichever comes first. .. We must encourage each other! Public education has enough enemies…Let us not be one of them! Ed A: constant validation….

I dare you to remember your test scores when you were in school…you probably can’t… but you can remember every single time you were encouraged. If for no other reason, be an encourager for selfish reasons…It makes you feel great.

  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.... Painting fence.

You are bombarded by workshops, by state tests, by new regulatory hoops to jump through, but your most important job will be next Monday morning when a child enters your room. He’s had a lousy weekend. He comes from a lousy home. He will not learn a single thing from you until soothe his soul ..until his feelings are taken care of. THAT is your most important job next Monday. If your school passes the state tests, good for you…but that won’t affect him one bit unless somebody gives him a hug. We don’t teach history. We don’t teach English or P.E. or math. And we don’t teach tests…We teach kids. Don’t get so busy with the important thigns in your life that you forget the important things in your life.

  1. Choose carefully whom you try to please. If you teach teenagers, you know that who they are depends upon who the most important people in their lives think they are. But we are adults…we should know better. Ask yourself constantly, Who am I trying to please? Quest...Inner-Outer Self

HINEY THE MULE

It’s that little voice inside you that says, “Yes…You are here not because of administrators or school boards or parents or politics…you are here for children.”

  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.

Bean Story. Mrs. Walker. First grade bean. Styrofoam cups. Just planted them. No pre-test. Everybody had their name on a cup. Roberta looked up beans in the encyclopedia..she cheated. Gary’s uncle worked for the Extension Service..he cheated. I think Darold peed in my cup when the teacher left the room. Everytime Mrs. Walker would leave, I’d dig down in my cup to check my bean. I tested it to death.

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” 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. We spend our lives thinking ahead. We encourage our students, think ahead! Think ahead!! Like a sermon… point one took seven minutes, so .. 7 times 10… Some of you during my speech have been thinking about how long...., tomorrow, this weekend.

Heather Baccus 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. Elementary teachers know this well: Our kids are living in the present. For a third grader, yesterday is forgotten territory and tomorrow doesn’t exist. Let’s live in that world with them. Did a reading workshop in Jacksonville last week… I’d spent days preparing, I had a team of young actors with me, we’d rehearsed our preparation. We performed for the kids and I asked if there were any questions. Boy in the front row, “Yeah. Did you know my cat threw up on the carpet before we came here tonight?”

The present is a pretty good place…let’s decide to live there. When you drive home from school today, enjoy the moment you’re in. Look at things with fresh eyes… I drove the road between Pittsfield and Pleasant Hill this week…when I got there I said to one of the teachers…boy, that is one gorgeous drive.. She said, “Huh? Which one?” I forgive you. I do that too. And we both should be ashamed.

One things I hadn’t anticipated when I retired…I miss some of my friends in teaching. I miss them very much. You don’t have much time left in today’s institute, but spend a little time thinking about that.

But no matter what…Force yourself to live in the present.

  1. If you have faith, use it. It’s not against the law for you to use whatever faith you have. It’s not against the law for you to use whatever faith you have.

To speak to a group of teachers and not use the word prayer is like telling the occupants of the Titanic… “We’ve got lifeboats, but we can’t tell you where we hid them!”

Performing Arts Camp.. 5th-grade boys’ dance group. “God, us guys in the back row ain’t too good, help us not to screw up too bad, Amen.” Wow! That’s my prayer!

After school conference two years ago…about Jerry. He sat through my speech class high on meth..finally got a little violent and went I went remove him from class he struck back…a nasty incident… Meeting with the police and supt. after school..Dylan came running in. “Hey, I’ve got Jerry in the car and we’re praying. I think you guys should too.” The supt. had tears in his eyes.

Bob .. Put our school on the map.. Our first official drug dealer.. in the 1970’s. Speech: put him in a car. Lady named Karol walks the hallways of our school every Monday morning, hugging kids and teachers and keeping a notepad of things for her Mothers in Touch Group to be praying about. I gave her Bob’s name. Bob called me a few years ago……

Please....please, drop the chains of stress and worry that you hang around your neck. No one in your entire community makes a greater impact on our future. Keep it up. Please. Please.

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 most exciting success story in teaching… Your favorite teacher… Your fondest memory of last school year. A current student who inspires you. One skill that would make you a better teacher. Other than vacations, paychecks, and weekends, the best thing about your job. A Pike county teacher whom you admire.

Encourage each other. There are enough forces working against us…let’s not be one of them.

When I entered Perry Grade School in 1954, the teachers were a big help to me, but we had lots of other help… Every member of my class had two parents, most went to church, and most lived on a farm.

Your students Monday morning live in a different world… for many of them, you are the ONLY stop-gap in their lives. You have a greater chance to literally save a person’s life than Mrs. Walker did in 1954. I hope that’s exciting for you. So…drop the stress…and get ready.

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