Dreams Gone By

Well, Mother Sugar (mothersugar.wordpress.com) has done it again. She's asked a question that caused me to take a "sentimental journey".

The question? What dreams will you never see fulfilled, and why do you think they won't be fulfilled?

I've been pondering this question since it was posted last Friday. It's a difficult question, because we all want to believe that phrase "Dreams can come true". After all, don't we tell our children this? I encourage my kids to dream big dreams and work to make those dreams come true. One of my favorite tomes, Walden, has always been an encouragement to me, to keep building my "castles in the air" and the "foundations under them".

Yet, this question begs for an honest answer. So here it is.

My dream that will never be fulfilled is for my children to have their grandmothers at their graduations, weddings, and other lifetime achievement moments. I have been so lucky. I had both of my grandmothers beside me through most of my life. I even knew my great-grandmothers. And yet, my children will not have this same joy. My mother passed away before my children were born. My husband's mother passed away when my children were in 1st and 2nd grade. It's true: my kids will not have their grandmothers beside them the way I did.

My kids have been lucky enough to have close relationships with their great-grandmothers -- all four of their great-grandmas! However, in the past 3 years, my kids have lost 3 of the 4. In fact, my kids' last remaining grandma just turned 93. It makes me sad and a bit nostalgic when I think of all the red-letter days that my kids will have to experience "grandma-less".

Don't get me wrong. My kids are certainly not alone in the world! They are surrounded by loving parents, aunts, uncles, and grandfathers. They even have a step-grandma who cherishes them. They have plenty of extra grandmas at church and in our tiny community who come to support them in all their endeavors, whether it is a piano recital or a football game.

But that dream of mine, of my children proudly walking across the stage at high school graduation with their grandmas beaming from the audience. Well, that dream will be unfulfilled. Not a thing I can do about it. Except to remind them (and myself) that we are not alone. That we are loved. And that somewhere, their grandmas are looking down on them with love and pride, no matter what.

18 Dreams

I recently read a blog post asking how life is different than you expected it to be when you were 18. (at mothersugar.wordpress.com)

Well, I sat and thought about that for awhile. And here is what I discovered.

My dream at 18, headed to college, was to grow up to be a teacher. I wanted to marry a farmer, but not have any kids, and live near my family.

Hmm, much of that sounds oddly like my life today! I did grow up to be a teacher (though I'm working as a librarian now). I married a small-town boy (and although he is certainly not a farmer, we live in the country). I have two amazing children, and can't imagine life without them. And I live near my husband's family -- still near "family", just not "mine".

My life certainly isn't fairytale perfect, but it's real and it's mine. That's more than I could have ever dreamed when I was 18!

For a fun read about family (and an odd farm) pick up Dither Farm by Sid Hite. Enjoy!

More About Dreams

♫ "A dream is a wish your heart makes..." ♪

Disney movies have some good things to teach our children. One important message that shines through is the importance of dreams -- and following your dreams. Whether you are a princess in a tower or a dented tow truck, it is of vital importance to keep chasing your dreams.

♪ "The dream that you wish will come true..." ♫

So why do we end up hijacking our kids' dreams? Somehow, through the "real world" of public education, our kids end up thinking they need to dream smaller dreams. I think the term that is bandied about is "realistic" dreams. Really? Since when is dreaming supposed to be about thinking small? Your dreams are supposed to be BIG -- as big as you can think up!

Picture this: a child enters school dreaming of becoming an astronaut. The child's teacher tells her, "There's no way you can be an astronaut. Wouldn't you like to be a ____ instead?" Fill in the blank with whatever idea you'd like. It ends up the same. We should be about the job of helping kids find ways to reach their dreams, not telling them their dreams are unreachable.

My son wants to fly fighter planes and helicopters for the Air Force. He has wanted to do this since he was quite small. We attended an air show with my father (who was in the Air Force), and my son got to sit behind the controls of a Blackhawk. That was it; that was his dream job from that moment on. His dream has adapted and changed a bit. He is now 10, and his dream now looks like flying unmanned drones and designing software to create these types of programs. He has even talked about going to the Air Force Academy and Spartan School of Aeronautics.

Now, I am making sure that his dream stays alive. As parents, we aren't supposed to kill our kids' dreams. We're supposed to help them realize their dreams. We support our kids dreams, and allow our kids' dreams to change. NOT change their dreams for them!

I've been reading (and rereading) Stop Stealing Dreams. Have a look at section 14:

14. The wishing and dreaming problem

If you had a wish, what would it be? If a genie arrived and granted you a wish, would it be a worthwhile one?
I think our wishes change based on how we grow up, what we’re taught, whom we hang out with, and what our parents do.
Our culture has a dreaming problem. It was largely created by the current regime in schooling, and it’s getting worse.
Dreamers in school are dangerous. Dreamers can be impatient, unwilling to become well-rounded, and most of all, hard to fit into existing systems.
One more question to ask at the school board meeting: “What are you doing to fuel my kid’s dreams?”

And more here in section 19:

19. Dreams are difficult to build and easy to destroy

By their nature, dreams are evanescent. They flicker long before they shine brightly. And when they’re flickering, it’s not particularly difficult for a parent or a teacher or a gang of peers to snuff them out.
Creating dreams is more difficult. They’re often related to where we grow up, who our parents are, and whether or not the right person enters our life.
Settling for the not-particularly uplifting dream of a boring, steady job isn’t helpful. Dreaming of being picked—picked to be on TV or picked to play on a team or picked to be lucky—isn’t helpful either. We waste our time and the time of our students when we set them up with pipe dreams that don’t empower them to adapt (or better yet, lead) when the world doesn’t work out as they hope.
The dreams we need are self-reliant dreams. We need dreams based not on what is but on what might be. We need students who can learn how to learn, who can discover how to push themselves and are generous enough and honest enough to engage with the outside world to make those dreams happen.
I think we’re doing a great job of destroying dreams at the very same time the dreams we do hold onto aren’t nearly bold enough.

Or here, from section 36:

36. Instead of amplifying dreams, school destroys them
Every day, beginning the first day and continuing until the last day, our teachers and our administrators and yes, most parents, seeking to do the right thing, end up doing the wrong one.
We mean well.
We let our kids down easy.
We tell ourselves that we are realistic.
We demand that students have a trade to fall back on, an assembly-line job available just in case the silly dreams don’t come true. And then, fearing heartbreak, we push them to bury the dream and focus on just the job.
The job with a boss and an office and air conditioning and a map of what to do next. A job with security and co-workers and instructions and deniability.
And when the job doesn’t come?
When all the dues are paid and for nothing?
Ouch.

Some intense reading, folks. And food for thought.

Have you talked to your kids about their dreams? Teachers, have you talked to your students about their dreams?

What are we doing to help kids reach their dreams? And how can we help them if we never let them talk about what their dreams might be? Instead of fitting kids into certain boxes, perhaps we should let them dream outside the box!

Most powerful section (at least today) --
Take a look at section 130:

130.Whose dream?
There’s a generational problem here, a paralyzing one.
Parents were raised to have a dream for their kids—we want our kids to be happy, adjusted, successful. We want them to live meaningful lives, to contribute and to find stability as they avoid pain.
Our dream for our kids, the dream of 1960 and 1970 and even 1980, is for the successful student, the famous college, and the good job. Our dream for our kids is the nice house and the happy family and the steady career. And the ticket for all that is good grades, excellent comportment, and a famous college.
And now that dream is gone. Our dream. But it’s not clear that our dream really matters. There’s a different dream available, one that’s actually closer to who we are as humans, that’s more exciting and significantly more likely to affect the world in a positive way.
When we let our kids dream, encourage them to contribute, and push them to do work that matters, we open doors for them that will lead to places that are difficult for us to imagine. When we turn school into more than just a finishing school for a factory job, we enable a new generation to achieve things that we were ill-prepared for.
Our job is obvious: we need to get out of the way, shine a light, and empower a new generation to teach itself and to go further and faster than any generation ever has. Either our economy gets cleaner, faster, and more fair, or it dies.
If school is worth the effort (and I think it is), then we must put the effort into developing attributes that matter and stop burning our resources in a futile attempt to create or reinforce mass compliance.

Dreaming Big

I'm currently reading the powerful e-book Stop Stealing Dreams by Seth Godin. In this powerful work, the author talks about some important things that are missing from American education. One of these things is imagination -- the power to dream big.

We give our kids tasks to perform, information to memorize, tests to take, and then wonder why they aren't creative problem-solvers.

Picture this. A class of 5th-graders have been learning about Vikings (history, misconceptions, etc). I pass them a couple of coloring pages and a box of 24 crayons -- to create while I read (from a fiction book). The first question they ask? "Does it matter what color I use?"

Really?? Of course it doesn't matter! Use whatever color you like! Be creative! If the boat is red and pink, and the water is orange, that's great!

When have we so indoctrinated our kids that their first response is to question how creative they are allowed to be? Kids need to be empowered to make creative decisions -- to dream big!

I'm inspired by "Stop Stealing Dreams". I'd love to have a discussion with others who have read/are reading this work.

http://www.squidoo.com/stop-stealing-dreams