Friends make the world go around!

Thanks to playing with a friend a couple weekends ago, I've been on a friend "kick!"  (playing as in talking nonstop for an hour while we were supposed to be playing the slots at a casino - hehe!)   It started the wheels spinning (although a bit sluggish in this cold weather), and this question just popped into my head.  Are there different kinds of friends?  Are there levels of friendships?  Can you put your friends into "friend categories?"  Sometimes my brain is like starting a two cycle engine - it needs a little priming before it begins to spit, sputter, pour out smoke and then settle down to running nicely.  So once the smoke cleared, I decided to see if I could come up with categories for friends.  :)  They really need emoticons on the blog page!!

One part of me is telling me this is just a weird subject, but the other part of me is whispering - try it, see what you come up with!  So I did!

Here are my categories and hopefully, a decent enough definition so you kind of, sort of know what I mean.  Confused yet?  OK - here goes.

Forever and ever friend.  This is a friend that you have known and been friends with for years.  They know all of your history - good and bad.  They know what pushes your buttons, and when they need to clamp their mouth shut and pick a lock!  When you are hurting, they are there - first in line.  Sometimes they have advice, sometimes it's just a hug and sympathy.  Even if you have not visited in person for awhile, when you see each other - it is like yesterday (except that usually you talk, and talk, and talk until husbands roll their eyes at you)! Secrets are safe with these friends.  These types of friends are to be cherished forever and ever. Very little, if anything can ruin this friendship - because it is important enough to nurture the relationship until the end of time!

Frenemies:  Hmmmm - I guess I would call this a friend who has for one reason or the other become an enemy - figuratively or literally.  I've heard it said that love and hate go hand in hand - so I guess this might explain how close friends can become angry at each other, and become enemies.  Luckily, I don't have any friends in that category (at least if I have, they haven't informed me of that!)

Work friends:  This one was really hard to put into words.  The best I can do is to say that many times you become friends with the people you work with.  It may not ever go beyond the workplace.  You may only be friends AT the workplace for a small time. If they move on, sometimes those friends also move on.  But some workplace friends will remember you- and greet you with a hug and chat whenever your paths cross. I enjoy these friends a lot.  It is fun to meet them around town, be recognized and shoot the breeze for awhile with them - even if it has been years since you worked together!

Moved on friends:  I think this mostly happens with friends you make in early youth - say elementary and high school.  When there are 20, 30, or 40 years of living that has passed by, it is really hard to recapture that feeling you once had. They aren't enemies - just friends that have gone on totally different paths.  You may meet, thinking you will fall right back into the pattern of your youth, only to find that there is nothing that draws you to each other anymore.  They become a really good memory of our childhood!

Internet friends:  I am chuckling as I type - because I was very, very skeptical of FB when I first started lurking in the shadows - reading posts, accepting friend requests.  Now it is such a special part of my life, that it fills me with joy!  I have been able to keep up with friends' lives through internet, that would not have happened any other way.  I've made new friends through the internet/FB.  I have friends on FB that I have never met - but I hope to someday.  Somehow, on FB, defenses come down and you can see into a person's life better than you might have, if you had met on a street somewhere!

Soul Friends:  Hardest by far for me to describe. Someone who touches your life and your soul in ways that you could never have imagined.  They go deep, deep into your innermost being, and will stay there forever.  These friends help you with the deepest hurts, the darkest parts of your life, but also revel in joy - whether yours or theirs.  Sometimes I feel these friends were put specially on earth for you!  (well, maybe not exclusively for you, but I think you get the idea).  As one of my soul friends says:  How can you know joy if you have never known pain?  Spot on!

Multicategory:  Wow - this one takes a little from most of these - except of course - the frenemies, or the moved on friends.  They may be a soul friend that you keep in touch with by FB or other internet.  They may be a work friend also, one that goes so far beyond a workplace friend, that you have become deep friends. Some may be your forever and ever friend - depending upon the circumstances that enter your lives.

OK - there you have it.  The engine is running out of gas!  Besides, I am smelling the pizza my husband had in the oven and I am starving!  So my friends - thank you for being there for me in all different kinds of way.  I am blessed to call you my friends.

I dream of a day .......

I write this with sincere apologies to Martin Luther King – because he was a great, great man. My dream is of a day when education is valued by all.
 

 I dream of a day when children are allowed to play, skip, hop, jump and be children until they are 5 or 6 – not in school at 3 or 4 YOA. 

I dream of a day when excessive testing is dumped where it should be dumped – in the toilet.  I dream of a day when I can teach the way I should – to excite children’s imaginations, to let them puzzle through problems, to use a “teaching” moment to go deeper into life – and not just use a worksheet to satisfy the directive for two grades per subject,  per week. 

I dream of a time when teachers are seen as one of the most valuable professions in the world, instead of being derided, yelled at, evaluated to death, professionally developed to death, meetinged to death and threatened.

I also dream about being able to teach without consulting a volume of rules and regulations – to be sure I am not breaking a directive from the higher ups.  I don’t want to have to stop and think about every word I say, every test I give, every discussion I have – to be sure I don’t offend someone in higher authority

I dream of a nation that will embrace cooperativeness in learning, logic in learning, ingenuity in learning, constructivism in learning – rather than testing for the test and teaching to that test all year. I dream of a day when I don’t have children who lay their heads down on their desk and sob because of the testing pressure. 

I dream of a Congress that can work together and pass funding bills for education. I dream of a Congress that will set an example for the children of the US and stop their fighting, because children are as sick of their fighting as adults are.  I dream of a president who actually knows what it is like to be in the trenches in a classroom, and doesn’t think that education can be fixed with more rules and more directives and more testing. 

I dream of a time when a whole year of learning is celebrated – not because of a test score, but because the kids have loved school and learned!   

I dream of a time when I can actually --- TEACH.  Not practice tests, not benchmark tests, not the latest from the State Board of Education, not pull out programs, not so many other subjects required so that actual teaching has shrunk to roughly 4 ½ hours out of a 7 hour day.  Think of the places our children could go – with more time to let them explore and learn. 

I dream of a day that I can wear comfortable clothes, so I can get down on the floor with my students, and get messy in science. I dream of a day when I no longer have to work 12 hours day and/or 65 hour per week, including weekends!  I dream of a day when my paycheck goes to my family, not for buying supplies after supplies after supplies for the classroom. 

This is my dream.  I love teaching with every fiber of my soul – but it is time to stop the insanity that is the US educational system. It isn't going to get better.  It will get worse!!  These are children, my friends – CHILDREN!  Not robots, not Chinese, not Korean, not Japanese – AMERICAN CHILDREN.  I do NOT care what other countries do!  That is their business.  Our business is to open the minds of American children and get them excited about learning once again!

#i'mtired
#childrenarethesoulsofAmerica