To infinity from Chapter 1 and beyond
Alex Sablan came up to me hugging a big plastic container. The first grader was willing to share some of his cherished possessions with me. I bent down to look. Inside were five happy geckos. “Which one do you want, teacher?” It was that kind of school and I was that kind of teacher. So without batting an eyelash, I pointed to the smallest gecko. So I can grow him myself, I said, winking at Alex.
You might find yourself with some spare time this Christmas break. Here I am as Alex, sharing not prized bugs, but suggested reading for the holidays.
1. Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step by Edward de Bono
There are two kinds of thinking – vertical and lateral. With lateral thinking you do not eliminate any idea, no matter how wrong or outrageous it seems at first, until you come up with a solution to a problem. The author helps the reader, especially teachers, use lateral thinking for personal interest and as basis for classroom teaching. He helps teachers come up with better ways to develop creativity among students through the daily lessons, routines and even conversations with our students.
As a teacher I need to learn to work with people who do not agree with me, or with each other. This book will help me become more effective problem solver. I’ve been trying to finish this book since 2000. But the author specifically states that the book is not for reading in one sitting but through months, even years.
2. Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success by John Maxwell
Bestselling author, inspirational speaker and leadership guru John Maxwell writes: “The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure… I want to help you learn how to confidently look at the prospect of failure in the eye and move forward anyway.”
I make a lot of mistakes daily. No one knows more about my failed ideas than those who spend time with me, like my students. Science and art projects have not blown up in my face (only because I am not allowed to blow up things in the classroom), but some have created tremendous messes. Just last week my class gingerbread house project ended up in disaster. I had made changes in the way my class usually does it. The changes did not work. But it became an object lesson on how to deal with failure. Sometimes you just have to eat your mistakes. Among the many “Flores-isms” you will hear in my classroom are “It’s okay to make a mistake, but learn from this mistake,” “Try not to make the same mistake…make a different mistake next time,” “Don’t waste the mistake,” and “Don’t copy somebody else’s mistakes, make your own.”
I want my students to be calculated risk takers, to expect to make mistakes but move on from there. I know in my own life I do not always handle mistakes well. Some mistakes send me on an emotional tailspin. Some make me walk around with a frown for days. I envy people with sunny dispositions. But Maxwell is right; even sunny people have down times. They just handle them differently.
3. Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
This is an autobiography of how the 20th century’s most scintillating essayist stumbled from agnosticism and paganism to a personal, positive philosophy which he said, surprisingly turned out to be orthodox Christianity. He said he is like the man who set out on an adventure to discover new land and discovered his own home.
Reading Chesterton is like eating a compact, two-ton, rum infused, insanely sweet aged fruitcake. I have owned this book since 2002 and have read only the first chapter. About a dozen times.
Chesterton is actually very funny. He tickles you with the twists and turns in his use of the English language. Chesterton will start with a small idea, or a small story, and he will painstakingly develop a whole thesis around it, much like how a Wagnerian symphony can start with a note and end as a huge, massive crescendo. There is something majestic in the way Chesterton communicates his ideas, but somehow there is also a down to earthiness in his style. It is hard to describe it. Authors like C.S. Lewis and Malcolm Muggeridge like to quote Chesterton. Lewis, a colleague of J.R.Tolkien, considers Chesterton his mentor.
I sometimes become weary of teaching and think what I do is insignificant. A public school teacher is sometimes like Pacific salmon swimming upstream to a life giving place. Books like Orthodoxy (even just Chapter 1) reminds me of a God who is there, and who can make me rise above the muck and muddle around me to the source of eternal meaning and purpose in life.
One small gecko, three books, eternity and beyond. But one wonders, what is Alex catching now?
You might find yourself with some spare time this Christmas break. Here I am as Alex, sharing not prized bugs, but suggested reading for the holidays.
1. Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step by Edward de Bono
There are two kinds of thinking – vertical and lateral. With lateral thinking you do not eliminate any idea, no matter how wrong or outrageous it seems at first, until you come up with a solution to a problem. The author helps the reader, especially teachers, use lateral thinking for personal interest and as basis for classroom teaching. He helps teachers come up with better ways to develop creativity among students through the daily lessons, routines and even conversations with our students.
As a teacher I need to learn to work with people who do not agree with me, or with each other. This book will help me become more effective problem solver. I’ve been trying to finish this book since 2000. But the author specifically states that the book is not for reading in one sitting but through months, even years.
2. Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success by John Maxwell
Bestselling author, inspirational speaker and leadership guru John Maxwell writes: “The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure… I want to help you learn how to confidently look at the prospect of failure in the eye and move forward anyway.”
I make a lot of mistakes daily. No one knows more about my failed ideas than those who spend time with me, like my students. Science and art projects have not blown up in my face (only because I am not allowed to blow up things in the classroom), but some have created tremendous messes. Just last week my class gingerbread house project ended up in disaster. I had made changes in the way my class usually does it. The changes did not work. But it became an object lesson on how to deal with failure. Sometimes you just have to eat your mistakes. Among the many “Flores-isms” you will hear in my classroom are “It’s okay to make a mistake, but learn from this mistake,” “Try not to make the same mistake…make a different mistake next time,” “Don’t waste the mistake,” and “Don’t copy somebody else’s mistakes, make your own.”
I want my students to be calculated risk takers, to expect to make mistakes but move on from there. I know in my own life I do not always handle mistakes well. Some mistakes send me on an emotional tailspin. Some make me walk around with a frown for days. I envy people with sunny dispositions. But Maxwell is right; even sunny people have down times. They just handle them differently.
3. Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
This is an autobiography of how the 20th century’s most scintillating essayist stumbled from agnosticism and paganism to a personal, positive philosophy which he said, surprisingly turned out to be orthodox Christianity. He said he is like the man who set out on an adventure to discover new land and discovered his own home.
Reading Chesterton is like eating a compact, two-ton, rum infused, insanely sweet aged fruitcake. I have owned this book since 2002 and have read only the first chapter. About a dozen times.
Chesterton is actually very funny. He tickles you with the twists and turns in his use of the English language. Chesterton will start with a small idea, or a small story, and he will painstakingly develop a whole thesis around it, much like how a Wagnerian symphony can start with a note and end as a huge, massive crescendo. There is something majestic in the way Chesterton communicates his ideas, but somehow there is also a down to earthiness in his style. It is hard to describe it. Authors like C.S. Lewis and Malcolm Muggeridge like to quote Chesterton. Lewis, a colleague of J.R.Tolkien, considers Chesterton his mentor.
I sometimes become weary of teaching and think what I do is insignificant. A public school teacher is sometimes like Pacific salmon swimming upstream to a life giving place. Books like Orthodoxy (even just Chapter 1) reminds me of a God who is there, and who can make me rise above the muck and muddle around me to the source of eternal meaning and purpose in life.
One small gecko, three books, eternity and beyond. But one wonders, what is Alex catching now?
