Capacity to love

When you're a child you fill your heart with love for your mom and dad. Everything you do surrounds around the love you have for them. 100% of your love is dedicated to them. Then you figure out you don't hate your brother or sister and you have to find room for love in there.  Then eventually you have that best friend, or 15 best friends, that you have to find space for in your heart.  I imagine at some point everyone has a first love that continues to eat away at that capacity of love you have in your heart.  That 100% of your heart is now divided up like an apple pie. When you say your vows at your wedding day you literally promise someone you will love them with all your heart.  You're kinda lying because you don't have your entire heart to give right?

Realistically you love them with everything you have, replacing some old love space like clearing hard drive space on your computer.  Then you get a dog. Ok maybe not in our case, because my wife didn't clear anymore than .001% space of her heart. Then the kid. The kid is like a computer virus coming into your heart, wiping away any available space and some existing space to consume the love capacity. It happens to us all.  All of a sudden the spaces in your heart are reallocated toward that little love monger. McKinley wiped my love for football and coaching like it was a dirty stain blasted with Oxy Clean. For two years I literally had my capacity of love filled to the brim, bursting at times with pure joy, excitement, and pride.

Now I sit here in the labor and delivery room for the second time and I am honestly wondering where the extra space is going to come from.  This isn't iCloud, I can't buy more storage in some endless floating bank. Coy will be here in a few hours I am sure, and I am wondering how this all works.  How do you find the capacity in your heart to love your wife, your first born, and now your second to the maximum brim you can handle? Because I'm going to. It's not an option. This little scumbag is gonna come out and I am going to look at him with the same 100% level of smack you in the face love that I have for Lindsey as she is resting here comfortably. I will have the same love for when the pig tailed terror of a two year old comes bounding into the hospital room not knowing that her world was just turned upside down. Do I have 300% of my heart left to give to these three most important pieces of my life?  You bet your ass I do.  I even have some left over for my wonderful iconic parents, my in-laws (even Gary), my wonderful sister n law Lana who is the favorite person in McKinley's life, and my brother, sister n law Brad/Leah, and little scumbag nephew Henry who I wish everyday lived closer so we could be together more.

I'll even manage to find some space for the people that matter so much to us that are (maybe) reading this blog right now. The human heart is an amazing thing.  Doing my rough math, I think I have 43 million percent to give out and I'll be damn if I am going to delete any of it from this hard drive.  I love you all, and thank you for your support. Now come change a diaper, cuz I will have two kids soon.

Table for 4 please...weird saying that.

Are you a Marty or a Gill?

My daughter is obsessed with watching "shows". We hop in the car and before you can buckle your own seat belt she is begging for a "show".  We flip the dvd player down and let it roll, because after all, a happy toddler is a happy drive, anywhere. This particular time it wasn't the mickey mouse clubhouse or elmo counting to 10 forty three different ways, it was Finding Nemo.  This I can handle because it has some humor that allow me to smile in the driver seat as passing cars wonder what is wrong with me. Right around the time Nemo is being thrown into a plastic bag to become a birthday gift I started thinking to myself, am I a Marty or a Gill in education?  in life?  in my marriage? as a father?

What is a Marty and a Gill?

Marty is Nemo's father.  A clown fish. A not very funny clown fish. If you had to classify Marty he would be a play-it-safer.  Risks aren't his thing so go knock down some other coral reef.  See what i did there? a sea joke. His son Nemo wants to try all of these things but Marty won't let him.  He won't let him because of his own fear.  His fear comes from previous experiences that made an impact on him and he chose to react in a way similar to a snail plunging his head back into his shell.  Marty is not a jump in the deep end kind of fish, sorry I couldn't help myself.

Let's take a look at Gill.  He is the fish in the tank that seems to be the alpha fish of the dentist office. If you had to classify Gill you would say he is a right brain fish, a dreamer, a visionary, and a motivator. He had some junk in his past too but he reacted in a way that is different than Marty. When Gill comes into contact with Nemo he doesn't try to hold Nemo back, in fact, he pushes Nemo to a place he didn't think he could go.

As an educator are you a Marty or a Nemo?  Do you hold your students back because of fear that you have buried deep inside or are you a Gill, someone that pushes your students to dream and achieve, even when they are scared to see what's next?  At times we probably all play the different role. It's easy to be a Marty, you're less likely to get hurt or trapped. But aren't you already trapped if you aren't living? You will encounter Nemo's throughout your career.  Students with so much potential hidden behind fear of failure, because we live mostly in societies that ask the question Why? instead of Why not?  Will you hold them from jumping in the deep end on their own or encourage a giant cannonball?

Your call Marty or shall I call you Gill?

Educational Sushi?

Two big things happening in the Wise family with careers. Me, I've hit what I believe is the perfect job combination of innovation and leadership. I am the newly appointed Director of Innovation and Extended Learning for the Hilliard City Schools district. I know, you're more confused now than ever by that title. I need a catchy nickname.

    The second career move is my brother.  Brad recently left his job and with two other creative minds started up Rebel Pilgrim Productions in Cincy. They are bringing professional films, scripts, and storytelling that spark hope.  One idea they are kicking around is the possible story of three buddies that wanted to bring Sushi to the midwest. Their creation is a Chipotle style eatery based around Sushi called "Fusian". It's genius. 

With my job we are charged to find the "next" or the "innovative" of education. If these guys were educators, they would be it.  But why?  Sushi has always been here. You can order Sushi anywhere you want if you go to the right location. Then why are these guys making it such a phenomena with the youthful crowd? Because it's the two things all iGeneration kids want, choice and experience. 

When the people go through the line of Fusian they get their choice of creating their own meal, just like Chipotle. What was once scary, adult food is now controlled by the youth. Ownership is now part of the tasty experience. 

They also get the Fusian experience. It's what people are talking about. Why do kids drink starbucks and not brew their own keurig homestyle brew?  Because it's not cool to carry "best mom on earth" mug to school. It's cool to have the starbucks logo. 

How do we make school all about choice and a "cool"experience?  Simple. Remove the scary adult thinking. Make the educational sushi restaurant. 

School needs to start shifting toward the chipotle/fusian experience.  Choose your educational experience. You want to learn a certain way? Choose that. You want to show me how well you know the content? Go ahead, show me. Remove the barriers. Stop being adults that think "this is how I learned, look at me, I'm great". Imagine if we thought that way with lead painted toys. Not pretty. 

 There is a reason these kids aren't strolling into Kroger and buying the pre-packaged Sushi. They want to create their own, and they want the experience. They don't want what you think they should want because it's what we've always wanted. They want the ownership. They want to be in line choosing the best experience.

Will we be serving Sushi at the Innovative Learning Center? Maybe educational Sushi; there won't be any barriers. "Not your average education" isn't the idea, it's the goal.