Who says you can't go home?

I went home twice in the last two weeks. First, I went back to my old high school, did a presentation for the entire student body and received two standing ovations. I spent the rest of the day in three classrooms building on points from my ninety-minute program. And, I had a blast! I needed to be in that gym that day. I fed off of the energy from the students and everything just clicked. I had them laughing one minute and just like that you could have heard a pin drop. I took them on a long roller coaster ride, and based on many conversations I had that day, and the following weekend, I made a difference. That's the whole idea. I only have students long enough to plant the seeds, then I turn them back to the teachers to nurture them.


Then, last weekend I went home again and watched the high school football team win their first game of the season in impressive fashion by a score of 26 to 12. After the game, I asked the coach if I could go into the locker room. I gave a very short pep talk and congratulated them on a well-played game. There was a lot of positive energy in the room, the kids were pumped, as was I, and I entered the locker room for the first time since the night I got hurt in 1971.


After the locker room cleared out, I sat and talked to the head coach, Dennis Hale, and a longtime assistant coach, Don Kuiper. Coach Kuiper was actually one of the assistant coaches when I got hurt. He has spent close to 40 years teaching and coaching in the Worthington school district.


They showed me a new type of offense they were running called, "The Wristband Offense." I had never seen a team play that style of offense before. I have to say it looked pretty complicated. It was very impressive to watch their team play an entire game without huddling and watching the kids read the plays from their wristband.


We went over their scorebook and analyzed what had just happened. I was curious to know how many more plays they could get in without running a standard offense where the team huddled after every play to call the next play. They were able to run 78 plays while their opponent only ran 54. With that kind of play count advantage over the course of the year they will certainly have a dramatic advantage over their opponents. Besides that, it was fun to watch. Their offense was spread out all over the field. They threw the ball 38 times for more than 225 yards. That's a lot of passing plays for a high school team to run in a single game.


Another one of the highlights for me that evening was talking to several students who approached me and thanked me for my presentation the week before at Worthington High School. I know how difficult it can be for a teenager to approach me sometimes. It's not that I'm not approachable; it's just not something many young people have an opportunity to do because speakers aren't usually around a school a week later.


That's one of the reasons why I like to spend an entire day in the building when I visit a school. I truly believe a major part of my success comes from the fact I don't just go into a building, do my presentation and go on to the next building. I believe a lot of learning takes place in the classroom visits that follow my assembly program.


The classroom visits allow me time to do a couple of experiential exercises that build on very important points I make in my assembly. It also gives students an opportunity to ask questions they might not otherwise get to ask in a large assembly in a gymnasium or auditorium. When classrooms are connected to the Internet, I like to take kids to my website and show them pictures of my accident, my hospitalization, my van and several other cool things. It’s all about those “teachable moments.”

It’s not true; you can go home.

Fairmont TARGET Workshop

Mark Hernes runs the Fairmont TARGET Group at Fairmont High School in Fairmont, Minnesota. I spent six hours on August 29th with about 100 student/athletes of his leadership group. He has a program that covers ninth through twelfth grade. We spent a six-hour day in a hot church and had several amazing experiences.

I put together a leadership packet of about twenty handouts, and did several small group and large group exercises. I'm only going to discuss one of the exercises.

One of my favorite exercises is having a group line up by birth date without speaking. They need to figure out alternative ways of communicating and sometimes that can be a difficult task. No matter the size of the group, usually someone thinks they are on the right spot only to find out later they are not. With these young leaders, everyone was exactly where he or she needed to be. They got creative and communicated by writing their birth date down and using hand signals. However, no one pulled out his or her driver’s license. When I asked them about it, several replied, “I don’t have one.”

To which I smiled and replied, good reason then, huh? Rarely is it, especially in a group that large, does everyone gets to the right spot.

The next part of the problem is they need to multiply their birth date by their birth month. They are supposed to line up by smallest number to largest. Then I give them more directions on how to break a tie. The first tie breaker is they add up all of the numbers in their home telephone number, and the largest home phone number goes first and works its way to the smallest phone number. If there is still a tie, the second tiebreaker is their home address. The smallest home address goes first to the largest last. In a group this size, we had several ties. Two of the tiebreakers went to the second tiebreaker.

As soon as I started giving all of these directions to the entire group, inevitably people start panicking and looking for a calculator, or paper and pencil, even if they are not involved with a tie.

They scored 100% on that part too. I was impressed. This is the first time I have every done that exercise in a group that large when everyone got to the right spot. Oh yes, this time they are allowed to talk. What usually happens is they lose their focus; start talking about all kinds of things and make mistakes.

What stuck me about this exercise was watching several of the leaders take charge and direct people where they needed to be. That’s when I know the person running their program is teaching leadership skills. Mark Hernes is running a good program and I commend him for his efforts.

That exercise was representative of the whole day. Kudos to Mark, his staff and especially the student leadership in his TARGET program!

First Day of School 2007

Another school year has just begun, and what a first day I just had. I spent the day at Lincoln Secondary School in Esko, Minnesota, a small town in Northern Minnesota on Interstate 35, about twenty miles south of Duluth. I had fun with the students doing three short programs for their seventh and eighth graders, ninth and tenth graders, and juniors and seniors.

Then the real fun began. A middle school math teacher by the name of Russ Davidson approached me to thank me and I asked him if he would like me to visit his classroom. With an abbreviated schedule for the first day of school and classes only running about 20 minutes, I watched a middle school math teacher teach with more passion than I have seen in a long time. The three classes I sat in on were seventh and eighth grade transitional math classes. He quickly went through his expectations and requirements for the year, handed out textbooks, and then gave the students to me.

I showed them how to do slant or lattice multiplication, did a fun math exercise that will only work this year, and spent my short time sharing some of my beliefs about how important a good education is to them.

The two of us fed of each other’s energy and had a learning experience that was just amazing. I think I got as much out of the experience as anyone.

Russ has spent his entire life, except for four years away at college, in Esko. He grew up there, and got his first, and only, teaching job thirty-five years ago in his hometown. He shared stories with me about his family, grandchildren and plans for the future. Under Rule 90, Russ is planning to retire at the end of this school year and move with his wife of 37 years to Florida. When he leaves, Esko will have a hard time filling his shoes.

The passion he puts into his classroom was obvious the minute I entered the room. He got excited just handing out textbooks!

The fun thing for me was it was completely unplanned. My contract stated I would give three large group presentations and be done at 1:00 PM. Whenever I visit a building, I like to spend as much time as possible with students because I can get more done. I would love to be a fly on the wall in his classroom tomorrow to see what his students have to say about their experience today.

Self-Advocacy

On August 24th, I spent the better part of the day attending a workshop in St. Paul put on by Advocating Change Together (ACT). ACT is a grassroots disability rights organization run by and for people with developmental and other disabilities. Among other things, ACT is working to help make people with disabilities lives' better by teaching them skills to make them better self-advocates to take charge of their own lives.

To paraphrase their flyer, the objective for the meeting was: "Do Metro Area self-advocacy groups want the metro region of Self-Advocates Minnesota (SAM) to work together as a team? And, if we do, we need to define the structure, strategies and players."

I spent close to four hours watching people with various levels of developmental disabilities make some incredible decisions based on very rational thought processes much of society doesn't think they possess. Therefore, "We" need to make those decisions for this group of people. They proved to me in that short time society is not giving credit where credit is due!

I was very impressed with several people who were obviously making many, if not all of the decisions they needed to live their lives to the fullest. It was a fun experience.

I was especially impressed at the end of the workshop when it came time to vote on the object of the day; only one woman needed clarification on the question put before them. I had been interjecting some of own thoughts and suggestions throughout the meeting; so, I tried to explain the issue in a little different language I believed would make it easier for her to understand.

Then she understood the question and voted with the rest of the self-advocates to make the motion unanimous. By the way, the only people who were allowed to vote were the individuals who had disabilities. The staff members from the various organizations were not allowed to vote. After all, the workshop was about self-advocacy.

The crowning achievement for me was when they asked for two volunteers to plan the next meeting and get their new project off of the ground, one woman shot her hand right up and eagerly volunteered. She was ready to go! Almost immediately, another woman also volunteered.

I immediately told them how impressed I was they were taking on that new responsibility, and they were demonstrating exactly what the workshop was all about, self-advocacy. They both got huge smiles and thanked me for the compliment.

I'll be watching to see how their new leadership group develops.

A Real Lesson Learned

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock, did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she took all of the desks out of the classroom.

The kids came into first period, they walked in, there were no desks. They obviously looked around and said, "Ms. Cothren, where's our desk?"

And she said, "You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn them."

They thought, "Well, maybe it's our grades."

"No," she said.

"Maybe it's our behavior."

And she told them, "No, it's not even your behavior."

And so they came and went in the first period, still no desks in the classroom. Second period, same thing. Third period, the same. By early afternoon television news crews had gathered in Ms. Cothren's class to find out about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of the classroom.

The last period of the day, Martha Cothren gathered her class. They were at this time sitting on the floor around the sides of the room. And she says, "Throughout the day no one has really understood how you earn the desks that ordinarily sit in this classroom." She said, "Now I'm going to tell you."

Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it, and as she did 27 U.S. veterans, wearing their uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. They placed those school desks in rows, and then they stood along the wall. By the time they had finished placing those desks, those students for the first time I think perhaps in their lives understood how they earned those desks.

Martha said, "You don't have to earn those desks. These guys did it for you. They put them out there for you, but it's up to you to sit here responsibly to learn, to be good students and good citizens, because they paid a price for you to have that desk, and don't ever forget it."

She also did a Vietnam memorial service with her classes.

The whole story is located here, complete with sources on Snopes.com.

My comment:

Our men and women continue to pay the price, that's why when you see the Bush Administration continue to cut benefits to veterans, and the conditions at Walter Reed Hospital, among countless other things they've done to our veterans, it should make every American, at the very least, upset enough to write to your representative and senators in Washington and absolutely make a statement in the voting booth!

Actually, a quick Google search showed a couple of hundred pages and all of the pages I looked at confirmed the story’s validity. Now, forward something around the 'net that’s true about a very cool teacher, and a lesson well learned.

Elpis Enterprises

I met Paul Ramsour in about 1996. At the time, Paul was a member of the Minneapolis Jaycees, and was working with kids making birdfeeders in small workshops with groups all over the city. Meanwhile, I was running a small business I call Prairie Woods in an old lumberyard in White, SD, commuting between Minneapolis and White. Prairie Woods was trying to make a for-profit business profitable by building products made out of old barn wood, a manufacturing company's waste redwood pieces, old fence boards, pallets and any other waste and recycled wood we could get our hands on. I saw raw materials everywhere I went.

Paul was buying pine boards to make the birdfeeders, and I asked him why he would buy new wood when there were so many raw materials out there, free for the taking? Now, he uses cedar cutoffs from fence companies, and old cedar fences people give us when they tear down an old fence and build a new one. Elpis Enterprises is the result of countless hours of work on Paul's part, along with several other people who have made a commitment to helping young people in Minneapolis.

We now have a shop in an old building in St. Paul. I say, "We" because I'm now a board member trying to do my part in helping with the mission of building hope for youth. Besides the woodshop, we also run a screen-printing business. If you ever need any T-shirts silk screened, give us a call, or send us an email and we'll give you an estimate. We can work with your design, or help you design a shirt you can be proud to use.

I have been helping to run a few workshops lately and have been working mostly with Jessyca, a young woman who is actually coming to work as a staff member for Elpis. We conducted one workshop last week that stands out for me. We had about ten young people involved in a summer recreation program at a Minneapolis park and recreation center. The two young women who were their leaders were excellent and helped Jessyca and me assist these children each build their own small birdfeeder.

It was a fun experience for everyone but one young boy. He was giving up because it was too hard. He just couldn't get the nails pounded in and was very frustrated. I tried to get him to keep trying to no avail. One of the leaders told him he couldn’t take part in their next activity if he didn’t build a birdfeeder. He made a birdfeeder.

Afterwards, I talked to the group and asked them a few questions. My first question was, “Did you learn anything from this experience?”

After a couple of answers like, “I learned how to make a birdfeeder,” and “I learned nails bend pretty easily,” and “I learned how to hold a hammer.” My little friend then replied, “I learned never to do this again.”

I said, “Wait a minute. I hope you didn’t learn that. I hope you learned if you give up, you wouldn’t accomplish your goal. I hope you learned just because a problem is hard, doesn’t mean we should give up. I hope you learned you can accomplish things you never thought possible if you put your mind to it.”

Then I quoted Henry Ford and said, “No job is too great if you break it down into a number of small tasks.”

I told them they started with five pieces of wood, and made them into two pieces, the base and the roof. Then they had Jessyca add a small brace, help them drill some holes, put the pieces together, inserted two pieces of plexiglas, added a bag of birdseed, and before you knew it, your project was complete.

I hope my little friend learned he is capable of doing all kinds of things, and he’ll never accomplish anything if he doesn’t try.

Michael Jordon, the great basketball player once said, “I missed every shot I didn’t take.”

When Bridges Fall

I live in Minneapolis, and have crossed the 35W Bridge more times than I can count since moving here in 1975. In fact, my mother and I crossed it on Tuesday night, about 22 hours before it fell. My sister, Vicki, and her two children, Gavan and Sinead, had also crossed it on Tuesday. I found out later, my second cousin, Jeremy and his girlfriend, Kelli, had crossed it about 5 PM, just an hour before it collapsed. They are going to school on the edge of downtown and live about a mile from the bridge. Then, I got an email from a friend who told me he and his wife crossed it on their way home from work at about 5:30. One of their coworkers crossed it at 5:45! That was too close!

I know there are stories like those all over the Twin Cities because it is such a major artery and carries about 140,000 vehicles each day.

I was working a youth program that night with Paul Ramsour, the executive director of a small non-profit group called Elpis Enterprises. We were at a Minneapolis City Park doing one of our birdfeeder workshops when people started walking up to our booth and telling us the 35W bridge had just collapsed over the Minnesota River in Burnsville, a southern suburb.

When we were done with our workshop, Paul had to drive 35W to get to his home, also south of the Minnesota River. As often happens in events like this, initial information is wrong. After several minutes, people started telling us the bridge that fell was the bridge between downtown and the University of Minnesota spanning the Mississippi River.

It came as a bit of good news he would be able to get home. Little did we know the magnitude of the story until we got home and started watching the coverage on television. It's going to be a major story in these parts for years to come.

It's another one of those life-defining events where you remember where you were when you heard some incredible news. It's like for those of us who are old enough to remember where we were when we heard President Kennedy had been shot. Or, most recently, where we were when we first heard about the attacks on 9-11.

Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call to start fixing our infrastructure. I've been reading about the state of the bridges and roads in America today, and it's a sobering fact: we need to speed up the fixing and building of our aging, and crumbling infrastructure.

My prayers go out to the people who were killed and injured, the people still buried in the river, and to their families and friends whose lives will never be the same.