Do you believe?

[Kacey]

Today at a school in-service, we were shown this amazing video, by a young man with remarkable presence for any age - never mind one in 5th grade. Do you believe? I do... I did before I saw this young man - but he has reaffirmed all the reasons I teach. Please believe along with him!

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[Sukerkin]

The Englishman in me doesn't like that much 'confidence' in a child but it's impossible to deny the truth in what he says.

 

[Kacey]

The Englishman in me doesn't like that much 'confidence' in a child but it's impossible to deny the truth in what he says.

I was looking at the message much more than the messenger - but I did get into teaching to help kids, and I went specifically into special education to help kids who needed more help than most. What this boy says speaks to why all good teachers teach, as well as to the biggest cause of burnout - that teachers can only do so much, and always feel that we should do more than we are doing - because the kids so need us to do everything we can.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Well he is definitely an impressive public speaker at such a very young age.

 

[morph4me]

Very impressive. I've seen adults who don't have the presence that this young man has.

On a related note, I want to say thank you to all the teachers out there, I know that I couldn't do that job, and you all have my deepest respect and admiration for what you do. :asian:

 

[terryl965]

Yes impressive video, just a side note here he was expended for a fight. Just par for the course, still a great kid.

 

[Gordon Nore]

I loved the speech. I loved it because it wasn't the traditional kid giving a tradition speech arts address for a competition. It was a message of hope and faith in eachother.

Now that it's out there on YouTube, I hope this kid, his life, family and school aren't picked apart to find something wrong.

 

[arnisador]

The kid has a future, certainly!

 

[Nyrotic]

The Englishman in me doesn't like that much 'confidence' in a child but it's impossible to deny the truth in what he says.

And why does the Englishman not like that much confidence in this child? I'm really just curious here...

 

[Nolerama]

It would be nice to see this kid right after college, work force, or running for local office, with the same mentality and intelligence.

 

[Sukerkin]

Nyrotic, it is just that I come form a society where too much publicly displayed confidence of the sort shown in the video is somewhat frowned upon.

Quiet reserve is a much more socially admirable trait. After all, todays confident pre-teen all too soon turns into sulky 'gobby' 'teen with a string of ASBO's to his name because that 'confidence' was overly nurtured and came to be a belief in entitlement of any action, regardless of others .