Even on Your Worst Day, You Can Be a Student's Best Hope

Manny Scott

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781416624912
• eBook ISBN: 9781416624943
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

As Manny Scott travels the world speaking to students and educators, he meets young people whose stories sound a lot like his own—a childhood that was marked by poverty, instability, violence, and despair until a few caring educators showed him how to find meaning in the classroom and gave him a glimpse of his own possibilities. So many kids he meets today need this kind of hope and practical assistance. But with all that is already on educators' plates, what can an individual teacher do to help traumatized children believe in themselves, succeed in school, and graduate prepared for work and life?

Here, you'll find answers. With the same passion that inspires so many who hear him speak, Scott presents an approach informed by the teachers who helped him and honed through years of connecting with kids who desperately need someone to show them a path to a more positive future. He shares the little things you can do to prepare yourself for the hard work of making a difference and offers advice for bridging cultural divides, earning students' trust, and equipping them to take responsibility for their own success.

This book is a reminder of the incredible power every teacher has to help young people rewrite their destinies—and it's a call to action for all who read it.

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Chapter 1

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You Can Lead Students to Water and Make Them Drink

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I'll never forget the cowboy who changed my life.

After I finished speaking to a group of leaders and educators at a conference in Rockwall, Texas, they stood on their feet and blessed me with a long and enthusiastic ovation. After they took their seats again, I saw a raised hand in the back-left corner of the room. Someone had a question. A man rose to speak. His voice was a little shaky, indicating that he was fighting back tears.

He said, "Sir, I can't thank you enough for your presentation today. I really needed to hear that." He paused for a moment to contain his emotion before continuing, "More than you know, I really needed to hear that." Then he asked his question: "I came here looking for guidance about one kid in particular. How do you reach that kid in the back of the room who has his head down on his desk, who has difficult parents, and who is not interested in anything you have to say? How do you reach that kid? I want to reach that kid. Do you have any advice for me?"

Grateful for this man's transparency and his genuine concern, I thanked him, and then I gave my answer. "Sir, you can't make kids want an education," I said. "All you can do is the best you can with what you've got. It really is true that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make—"

Before I could finish the phrase, a man in the back-right corner of the room cut me off. He had a huge cowboy hat on his head and a big, ornate, flashy buckle on his belt. He also had a really cool Texan accent, as I learned when he called out in a voice loud enough for the whole room to hear, "Excuse me, sir! I beg your pardon. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm from here."

I smiled and nodded, acknowledging him, his apology, and his unique flair.

"I was born on a ranch," the cowboy continued, "I was raised on a ranch, and—believe it or not—I live on a ranch right now. What you're sayin' about the horse is only partially correct. Partially. You see, sir, it's true that you can lead a horse to water and that won't make it drink. That's true, fair enough. What most people don't realize, though, is that you can slap some salt in that horse's mouth to make it thirsty. Then that horse'll drink! It's called a 'salt lick.'" The crowd erupted with laughter and applause.

This truth—that all it takes is a little salt in a horse's mouth to make it thirsty and make it drink—utterly changed how I think about teaching and leadership. Later that night, sitting alone in my hotel room, I connected this great insight to something a Jewish carpenter told his followers nearly 2,000 years ago: "You are the salt of the earth." He taught them that they, by the very essence of who they chose to be and how they chose to live their lives, had the capacity to make others thirsty … and, in doing so, they had the ability to change the world.

Do you realize that you too have the capacity to make your students thirsty for education? By the way you talk, by the way you walk, by the way you teach, and by the way you live, you have within you the power to make your students thirsty for learning, for knowledge, and for wisdom. Right now, with whatever limitations you have, you have the power to change someone's life. Yes, even the life of that kid, the one in the back of the room with his head down on his desk and the difficult home life and no apparent interest in drinking the water you're offering.

I'm convinced that the best way to bring the kind of "salt" that will make students thirsty is to prepare yourself every morning to be your absolute best. If you have not properly prepared to teach with excellence every day, then you are not honoring the commitment you made at the beginning of your teaching career to honor and educate the young minds under your care. If, for whatever reason, you have lost that zeal and the will to be your best as a teacher, then you need to find a way to reconnect with that passion and purpose. You need to reclaim your saltiness.

It is true that proper preparation prevents poor performance. The difference between success and failure as a teacher lies in the difference of habits. Teachers who have good habits do well, and those who have bad habits do poorly. There are no shortcuts to succeeding as a teacher. (I would have found them by now if there were some.) I have learned that if you want to do well as an educator (or in any area of your life), if you want to avoid teaching that is bland and boring, frustrating and flavorless, then you must start your work before your workday starts. In this chapter, I want to share with you some things to help you "get salty" and get yourself ready to teach.

Prepare Your Voice

Before you teach, you should almost always try to warm up your voice for 30 to 60 minutes. As a teacher, you are a vocal athlete. Like a great runner would do before a race, you have to warm up your (vocal) muscles before school. There are several programs and apps that you can download to help you warm up your voice. Explore them, and find one that works for you.

I have been warming up my voice before lectures, lessons, seminars, and keynotes for the past 20 years. Those vocal exercises have helped me learn to control my voice and not have it control me. If you have not warmed up your voice and you have to teach for several hours, then you risk straining it, getting hoarse and raspy, and maybe losing your voice entirely.

Prepare Your Mind

Preparing your mind for the work ahead of you is matter of learning to ask yourself the right kinds of questions. Those questions determine what you focus on, and what you focus on determines how you feel at any given moment.

Let me explain. A little while ago, I was scheduled to speak 29 times in 16 states within a 3-week period. One day, halfway through the tour, I drove more than three hours to catch a couple flights that lasted a few more hours. After the airline informed me that they had lost my luggage, I drove another hour to my hotel. I did not get to sleep until 4:30 a.m. And facing me when I awoke was a day with four scheduled speaking events in front of four large groups.

When my alarm started blaring at 5:45 a.m., do you think I felt like speaking? After getting only 75 minutes of sleep, I felt terrible. My body was still tired, and my brain was tired too. Why? I asked myself. Why did I do this to myself? Why did I schedule these events so close together? I wallowed there in my bed, feeling discouraged. The questions I was asking myself made me focus on things that made me feel even worse.

Don't miss this: What you focus on determines how you feel at any given moment.

So I have some important questions for you: How do you feel most of the time? Depressed? Sad? Lonely? Angry? Unappreciated? Picked on? Is it possible that some of the questions you ask yourself daily are leading you to focus on things that are making you feel terrible? Miserable? Sad?

If you want to change how you feel, you need to change your focus, and in order to change your focus, you need to change your questions. More specifically, you need to get in the habit of asking yourself the right questions in the morning. Here are some questions I ask myself each morning that I am scheduled to teach or speak, followed by my usual answers.

• What am I grateful for today? I am grateful to be alive today. I am grateful for health. I am grateful I heard that alarm clock. I am grateful I have an opportunity to work. I am grateful I have a sound mind.
• Who loves me today, and whom do I love? My wife loves me, my children love me, my mom loves me, my friends love me, my brothers love me, and God loves me. And I love them.
• What am I proud about in my life today? I am proud to be a great father. I am proud to be at this place in my life, doing well. I am proud that I lost 35 pounds. I am proud that I know how to fly airplanes. I am proud that I have broken so many cycles of poverty, mediocrity, and misery in my family.
• What is the most important thing I need to get done today? I need to connect with the people I'll be speaking to or teaching and help them realize their own potential and power to change their own lives and the lives of those around them.

What about you? What are some questions you might ask yourself to change how you feel and empower yourself to have a great day? What are some questions you can ask yourself every morning? In the afternoon? After a challenging experience? You can use my questions as a starting point, and think up some of your own.

Prepare Your Body

Some days, even after I have asked myself all of the questions above, I do not feel quite ready to teach or speak. I have learned another trick for navigating these cases: When your mind doesn't change how you feel, your body can.

Motion can change your emotions. In mornings before I speak or teach, I usually work out for 30 to 60 minutes. I often jog a few miles. Sometimes I lift weights or go swimming. Sometimes I get on a stair climber, and sometimes I do planks in order to strengthen my core. What I have found is that the more I get my heart pumping and my blood flowing, the better I begin feel.

I also share this to encourage you to get in shape. Stamina is basically part of a teacher's job description, and besides, you never know when you will be faced with a situation that requires you to be your best physically. Of course, there are many things in life that being in shape cannot prevent, but it's better to be able to run and not need to than to need to run and not be able to.

Prepare Your Heart

Finally, after making sure my voice, mind, and body are ready, I position my heart to speak, teach, and serve. Methods for this will vary. I tend to listen to music that inspires me, sing songs that encourage my heart, and pray.

I cannot even begin to describe to you how preparing my heart for work has transformed my life as a teacher and speaker. Knowing how powerful this can be, I want to encourage you to find a way to prepare your heart to teach. Maybe it's meditation or yoga or some other mindfulness approach. I have heard of some teachers looking in the mirror and speaking words of self-affirmation every morning. Some people dance in their cars on the way to work. Some teachers have told me that they find video clips that make them laugh. Others write in a journal every morning to get their hearts ready for the day. Whatever it takes, get yourself centered before you start your workday.

Nurture the Habits That Sustain You

As a teacher, there are going to be times when you will face distractions, deterrents, and all sorts of obstacles. In those times, it will be your habits that will keep you at your best. Without good habits, you will surrender; with good habits, you will survive.

Let me tell you about a time that my habits helped to sustain me. I was scheduled to speak eight times in two days to eight large groups of students and school employees. While I knew the work would be hard, I had no idea exactly how challenging those two days would be. After each of the four middle or high school assemblies, I talked to thousands of students, one on one, listening attentively to their stories, encouraging them to do their best in school, and patiently helping them persevere through their pain. To be fully present with each person requires a stamina and strength that is hard to describe.

Furthermore, during a couple of my presentations to auditoriums and gymnasiums of adults, the microphones died on me. The technology team was unable to fix the problem, so I had to project my voice loudly for nearly two hours so that everyone could hear me.

It was because I put myself in my "salty" zone by waking up early each day to prepare my voice, mind, body, and heart that I was able to make it through those two days without losing my effectiveness. To be sure, every fiber of my being was aching from exhaustion after all eight presentations. Still, I could walk away from those engagements with the certainty that I had done my absolute best to create an unquenchable thirst in my audiences.

When you are fully committed to helping others as a teacher, you are going to do the things that most other people will not do. You are going to have to make sacrifices that others are not willing to make. You are going to have to train your voice, mind, body, and heart to perform at maximal levels.

I have been teaching for nearly 20 years, and I have no doubt that my private habits have led to my public effectiveness. They have allowed me to not only survive but thrive. They help me sustain the salt I need to be effective. I share that not to impress you, but to impress upon you that I would not be the teacher or speaker I am without the habits I have developed: the tens of thousands of hours that I have spent studying, writing, and preparing for my presentations; exercising before dawn; warming up my voice; and centering myself so that I can teach with clarity, conviction, passion, and power.

My friend, commit to a daily morning routine that will make you salty. Diligently prepare your voice, mind, body, and heart to be your absolute best so that you can inspire in your students a thirst for knowledge and wisdom that they will never outgrow and never forget.

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Chapter 2

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It Starts with Relationships

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The other kids in my 6th grade class were laughing and having a good time, but I couldn't even find it in myself to smile. I sat there numb. Calloused. Hardened.

The night before, I had heard the sound of crashing glass and my mother letting out a terrifying, heart-wrenching scream. In a panic, I ran to our apartment door and opened it to see my stepfather in the hallway, holding my mother by the back of her head, by her hair. I saw blood pouring down my mother's neck, soaking through her blouse. My stepfather had just slammed my mother's head through the large glass window that was in the hallway of our building. So I did my best to intervene, to fight a grown man. I lost, of course. It was a long night of paramedics, police officers, and pain.

The very next day, with almost no sleep, I went to school. Although I was present physically, I was absent mentally. On the playground, I looked around at the other kids and wondered to myself, Why does everyone seem so happy? What's so funny? What is there to laugh and be happy about?

My teachers didn't make things any better for me that day. I remember sitting in class, wearing clothes that probably hadn't been washed in a month or two. The shoes on my feet were too big and full of holes, hand-me ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. You Can Lead Students to Water and Make Them Drink
• Chapter 2. It Starts with Relationships
• Chapter 3. Become a Student of Your Students
• Chapter 4. Build Bridges
• Chapter 5. Give Them Glimpses of Their Own Possibilities
• Chapter 6. Help Them Find Their Voices
• Chapter 7. Believe in Them Until They Believe in Themselves
• Chapter 8. Keep Showing Up
• References
• Study Guide
• Related ASCD Resources
• About the Author
• Copyright