Find the good. Be the good.

      I'm constantly asking my kids what they want to be when they grow up. Their answers have varied from Katie wanting to be a rock star when she was in kindergarten to both girls currently wanting to teach. (I wonder who is influencing that decision). When my son Jack announced at the dinner table recently one night that he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up, my interest peaked. Often he is the kid who gives me very little details about his nine year-old life. "What did you do at school today?" I frequently ask only to hear responses like "stuff" and "things."

     "What do you want to be?" I asked. I couldn't help but smile eagerly.

     After an eye roll that only a nine year-old can give, he replied, "When I grow up, I want to be a man."

     Frustrated, I replied, "But that's not something to be. You already are a man."

     "No. I'm just a boy. But I want to be a man. A good man," he said.

     I usually advise students to shy away from adjectives like "good" when they want to use them in their writing. It's a pretty nondescript way of saying what so many other words can say much better. Yet somehow that adjective tied to what Jack wanted to be--a good man--was perfect. He couldn't have described it better in that moment.

      Last year at this time, I reflected on the idea to choose a word to uphold for the new year. I chose resolution and decided to define my life by living a life of resolution--to commit myself fully to people, ideas, experiences. This year my son has inspired me to choose the word good. This year I've decided to find the good and be the good others want to see in this world. Good--perhaps the most nondescript, boring word I could choose--has inspired me to make some changes in the way I do things in ways that I anticipate will be far from boring.

      For one, I want to surround myself with good people. A student I taught two years ago encouraged me to do this in his valedictory speech. He wrote, "That is my hope for us. That we find those people who are who we hope to be--who value what we want to value. I hope that we choose our future friends not based off of popularity or convenience, but because they challenge us to be better people." I had the privilege of editing this speech before he delivered it, and I wrote down this idea two years ago when I read it. The idea of surrounding ourselves with people we want to be seems so simple yet is not something I see we always do. We want to be the popular kid or the successful kid. We're worried about if the choices we make will get us into the right college and how these choices will impact our GPA. Even adults want to find acceptance in this world more often than not. But do we think about how this will genuinely make us better? How it will make us good?

The next thing I resolve to do in the new year is find the good in situations. Last month, I came into school on a Monday utterly exhausted from my weekend. I tried to pack in too much. As a result, my essays weren't all graded, and I didn't feel like I was ready for the day. A student walked into my classroom and asked how my weekend was. "Just too short," I replied, barely looking up from what I was doing.

"Don't worry," she said, "We get another one in six days."

What an amazing perspective that completely changed the way I attacked the day. Instead of complaining that we were back at school and it was only Monday, this student had it all figured out--she found the good in the situation.

Finally, this year I want to commit to a life of doing good. I had the recent experience to watch this in my students in Theory of Knowledge. As supervisor of the CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service) component of IB, I facilitate monthly service projects. This past December, we raised over $700 for the Head Start preschool students at Henry Clay Elementary School. We shopped together to buy items on these children's wish list. Our trip to Walmart that Sunday was exactly as I pictured it: you all were rushing around to grant the wishes of kids you didn't even know and loading the cart full of happiness. Amid the foam sword fighting, bicycle riding down the aisles, and laughing at the looks some of the patrons gave me, I stood proud of what you did--of what we did.

We spent the next day wrapping 56 gifts--some of us learned how to wrap a present for the first time. And then we took a field trip to visit our new four year-old friends.

When we arrived at Henry Clay, I honestly had no idea what to expect. It's not every day that I see my own students interacting with young children. It took all of about 5 minutes for me to turn around and realize that this was one of the best things I have ever been a part of as a teacher. I watched you sit with these young people in your laps, laughing and smiling. I watched two of you stand up and dance with one of the kids, and many threw around tissue paper, letting the eyes of the children light up as they tried to catch it falling in the air. About halfway through the morning, one of the preschool teachers took me aside and pointed to a boy who she had never seen smile and laugh like he was that day. You helped these kids shoot baskets and feed their new dolls.You played hide and seek and got into an epic superhero battle. You brought them so much joy.

While those kids may not remember this moment years from now, I am certain you will remember the impact you can have on others for a long time to come. I know it's going to take a long time for me to forget the important lesson of doing good I learned from all of you in that moment.

I often relate what I'm thinking to song lyrics, and this time, I'm going a little out of my comfort zone in referencing Southern classic rock lyrics of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Before they graduate, I always ask my seniors I teach to tell me their favorite song. Each year there is always at least one student who chooses "Simple Man." It's a song I always have been familiar with but never really paid attention to its lyrics: "Be a simple kind of man. Oh be something you love."

Maybe my son picked the perfect occupation when he told me he wanted to be a good man when he grows up. And maybe that's all that I want for my new year as well--Surround myself with good people. Find the good. Do good. Always.