Unexpected Gifts: Discovering and Nurturing the Strengths in Every Child

Today begins a historic week for our country here in the U.S. and for our world. To honor both tomorrow’s birthday celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the inauguration of President-Elect Obama on Tuesday, January 20th, I would like to share with you my dreams for transforming the educational experience for children around the world and find out about your dreams.

My first dream is for a world where every child can grow up knowing that he/she is a whole child (see my September 1, 2007 blog entry and wholechild@ascd.org). The adults around each student would respect and accept the differences that each child brings to this world and work to make sure each child is “healthy, safe, supported, challenged and engaged” in the learning process.

By accepting the differences in learning styles and interests, teachers and parents would celebrate each child for his/her uniqueness. Differences in a student’s readiness to learn would be understood and addressed by implementing a variety of strategies in classrooms and homes where the adults will have been equipped through staff/parent development training to teach necessary 21st century learning skills.

Secondly, I dream of a world where all children experience educational equality with access to books, educational technology tools and an opportunity to learn something new each day. In their schools, these children would be encouraged to recognize and utilize their strengths to learn and teachers and parents would work hard to remove any obstacle that would be a barrier to learning.

Finally, I dream of a world where teachers, administrators, parents and students would respect and value each other and strive to communicate effectively. They would all work collaboratively to solve problems, resolve conflict and create a educational climate that honors the diverse learning needs of every child.

I know that these three dreams are not mine alone. They represent the hopes of so many other educators and parents all over the world.

What are your dreams? Please share them here and with other parents and teachers at your school because I firmly believe that we all can help each other if we combine our vision and talents.

In sharing and combining our efforts, we might even be able to create a global network of like-minded people, people committed to global educational change. It is only by working together across racial and geographical boundaries and across cultures that we can have an impact we could have never dreamed possible just a generation ago.

Welcome to 2009 and to Unexpected Gifts: Discovering and Nurturing the Strengths in Every Child. As you move forward into a new year, I hope that in 2009 you will consider adding a new item to your New Year’s resolution list: to have a positive impact on the lives of a very special group of children and adults whose dignity, human rights and hope have been crushed.

These children include the 2 million children who are “exploited in the global commercial sex trade and the 1 million children living in detention and waiting trial for minor offenses.” You can read more about these children and the 27 million men, women and children living as slaves by visiting the website for the International Justice Mission, http://www.ijm.org/whoweare.

I first learned about the International Justice Mission (IJM) in August of 2008 when Gary Haugen was speaking in South Barrington, Illinois, at the Willow Creek Community Church Leadership Summit, http://www.willowcreek.com/lds/events_LS_2009.asp.

His story of how he became inspired to create a human rights organization and the stories he told of the life-changing victim rescue in 12 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America completely captivated the attention of the audience. Hearing him speak served as a call to action to the thousands of people who attended the conference in Illinois and at one of over 140 satellite sites around the U.S. Haugen’s speech truly opened my eyes to the need for more of us to get involved in this incredibly courageous humanitarian effort to fight worldwide injustice.

While I hope this blog helps others identify and nurture the gifts of every child, I do know that this is most likely not going to happen if the child or the child’s family is a victim of injustice. So, I ask that you join me and get involved. Visit the IJM website and find out how you and your family can make a critical difference in the lives of oppressed children and their families. Your involvement can lead to a life of freedom for countless children and adults. You can help change the future for a child whose strengths and gifts can be rightfully identified and nurtured and who deserves of a life of hope and dignity.