WILL #12

What I Learned Lately (WILL 13/14 #12) by Dr. Josh Garcia
12/13/2013
“Resting with Optimism”

When I was growing up, I remembered that I dreamed almost every day and every night.  I remember that I dreamed in color and that I could even hear the pitch in the voices of my dreams.   I forgot when I stopped dreaming so vividly and so regularly.  Many nights, my head hits the pillow, my mind races until I am silenced with sleep.  I still have vivid dreams, yet often they have a haunting element.  “How could I have stopped that child from getting hurt?  How could I have gotten that student to graduate?  How could I have gotten that student to college?”  I do remember when I learned that my dreams could become goals and goals could become missions and missions could become a way of life.  All along my journey, I have been learning to wrestle with how I could still be an individual and a part of a movement at the same time.

As we slam into a new year, my dream remains the same – each child, every day - safe, healthy, supported, engaged and challenged.  A new year brings us all a symbolic opportunity to stay committed, to recommit and or to start over.  My “wish” is for you to not stop dreaming.  I want you to teach our students to turn their dreams into goals, their goals into missions and their missions into a way of life.  Happy New Year to each of you, I look forward to picking up the pace in 2014.  I look forward, knowing that we have not arrived and yet celebrating how far we have come.  As we close this calendar year, I sleep not with “peace” but I “rest” with relentless optimism.

Finally from George Washington Doane,
“Life Sculpture”

Chisel in hand stood a sculptor boy
With his marble block before him,
And his eyes lit up with a smile of joy,
As an angel-dream passed o’er him.

He carved the dream on that shapeless stone,
With many a sharp incision;
With heaven’s own flight the sculpture shone,
He’d caught that angel-vision.

Children of life are we, as we stand
With our lives uncarved before us,
Waiting the hour when, at God’s command,
Our life-dream shall pass o’er us.

If we carve it then on the yielding stone,
With many a sharp incision,
Its heavenly beauty shall be our own,
Our lives, that angel-vision.

Cross-posted: http://edge.ascd.org/_What-I-Learned-Lately-WILL-1314-12/blog/6560066/127586.html