Bethlehem Shepherds... and Angels

My first teaching job was at an international school in Jerusalem, Israel, where I taught for seven years. Jerusalem is about 15 minutes by car from Bethlehem, the town where Jesus was born that first Christmas Eve.

I haven’t been in Bethlehem for a long time - ever since I lived in Jerusalem, in fact, when I was in my twenties. So I don’t know how traffic is these days. But when I lived there, a person could quickly get to Jerusalem by bus or car from Bethlehem. 

From time to time, I had students who lived in or near Bethlehem. 

One year, I received a very interesting composition from a girl whose parents worked at an orphanage on the outskirts of Bethlehem ... It was her take on what happened that first Christmas Eve... when angels appeared to a group of shepherds not far from where she lived. 

I was really taken by what she wrote - and her accompanying photos - so I asked her if I could keep it... 

Here’s what she wrote:

“Shepherds’ Field has been left more or less like it was when the angels came and sang on Christmas night. A Catholic Church and a YMCA summer camp are where the shepherds used to graze their sheep. 

I think that the angels picked a perfect place to sing. The valley makes a perfect giant natural amphitheater. I live at the place where the pictures are taken from. All day we can hear the boys, sheep and donkeys all the way across the valley. The angels must have sounded very beautiful on that Christmas night. 

I do not think that the book Ben Hur places the fields in the right place. The book says that people in the town did not hear any of the noise from the angels, but I think they would have heard the angels. As you can see from the picture, the place where the stable was, was not  far from the Shepherds’ Field and near the top of the amphitheater.”

When I first read this, and looked at the accompanying pictures, I was totally blown away! The town of Bethlehem is at the top right. How many times must she have sat overlooking the valley and thought about that first Christmas Eve.

It was such a personal, insightful explanation!

"Historic" Family File

Organizing gurus (like Marie Kondo) say that one should get rid of non-essential papers...

But as I go through the files of papers my mother kept, I do find interesting "historic" documents that most people would have thrown away long ago...

Like this Employment Insurance booklet of my fathers from the 1960's...

Stamps are stuck in it... (showing the weeks he worked?)

That would be an interesting historic artifact to show a class of children now that most records like this are simply stored on a computer!

The teacher in her may have had this in mind, just as the teacher in me recognizes how interesting that would be for children to see!

A link to the past!

Though nobody in our family is presently a teacher, the document is a keeper!

I think I'll put it away in a "Family History" file!

Appreciation...

I put out several obituaries after my mother's death. One was in Kelowna, on a website called "Cast a Net." (I wonder where that name came from...)

My mother was a high school home economics teacher for almost 30 years in Kelowna. Several former students had not forgotten her, sending condolences that brought tears to my eyes.

I forwarded the link to my children so that they could read the messages, too, and recognize what a contribution their grandmother had made to the lives of some of her students.

Most of us don't realize how important we are to those around us. Just being there - and being predictably kind - makes a big difference to the world!

Eats Shoots & Leaves

I have been reading a book about punctuation - wondering if it would have been a good one to recommend to my students back in my teaching days. The answer, in short, is NO! Too many words... as funny as they are!

Written by an editor who finds mistakes in punctuation very annoying, its subtitle is: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation!

Think crazy lady with a black marker going around correcting punctuation errors in signs... as I have sometimes been tempted to do!

Reading the book, I've discovered that I'm a "stickler"  - and the humor in the book (which makes it a British best-seller) comes from the author's descriptions of her extreme reactions to seeing incorrect punctuation in public places.

Like her, in my teaching days, I may have screamed inwardly at some of the mistakes my students made. (And once I wrote a  blog post about a punctuation error painted on the side of a catering truck.) But, unlike the author, I have never demonstrated outside a theater holding an apostrophe on a stick, to show passers-by that the title of the play needs an apostrophe!

The book does have interesting examples of miscommunication when punctuation is off. They would have been interesting examples to use in my teaching days. The book's title itself is one: Eats Shoots & Leaves.

• Did someone eat, then shoot, then leave?
• Does the person (or animal) eat shoots and leaves?
• Or, combining both, did someone eat shoots and then leave?

I'm only about a third of the way through the book, and I have already learned that a comma in a list before the "and" (which I assumed is incorrect) is called an Oxford comma. Also that Americans put the punctuation inside a quotation mark, while the British put it afterwards...

She replied: "That's not right." (American)
She replied: "That's not right". (British)

I used to write it the British way, but assumed it was wrong. It isn't, apparently. At least, not in Britain.

The book would be most enjoyed by people who have some sense of punctuation and want to make sure they are getting it right... Also teachers, editors and others who have to regularly correct punctuation errors...

And I do have one (punctuation) criticism of the book: Shouldn't the subtitle be: "... a Zero-Tolerance Approach..." with a hyphen between zero and tolerance?!

Thinking About How We Learn...

Recently reading an old Macleans Magazine (from September 2013), I came across a fascinating article about an American family with exceptionally bright children.

It was interesting to me, as a parent, as a teacher (for many years), and as a lifelong learner.

Jacob Barnett, a physics genius who was once diagnosed as autistic, owes a lot of his intellectual development to his mother, who intuitively let him study and focus on whatever interested him, instead of insisting he follow the school curriculum. She believed in "muchness" - "encouraging children's passions" rather than trying to remedy their flaws.




Did I do enough of that as a parent? I wonder, thinking back on my children's childhood years. I enrolled them in programs that interested them - or that I thought they would benefit from. But I never withdrew them from school to home-school them so that they could simply follow their passion. (Would they have ended up playing Nintendo all day?!)

I'm also fascinated by 15-year-old Jacob's comment in the article: "instead of being a student [in a] field, be the field..."

What does this mean in a practical sense to a learner - to me, for example, in my art courses? Does it  mean to trust my intuition?

It's not the way most classes work at school. The article has definitely left me with a lot to think about!

Spell Check Has Limitations!

I did a double-take when I read this headline on the Ottawa Sun.

Roll? Shouldn't that be "role"? Is it a play on words? A pun? I don't think so!














Who checks this stuff?! Hopefully a person - not just a computer! Computers are amazing, but there are errors that spell-check won't catch!

Team Work

Teamwork is encouraged in school these days, though students often protest. Some would rather work on their own - and do it their way. Others complain that, in a group project, some people do all the work while others do nothing... And there is merit to all these complaints.

I'm actually not a teamwork kind of person - not unless the task lends itself to teamwork (like doing housework... or running a school). And - to be honest - I think that some "teamwork" projects assigned by teachers isn't really suited to group work at all.


















But whether we like it or not, we are all part of "teams". For many years I was on the staff of a school - which really is a big team, too. Now my "team" is my family - often just Terry and me (a team of two!)














Sometimes - in the busyness of the working world - we don't get a chance to tell our co-workers how wonderful they are to work with...














Recently - at a retirement party at the school I used to teach at - a "team" of teachers entertained us with their songs and poems. These school "Band-itos" (as they call themselves!) were only part of the "team" that put on this memorable event in the school library.

One teacher commented: "Students sometimes thank us for changing their lives. Well, they change ours, too!" So do the people we work with. I salute them here!

Once A Teacher...!

Years of hunting for spelling and grammar mistakes in students' writing makes me notice errors around me (and wonder why they happen)!

Now that I look at the sign again, I actually notice two or even three mistakes!
(Once a teacher, always a teacher, I guess!)

=========================
For those who are curious about the "errors" I found - they are posted as a comment below.

Coax, Reprove, Encourage

Teaching and learning are not the same thing. A teacher can prepare a wonderful lesson - and go through it in front of class... But in the end, it is possible for the students to have learned nothing.

Why?

Perhaps the subject matter is too difficult for the class - or perhaps the students have no prior knowledge or experience to relate the new information to. (Or perhaps they're simply not paying attention!)

Which is why, I used to look at students' faces, to see if they were grasping what I was trying to say... And, of course, I would - from time to time - ask if there were any questions.

But both these methods can fail, too! I remember "teaching" a Shakespearean play to a grade 10 class - right after lunch on a hot day. I was impressed that even my least interested student was staring at me. I must be getting through, even to him, I remember thinking. Only when I took a few steps to my left - and his eyes did not follow me, but continued to stare at the spot where I had been, did I realize that he was in a world of his own... So much for my good teaching!

And what about asking: Are there any questions? How often are we reluctant to ask a question, not wanting to appear stupid in front of our peers? It's not a foolproof method, either.

So I find it interesting that Benedict (who lived 1500 years ago) didn't list lecturing (or preaching) as a monastic teaching method, but rather coaxing, reproving, and encouraging. And that's not all: Leaders must try to "accommodate and adapt themselves to each one's character and intelligence."

All these years later, I can't find any wiser advice for teachers (or priests or parents) - or any, in fact, who find themselves in the position of guiding and helping others.

What's Insulting to Students... and Teachers

Teaching overseas - then teaching immigrants in Canada - has shown me that classroom styles differ around the world.

One woman from Afghanistan told me I finally looked like a teacher the day I wore a khaki green skirt. Had I stumbled on the traditional color of a teacher's uniform all over the country or only in the school she had attended? I don't know. But I sensed from her smile that the color reassured her that I was finally a "real" teacher!

One student told me that in her country it was insulting to have the teacher sit on the desk in front of the class. (It's so easy - standing there - just to lean on the desk, and eventually sit on it...) I don't remember where the student came from - but I stopped doing it. Perhaps other cultures felt the same - and I didn't want to be misunderstood.

Occasionally immigrant men would tell me they had never had a woman teacher before - they had attended boys' schools. Was it demeaning for them to be taught by a woman? I suspect so. (Perhaps this explains why many eventually quit.)

I remember discussing cultural differences with a British teacher who had taught in India, He had moved there for several years with his wife and children. One day a colleague approached him and said: Your son insulted me in class today.

I'm so sorry! the man from England replied. What did he do?

When I was explaining something in class, he asked me "Why?" the teacher from India said.

Apparently, this was viewed as questioning the teacher's authority.

The British man tried to explain that in some countries, children are encouraged to ask "Why?" (But it was a tough sell!)

So does anything insult North American teachers? (According to teacher, poet and stand-up comic Taylor Mali, here's one thing that does!)

In a word: Disrespect.

Write It Right!

A number of years ago I was looking for a teaching resource to help my students with a specific spelling problem: So many English words sound the same as other words that have different spelling and meaning... write and right (and also rite), sew, sow [seeds], and SO on!














My students found it very confusing. So I started a list of these problem words. What surprised me was how many of them there were!

At the same time, I kept looking for a comprehensive workbook that dealt with all these English homonyms. But I couldn't find one.

Maybe I should write one... The idea seemed like an interesting challenge, so I started, spending weekends and summer vacations on this project. Eventually... two years later... it was done! A 148-page spelling workbook of words that sound the same as other words... together with exercises, explanations and an answer key. And my list of problem words had grown... from a hundred to two hundred... and eventually to five hundred homonyms!

I took the plunge and self-published it...

The hardest part of self-publishing, after writing the book, is getting it out there, letting people know it exists... I attended literacy and ESL conferences and talked to teachers about my book. Eventually two online bookstores, Grass Roots Press and New Readers Bookstore began to sell it.

Eventually I ran out of copies, so I printed a second edition. To date I have sold about 3000 books.

I am now wondering if I should take the second half of my accumulated material and create a a second spelling resource... of words that my students used to confuse... (like impossible and impassable, except and expect).

The real question is: How much energy do I have?!

The Kids Are OK

In many jobs, people work with the same individuals year after year. In teaching, the majority of those you work with - your students - move on after five or ten months, making way for a new wave of faces and personalities. (And the combination of those twenty-five or thirty personalities in one room day after day creates an interesting classroom "stew"!)

So it isn't surprising that, after many years of teaching, I sometimes look back and wonder how the hundreds - if not thousands - of students that I taught are doing, especially the younger ones I taught in my early years, who may have suffered from my lack of experience. (Or perhaps gained from my youthful energy!) What did I really teach them? - those energetic adolescents? Hopefully to get along with others and to believe in themselves.














So it has been gratifying to discover, recently, that THOSE KIDS ARE OK!

Although they now live in different parts of the globe, the Internet - especially Facebook - has allowed a large group of my early students to reconnect. This past summer, a mutual friend informed me that one young man I taught 40 years ago in a school over 5500 miles (or almost 9000 kilometers) away lives in the same city as I do!

This young man is active in this online "reunion" of former classmates and colleagues sharing pictures and memories. As a result, I am now - amazingly - in touch with some of students I taught in my early teaching years!

It's hard to believe! And exciting!... But most gratifying of all is to see that - all these years later - THE KIDS ARE OK!

Because inside the teacher, there is a surrogate parent who wants them to succeed and be happy!

I Was Just Wondering...

Having worked as a teacher for many years, I am always interested in comments and anecdotes about teaching...

Recently I came across two that have made me pause and reflect...

One was about Martin Luther, the religious reformer who, 500 years ago, greatly impacted the course of European history. As a lad, Martin Luther had a teacher who would ceremoniously bow when he entered the classroom every morning.

When asked why he did this, the teacher replied: You never know what one of these students may some day become...

So I wonder: Does expecting greatness foster it...?

(But I also remember the words of a colleague, when I - still young and single - asked her whether being a teacher made her a better parent... She smiled, and replied: The greatest shock to me as a parent was to discover that my little budding genius was really only an average student...! So much for parental objectivity!)

The second idea I've been mulling around in my mind came from a well-known speaker, commenting on our reluctance to accept God's grace and love. Are many of us are harder on ourselves than we should be, he asked, because we were taught, at an early age (by our teachers) to focus on errors and not on what we have done right?

Most teachers do mark the wrong answers, not the right ones, so - from an early age - does a page full of X's make us feel like failures? And does this sense of failure follow us throughout our life?

So again I wonder: Does drawing attention to what we are doing wrong teach us to be harder on ourselves than we should?

Looking back, I sometimes did only mark the wrong answers (in cases where there was a clear right or wrong) because there were generally fewer of them... So it was easier... However, if a student was struggling and most of the answers were wrong, I would then only mark the correct ones, to encourage the student on...

But now I wonder: Did all the X's of my long teaching career destroy many a student's self-esteem?

I hope not! But I wonder...

One of My Favorite Films

I once asked my doctor what kind of films he enjoyed watching... and to my surprise, he replied with a laugh: Hospital movies where things go wrong...

Which may be why - after many years in the classroom - I like films about teachers.

One of my favorites is a French documentary called Etre et Avoir (To Be and To Have). The film that shows snippets of a teacher's life in a modern rural schoolhouse in France.

The teacher, who has been at the school for 20 years, teaches all grades from kindergarten to middle school. (In the spring, all the children take a field trip to visit the school in town - where older students will attend the following year.) The teacher, who lives upstairs on the second floor of the school...is an amazingly caring, skillful man who manages the potential chaos with a calmness of an expert. He never seems to raise his voice.

We discover towards the end of the film that this teacher is on the verge of retirement - but the students - heading off for their summer vacation - are oblivious to the sadness of his final goodbyes ("Au Revoir")...

"Have a good holiday!" (Bonnes Vacances) signals - for him - the end of his teaching career, and brings tears to his eyes.

I originally saw the film in a repertoire theater that shows a lot of foreign films. A documentary, commissioned by the French Department of Education, it went on to win numerous awards. I was so impressed that I ordered a copy for myself through a CD store... I wondered if I would ever get it! It took over a year to arrive!

You tube has many snippets of this film - which I would highly recommend to anyone interested in teaching or in life in rural France.

The title of the film, Etre et Avoir (To Be and To Have) is interesting. These two irregular verbs need to be mastered by all beginners learning French... But a person also has TO BE an amazing teacher TO HAVE the ability to do what this man does.

Every time I see it, it moves me to tears!

God's Teaching Style

One educational expert claims that we learn…

• 10 percent of what we read,
  
• 20 percent of what we hear,
  
• 30 percent of what we see,
• 50 percent of what we see and hear,
  
• 70 percent of what we discuss with others,
  
• 80 percent of what we experience, and
  
• 95 percent of what we teach to someone. (William Glasser)
  

(And, of course, our most effective learning happens when we do all of the above!)

I have been reflecting on God's teaching style... Like all good teaching, it has two parts: theory and practice.

Theory is essential. It is important to learn about God... to learn what God loves and deplores, what He has done in the past and plans to do in the future. We learn all this through personal Bible reading and listening to talks and sermons by knowledgeable Biblical experts.

Being active in a Christian community is also important. Active church involvement allows us to see God in action, as we watch people change, pray for the sick to be healed, and have opportunities to learn from each other and encourage each other. Discussing faith issues in small groups also helps us learn and grow... We also "teach" by sharing what we have learned with friends we trust...

But this (in teaching terms) is classroom stuff ...

Real learning cannot occur without real-life practice... testing the theory. Often this involves experiencing difficult times - when we can do nothing but TRUST GOD TO ACT, because nothing we do seems to be doing much good!

This part of learning really isn't much fun! But it is essential! If we claim to have faith in God, we need to know what this means. When we come to the point where we really can do nothing to help ourselves... and we need help desperately ... Then cry out in prayer to a loving Father God who is there...

When God comes to the rescue (and He will!) ... When we experience God's intervention again and again and again... we learn to TRUST our "CAN-DO-WILL-DO" LOVING GOD.

TRUST is the first thing a child has to learn to develop into an emotionally healthy adult...

TRUST is also essential in a life of faith. As we learn to TRUST GOD again and again and again... (over a lifetime!) we will - hopefully - eventually get it!

Yet, for some reason, TRUST is something I (personally) also constantly need to RE-LEARN! (Like food, my TRUST seems to have a limited shelf-life!) I keep going back to thinking that it's all up to me - when in reality it's a joint effort... I do what I can... pray... and TRUST GOD TO HELP THE GOOD STUFF GROW!

Over time we realize that we need to trust God for EVERYTHING!

That's all there is!!

Everything we have - health, family, friends, homes, jobs - are all gifts from God.

But the reality of that is only learned through experience.

We all need a GOAL

We all need a challenge... and a GOAL!

I recently came across an inspiring story of a young lady whose GOAL is to create a new dress a day (for a year), by up-cycling a used dress she paid no more than $1 for at a garage sale or second-hand shop. Her blog shows the before and after pictures - and her talent amazes me!

But equally interesting - to me - is her reason for undertaking this goal: to get out of a rut. (She had turned 30 and lost her job.)

Inspired by the movie Julie and Julia, where a bored woman cooks her way through a Julia Child cookbook in a year and blogs about it, Marisa decided to do something similar. Choosing something she is good at - restyling clothing - she set her goal (365 Dresses for $365)... in a year. Not only did she give herself a daily challenge that was FUN for her, her blogging about it has inspired others.

In my working life, as a teacher of adults, I was expected to help my students set goals ... and achieve them. I remember attending a workshop where I was informed that - in order to succeed - a goal needs to have 3 characteristics:

• It needs to be achievable.

• It needs to be realistic (for that person).

• And it needs a time limit...

In other words, experts say that an impossible, unrealistic goal with no set time frame will never be achieved.

For most of us, this is true. (Perhaps inventors like Thomas Edison, who created 1093 inventions, don't fit this mold.) But for many of us the "principle" holds: "The amount of time it takes us to do something is the amount of time we have."

So as I reflect on the many things I would like to do in the next dozen or so years - the ones I achieve will probably be the ones that are realistic for me... and that have a time limit.

(The fact that I won't be here forever is probably not specific enough!)

Time to stop wishing and dreaming... and set some concrete GOALS!

Marlene's Fashion Tips

Okay, so I'm the last person who should be giving advice on fashion - after all, jogging pants and a t-shirt are my current wardrobe of choice!

But... for many years, I did have to stand in front of a group of (sometimes critical) students - who did notice what I wore. It's amazing to think... but I remember the entire teaching wardrobe of my grade 5 teacher, probably a recent grad with university debts to pay. She wore the same two plaid skirts with matching sweater sets all winter long... (And winter lasts a long time in Alberta!) Every day she wore either the green outfit or the red... Every day!

When spring arrived, and she switched to a dress, we (the girls in the class) ran up to her desk to tell her how nice she looked!

With her in mind, I made a conscious effort not to wear the same thing day in and day out when I was teaching. The same holds true, even now that I'm not...

So Fashion Tip #1: Aim for variety in what you wear. Of course, this may mean a little extra shopping... But it will brighten your life! Nothing like a different outfit to see yourself in a different way.

Fashion tip number 2...

A friend of mine... or rather, her husband, once commented: Diane has a closet full of nothing-to-wear...

I mention that because that "Nothing-to-wear" feeling happens to me, too...

Then I read about organizing a closet according to color.

When I went back to work after the "mommy years" at home, I borrowed a book on wardrobe planning from the library. I didn't have money for a lot of new things, so I decided to get some basics, then mix and match. One piece of useful advice from that wardrobe-planning book was:














Fashion Tip #2: Organize your closet by grouping clothes according to color. (Shades of red, shades of blue, and so on...) It's amazing what combinations of matching outfits will jump out at you. (And the closet feels so organized!)

So whenever that "nothing-to-wear" feeling returns, I go to my closet and organize what I have.

Third, the point that started me thinking about writing a blog post in the first place...

Fashion Tip #3: Focus on colors that suit you best - and ignore the rest.

A few years ago, a friend and I went to a color consultant, who suggested colors that looked best on us. The concept - explained in this book, Color Me Beautiful, has saved me money... and time. (I don't even bother looking at clothes that are not in "my" colors.)














This concept, popular a few years ago, has worked well for me...

And finally,...

Fashion Tip #4: If, when you try on a garment, your immediate reaction isn't...

Wow! I look amazing!

...Don't buy it! Save your money for clothes that look sensational...

"Heroes" Among Us?

When I taught English to immigrants, I was always on the lookout for interesting newspaper stories to read and discuss in class. I felt that if I could get my students "hooked" on reading the paper in English, they would learn so much on their own.

One article I used over and over again in class was a story about a shepherd in the Alps whose cellphone saved his life. Alone in the mountains with his sheep, he used his cellphone to keep in touch with family and friends.

One day, going after a wandering ewe that was approaching the edge of a cliff, the shepherd slipped on the wet grass and slid to the edge himself. Flat on his face, almost falling over the cliff, he grabbed his cell phone and dialed 911... but was disconnected. At this point he started to slide over the cliff, so he dropped his phone to grab some tufts of grass. Fortunately - though his hands weren't free - his cell phone landed in front of his face... and he was able to press the redial button with his nose!

To add to the drama of the story, the 911 operator at first didn't believe him when he said he was hanging over a cliff and needed to be rescued... But he was able to persuade her (with his screams) and was rescued by a helicopter not long afterward.

This story has a lot of drama - and a happy ending - so one of the things I used to do in class was have students in pairs act out some part of the story (the conversation between the shepherd and the telephone operator, for example) or to pretend they were being interviewed by a television studio after the event... How might the shepherd express gratitude to the telephone operator - for believing his improbable story? Or the helicopter pilot for rescuing him from certain death?

Although the students always found the story interesting, I often found the the discussions that ensued in class fascinating as well.

I discovered, for example, that the word HERO has different connotations for students from different cultures. Whereas we (in Canada) use hero lightly, meaning someone who helped another person, sometimes - but not always - in a life threatening situation, many languages view a hero as more than that.

Who was the hero in this story? I would ask. The shepherd? The helicopter pilot? (The cell phone?!)...

None, an Asian student once told me.

Why? I asked, surprised...

Because nobody died. In my language, a person has to die to be a hero... the student explained.

Others nodded. It was the same in their language and culture...

Another time I asked the question: What would you say to thank this person who had saved your life?

I expected to hear expressions of profuse gratitude, and from some students I did. But one exception stands out in my mind:

I wouldn't thank anyone, one Moslem woman replied. I would thank God. In my religion you don't thank a person for saving you. You thank God for sending the person!

So much for the idea that we all think the same... Teaching often ended up being a learning experience for me - as I was reminded again and again that inter-cultural communication involves more than speaking the same language!

The Best Teachers are.... Annoying?!

I recently came across the idea (attributed to the Greek Cynics) that a teacher who never annoyed anyone never did anyone any good!

This idea goes against the grain for most of us - parents, students, and teachers alike. But reflecting on what the Cynics might have meant, I think that (at best) negative/annoying/hurtful comments can cause us to puzzle over what was said - and in puzzling, (perhaps in tears) to learn.

I think of Debbie Macomber, author of the book, One Simple Act: Discovering the Power of Generosity, a book I am currently reading. When she was a child, she loved reading and writing - even though she was dyslexic and found both very difficult. She even confided to one teacher that she wanted to be a novelist... the dream was there, even in her childhood.

But at one parent-teacher conference, where she herself was present, a teacher made the comment that Debbie would never be a high academic achiever - because of her dyslexia. Debbie was devastated. Years later, in this book, commenting on the power of encouragement, she suggests that it would have been kinder and more encouraging had the teacher commented on her hard work or determination, characteristics that also impact success...

Tears were probably shed by the little girl who for years struggled with her teacher's low assessment of her ability ... And years later, she proved her teacher wrong by becoming a best-selling novelist!

(Thankfully, teachers, parents, friends aren't always right in their expectations of us!)

But in the process of dealing with the hurt, did Debbie develop a sensitivity to the power of encouragement?... A sensitivity that is part and parcel of who she is and what she writes.

Perhaps that's what the Greek Cynics were talking about: We learn from the bumps and bruises that come our way - as much, if not more, than from our successes.

Thoughts on Business... and Life

I have a very small business - selling spelling workbooks that I wrote and published about eight years ago. I started when I was teaching - when I couldn't find a resource to recommend to my students who were having problems with homonyms - words that sound the same, like write and right; cell and sell; sight, site and cite...

We'd come across them in class from time to time, and go over them. But English has so many of these confusing words - more than 500, in fact! - that I thought my students could benefit from more practice with a self-study book. But I couldn't find one to recommend...

To cut a long story short, I decided to create one - print it and sell it.

I won't go into details here about why I decided to self-publish - but I did. And, for me, it was a good decision. I sold my first batch of 2000, and printed a second edition. (Maybe I should do a few blogs on self-publishing sometime... I have learned a lot!)














After writing and publishing it, my creative endeavors had to stop - or at least shift gears - as I then needed to focus on selling my boxes of books! In the meantime, I kept on accumulating more material for a second book, if I were to someday write one...














I stuffed my notes into a plastic bin. From time to time, I'd look at them, and wonder what to do...

Occasionally, I would also pick up a book on writing, self-publishing, advertising, or running a small business.














Yesterday, I came across a really good one called The Common Sense Guide to Running Your Own Business by John Aylen. (It has one of my favorite features in a book: short chapters.) The chapter entitled, "Know Who You Are (and What You Want to Become)" has a lot of food for thought... And some of the ideas are relevant to life as well as to business.

The first one to jump out at me was: "Commit yourself to goals and activities, but do only things that make you happy, in the short term, the long term, or both: Do things that are worth the accomplishment and that are fun. Getting there isn't half the fun, it's all the fun."

Writing that first book was challenging and fun. In fact, my whole family got involved in it, one way or another.

The second thought that struck me was: There is no shortage of time, only of energy...

So as I reflect on where I want to go with my little business, what I want it to become, I am asking myself:

• Do I want it to grow (and consume more of my time and energy)? Or do I want to spend my time doing other things at this stage of life?
  
• Would it be fun to write another book? (And then go out and promote it...)
• Do I have the energy to do all of the above/some of the above/ none of the above?!

And for now, the answer to all of the questions is: I really don't know!