Now Picture That: Missing those 4th Grade Chicken Wings

Part of my job has placed me in rooms with people much smarter, the kind who say nuggets of truth that make you go yes, why hasn't everyone thought of that? All the while nodding along.

There was one man in one room I was in who wrote a book or something - I'm not the best with details like that, just ask my friends and family if I can quote a movie. The answer? No. Heck no. So, he wrote a book. I can't remember the name of it. Nor can I remember his name. But I do remember vividly him saying this, "Fences are perception and there's always that one cow who understands this and gets outside of them and always will."

Now, you might be thinking I've become a veterinarian or a professional cattle tamer, but no. Heck no. He was using an analogy to make the connection between his growing up on a ranch and becoming an educator. We put fences around students. The rules of school. Here's how we learn. Sit here and listen to me. But there are always those few who need outside of those fences - those perceptions. They need a different reality and they will get out and always will. Just like those cows.

I think this hit home with me because I also grew up around stubborn cows, those cows. There was one red lady bovine who would literally shut her long eyelashed eyes and simply walk over you. She would. All with this air of, watch this. I'm bigger and I'm stronger and I will get to where you think I shouldn't go.

Oh how I wish I could give this same power to those students, the ones who need different fences than the norm. I wish I could tell them to shut their long eyelashed eyes and walk on through.

Tell them that one day, someone will get them. Someone will understand they need something different to discover their own genius.

The one thing I miss the most about being a classroom teacher? Getting those kids in my room, I loved those kids.

If I could hope one tiny morsel of something it would be that in all of this running around and standing in front of groups of other educators, that the notion that it's our responsibility to change the fences would stick. And stick hard. I believe we have to sometimes let our adult preferences go in school and do what is truly best for kids.

Kids? They aren't the same anymore. Captain obvious speaking here.

They can't be taught the same way as fifty years ago, thirty years ago, ten years ago...they almost need to be taught more so than academics, the things that used to be assumed. The things that go like this - I care about you as an adult in your life. I will teach you that you won't touch your cupcake until everyone has one. I will teach you that you will look at each other when you speak. I will teach you that you will not be afraid to say your opinion. I will teach you that you have to try hard things and do hard things until they are done. I will teach you that I will not rescue you from your mistakes but rather let you figure those items out on your own. I will teach you that you are not entitled to one thing in these four walls of my classroom, but rather that you will earn them - including my respect. I will not fluff and buff you - when you fail, you fail and when you succeed, you succeed big.

All that?

I miss that.

So I hope that when I stand in front of a large room with my cowboy boots on and my arms flying that it might mean something. A tiny morsel of something for a kid out there somewhere.

Because kids are where it's at.