Dishing out spicy liberal social commentary and critical thinking news analysis on America, world politics, the news, fun political humor, cartoons - and a little poetry by Independent journalist blogger Denny Lyon.
Poems From A Spiritual Heart: Legacy of Love: From Denny: ... Mentoring others is important no matter what stage you are living in your life. You can be young or old. You can teach the young, those older, those your same age. Teach what you know and share your life experiences. You never know who you will inspire. And, as you teach, you learn from them too. Never feel what you know is not important enough to share. Never be too proud to receive knowledge from others eager to share what they have just learned or figured out. For today's shared knowledge just might answer tomorrow's problems - for them and for you. Mentoring: it's a fair exchange, don't you think? :)
*** Never feel what you know is not important enough to share: mentor!
From Denny: This week a famous American teacher passed out of this life and into a new adventure. His name was Jaime Escalante and it was his life story told in the movie "Stand and Deliver." He was well educated and worked at NASA. Yet when he read of the failing schools in Los Angeles he quit his high-paying job and went to teach advanced math at one of those failing schools, Garfield High School. He fought the public school system's failing mindset cemented into the old ways of doing things, believing low income kids were not smart enough or motivated enough to learn advanced math. Escalante proved them all wrong: the educators who ran the schools, the parents and the students.
Escalante brought faith in his students and passion to the job of more than teaching: He was a mentor of gigantic proportions. Today, many of his students are successes, working at NASA or teaching the same calculus to their students that he taught them. Most of all he taught a group of people to believe in themselves. He taught the educators to never give up their faith and reach higher so their students can succeed in life.
Cosmic consciousness by h.koppdelaney @ flickr
Mentoring others is important no matter what stage you are living in your life. You can be young or old. You can teach the young, those older, those your same age. Teach what you know and share your life experiences. You never know who you will inspire. And, as you teach, you learn from them too. Never feel what you know is not important enough to share. Never be too proud to receive knowledge from others eager to share what they have just learned or figured out. For today's shared knowledge just might answer tomorrow's problems - for them and for you. Mentoring: it's a fair exchange, don't you think? :)
Legacy of Love
Have you ever thought about… All the knowledge in the Universe? Have you ever thought about… Your place in millions of information bits? Have you ever thought about… Why your experiences were important?
Did you know that on the other end of that information Lived someone waiting for you to tell them about it? Did you know that in the world every day there is A person sharing what they know with someone else Who yearned for the solutions to their problems but Did not know where to find that knowledge – until you?
The old speak of their long lives while the young listen. The young shout their enthusiasm while the old smile. When tough times strike we all stretch out helping hands. When Life is sweet we lift up our hearts in shared Joy. Kindness and sharing creates more kindness and sharing, Giving comfort and ease to many hearts, lightening the load.
When at first we meet as strangers we become friends. Sharing our experiences we relax into deep friendships. Family we become when we give Love and receive Love. Have you ever seen all the thoughts floating in the Universe Wondering of their origins and how long they were seeking? Sharing what you know is your legacy of Love.
Denny Lyon Copyright 4 April 2010 All Rights Reserved
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From Denny: I just love these Making a Difference segments that Brian Williams does on NBC Nightly News. Viewers send in emails about people doing wonderful things in their area of the country and NBC does a report on them.
Having worked with troubled teens from the school system, I know only too well how important it is to give these kids hope and proper mentoring to impact their lives to the positive. I tried to get to the kids while they were still young, ages 7 to 13, before they ended up an issue for the court system.
This story is about helping troubled teens - who have often been jailed - gain new purpose near Washington, D.C., in Alexandria, Virginia through a mentoring program of teaching small ship building.
This is what real teaching is all about: taking unproductive unruly people and giving them a hands-on approach in a job situation to turn them into productive people who will know how to behave and succeed in a normal job situation in the adult world. It costs less money to care about someone and teach them than it does to be punitive and treat them as society's throw-aways. Take a look at this success story:
These teens are referred from the judges and police officers in the court systems in Virginia. It costs over $100,000 to house one juvenile for a year. This program of teaching them a trade only costs $15,000 a year - and half of that money goes to paying the teen after they have finished the program! Many return to the program as teachers; it built their confidence so much they wanted to give back. Now that's what I call inspiring people!
