Life is merely a Talent Show....; my career as a teacher

Blue Diamond is a beautiful community about 15 minutes outside of Vegas. The town has about 106 houses, and is surrounded by BLM property and will never grow, giving it a fairly steady population of about 300 people. Many of the people are multi-generation Diamonders, and it is a true community. There is one small store with one gas pump; a post office, a bike shop, and a small elementary school for the few local kids. Last night my Buddy Mochelle invited me up for a town “talent show”, featuring numerous musical acts of the kids, all put on as a fund raiser for the elementary school. What a bright, positive event for a beautiful community. As usual, watching the kids up there performing, made me think of my old students.

As George Bush fades into history, every person will have to make their own decisions as to who the man was and what his intentions were. It is best to let some time pass before making those judgments, as time has a way of clarifying thought. Thus is the same with my teaching experience. I have always been a zealot in everything I do. In my first life as an attorney, I knew that even if my clients were not innocent, I was the only thing standing between them and the ruinous powers of the state; and I sought to be their knight in shinning armor. As a teacher, I believed that I could SAVE kids from the ruin that is life. I was never a “typical teacher” at heart, I was a social worker with the intent of making every kids life better. I never wanted to teach them about Christopher Columbus and his sailing ships, I wanted to teach them about adventure and citizenship. I fully believed that I was making life long impact on their lives. I thought I was saving kids, one climbing trip at a time. I thought the Red Rocks trips were life changing. In the end, with the clarity of time, I now better understand that the best I was doing was making the “moment” better for the students, and giving them an adventure to remember. Nothing earth shattering, nothing life changing, nothing huge.

There is an old parable about a teacher walking down the beach, and the beach being full of millions of starfish who have washed up and stranded on the sand. The teacher started running around grabbing starfish and throwing them into the water. A passerby commented, “what are you doing, you cannot possibly save all of those starfish?” Wherein the teacher replied as he threw another one in, “no, but I just saved that one.” Our educational system can be explained by that simple parable. Teachers, at least the ones I admired, were running around with the singular goal to save starfish. The school administrators on the other hand, are charged with the goal of running an orderly beach. Administrators cannot have teachers running around at random trying to save starfish, they need rules, policies, and order; even if it costs them some starfish. Thus was the head-butting I did with many administrators; many of whom, like Gene and Polly at West Valley, whom I admire greatly for their ability to keep the starfish at the center of their orderly-beach analysis.

In my role as a zealot, I could never accomidate anything that interfered with my “saving” of the innocent little starfish that entered my classroom. There was not one kid whom I would not have risked my career to try to save; as that is what a zealot does. Looking back, I had the opportunity to work with some tremendous students. People like Danica, Nigel, Rachel, Sierra; these kids would have turned out to be perfect people whether or not I was ever in their lives; so the most I could do was to try to open doors for various opportunities; and merely enjoy the time that I got to spend with young people who were, are, and always will be far better people than I ever was/will be. For my time with them, I am merely grateful.

There was another level of students who would have been the same caliber of perfect kids, if they would have had better parents and role models. For this group I tried to give the emotional support, help them find success, and try to get them as much time at the rock with such tremendous people as Chris Theison, Paula Action Parker, Kevin Klim and Brian Hoots, ….; and of course the ever beautiful TonyZ. I grew up without an abundance of great positive educational rolemodels, and I wanted to make sure these kids had some in their world.

And I received great rewards for my efforts. The pride I felt when I had JohnnyB, David, and the group of knuckleheads wiring the schools in Metaline Falls was purely heartfelt. The smile on Rachel Vandergirlens face when she entered my classroom every morning was worth a lot of sacrifice. Having Nigel take care of my network, classroom, hotel reservations, and almost every other issue in my life was reward in itself. Watching Kayla thrive in the climbing realm while struggling with her personal life made me believe that climbing was the answer, the solution, the elixir. Seeing Liz take over an entire school in her senior year, and become such an effective leader validated my year. Hundreds of students, each with their own struggles; each with their own successes/failures; each with their own reward. While at the time I took some “credit” for a lot of these successes, now looking back I see it as merely keeping the starfish in the water long enough to where they could save themselves. I did not save any of these kids, I merely helped some of them save themselves.

Each person will have to judge George Bush for his time in office. I tend to think of George as more of a fool who was guided by evil people, than I do see him as an evil person. I have no doubt that George, in his own mind, thought he was doing right. Through the coming years people will judge me on the success or failure of my teaching career. I know that my heart was pure, my intentions were honorable, and my efforts were carried out with zeal. Whether anything I did was successful, each will have to make their own decisions.

As I watched the talent show in that amazing community that is Blue Diamond, I kept thinking of the many beautiful kids in who’s life I have had the opportunity to share but a mere moment. Each with their individual talent, drive, motivation, and personal issues. It made me wish that I really could save starfish. Life is, after all, merely a talent show.

Love to all…