In other words, we attend some conferences for certain reasons, and we attend other conferences for other reasons.  Often, these reasons overlap, and just as often, they do not.  Don’t expect every professional need you have to be satisfied by every conference; you need more than one, to wit, a combo of conferences.

In the long run, however, by attending various types of conferences for various reasons, I have learned far more than I ever learned in graduate school.

At first, everyone at every conference was new to me; even those whose blogs and websites I’d been reading for a while, but had not actually met, seemed new in many ways.   No matter what kind of conference it was, though, I felt I already knew these people somewhat because of their online presence.

Now, since I’m no longer a conference newbie – well, not as much of one as before -  I feel almost as if it’s Old Home Week when I go to a conference.  It’s wonderful to see familiar faces, and just as wonderful to see unfamiliar faces which I know will be familiar at the NEXT conference.  I’m far from being an A-list writer,  but the actual A-list people don’t seem to know how A-list they are and are really, really nice.  (This attitude can be different, though, depending on what kind of conference you’re attending and what kind of expectations you bring to the table.)

I guess you might say I’m thoroughly hooked on conferences.

They have greatly enhanced my ability to do my writing gigs, my social media gigs, my watchdog gigs, my teaching gigs, my help-my-students-become-writers gigs, and my time-to-surf-and-find-new-things gigs.

At each conference, I’m agig agog at the awesomeness of the attendees and presenters.  I’ve never met such smart people in my life.

For a small-town chick like me, it’s been a whole new world.  Alert Aladdin at once.

Another reason I love conferences is that because I’m a small-town chick, there really isn’t anybody close to home who understands what I do for a living.  At conferences, I can have actual conversations with actual people who actually understand!

Conferences help me hone my mad skillz.  Come with me next time and we’ll hone together.

It’s rare that any piece of knowledge you pick up pertains only to one aspect of your life.  I went to WordCamp Chicago to hone my mad social media and computer  skillz, but I also learned a great deal that I can take back to my college students and use, as well.

There’s no such thing as knowing enough.  Nobody will ever know enough about anything.  No matter how much we know, or think we know, there is always more to learn.  It doesn’t matter what the topic is; there’s always more to learn.

At  WordCamp Chicago this weekend, I learned so much my head is spinning.  This is good.  As my head is spinning – EXORCIST – I am extracting tidbits of coolness from it like water from lettuce in a salad spinner.  And once I soak up all the water, I’ll start in on the lettuce.  When the lettuce has been absorbed, I’ll go to another conference and start again.

Nobody ever knows enough about anything.

And I shall add:  those who think they know enough had better be careful.

Businesses have clients and customers, and schools have students.  Clients, customers, and students know an awful lot, and if  the time comes when they know more than we do. . . . well,   we’ve succeeded, actually.  They won’t need us any more.  And then, we go to another conference or take a class and catch up and then we’ll be needed again and it starts all over again.

I’ve heard teachers say that certain students or whole classes made them nervous or even annoyed them because the kids knew more than the teacher.  Whose fault is this, I might ask.  A teacher who doesn’t continue to learn, year after year, for the entirety of his/her career, is not an educator.  He/she is only a lecturer, and probably a boring one that the kids could run rings around.  I know teachers who’ve used the exact same lesson plans for over thirty years.  I’ve worked with people who refused to learn even how to access their email.  I have had colleagues who hated it when there was a really bright kid who already knew every minute detail of the textbooks, tests, and topics in a class.  I’ve known teachers who resented it when a child asked a question the teacher couldn’t answer.  As for me,  I LOVE it when my students have questions I can’t answer.  It means we all go nuts figuring that answer out, together.  Cool!  Get to the lab, people and activate your schema!

When your customers/clients/students are able to run rings around you, and you permit it, and you don’t do anything to make yourself more knowledgeable, you’re not going to be good at whatever it is you do.  You won’t even be passable.  I don’t want you teaching my children, and I wouldn’t trust you to be competent at running a business.  Frankly, I don’t even want you dressing my cheeseburger.

If your business is kids and you don’t know what they’re reading or listening to or playing, what excuse do you have?  You have no excuse.  I don’t mean that you have to be one of them, because we’ve all seen THOSE pathetic souls, age 54, in Miley Cyrus jeans, Tinkerbell t-shirt,  and pink-tipped hair.  I mean, if you’re going to be able to communicate with your clientele in any kind of place, YOU have to learn some new tricks, old dawg.

In fact, I personally think that if your business is kids, you not only need to know what they’re reading, you need to read it, too.  How can your excited students talk to you about the Black Family Tree permanently stuck to the wall, with some of the faces burned away, and why, if you don’t know what that is?  And frankly, if you teach and you DON’T know what that is, shame on you.  You’re not keeping up.

Keep up.  Never, ever, ever stop keeping up.

When you stop keeping up, ie when you stop learning, call the mortuary and have them drive over to pick up your useless self.  You’re certainly not making viable use of yourself any more, nor any part of yourself.  Even if you’re working out three times a week, if you’re not learning anything, you’re not using your brain, and once you stop using your brain, you’re dead.  Worse than dead, really, because you’re not doing your fair share of thinking, participating, and contributing, but you’re still using up oxygen, resources,  and space on the planet.

Harsh?  Not really.  In this economy or any other kind of economy, what school or business can afford to keep dead weight?  And why should they bother?  Dead weight brings everybody down, and nobody has the right to do that to other people.

Get rid of the dead weight in our schools and replace it with learners.  Learners on both sides of the desk.  A teacher who doesn’t continually educate himself/herself throughout a lifetime?  Not possible.  I mean, not if that person is a REAL teacher.

No matter what line you’re in, make sure you are a lifelong learner.  Keep up.  Ponder.  Suppose.  Infer.  Make connections.  Rejoice in learning as many new things  as you can, every moment you’re lucky enough to be alive.

Never.  Stop.  Learning.  And never stop loving learning.  And if you do decide you’ve learned enough and you’ve earned the right to stop learning and just sit around watching tv and yelling at the weatherman and the referee and drinking beer and feeling great that you don’t have to learn anything else ever again, please, for the love of all that is holy, keep away from my children.  And everybody else’s children, too.  You’re toxic, and I don’t want your poison to infect or infest anyone else, least of all an innocent child.

Learn things.  And when you’ve learned those things, learn other things.  Etc, etc, and so on in patternlike fancy.

And while you’re at it, learn to use and understand proper context.  I mean, holy scheisse on a stick, there are some really ignorant cusses out there.  Let’s eliminate them all with education.

When most of us first started putting bits and pieces of ourselves “out there” for “strangers” to see, we didn’t use our real names.  We made up fake or cute names for ourselves, and for our spouses and children, too.  After all, the internet is huge and strange and full of dark, creepy neighborhoods and “iffy” people, and if nobody knew who we really were, we felt safer.  Well, I did.  Now, most of us don’t bother with the original fake names; we use our real names because everybody knows anyway.  Heck, pole dancers are coming out of the woodwork these days, trying to buy “Mamacita” from me, but they can’t have it.  Not officially, anyway.    They can sign their posts that way but they can’t have the url’s or the Twitter name.

But, most of you know who I am now.  I don’t mind.  I like it.  Some of you know where I live because you’ve been here, and that makes me happy, too.

Fake internet names.  It’s almost funny now.

Then something happened.

Those internet strangers. . . they turned into real people.  Then the real people turned into real people with actual names and locations.  And then, well, then. . . a lot of them turned into real and actual friends.

Not just people with whom we exchanged advice and ideas and conversation, but friends.

I know there are those who do not believe an internet friend is the same thing as a real-life friend, but they are wrong.  In fact, I think we sometimes end up knowing more about an internet friend – assuming (and we have to assume this) – that we’re all telling the truth about ourselves – and I think we are.  Oh, there’s the occasional scam.  I’ve been scammed that way myself twice, BIG TIME.

This made me perhaps a bit more wary, but ultimately, I trust people because that’s how people become trustworthy, and I know that 99.99% of the blogosphere- at least the neighbors I’m familiar with – is populated with awesome people, and I’m proud to know them.

Proud to know them, both online and off.  Yes, I’ve met many of my online friends for realz, as the kids say, and it’s bloody awesome when that happens.

Conventions, conferences, meetings, Tweet-ups. . . . these are safe and convenient ways to meet online acquaintances and friends, but let me tell you something.  When someone you have come to know well and like and love to talk to invites you out to visit, that’s a happening one never forgets.  It’s a blind friendship date, and mine turned out wonderfully.  You know who you are, you wonderful, beautiful, fabulous people you.

But I digress.

Blogging has changed me.  It has encouraged me to be retrospective, to look inward and find ideas I didn’t even know I had.  It has helped me understand myself and other people.  It has forced me to look at things I’ve done, or that other people did, with fresh eyes.  It has helped me forgive.  It has made me look closely and from afar, because both microscope and telescope are equally important.  It has helped me deal with various situations.  It has renewed my trust in people.  It has helped me find myself, and others.

Part of these changes came naturally, as a result of this new way of looking at and expressing myself.  However, some of the changes came in another way.

Comments.

Total strangers who had something to say about what I had said.  People who were kind, and unkind, and full of wonderful advice.  People who came back to this blog again and again, like people with something in common who meet for lunch.  Occasionally someone told me off, which I occasionally needed.  People made accusations, and yelled at me with capital letters.  Sometimes my daughter and sister commented, telling me that my personal view of a situation or occurrence wasn’t necessarily the only one.  We all need to be reminded of THAT, you know.  It helped.  All of it helped.

In other words, after six years of blogging, I think I know myself better.  I think I understand other people a little better.  I think I’m able to look back at certain situations with a more understanding eye.  I’ve “met” people who were hurting much more than I was, people who were much more talented than I am, people who were WAY nicer than I am, people who were mean and hateful and dishonest, people who were kind and loving and genuine, people whose creative talent made me stand up in awe, people I’ve actually really met, people I can’t wait to meet, people who banded together and raised money for someone in need who they’d never actually met, people who were hurting, people who were helping, people who were living in the Blogosphere as if it were an actual neighborhood (which it IS),  people I’m now working for, people I’d love to work for, people I like so much there simply are no words. . . . .

Before I moved to the Blogosphere, my world was pretty limited.  I taught in the same room in the same building all day and then I went home.  Sometimes, after school, I waited tables all night and cooked in a deli all weekend.  We never had much money.  Every day was pretty much the same, and I’d been working with the same people for years and years.  It’s not just online that people are fooled about other people.

Once I moved into the blogosphere, though, my entire life was different.  I had a different job, different schedule, different EVERYTHING, including a different outlook on life.  It took a little while to let my guard down and trust people, but once I did, it was liberating.  It was like one of those corny commercials that show a woman running along the beach, arms uplifted, living the moment.  It seriously was.  And we all know that most corny things are also true things.

Anyway, now that Scheiss Weekly is six years old, I wanted to thank you all for freeing me from the cage in which I was apparently living, even though I didn’t realize it at the time.  A public school teacher is a slave, and I’m not kidding, and most of them don’t even know it until they leave and start doing something else.  But that’s another post, isn’t it.

I am free, and doing work I LOVE, and meeting all kinds of people and finding them awesome.  Nobody will ever cage me again.  And if I want to show my students that all things are in some way connected, I damn well will and nobody can stop me.

I love my blog.  I love the Blogosphere.  I love the people I’ve met through this blog and through people I met through this blog.  They are real.  We are all real  The Blogosphere is real.  It is here, and it is now, and it is here to stay.  Twitter and Facebook, etc, are all wonderful and I like them and I use them but ultimately, somehow, it always comes back to the blog.  Some things need more than 140 characters to be said properly.

This is a long post.  If you’ve made it this far, I thank you.  Corny, sentimental mush?  Oh, sure.  I’m good at that; just ask my kids.

But just so you know it’s really me. . . . . BEHAVE YOURSELVES!

We all hope that we’ll react heroically, but the fact is, NOBODY knows until after the fact whether he/she will even do the right thing, let alone go above and beyond the right thing.

When disaster strikes, many people shrug and go about their business, secure in the safety of geography and circumstance while others disregard both of those, rub their hands together, and set to. Jim Turner, for example, wanted to do more than just watch people suffer on the news, and, with some help from WhatGives.com, did a 24-hour telethon to help the people of Haiti that is still being Twittered. Check for the hashtag #HART; that’s Jim’s telethon!  Jim’s a hero.  So are many others.

1. I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. — Bob Dylan

2. A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. –
Umberto Eco

4. Heroes are people who rise to the occasion and slip quietly away. — Tom Brokaw

5. Heroes come along when you need them. — Ronald Steel

6. A hero is a man who does what he can. — Roman Rollard

7. I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people convinced that they are about to change the world. I am more awed by…those who…struggle to make one small difference after another. — Ellen Goodman

8. Real heroes are men who fall and fail and are flawed, but win out in the end because they’ve stayed true to their ideals and beliefs and commitments. — Kevin Costner

9. How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes! — Maya Angelou

10. The cowards think of what they can lose, the heroes of what they can win. –J. M. Charlier

11. I am of certain convinced that the greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel. –Florence Nightingale

12. The hero is known for achievements; the celebrity for well-knowns. The hero reveals the possibilities of human nature. The celebrity reveals the possibilities of the press and media. Celebrities are people who make news, but heroes are people who make history. Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities. –Daniel J. Boorstin

13. A hero is simply someone who rises above his own human weaknesses, for an hour, a day, a year, to do something stirring. –Betty Deramus

14. True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost. –Arthur Ashe

15. The world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. –Helen Keller

16. In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person of solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness often proves to be the unsung hero: the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous, unpublicized jobs. — Daniel J. Boorstin

17. Heroism is not only in the man, but in the occasion. — Calvin Coolidge

18. A boy doesn’t have to go to war to be a hero; he can say he doesn’t like pie when he sees there isn’t enough to go around. — Edgar Watson Howe

19. The hero, in living her own life, in being true to herself; radiates a light by which others may see their own way. — Laurence G. Boldt

20. Hard times don’t create heroes. It is during the hard times when the ‘hero’ within us is revealed. — Bob Riley

21. Our young people look up to us. Let us not let them down. Our young people need us. Saving them will make heroes of us all. — Gale Sayers

22. Receiving far less attention are the working class heroes, who go about their solitary work routines with quiet dignity, come home from another grueling day, yet still find time to interact with their children. — Armstrong Williams

23. Man’s greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes – obscure heroes who are at times greater than illustrious heroes. — Victor Hugo

24. We need more everyday heroes. Heroes are ordinary people who take a stand for what is right. — Blaine Jackson

25. What the world needs now, more than ever before, are every day heroes who are ready, willing and able to make a difference. — Greg Hickman

26. If you’re going to do anything that pioneering, you will get those arrows in the back, and you just have to put up with it. — Randy Pausch

27. If you’re never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances. — Julia Sorel

28. In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. — Unknown

29. If your purpose of life is security, you will be a failure. Security is the lowest form of happiness. — David Kekich

30. Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero. — Morgan Freeman

31. A ship in harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for. — John A. Shedd,

It’s easy to get a mind-fix that these catastrophes usually happen far away to people we don’t know, but the fact is, we’re all in this together.  Today, it’s someone else who needs help; tomorrow, it could be us, right here.

Let the good that we do come back to us.  And even if it doesn’t, let’s do it anyway.

Tune in tonight and tomorrow to the Haiti Assistance Relief Telethon. Listen.  Call in.  Do what you can.  On Twitter, look for the hashtag #HART

You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. — John Wooden

Back in early 2004, my friend Wes talked me into starting a blog.  This blog, to be specific.  Best advice I ever got.  Eternal thanks added to the eternal love and friendship, Wes dear.

Yes, former students do sometimes evolve into friends.

Once I’d decided to be a blogger – whatever that was – I had to name the blog.  I gave this task more time and thought than I put into naming my children.  But then, I’d had their names picked out since I was a child; they’re both named for beloved book people.

But my blog. . . . this new-fangled online journal thing that was destined to be an extension of my heart and soul and personality and self. . . . what to name it?  It should be something profound and catchy and cool.  It should be reverent and classy and professional.  It should be, well, me.  That pretty much negates what I thought it should be, doesn’t it.  Sigh.

My husband and daughter both speak German.  They like to speak it in front of me.  Over time, I’ve picked up a few expressions and phrases, and, being me, a few choice little expressions that struck me as worth remembering.  Two things in particular always hit me right in the funny bone:  Scheisskopf, and something about having a dead bird in one’s pocket.  It was close, but I chose Scheisskopf, partly because it was a way to express my opinion without openly offending those who didn’t know what it meant.  I’m a really classy broad, but I do love my little inside jokes.

I didn’t want to use this word in my blog’s title because I do have a modicum of dignity; besides, I was afraid people would think I meant ME.  Or them, which of course I occasionally do but still. . . .

So I tried to get “Scheiss Daily. “  I was too late; it was taken.  So I grabbed up “Scheiss Weekly,” and it’s been “Scheiss Weekly” ever since.

“Scheiss” really ought to have an “e” at the end, but I was so anxious to get the name before some other German name-caller bagged it that I didn’t type it in and therefore, “Scheiss Weekly” was born.

I love my blog, and when you come to visit me and comment, I feel validated.  As if I had a right to live in the Blogosphere and ogle the cool kids at that OTHER table.

As for all the hits I get from people searching for scheisse because they want to look at a website about scheisse, well, shame on you, you perverts! they’re just funny now.  Once in a blue moon, someone I know hits me up for scheisse; I never tell on them, but I do giggle a lot, late at night.

I can be a scheisskopf at times; don’t think for a minute that I can’t.  I even take pleasure in it sometimes.  It’s part of my perfection: part mommyblogger, part professor, part educational issues commentator, part child advocate, part bad habit criticizer, part whiner, part social media maven, part astronaut, part ballerina, part Hogwarts fourth year, part rabble-rouser, part nostalgia specialist, part sentimentality wallower, part social critic, part retrospective parenting expert, part reviewer, part holiday reveler, part mind’s eye encourager, part imagination sparkler, part grammar nazi, part societal behavior critic, part funny bone tickler, part heartstrings puller, part professional writer, part international lawyer, part spy, part Broadway fanatic, and part curriculum advisor.  Put them all together, plus all the stuff I forgot, and you get: me.  I left out the really bad stuff on purpose; I figure my enemies can fill all that in.  There may be a few exaggerations in that list; I really can’t be arsed to go back and edit it.

Daughter in Question:  please comment and tell me that complete “dead bird in my pocket” expression you used to say to make me laugh.  I need a laugh.  We all do; times are hard.  Don’t actually fart, thankyouverymuch; just tell me the whole expression.  Whoops, now you all know what it means.  My bad.

I’m assuming y’all know what “scheisskopf” means?  So if I say something such as “My former public school administrators sure were a sad bunch of clueless  scheisskopfs,”  I would not need to explain further?

Good.

Your turn.

Let’s talk business.

I fully believe that customer service and social media are connected at the hip, and that a business that treats its customers right will see those customers come back again for more of the same – merchandise AND treatment.

This is not a new concept.  Pa Ingalls understood it, over a hundred years ago, and Laura remembered his retold conversation well.  Here it is, straight from The Long Winter, the sixth book in the series.  See if you think this is all that different from business today.

Some background, for you poor undereducated souls who haven’t read the book:

The Dakota town was buried in snow; no trains could get through, the stores were sold out of goods, and the people were starving to death.  Two young men had, in the face of yet another blizzard, risked their lives to leave town to find something for the people to eat.  They found a settler and bought some of his wheat, paying for it with money given them by one of the two storekeepers in town.

When Mr. Loftus, the storekeeper, put the wheat out for sale, he had marked the price way up, and the townspeople were protesting.

Mr. Ingalls told him that they thought he was charging too much for the wheat.

“That’s my business,” said Loftus.  “It’s my wheat, isn’t it?  I paid good hard money for it.”

“A dollar and a quarter a bushel, we understand,” Mr. Ingalls said.

“That’s my business,” Mr. Loftus repeated. . . (he) was not going to back down.  He banged his fist on the counter and told them, “That wheat’s mine and I’ve got a right to charge any price I want to for it.”

“That’s so, Loftus, you have,” Mr. Ingalls agreed with him.  “This is a free country and every man’s got a right to do as he pleases with his own property.”  He said to the crowd, “You know that’s a fact, boys,” and he went on, “Don’t forget every one of us is free and independent, Loftus.  This winter won’t last forever and maybe you want to go on doing business after it’s over.”

“Threatening me, are you?” Mr. Loftus demanded.

“We don’t need to,” Mr. Ingalls replied.  “It’s a plain fact.  If you’ve got a right to do as you please, we’ve got a right to do as we please.  It works both ways.  You’ve got us down now.  That’s your business, as you say.  But your business depends on our good will.  You maybe don’t notice that now, but along next summer you’ll likely notice it.”

“That’s so, Loftus,” Gerald Fuller said.  “You got to treat folks right or you don’t last long in business, not in this country.”

. . .”What do you call a fair profit?”  Mr. Loftus asked.  “I buy as low as I can and sell as high as I can; that’s good business.”

“That’s not my idea,” said Gerald Fuller. (the town’s other storekeeper) “I say it’s good business to treat people right.”

And looking at all the men of the town, and realizing that every single one of them despised him, Mr. Loftus relented and lowered the price considerably.

Unless you’re WalMart, and have driven out every other store in town, this concept is still viable.  Treat people right, and they’ll come back.  Take gross advantage of them, and they won’t come back if there’s any other place to buy their needs at all.

I won’t go into how WalMart and its ilk are making it difficult, if not impossible, for a small business to compete and survive, but I still believe that word of mouth, ie social media, is the best and most effective marketing tool.  WHERE THERE IS STILL A CHOICE OF STORES, most people prefer to give their money to the one that treats them fairly.

Word of mouth.  It’s all over the people’s conversations, online and real life.  Savvy honest businesses would do well to heed it.  To get good feedback, a business must first give good service.  To do that, a business must find out what the people want, and then give it to them.  Etc.

Times are hard right now.  People are struggling.  A business that takes advantage of that fact now might, yes, have its customers over a barrel, but as soon as they can, those customers will take their money elsewhere.

What we need to make sure of right now is that we HAVE an elsewhere to go to.

P.S.  Don’t waste your time watching that dreadful TV series; it’s a travesty.

P.P.S.  Visiting all of Laura’s homes makes for an excellent road trip.

P.P.P.S.  Ever wondered what the real Laura looked like?  Here she is as a young girl and again as an elderly woman.  She was beautiful, inside and out.

Billy Madison’s speech made everyone in the room dumber, but  Itay Talgam not only makes the world smarter: he makes the world smile.  Somehow, watching this gentleman makes me feel better about the world, and even about. . . me.  And that, my friends, is some kind of miracle.  Mr. Talgam, you rock.  Wow.

If social media is all about building trust-based community, music must then  be an embodiment of social media.

Enjoy.

A business that isn’t careful to treat its customers well will soon find that it HAS no customers.  Children who pinch and bite will soon find that other children don’t like them and won’t play with them.  Youthful “quitters” often become adults who walk away when things don’t suit them.  Teens who treat other teens with stereotypical snobbish and better-than-thou attitudes might rule the cafeteria and hallways, but once they graduate they – unless they’re REALLY stupid -will discover that such tactics turn them into undesirables in the real world.  Of course, some people never stray outside of the high school mentality that includes and then drops on whatever the whim of the moment might be, but are these really quality people?  Um, no.

Are you listening, Twitter?  Ahem.

1. I am a part of all that I have met. — Alfred, Lord Tennyson

2. Hear me, four quarters of the world – a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is! Give me the eyes to see and the strength to understand, that I may be like you. With your power only can I face the winds. — Black Elk

3. The first duty of a human being is to assume the right functional relationship to society — more briefly, to find your real job, and do it. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

4. One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade. — Chinese proverb

5. We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race. — Cicero

6. This is the duty of our generation as we enter the twenty-first century — solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves not by their own identity but by that of others. — Elie Wiesel

7. There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other. — Eric Hoffer

8. The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt. — Frederick Buechner

9. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. — George Bernard Shaw

10. What cannot be achieved in one lifetime will happen when one lifetime is joined to another. — Harold Kushner

11. The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life. — Jane Addams

12. There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication…. Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing. — John Dewey

13. The American city should be a collection of communities where every member has a right to belong. It should be a place where every man feels safe on his streets and in the house of his friends. It should be a place where each individual’s dignity and self-respect is strengthened by the respect and affection of his neighbors. It should be a place where each of us can find the satisfaction and warmth which comes from being a member of the community of man. This is what man sought at the dawn of civilization. It is what we seek today. — Lyndon B. Johnson

14. There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community. — M. Scott Peck

15. Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. — Margaret Mead

16. My faith has been the driving thing of my life. I think it is important that people who are perceived as liberals not be afraid of talking about moral and community values. — Marian Wright Edelman

17. If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth. — Mitsugi Saotome

18. Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor’s creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

19. How does one keep from “growing old inside”? Surely only in community. The only way to make friends with time is to stay friends with people…. Taking community seriously not only gives us the companionship we need, it also relieves us of the notion that we are indispensable. — Robert McAfee Brown

20. Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing. — Rollo May

21. We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone … and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something. — Sandra Day O’Connor

22. The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say, “What are you going through?” — Simone Weil

23. We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free. — Starhawk

24. Genuine politics — even politics worthy of the name — the only politics I am willing to devote myself to — is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole. — Vaclav Havel

25. One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them. — Virginia Woolf

26. What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured. — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

27. As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality. — George Washington

28. Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers. — Howard Thurman

29. When all is said and done, the real citadel of strength of any community is in the hearts and minds and desires of those who dwell there. — Everett Dirksen

30. The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community. — William James

31. Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community. — John W. Gardner

32. We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community. — Dorothy Day

33. I am a huge believer in giving back and helping out in the community and the world. Think globally, act locally I suppose. I believe that the measure of a person’s life is the affect they have on others. — Steve Nash

34. What people say behind your back is your standing in the community. — Edward W. Howe

35. Communities don’t have rights. Only individuals in the community have rights. — Michael Badnarik

36. I want to work for a company that contributes to and is part of the community. I want something not just to invest in. I want something to believe in. — Anita Roddick

37. It is in the power of every individual to do that which the community as a whole is powerless to effect. — William Thomas Stead

38. The left has come to regard common sense – the traditional wisdom and folkways of the community – as an obstacle to progress and enlightenment. — Christopher Lasch

39. When we become a really mature, grown-up, wise society, we will put teachers at the center of the community, where they belong. We don’t honor them enough, we don’t pay them enough. — Charles Kuralt

40. If you feel rooted in your home and family, if you’re active in your community, there’s nothing more empowering. The best way to make a difference in the world is to start by making a difference in your own life. — Julia Louis-Dreyfus

41. As a former high school teacher, I know that investing in education is one of the most important things we can do, not only for our children, but for the benefit of our whole community. — Ed Pastor

42. You shouldn’t get to live in society and give nothing back. People complain about their taxes, yet they do nothing for the community. That makes me furious. — Kathleen Turner

43. Community service has taught me all kinds of skills and increased my confidence. You go out there and think on your feet, work with others and create something from nothing. That’s what life’s all about. — Andrew Shue

44. New marketing is about the relationships, not the medium. –- Ben Grossman

45. We are advertis’d by our loving friends. — William Shakespeare

46. Human beings are fundamentally communal; our individuality is a product of community, and our choices are shaped by our being with others. — Judith Plaskow

47. First it is necessary to stand on your own two feet. But the minute a man finds himself in that position, the next thing he should do is reach out his arms. — Kristin Hunter

48. Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community. — John W. Gardner

49. It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives. — John Adams

50. Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them. — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

As a teacher, I am always on the lookout for new and better things to do, and for  better ways to do what I have always done, and Chris’s daughter Violette has shown me yet another way that social media can be utilized and thoroughly enjoyed in and out of the classroom.

What an AWESOME IDEA, Brogans.  Thank you for sharing.