Steve Nash

Born in South Africa, schooled at St. Michael’s University School in Victoria BC, and a diminutive 1.91 metres and 82 kilograms, not exactly the recipe for National Basketball Association success, but therein lies the magic of Steve Nash.

He attended a small California college, Santa Clara, and was drafted in the first round by the Phoenix Suns. The fans booed management’s choice; how could he be a real basketball player? Two years later he was shipped to Dallas for virtually nothing. And then Steve Nash took off. With Dallas and Phoenix he was the league’s MVP in two successive years and runner-up the following year and named an NBA all-star 8 times. His teams consistently made it to the playoffs. He was ranked as one of the top players in NBA history in three-point shooting; free throw shooting, and total assists and assists per game. And, according to Steve Nash, his greatest career highlight was as captain for Canada in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. This week he announced his retirement.

His passes were pieces of art and he transformed the role of the point guard in the game. “He took not just control, but responsibility, and made his teammates better.” Steve Nash also took responsibility off the court establishing very early in his career a foundation to help underserved children focusing on child health and education. His work has not only impacted children in Canada but through the United States and even South America. For his efforts he received the Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award, the NBA’s award for outstanding community work, an honorary doctor of laws from the University of Victoria, and the Order of Canada.

Steve Nash is the little engine that could. In an age of athletes whose egos rival their compensation, he was the exception. He knew that he had to work every day to remain competitive. He understood the nature of obligation and service and that those athletes have a responsibility both on and off the court. He has been a role model for thousands of children who dream of one day being Steve Nash. If those children grow up with his positively competitive spirit, his commitment to support those on and off the court, and his understanding of where he came from and where he is going, it will be an incredible legacy.

Contact Hockey

This past weekend I watched my son play a hockey game at Leaside arena. It was an exciting game to watch and extremely exciting for the boys to play. What did I see at this particular game?

• Lots of goals and support of the goalies with a tap on the shin or shoulder pads and, in between periods, taps on the helmet from coaches
• As players came off the ice positively animated discussions happened between players, with coaches tapping the players on the helmet or shoulder, and leaning over and giving them coaching advice
• Players laughing and smiling with the coaches, whether it was the winning or losing team
• Congratulatory hand shakes and even a player going and hugging the coach

At the end of the game, I waited for my son to exit from the dressing room (which sometime seems to take forever!) and while doing so watched the next game, a girls’ Leaside game.

The girls were having a wonderful time laughing and clearly enjoying the game and their teammates. What was profoundly different was the relationship between the coaches and the players. This was because the Toronto Leaside Girls Hockey Association instituted an unprecedented “no touch” guideline for coaches and female players at the insistence of a few parents. Although the coaches were enjoying watching the girls play hockey, it’s clear that there was an “arms-length” guideline in place. This was sad for both the coaches and the players.

I understand the compelling need to protect our children, but at some point common sense must prevail. The joy and positive enthusiasm of sport, and the role of coaches as mentors, instructors, and role models represents the foundation of positive and well-adjusted relationships.

Let us not destroy it.

It’s Not All About the Stats

One of the first things that I do every morning is pull out the sport’s section of the newspaper (yes, I still read a paper copy) and look to see how the Raptors and Leafs have played the night before. Then, I flip the pages to see where they are in the standings (I am a bit of a masochist). Their success is measured relative to other teams’ performances.

The current emphasis on sport metrics is just another notch up in data collection. What is the amount of puck possession? How many shots from outside are dropping? And so, success is being measured statistically and coaches rise and fall based on these statistics. So it is sometimes hard to remember that sport is a very personal and powerful experience that cannot be measured by metrics. I was reminded of this as I watched the United States College Football championship between Ohio State and Oregon.

Sitting on the Ohio State sidelines, in a wheelchair, was a 15-year-old boy, Jacob Jarvis who has muscular dystrophy; his life expectancy is 25 years of age. This was not a picture of a severely disabled young person, but rather a portrait of hope and energy. The Ohio team has become part of Jacob’s life and Jacob has become part of the players’ lives. Through a chance meeting at a football camp in 2013 with the Ohio State Head Coach, Jacob slowly became a part of the team. He attended practices, team and coaches meetings, and games. He became an integral part of the Ohio State football program. This might seem to be everything about Jacob, but it isn’t. With all of the attention that is given to elite athletes, at the professional or college level, it is very easy for them to develop an inflated sense of self – we can think of many examples. By embracing Jacob, the Ohio State football players have learned compassion, of the fragility of life, and making the most of each and every moment. Even the smallest gesture can have the most profound impact: a nod, a tap on the head, listening, giving away the game ball.

As educators and parents, let us think of our daily interactions with children and how we ask them to interact with each other. The simplest of actions can be the most profound.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/14/jacob-jarvis-osu-buckeyes-win-muscular-dystrophy-video-_n_6472630.html

Jean Béliveau

This past week Canadians are mourning the loss of Jean Béliveau. What has been remarkable has been the press coverage of his passing. There is talk of his hockey accomplishments of which there are many: 17 Stanley Cups as a player and as an executive, 13 all-star game appearances, and more than 1200 points in 1100 games. But this hockey icon is not being remembered for statistics or elegance or skill on the ice; he is being remembered for his character.

There was a quality of humility and humanity that transcended almost everything Jean Béliveau did, and for this he won the admiration of all hockey fans. He was a leader on and off of the ice. Several years ago during a hard fought playoff series with an American rival, some Montreal Canadien fans started to boo the American national anthem. At the very next home game Béliveau came on the arena screen and talked about respect. There was never another boo. No one would want to disappoint Jean Béliveau. He was never “too good” for anyone. Jean Béliveau understood his role as an athlete, and especially as a Montreal Canadien in Quebec. He never turned down an autograph, he regularly went out of his way to visit those that were sick, and he always carried himself with elegance and calm.

This past week his body has rested in state at the Bell Centre and his life was celebrated at a state funeral. His wife, daughter, and grandchildren have been at the Centre to shake hands with the tens of thousands of people who lined up to pay their respects. When they became exhausted, the doors were closed for a period of time to allow them to rest, no one objected. Every individual counted; as grand as Jean Béliveau was, he understood the importance of his impact on each person. Each individual counted. His family has carried on the tradition. Fans have understood and appreciated this.

On Tuesday night the Montreal Canadiens hockey club paid tribute to Jean Béliveau. His regular seat was empty, but draped in a number 4 sweater, his family sat beside the seat. This was the first time since the opening of the Bell Centre that there was not a sellout crowd – they were one seat short. In a touching moment, a puck cleared the ice and landed some distance from where the Béliveaus were seated. Quietly, the puck was passed from one fan to next, until it was respectfully handed to Mrs. Béliveau.

Thankfully the woeful tales of Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson have been pushed to the back pages of the newspapers, to be replaced by a true sports icon who not only spoke about but lived the values of respect, integrity, compassion, courage, and responsibility.

There was only one Jean Béliveau – and this is too bad.

Seats on a Bus

Yesterday I was reminded that 59 years ago Rosa Parks entered a bus in Montgomery, Alabama through the front door, instead of the back as mandated by city rules, and refused to move from her seat in the designated “whites only” section of the bus. When she finally agreed to exit, the doors were shut and she was left to walk home in the rain. She was later arrested for violating the segregation laws. And last night I heard of a story of two sisters on a crowded bus in India who were sitting quietly on their way to college, until two men started to harass them. In order to defend themselves they started punching and beating their harassers with a belt. No one on the bus tried to help them. Instead, other passengers told them to not provoke the men because they might attack them. At the end of the attack the sisters got off the bus and walked to school.

It is hard to believe that as a society we have travelled such a short distance in the past sixty years. The fundamental disregard for human dignity and the belief that such actions are beyond reproach is very hard for anyone to understand, especially at this time of the year.

We could focus on the negative, but it is more important for us to look at these stories from a different lens. They show us the power of courage, of the integrity of the individual, and the basic premise that all people are created equally. Rosa Parks’ courageous stand sparked the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was the genus of the civil rights movement in the United States. The treatment of the two women on the bus sparked a massive response on social media. People were indignant and applauded the sisters’ bravery. The culprits were arrested and the sisters will be honoured during India’s Republic Day celebrations in January.

Jim Collins in his book Good to Great said, “They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.” Rosa Parks and the Indian sisters (#RohtakBravehearts) were ordinary people who modelled for us the value of equality. They were the right people on the bus, getting the wrong people off the bus so that we could enjoy the right seats.

It is possible for anyone of us to truly make a difference.

Dignity

These past few weeks we have read articles and stories about the distressing and negative impact that can result when a lack of respect and a fundamental belief in the dignity of others is lacking: the House of Commons, Jian Ghomeshi, Bill Cosby, and horrifically Rinelle Harper.

There are several layers in all of these headlines that are particularly disturbing. It would be easy to toss the stories aside and say that we are dealing with a societal issue and that there is little we can do about them. As an elementary school it is our responsibility to try and break this cycle. We teach and model for our students values that are life-long: compassion, integrity, respect, responsibility, and courage. Not all of our students practice each of these values on a daily basis and there are clearly days when I am left shaking my head at the insensitivity of young people. But, as an elementary school, it is our role and responsibility to have students not only learn the words, but also understand them and practice them on a daily basis. It is hard to find any of these character values in the recent news stories.

In schools we speak a great deal about character education. These are programs that are deliberately integrated into our curriculums that teach essential values that are good for the individual and for society. Our weekly assemblies, the MPA Speakers’ Series, our beloved Peacemakers Program, Project Give Back, and the Me to We Club are a few examples of the ways in which we have imbedded values into the fabric of our school.

However, we tend to define character development through the qualities that we value, rather than focusing on self-reflection, sense of self, and our impact on others. Our virtual world seems to make this even more difficult. This is why it is vital to enrich our character education programs by providing children with opportunities to reflect and more deeply investigate the relationship between character values and themselves. This deeper discovery and development takes place when students have an opportunity to be guided by thoughtful and caring adults. Homeroom teachers, TAG leaders, ‘health classes’, sessions with our student coach, and the Strengths Speaker Series for Grade 7s all provide students with an opportunity to reflect and discover how values are part of their own unique experience and voice.

While we still have much to learn as a society and much to do, together we can make a difference so we will see stories of human dignity, reaching out, and sharing.

Ebola

We are all aware of the Ebola tragedy that is striking the West African countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea with close to 5,000 deaths and 13,000 reported cases.

The tragedy is not just in the number of people who have been inflicted and those that have died from this horrible disease. Equally disturbing is the response of the Western World – those that have the capability to profoundly alter the course of the disease. The headlines of papers across North America look something like this:

• A Maine elementary school teacher has been barred from school after visiting Dallas, Texas where Ebola patients have been treated – despite having had no contact with any suspected patients.
• A teacher was placed on mandatory 21 day leave after going to an educational conference and staying 10 miles away from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
• A rumour at a school in Mississippi was passed around that the Principal had, at one time, travelled to Nigeria. Swarms of parents removed their children from the school.

More recently states have imposed sanctions against health care workers – returning from helping those in the stricken countries. At odds with the World Health Organization, Canada has suspended the issuance of visas for residents and nationals of the West African countries. Permanent resident applications from the affected countries have been suspended.

A global tragedy has been wrapped in an abundance of politics and fear. It seems that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s comment, “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself,” is most appropriate. Delivered at his inauguration in the midst of the Great Depression, Roosevelt went on to say, “Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for…We now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take but we must give as well.”

Our world is even more interconnected now than it was for any generation before us and we have the resources to give. The focus of our attention should be on helping countries by providing the expertise, resources, and commitment to stop the spread of the disease. When we have a flu bug that descends on schools we model for our students the care and support needed for those who are ill. Why have we reacted like this is a zombie apocalypse?

Our children would not be proud of us.

 

Malala – Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Last week people woke up to hear the wonderful news that Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi had jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for their promotion of children’s education. At 17 Malala is the youngest recipient of the award, and at 65 Kailash Satyarthi is one of the older recipients.

Malala’s receipt of the award is a triumph on so many levels. It is a triumph of the human spirit and courage. When we read newspapers today the focus seems to be so much on what are wrong, short-sighted decisions, and misguided directions of leaders. Reporters are very good at cutting people off at the knees but do not always provide support for those who follow their beliefs and passions. Taking on the Taliban in the first place was a courageous move; after being severely wounded by the Taliban, she refused to give in and continued her crusade as the voice for children. In schools we speak a great deal about values, courage, and integrity and we talk of developing the next generation of leaders. We heard of her award at the same time that many were involved in running the Terry Fox Run for cancer. What a time for young people to look at the profound impact of Terry Fox and Malala Yousafzai and know that they do not have to wait years to make a difference.

Kailash was almost 50 years older than Malala. There is no generational gap; there is no lack of understanding or communication, because both Nobel Peace Prize winners share a common language: the dignity of humans, and ultimately children’s ability to pursue their dreams. When we talk of passing the torch to the next generation we miss an exceptional opportunity. Malala and Kailash have had such a significant effect on the discussion of women’s rights because of the combined forces of youth, experience, optimism, and pragmatism. Kailash’s willingness to teach and Malala‘s willingness to learn weaves a fabric that is hard to destroy.

Schools do their very best at fostering leadership opportunities and providing students with the skills to make leadership decisions. Ultimately those who make the most significant difference are those that follow their passions and their values. It is our role as “adults” to teach, support, and get out of the way.

Character and Athletes

I read in the Globe and Mail last week that the President and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, Tim Leiweke was answering questions at Ryerson University concerning the MLSE’s teams. He was asked about the recent emphasis on “analytics” in building successful teams. After answering this question he went on to say, “There are players we have in our organization today (Toronto Maple Leafs) whose numbers are off-the-chart good and whose character is just terrible. I don’t care how good your numbers are: if you have bad character, you are doomed for failure.”

How many times have we seen talented professional athletes who cannot achieve their true potential and likewise how many “underdogs” have we watched soar from obscurity? The elements of determination, a strong work ethic, a commitment to excellence and teammates are elements that would comprise “character.” These are some of the elements that coaches would like to see in their athletes as they work hard to foster character and teams.

And I read the rest of the paper, Ray Rice the talented running back for the Baltimore Ravens was suspended for the year for domestic abuse, Adrian Peterson, a perennial all-star was charged with youth battery for hitting his 4-year old with a stick. And finally, Oscar Pistorius, an Olympic icon in South Africa was convicted of culpable homicide.

Character is much more than determination, work ethic, and a commitment to excellence. Cultural historian Warren Susman has said that we have moved from a culture of character to a culture of personality and where we have moved from a notion of achievement to performance. The above athletes have performed at the highest level, but have they achieved?

As educators it is our responsibility to ensure our athletes understand that character is much more than just performance on the field, or rink, or arena. Character is a transferable trait; transferable to the classroom, to the home, to a social setting. The respect that athletes seek in the athletic arena is one that must flow from the athlete to their everyday life. It is our responsibility to ensure that our athletes understand and act in a manner that reflects the full definition of character.

Curriculum Nights

During the next couple of weeks many schools will be opening their doors for curriculum night. Parents will be visiting schools to gain an understanding of the road ahead for their child. This event presents differently depending on the school; from following a student timetable and meeting each of the teachers, to meeting with the teachers en mass in divisions, to meeting each of the subject teachers by department. It is a chance to “put a face to a name” and gain an understanding of the curriculum objectives, protocols, and practices.

The beginning of the school year is a critical time. It is the most important time to lay the foundation of building a bridge between teachers, students, and parents. The way that we go about this is by developing a positive relationship and we do this by asking and listening.

• What do you see as your child’s greatest strengths?
• What is the story that you hope you child will tell you in June?
• What are your hopes and fears for this year?
• Is there anything that you would like to tell me that will allow me to help support your child?

I write this as both a parent and as an educator. What those questions tell me is that I care, I respect your individuality, and that, in partnership, we can provide the very best opportunities for our children. We all know that the road from September to June will have some potholes (hopefully not as many as the City of Toronto). If we communicate regularly, and appreciate the uniqueness of each family and their hopes and dreams for their children, then we are truly vested in their best interest.

If curriculum night is about starting a partnership, then we need to begin by listening to each other and listening sometimes to what is not said. Instead of teachers talking at curriculum nights, perhaps we should be just listening?