Happy Sunday evening to you people, I hope your weekend was pleasant.
Mine certainly was, because I got to pull my baby out and wrap my big strong hands around him.
I’m talking of course about Liam Beaston, my beautiful Desert Eagle .50.
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| He’s gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous and I love him. |
But tonight’s assignment doesn’t call for talking about my guns. Tonight’s assignment is a quote that I try to live by.
Go ahead and get ready to laugh, because everyone does when I tell them where the quote comes from.
The quote is by Albus Dumbledore, wise and wizened old headmaster of that glorious fictional learning institution, Hogwarts.
Let me know when you’re done laughing.
Finished? Okay, here we go. Here’s the quote.
“Youth can not know how age thinks and feels, but old men are guilty if they forget what it is like to be young.”
I gave my principal this quote sometime last week, and told him it was a crucial part of my educational philosophy. I never want to forget what it was like to be a teenager, how I felt when a teacher captured my attention, how I felt when I was given homework, how my life outside the school affected my behavior in it.
Just a few days after sharing this with Mark, I experienced a great deal of disappointment with some of my students. Mark talked me down off the ledge, so to speak, and I was grateful. After our talk, he looked at me and said, “Remember that quote you told me the other day? Don’t forget what it was like to be a teenager.”
I think it’s easier as I get older to talk about how “kids these days” act. Old men have been doing this for centuries, millennia.
“Kids these days don’t appreciate anything.”
“Kids these days don’t have any respect for anything.”
“Kids these days need to be spanked more.”
I will admit that sometimes I am guilty of speaking ill of “kids these days.” But I was a kid once, and I was an idiot. I was disrespectful when I could get away with it, and you were too. I slacked off when the pressure wasn’t on, and you did too. I let my parents down, I let my teachers down, and I may have let you down, if you’re a reader who was involved in my formative years.
I cannot forget what it was like to be young, lest I be guilty of robbing my charges of their youth. I cannot expect my students and my children to think like me, or else I am guilty of adding yet again more weight to the already bursting-at-the-seams backpack of adolescence.
So that’s it, there’s my quote. Laugh if you want, I’ll understand. Love you guys.