Great video put together by members of the HACER organization at Rice University. Here are a few of my favorite advice and quotes from the video:

“We are in America, and everybody can partake in the American dream, but you can never forget where you came from. You have to give back to your community, to give a hand to those coming after you. I understand that I have to work twice as hard because I have the language barrier still–-I didn’t speak English for the first 9 years of my life. A lot of the times I don’t understand what some words mean, and I have to look them up, but it’s not going to stop me. 

I remember my grandmother used to say, ‘Your main purpose in life is to leave the world a little better than you found it,’ so that’s what I want to do.” - Norma Torres

“That fear of failing is not to go away, but you have to overcome it. You’re always going to get nervous sometimes, but you have to find a way to keep pushing yourself. Surround yourself with people who are also focused, who also want to succeed. You have to have that ganas. You can’t let first failure, second failure, one thousand failures, hold you back. One failure means you’re one step closer to success.” - Jose Lopez

“It all comes down to self-discipline and self-motivation. Are you willing to motivate yourself when no one’s telling you to do your homework, or study for a test? That’s really what separates the successful from non-successful students in college, and in high school as well. If you work hard, colleges will want you. I literally pay nothing here–Rice pays my entire tuition.” - Nehemiah Ankoor

“I was able to get a full scholarship to Rice. Once I got here, it was a whole different world. For the first time, I wasn’t afraid to be smart, to stand up and say, ‘this is what I believe.’ I could interact with individuals from all over the world, with different perspectives on life. It’s the best experience of my life. College is possible, and it opens opportunities you would never imagine.” - Norma Torres

The dog days of February are a good time for this reminder.

“Sleep? Sleep is for those people who are broke. I don’t sleep. I have an opportunity to make a dream become a reality.” - 50 Cent 

“Most of you say you want to be successful, but you don’t want it bad. You just kind of want it. You don’t want it as much as you want to be cool. You don’t want it as bad as you want to sleep.
‘Oh, I’m not good in math.’ You’re right–because you have never studied! ‘I’m not good in writing.’ You’re not good at writing because you have NEVER WRITTEN BEFORE. But I dare you to fail at writing for a whole year. Stop dropping classes like you’re soft.” - Eric Thomas

Brainwashed by a parasite: “The fungus then devours the ant’s brain, killing the host. The fruiting bodies of the fungus sprout from the ant’s head, through gaps in the joints of the exoskeleton. Once mature, the fruiting bodies burst, releasing clusters of capsules into the air. These in turn explode on their descent, spreading airborne spores over the surrounding area. These spores then infect other ants, completing the life cycle of the fungus.”

For more info: http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/11/20/brainwashed-by-a-parasite/

On Alpha Dogs and Being a Man:

I had a testy exchange with a student whose mother is incarcerated and dad is MIA, earlier this year.

March 8, 2011. Chemistry class.

W: “I QUIT!”

Me: “I asked you to act like a man, and you’re here throwing a tantrum like a child.”

W: “Well how bout I whoop your ass, Mr. G?”

Me: “You think threatening to ‘whoop my ass’ is acting like a man? Violence won’t solve your problems, W.”

W: “But Mr. G, violence is how I solve ALL my problems!”

When I talked to my friend about how I could reach this student, he offered the best advice:

“If dad is MIA, then maybe no one showed him what ‘acting like a man’ looks like. Start at square one, Mr. G.”

Those words jolted me. He was right, and I was the jerk in my interaction with that student. But I knew that student, suspended multiple times this year for fighting, wouldn’t respond well to me just sitting him down and telling him what I think “being a man” means. This student and I had previously bonded over our mutual respect for the rapper T.I., so I decided to let T.I. do the work (this student was not in my class for the first half of the year, and so wasn’t there for the previous T.I. lesson I’ve posted on this blog). 

I looked up separation-of-church-and-state standards in Texas, and apparently using the Bible as a text is OK. So I tied 1 Cor 13:11 to the T.I. song “Dead and Gone,” in order to talk about how to shift from thinking and acting as a boy, to thinking and acting a man:

Pay close attention to T.I.’s lyrics here. Many of my students have this idea that in order to be an alpha dog (a man), they have to fight to maintain their position at the top. What T.I. illustrates is something different altogether.

What T.I. says is that when he was NOT alpha dog (not a man), he felt the need to fight, to earn his stripe, and these decisions cost him the life of one of his best friends. In fact, looking back, T.I. admits that had he known the consequences, he would have “took the ass-whooping”:

Maybe my homeboy would still be around 

Had I not hit the n* in the mouth that time

I won that fight, I lost that war

I can still see my n* walkin out that door

Who’da thought I’d never see Philant no more

Got enough dead homies I don’t want no more

Cost a n* his job, cost me more

I’da took that ass-whoopin now for sure

Now, things have changed. T.I. is a successful rapper, businessman, and actor, and he’s done fighting people to prove something:

Now think before I risk my life

Take them chances to get my stripe

A n* put his hands on me, alright

Otherwise stand there talk sh*t all night

Cause I hit you, you sue me, 

I shoot you, get locked up, who me?

This is the counter-intuitive message: in almost all cases, alpha dogs (men) don’t fight.

T.I. says he would only fight now if he was physically assaulted, because beta dogs (boys) aren’t even worth your time. They only bring drama, or future violence on yourself or your loved ones. Crucially, if you fight a beta dog, you let him know that he represents a threat to your dominance. You let him know that he CAN be alpha. So when you fight him, you’re not ending his quest to topple you; instead, he’ll regroup and come back even hungrier, with the knowledge that he makes you fearful for your throne.

With that in mind, if my students see themselves as alpha, they needn’t fight every beta dog who looks at them the wrong way. In fact, such a rush to aggression increases the likelihood that they or people they care about will end up hurt. Alpha dogs take the choice meat from the kill. Beta dogs fight for scraps.

Instead, the alpha dog, the man, is secure in his place, and is beyond proving things to beta dogs. The alpha dog is on his grind. This is why Jay-Z and Nas only beefed when they were beta dogs up-and-coming in NYC; now that they’re on top, there’s no more need for childish conflict. Like Paul in his letters to the Corinthian Church, the alpha dog knows he has to “put childish ways behind him.” 

No more stress, now I’m straight, now I get it now I take

Time to think before I make mistakes just for my family’s sake

That part of me left yesterday the heart of me is strong today

No regrets, I’m blessed to say—the old me dead and gone away.

Life, Death, Regrets

In one of the final investment lessons of the year, we watched this clip of 11 people discussing their life’s biggest regret. Then, each student (and I) anonymously submitted his or her own biggest regret. Finally, every student (and I) stood and read someone else’s anonymous regret out loud to the class. Hearing everyone’s regrets, and especially seeing how close many mirrored each other, was a powerful exercise in building empathy in the classroom. As 50 Cent wrote, “we share the same fate with everyone; we all deserve the same degree of compassion.”

Finally, we discussed the lyrics to Ed-Two’s video “Crash Landing”, which are also on the handout below. I encouraged every student to take some free time this summer and really think about their goals, who they want to be, and what concrete actions they’ll need to take on the day-to-day to get there. 

“Success is never measured by death—

It’s how you live.

I insist that you get what you’re going for

Go and explore all the foreign roads.

To die, living fly—is it really tragic?

Hold your breath, take the dive.

We are crash landing,

I said we are crash landing.

Are you ready?

We are crash landing…”

-Ed Two

Bottom line: It’s a one-way trip. We are crash landing. Make the most of it.

Accompanying handout:

Note: This was one of my favorite investment lessons of the year. If you like it and you’re a teacher of age-appropriate students, please consider passing it on.

Background: In January of 2011, Atlanta-based rapper T.I. held an essay contest, with the winner receiving a laptop computer. T.I. wrote the winner of the contest, a 14 year-old aspiring rapper/engineer named Ralph, a meaningful and personal response that I believe many of our students would really benefit from reading. In it, T.I., who grew up in poverty, addresses coming-of-age issues such as fitting in, masculinity, drug abuse and family responsibility. His advice, coming from a place of understanding, is invaluable for our students.

Countless philosophers and religious leaders alike have struggled to sum a more cogent life philosophy than TI does in his letter to Ralph:

“Life’s about learning, growing and making a better way for your moms, your kids and anyone else in your family that comes up after you. The only way you do that is by getting the most education you can so you can create opportunities for yourself and prosper.” - T.I.

I want to use T.I.’s own words to anticipate any (entirely valid) objections a careful student might raise against me using a high-school dropout’s words to advocate for staying in school:

“I dropped out of school seems that’s all they can see
They don’t notice no one in my family did that since me…
Cousins in college, where you think they get tuition from?
Just from standing around and wishing, huh?”

Accompanying handout:

Say “Yes!”

When I was in algebra class in middle school, Ms. Stock had a poster up that said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” I dug that sentiment then, and I still do now. The highly enjoyable book Yes Man echoes similar sentiments: saying “yes” to new experiences is saying “yes” to life. I want my students to take risks, to break from the ordinary, but doing this requires a lot of inertia and a confidence in their own abilities to try and succeed at something new.

In order to reach my students, I used this “what-if” comic from Abtruse Goose to reinforce Stephen Colbert’s incredibly important life philosophy: Say “Yes!” 

“Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics.

Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. 

But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.” - Stephen Colbert

One-Way to Mars: Whither the Pioneers?

“So there’s the choice in life: one either grows or one decays, grow or die. I think we should grow. It shouldn’t be humans to Mars in 50 years–it should be humans to Mars in 10. We must either muster the courage to go, or we risk the possibility of stagnation and decay.” - Robert Zubrin

On April 12, 2011, Google’s homepage doodle commemorated the 50th anniversary of manned spaceflight, which began in Russia with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. I used this 50th anniversary as an opportunity to give students a little background on spaceflight history, as well as open the class discussion up to an interesting current dilemma in manned space exploration: the potential lack of a flight back home.

When the early explorers set out to chart the New World, many left their homes with no guarantee they would ever return: just a promise of excitement and a fundamentally new life experience. When an article published in the Journal of Cosmology suggested sending 4 early colonists on a nuclear-powered one-way trip to begin the colonization of Mars, hundreds of people volunteered.

This all led to a great class discussion of the Do Now’s key question:

Would you be willing to go on the first trip to settle Mars, if you knew you could never return? 

Note: Gagarin did NOT actually say that. This widely-misattributed quote likely came from Nikita Khrushchev, who said in a speech that “Gagarin flew into space, but didn’t see any god there.” I found that discussing this misattribution with students was a useful exercise in letting them know not to believe everything they read without researching it further.

Gagarin spaceflight article from The Times of India:

First human space flight: How Yuri Gagarin’s pathbreaking flight led to space race

Srinivas Laxman, TNN Apr 12, 2011, 04.56am IST

MUMBAI: At 1.30am, 50 years ago, the telephone at the residence of Jerome Wiesner rang and woke President John F Kennedy’s scientific adviser in Washington with a start.

It was a call from Pentagon. The caller told Wiesner that 23 minutes ago, the Soviet Union had rocketed 27-year-old air force pilot Yuri Gagarin into space.

Fifteen minutes after the Soviet Vostok rocket blasted off from Baikonour cosmodrome with Gagarin, the monitors at the US radars at Aleutian Islands picked up radio signals from the rocket.

Five minutes later, the radar station flashed the news about the historic flight to the Pentagon, which in turn alerted Wiesner — a wake- up call to US scientists and politicians dithering over the nation’s manned space programme. Gagarin had for the first time opened space to human beings.

Gagarin’s flight was a pathbreaking development in science. “It was very significant because it led to human space exploration and proved subsequently that human beings can remain in space for a long time,” former Isro chairman U R Rao said.

Man had for the first time torn away from earth’s gravity. It was momentous, another former Isro chief Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan said. “The mission called for the highest levels of courage and conviction and spirit of exploration. Man first explored the sea, land and air. Now it was space.”

Through Gagarin’s flight, the Soviets wanted to showcase the achievements of the communist system. “It was a demonstration of the existing political system. It showed that Gagarin’s flight enjoyed political support,” Kasturirangan said.

Ron Garan, the Nasa flight engineer who recently flew in a Soyuz spacecraft named “Gagarin”, to the International Space Station, said in an interview: “On April 12, 1961, humanity took a giant leap. We instantly became a species no longer confined to the boundaries of earth… we no longer remained a single-planet species.” Garan said Gagarin’s flight opened the doors for international cooperation in space science. “…the world is a safer and more peaceful place than it would have been otherwise.”

The early morning phone call on April 12, 1961 marked the second setback for the US. On October 4, 1957, the Soviets stole a lead by launching the world’s first satellite, Sputnik, inaugurating the global space era.

Fifty minutes after the 9.57am liftoff ( Moscow time), Gagarin remarked: “Thinking about America inevitably brought to my mind those lads there who also intended to fly into space. For some reason, I imagined that Alan Shepherd would be the one to do this.” His remark was significant in the context of the flight taking place during the Cold War.

“It was for this reason,” president of Pune chapter of National Space Society (NSS), Suresh Naik, said: “Although Gagarin’s flight from the technology point of view was the greatest feat achieved by anyone and a breakthrough, at the same time the achievement was motivated due to political reasons.” NSS is affiliated the main US body. After Gagarin’s flight, the Soviets gave it a political flavour and quickly described it as a triumph of communism over capitalism.

Gagarin’s flight shook the US out of its slumber, forcing it to catch up with the Soviets as its reputation as a technological superpower had taken a serious beating. On May 5, 1961, the US launched Alan Shepherd on a 15-minute flight. While recovering from the shocks inflicted by the Soviets repeatedly in the space race, Kennedy on May 25, 1961, declared the US’s plan to embark on a manned mission to the moon.