Barometer

“I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized." ~ Dr. Haim Ginott

I am not in the best of moods today and just came across this.  It speaks volumes to personal responsibility and knowing the effect you have on those around you.  If you are familiar with the FISH principles then one of the tenets is that you make your mood, not your job.

I think Dr. Ginott's lesson here certainly applies to the classroom, but I think that it also applies to the workplace.  To lead is not necessarily to be a leader.

That's the way we've always done it!

(I am not the author, I've seen this before but as I'm warming up the writing muscles I came across this and found it funny.  Enjoy.)

Does the statement, “We’ve always done it that way” ring any bells… ?

The standard railroad gauge in North America (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that’s the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built our railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.

Why did they use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts.


So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse’s ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now the twist to the story.

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit wider, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains.

The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ass.

And you thought being a HORSE’S ASS wasn’t important!

Spring Play

I have an awful lot of things to be stressed about right now, if I really wrap my head around it I can actually feel my shoulders bow.  I am not talking an overdue project, or lamenting my endless to-do list, but stress that makes you curl up into a ball when left unattended, or causes tears to spring into your eyes without warning at stoplights.

It's such a beautiful evening.  I can smell newly mown grass from next door,  there are sleepy chirps from the first of the year's tree frogs out back.  Bumblebees the size of fuzzy golfballs are defying the laws of physics and bobbing around the yard like buoys in a twilight tide.  My daughter, lit by the slanted rays of todays last sunlight and inspired by the CSA farm we recently joined, is using her Barbie not as a testament to fashion - but to teach her dinosaurs how to properly plant potatoes.

There is sausage grilling and spaghetti squash being cooked in a blush sauce, courtesy of my barbarian husband and his diligent research of low carb cookbooks with amazing recipes.  The fact that I have this quiet time at all is due to him,  he is the reason I am able to maintain the schedule that I do and still have time to be a mom.  For those of you who say, "I don't know how you do it." - I don't, he does.  Because he does, I can.

My old man of a dog is curled up literally at my feet.  His muzzle is grey and his eyes are clouded, a reminder that our time is finite.  His coat is shiny, his legs still strong and he wags his tail when I look down at him - a reminder that while finite, our time together has worth and has been good.

My son's voice drifts by in Doppler waves of excitement as he tears up and down the street with his friends, capturing imaginary enemies and dominating empires of dirt and sticks ... unbowed by limitations and in accordance with all the generations of filthy little boys who came before him.  There is a shiny red helmet on his head, not because it's a prop, but because just sometimes they really do listen to their mother.

I cannot fix everything, I cannot help everyone - not even those closest to me.  Things are not always my fault, or my responsibility, though it often feels that way.

Sometimes it takes looking around your backyard, noticing what you do have, to make you realize that to "have not" is just not as big a deal. The dog at your feet, the breeze through the window, the sunset that is just a curtain being drawn on one tiny act in a rich and vibrant play that is filled with as much laughter as it is tragedy.

It can make you look forward to seeing the next act, if you let it.