Some may deem it somewhat Utopian. To this I would offer that one of the missions of a school is to show students what is possible.
Special thanks to all in our community for your support this year including our PTO, whose constant and vigilant support continually contributes to and glues together our sense of community!
The Love of TEAM
Of all of the 24 character strengths that we talk about in the
middle school the one that is sometimes the least talked about because it's the
most awkward is LOVE. Most teenagers
think of love as solely being something between two people but love means so
many different things and comes in so many shapes and sizes.
There is a far different type of love that has likely never been
defined for many of you. This form of
love has been around for a long time but it's stumbled upon more than it's
intentionally grown and sometimes even when it's pursued it is still
elusive.
This other kind of love is the love that we can feel for an entire
group of people and it's just as compelling, just as deep, and equally as
profound as the love that you or I have for a family member.
When groups of people come together to perform common tasks we
sometimes call them teams. There are
many other names but this is the name we use at BCMS. Teams are supposed to foster this kind of
love but if people don't know how to recognize it, or even that it exists, it's
rarely found.
As a kid I loved individual sports like tennis, and running, and
shooting free throws at the park, but none of these filled the space I
discovered I wanted filled by playing sports as a part of a team. I know there were probably a lot of my
friends who thought that my drive to be competitive in sports came from a
desire for attention or for awards, but I discovered something else at a
subconscious level. In every game I
played there were the briefest of moments when our team came together; when we
had no thought of personal glory, or of the attention of the fans in the
stands. In these moments I learned to love
the group of people that were my team.
In these moments, nobody was selfish, nobody wanted all the attention,
and everybody wanted the same thing, which was to be successful no matter what
the personal cost.
There weren't many teams I played on that achieved this level of
Love and I've spent 40 years studying why.
I have had selfish teammates and selfish coaches, teammates whose
yearning for attention was always a distraction and coaches whose egos
destroyed any chance of my teams being able to achieve anything positive. Jealousy between teammates destroys this kind
of love and makes it impossible to achieve.
But in a few rare moments, with those really good coaches and the
right teammates it happened. These
moments were far too brief and far too few, but those moments were one of the
best feelings I've had in my life. And
they weren't just on sports teams. They
also happened with my best teachers in some of my classes.
As I began to recognize these moments I began to study them. Here's what they had in common:
1.
Everyone was unselfish
2.
Everyone was willing to
sacrifice personal attention or glory to make the team function better
3.
Everyone was willing to
take on the role assigned to them no matter what it was
4.
Everyone worked as hard as
they possibly could
5.
Everyone stayed emotionally
positive and never in these moments did they say negative things about others,
or think negative things about themselves
6.
All of us trusted each
other and the adults around us without question
I also began to recognize what these moments did NOT have
1.
They didn't have the parent
of any kids telling them to be the center of attention
2.
They didn't have every kid
on the team wanting to play the position that got all the attention
3.
They didn't have one peer
trying to do all the work
4.
They didn’t have adults who
went easy on us. In every single
instance these situations had adult leaders who were really smart, hard-working
and who demanded our best.
So, why today, is this important?
What does this have to do with all of you?
Well here's the secret you've been dying to know. In my 20 years in education I've seen a
handful of high school aged students who were the happiest kids in their
population. These individuals were the most
popular, the most well-liked, and the most successful students in their
schools. What's amazing about these kids
is that they weren't always the best athlete, or the best scholar, or the best
musician. Let me repeat that I just
said that they were NOT the best at all of those things. The one thing they did better than any other
kids was to make everyone around them feel better about themselves. You see these rare individuals figured out
that the kind of love I'm talking about can be something that begins with them.
What's even more amazing about what I'm telling you is that you
don't believe me.
You don't believe that being the most popular kid in the school is
as simple as loving everyone. And the
reason why you don't believe it is because you don't see it. Or do you?
Sitting among you right now are individuals who live this way and
you simply haven't been paying attention to how they make others feel
good. You like them and you know
everyone likes them but you've never studied them to find out why.
Well, don't you think it's time to start paying attention?
If you do you'll start to discover that not only am I right but
that by being more like them you'll become a little bit more mature. You'll become a little bit more
reliable. You'll become a little bit
more comfortable with yourself, and you're high school experience will become a
LOT more positive. But what you'll be
amazed to discover, no matter how confident you already are, is that you'll
become more confident than you've ever been.
You'll be confident in choosing the right friends. You'll be confident in your extracurricular
activities and your academics, and you're confidence will make others feel
better because you'll want to pay it forward.
You will discover a leadership you never thought you had and you will
realize that you will never be a blind follower of bad role models ever again.
The most positive experience I have ever had was being on a high
school team where we were all taught this kind of love by a coach. He not only taught us how to find it on a
basketball court, but he taught us how to carry it into the hallways and
classrooms of our school. If we saw a
classmate being bullied we stepped in and stopped it. If we saw people being mean to others we
stopped it and made the victims feel welcomed into our circles of friends. We realized months later that through us, our
coach changed our school and we realized that everyone in our school community,
from adults to all of our peers, looked to us as leaders. And the really cool part about all of that is
that it happened my sophomore year and it carried all the way through to my senior
year.
This is what all of us want for all of you. And the best part of the equation is that you
can all get their together. This isn't a
contest where only some win. This is a
journey that you can all go on together.
All of us here, every single adult in this room want for you to
learn the kind of love that I am talking about today. We want you to be a builder of team, to be a
builder of community and what you might just discover is that you are a builder
of your own confidence. It's what we
adults who work and live in Bethlehem love most about our community. We love watching how high you all soar once
you've learned how to drive your own confidence.
To all of the adults present please join me in expressing the love
that we have developed for this group of great people, the Bethlehem High
School class of 2019.
Important Dates Upcoming
Important Dates Upcoming
- Incoming 6th Grade Students will be notified of their team assignments in approximately two weeks (we hope to have these completed by July 10). Some believe that they are already able to see this in Aspen but what is currently posted for 5th graders in Aspen is NOT ACCURATE.
- Team Supply Lists can be found here:
- http://www.bethlehemschools.org/bcms/parents/
- Starting June 29th
- Our building hours go back to summer hours - 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. If parents / students need to visit the building the building will be open but our entrance is changing (read below)
- Our Main Entrance will be closed!!!
- Please enter the building through our Music Wing Door to the Left of the Main Entrance (as you face the building)
- Incoming New Student and 6th Grade Orientation
- Thursday, August 27th @ 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00 AM - No RSVP necessary
- All students
- will have schedules posted in Aspen a week prior to the Open Houses (by August 21st)
Please do not hesitate to call our Main Office or stop in if you have any questions (439-7460)
...and Have a Great Summer!!!
