Richard Lakin and Cheerleaders

I’ve had a life where I learned sometimes we are blessed by cheerleaders. Drum majors really.
They lift us up and see our potentials and worth. They lead us to the waters of purpose.
I’m using this as I understand it here from Dr. Martin Luther King. 
Folks that for whatever reason believe and support the things we do, and help us become our best selves.  That in turn ripples out across the waters of our lives.

 My mom was my greatest cheerleader. Her passing six years ago has been impossibly difficult for me at a personal level, far more than my cancers, debilitating Syringomeyelia, pain, personal defeats, and a reminder to me of how I should be in this world for my children.
Yes, I’m trying to be a cheerleader in life to the students I’ve met too, which can be so easy to do or unbelievably difficult to see how to best do, and a cheerleader for those I’ve affected along the way, and for my own children's children- a new role I'm assuming. I’m awaiting a huge life milestone to arrive. My daughter is becoming a mom.
It's come at a time of stress and discouragement for me, like a beacon.

Did you know some folks never have this cheerleader or learn how to become this for another?
Some expect it of everyone, and some never process it as a gift.
And some folks live to beat you down. Most of us know this. (It's part of why I'm going to retire.
That news is coming here too eventually, as I face my mortality and human limits, and what I must do for baby. My role in this world is going to return to as an artist, my calling and mom -my greatest gift)

Years ago I wrote my hundred standards for the nation's public school children.
 http://sarahpuglisi.blogspot.com/2010/03/mrs-puglisis-100-national-standards.html?m=1
I sat through a day in tears trying to turn a hundred children I’ve learned from, whose memory lives on for me, into a "standard." The standard is basically holding the most important things in life they represented-now as a standard for all children. I've been told more times than I care to say that I'm missing the point of our standards. I always return to this as a foundation shift the school must undergo. Until that happens we can technically refine demands on our children's skills  as standards, but we do not have the motivation and reason to be effective. Things will fail. Much is failing-calling out to the new century.
At the time of writing I was facing a second cancer surgery for an on-going battle with small intestinal cancer. I felt an urgency to say something that was so compelling in that moment of doing. I wrote them in about four hours.
I could not believe that what children taught me could not turn into a minimum of what we might do with and for children in our schools. In most cases it was what they did not have. But in some cases it was exactly what they DID have. Not all lessons are taught in darkness.
And then I posted it here on my blog.

An interesting thing happened from that. It rippled out into the world.
Like circles from a stone thrown into the waters of our days.
My world grew a little. I learned others cared.
I learned more about Kurt Lewin's teaching who remains the educational thinker besides Carl Rogers and Maslow that I truly studied and apply. I learned more practically about how what we do ripples out.
Your actual actions and your behavior and your words have profound influence in ways you may never know-for good and nought. I see this now.

I gained a few dedicated cheerleaders in the post for my standards and my teaching.
One of those was Anthony Cody. I made real friends like Anne, she truly holds me up. Old friends glimpsed how I'd gone on to be. One of those friends is battling horrific illness right now and I know she doesn't really know how much her care meant. I send my love and prayers daily to her in Texas. Friends like Phil. All from a blog post that held my whole life within it.

One was Richard Lakin. He is my focus today.
Others not only shared the standards, which look very different from things like common core standards, the internet allowed many to cheer-lead for these standards in care.
Susan Ohanian for instance.
In an on going way I learned about Mr. Lakin as we communicated online. He sent me a book he wrote on his time Principal-ing in public school back East.
Principaling is an artform. Many do not even remotely understand this. Richard did. It is always primarily relational and lives far, far away from being a head down followers calling. It calls you to advocacy, care, and having great courage as you face how to be kind as you accept this responsibility to lead. He understood it is not passive. It is something I have never done myself, but respect those that do take it on. His book I'm sure is available. It lives in the here and now in small scale-the scale that presents itself to do our work within. What it really says grows on you. It is both small and wide.
He told me that following my writing inspired him. And he brought attention to his circle of influence. I felt such honor.

And Richard Lakin would regularly share on social media my standards and send me personal encouragement.
(He understands cheerleading.
He understands I’m needing this.)
And Richard Lakin was a cheerleader for Sarah as a teacher.
Thank you Richard. It meant a great deal. I know you are looking down on me and your memory will always be for a blessing.

Richard Lakin over ten years reached out.
As I assume he might have done so with you too. I'm seeing this beautiful circle of influence.

Four years ago he was murdered. Brutally.
He had gone to Israel to relocate. Or go home. His gift in life appears to be- from what I’ve learned- bringing about peace and care. Helping us to find out how we fit into this world and contribute to All our peace, and care. His journey was horrifically ended by a Palestinian who killed him on a bus in an attack of terror. This man who worked so hard to see the Palestinian point of views and to honor their struggle. It absolutely stopped me in my tracks, and I’ve meditated, prayed and had such deep grief over the loss to his family and our lives in the time after-these four years.
We can’t say in words what our cheerleaders in life have meant. Or what their loss means.
What violence and hate bring. Or what the power of love truly is. A force to apply into every situation.


Apparently his daughter has taken on helping see through one of his dreams.
A cheerleading project I just watched a video about. I want to honor this project. He wanted to share the story of two people he valued, saw, and felt their story mattered. 
His daughter has completed this video and posted it and I’m sharing here today.
Look below.

My blog has no real audience now. I sought to just go away. There is no way to know if I can help you learn about the story Richard wanted you to hear. Would you stop your life to help another?
I was discouraged from continuing my work writing many years back mostly by my teaching district . Silenced. That aspect did not please them. And I found over time that my basic goodness and decency having lost its cheerleaders, was just difficult to navigate in an unkind, uncaring world. It's hard.
My advocates and cheerleaders now operate in another realm.
I began trying my best to be this peace and love for those that I could. I started to put down the me to see the us, and hopefully I have been cheerleading as a good presence in children’s lives and education for a reason. Life should help us achieve peace and see us all matter.

I want to help my grandchild while I can. They are due in mid March. I want to say who I am is someone that sees the best you in you. That believes in you.

I’d like to take today to share this video Mr. Lakin was making that his daughter finished. It’s a beautiful soft, slow beautiful story of seeing two lives that were bound by their love and care. It is about how we can go about supporting one another. It is about Mr. Lakin as a cheerleader. Drum major. It is about the family that lives and misses him. It is about who we are and how the circles of our influence ripple through time and Space.
It is about two friends that helped each other and what that looked like. 
Hopefully you will share and broaden its reach.

 https://youtu.be/qfYEoqrn8gg