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Bucket List, from Bo Keely

October 3, 2017 |

My image of a child is where teaching begins. For this, I need only remember myself as a kid. Children come into this world exquisitely designed, strongly motivated, and very capable of educating themselves. The art of teaching is assembling guideposts on their life paths. Every day, in a hundred small ways, children ask, 'Do you hear me?' Do you see me? What am I? Do I matter?' Teaching is about opening doors for them to places that they could not imagine. This is my bucket list of what they should find.

Think - It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Reason – Analysis is a knife applied to experience.

Act – Act whenever there is a choice to do nothing or to act.

Master yourself – No one is free who is not master of himself 

Read – The well-read differ from the unread as much as the living from the dead.

Exercise – Exercise is to the body what reading is to the mind.

Travel – Develop perspective that is not found among friends.

Limits – Become aware of your physical and mental limitations; with those borders learn your total puzzle.

Know thyself – To know yourself completely is to know one's conscious and unconscious.

Edge – Repeated small advantages win large prizes.

Danger – The most dangerous man, in any group, is the man who is able to think for himself.

Individuality – The individual struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe is worth it.

Hard work – There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

Pain - Pain makes you stronger, fear makes you braver, heartbreak makes you wiser.

Self-motivate – Start a fire under yourself, and create goals.

Mess up – Mistakes are stepping stones to success, and don't give up.

Habit – You are today because of yesterday's habits, that form tomorrow's patterns.

Thinking – Positive thinking is a crutch for the weak; stick to the facts.

Silence – Well done is better than well said.

Kindness ­- Help those who help themselves, but look out for #1.

Delay gratification – Little by little, through patience and repeated effort, the fruit grows sweeter.

Rehearse ­– Mentally and physically act out before leaping into it.

Comfort – The best things happen at the exit ramp of your comfort zone.

Leave it - What you cannot enforce, don't try to command.

Ask – To know the path ahead, ask those who are returning.

The road – Finding out who you are is the whole purpose of the human experience.

Goal – Finding your passion isn't about money and career, it's about supporting yourself doing something you like.

Parents – Model the kind of behavior you want your parents to exhibit.

Religion - Attempting to use religion as a nationalizing agent is bogus.

Children – Never help a child with a task he can go alone.

Now go out there and be authentic.

Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching what counts is more important. One item a day is fast enough to empty this bucket. There are a month's worth, thirty days, 30 items.

It is easier to build strong children with this bucket than to repair broken men without it. When someone asks me about kids, I tell them two things: I was a sub-teacher with 30 children of my own, five changes a day, in all subjects at all grade levels, for seven years. And, there is a time to stop parenting; then I had a vasectomy.

I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom rather than the lessons. The teacher's personal approach and daily mood create the climate for learning. It is a powerful position being the weather in each of their days. I am the teacher who gives them something to take home to think about, besides homework.


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