Sometimes things need to fall apart before they can come together.

We'll see what happens from this point forward, but there are some very cool things happening now. First off - one of my wild ideas is beginning to actually take shape. Remember that teaching thing that I went to college to learn how to do?

Well, I'm setting up a tutoring thing related to that - but it's going to be more extracurricular than just tutoring. We're talking about a life mentor sort of thing and I've got a good bit of freedom with how I go about it, too.

I'm starting with just one student, but if I could expand to just three to five or six I'd be able to focus on this pretty much full time... and if things go well with this one student I might be looking into starting up a website or something and getting a business name registered - but one step at a time.

The premise? Well, this one student just needs some help with everything in general. He needs help focusing in life, organizing priorities, completing work... just all around mentoring / guidance. Now, I'm a teacher - I'm also a bit of a dreamer and very able to see that our classrooms are wildly failing many students like him. I want to have a class without walls, a school without a building. An education about life that actually happens in life itself.

They teach us in education courses that if you're going to connect with your students that you have to make the material relevant to their lives - and then they say that you have to do it while in a square box in X amount of minutes with school-board-approved markers and safety scissors. I'm sorry, but this system is failing and it's failing because it's full of fake everything. The next generation is set to be the first generation where literacy rates actually decrease - among other wonderful little statistics I'd rather not rattle on about. It's generation: "Huh?"

So, what are we going to do? Well, for starters, it's not going to be easy for either of us (my student or I). I'm going to challenge him, a lot. He'll have ongoing projects and goals outside of school itself, in addition to working on everything for school once classes get back into session. But I'm going to help him, too. The kid needs life experience and perspective - he needs to talk to real people about real things. Interviews with people from the community, hands on activities, volunteering, working, living, and fun. Fun everywhere in everything - whether washing dishes or talking to a business owner. Almost everything can be fun, and that's one of the most important lessons to understand.

The coolest part about all this? Well, I'm a teacher, and all of this stuff will be tied together with purpose and relevance and come together in real projects, real life-experience, and real development that otherwise may never have happened for this student, or any other students that may be involved.

As long as there's potential in this endeavor, I'm going to be working overtime getting ideas in motion for it. If the system doesn't work, fix it. If the system can't be fixed - try something else.

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Starjet Adventures -
a revolutionary life, education, and adventure company.

coming soon.

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I don't know what happened that started all this in motion, but the final catalyst happened on Monday when I decided that morning not to go to work.

That entire day turned into one set of inspiring events after another, and so here we are. A huge thank you to everyone involved with that day, you know who you are. Let's see if it was a good thing. ha!