Good morning and happy Friday! I hope today finds you ready to be at your best, yet, prepared for a weekend to relax, recharge, and enjoy life a little bit!

My wife is “galavating” (goodness, what a fun word) around Chicago at Head Start’s national conference, I’m left to my own devices. So, I’m up early, got a few things done, and sat down to write, but drew a blank. Everyone’s experienced something like this, so I turned on some house music, and browsed some other blogs I’ve found I enjoy reading.

One blog I’ve found, The Englishist, written by an Englist professor, gave me “#MustReadin2017 Spring Check-in”, where the author wrote about her books to read in 2017, a couple of reviews, and some reasoning behind why she’s behind. As it is, it’s a pretty potent group of books, so it’s something I’d recommend checking out!

Following that thread of pretty intense blogs post, another follow, TeacherWander lust, gave me  Found poetry – Venezuelan Protests. This blogger, an American who travels all over the world, teaching at international schools, talks about the protests that have been going on in Venezuela this week, about how kids are coming to school, classes are being cancelled, and the poem itself is pretty potent. Again, I’d check out this posts and others by her!

But what really got me started writing today, a quote that I found online by William Glasser:

We are driven by five genetic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun.

As I think about this school year, and all the “stuff” we’ve gone through with our students, I see this so clearly. We have students who are in survival mode, either because of issues with family, friends, or even themselves. They crave that love and belonging, so need that talk time, that positive interaction with an adult who won’t pull the rug out from under them. Either that or they make bad choices, act out in a cry for something, anything they can grasp as a positive in their lives.

Some look at what we do at useless to them, so they turn everything into some kind of power struggle (my own daughter included). I will say, I wasn’t a huge fan of the whole Love and Logic thing, but I will say, it does work. I’m not sure how many times I’ve said, “That’s a bummer” or “I’ll be happy to argue with you after school”, but it’s made a difference. They are 8th graders, so they want their freedom to make decisions, and we do allow that decision making to a point, but it’s never enough. But most of all, they just want to have fun!

 

In our own lives, we look at how we can “survive the week”, how to find places in our communities that bring us a sense of belonging and love. For some, they are driven by that sense of power, how can I control more land, more business, more people. All long for freedom, whether it’s from a relationship, a job, or just freedom from being tied down, being able to wander through life seeking and exploring. I don’t know a person who doesn’t want some fun in their life, but does that drive them?

So, whether it’s love, freedom, or just a little bit of fun, don’t let those around you push those things that drive you away. Surround yourself with people who are driven to be successful and push forward. Only you know what drives you, but they can help with in your drive to be a better person.

And in the end, that’s what matters most!