Dr Bertice Barry's Keynote

When kids used to come to school with a calculator, you thought they were rich!

Music is the best language to communicate the most with the least (parsimonious)

Given her a passion to be with people who don't just talk about change, but actually do something

Terrorism isn't something "over there"
- it is something in your own neighborhood, they will destroy the work

She is going to ask us to be willing to live for what we believe

(Sang a moving song about where is God in your life, it needs to start with your heart)

Purpose is about finding your place to serve
Reaching All Students (even the ones that are mine)
Balancing your life and work (biggest job is the balancing)

Greatest area of diversity is how we learn is how we learn, how we hear, and how we process information
- technology is great one on one with learning differences

We all learn and process through filters
- she was dyslexic

Study spent a million dollars and found when people are happy on the job they are very productive

Another study wanted to see how we project images into future expectations
- what we see about people drives what we think about that person and what we expect

Need to remove the filters of learning
- She doesn't believe in formulas
- everyone begins in different places
- she likes recipies instead of formulas (example, daughter drank buttermilk, mother told her to put some vinegar in some milk and let it sit)

I had a teacher who was IN PURPOSE
- education is the most important place to be in purpose
- purpose is not the job, but it allows you to do the job
- the bigger the insecurity, the bigger the attitude

What do you call a person who can speak one language? An American

"When you walk with purpose, you run right into destiny"

If it hadn't been for those folks who had looked beyond what she was, and what she could do

Alice Walker: "There is a point at which even grief becomes ubsurd, it is at that point that humor gushes up to save your sold"

I learn the power of laughter and the power of my mother's curse

Purpose truly collides with destiny, last month she met a man who told her that in his culture, when someone takes in other children it is a sign of great blessing

I always ask companies what do you do, what do you do great, what makes it great

I have a friend who is a principal, he said his dream job is to be the principal of an orphanage

Art and Technology is the life of her son

It is easier to for some of you to work with these students because you were those students.... some of you still are these students

Funding and teacher shortages ARE an issue

Was reading about abolishionists (people who realized that they weren't free until everyone is free)
- daughter told her everyone at school was an abolishionist because they set her mind free

Purpose = your calling
- you do your calling by doing your job

You are either in or out of purpose, you havetoe change the loives of others so they can change the lives of others

Ask WHY ME NOW HERE?
- why I am I in this school, this district, not in charge
- today there is something for you to do
- do not get caught up in the philosophy, just asking the question
- you have to get down and do the work
- technology allows us to evaluate and process things so much faster

5 minutes of truth will outweigh years of lies
- your love and teaching and respect can erase all the negative things they got before they got there

Everything is processed through your own filter
- all your preferences, mindsets, everything goes through your filter

We need to CLEAN our filters
- when we hear something, we can think everyone thinks that way
- if you look at the filter, how people are processing through their experience

thing she needed to connect with is our ability to evolve (progress)
- diversity is not about kum ba ya, let's all get along (my whole family is black and we don't get along)
- it is about critical thinking, getting to the best answer until you get the best answer (can't do critical thinking with just 1 idea)
- in breeding does not give birth to genes
- the more info you process the more you become

Technology has evolved so far and we are lagging behind
- it is so embarrassing that we only want to know what we already think we know
- this is embarrassing as an American

It can't start with young it's got to start with us, if you want to change the young you have got to change yourself

Someone comes along and tells you that different is bad, different is not bad, it is another way to process and be

How can we blanace our lives?

First and foremost, we are educators: people who set others free

1- Go to work early (windows of opportunity open and close quickly)
- there is a power in being the first person around

2- understand the season of your life (dictated by the outside circumstances)
- sometimes you are working hard in winter and you wonder why nothing is growing, and by the spring when it time for planting you are too tired for the harvest

3- Reflect on the time you are living in history, look back and see how far we have come
- there are some things you need to let go of personnally so you can explain the importance of what you do

You have GOT to use technology to get all the kids there / leave no child behind
- we have been through things to make us the way we are today

4- Learn something every day
- we tend to not change what we think, we change what we see (what do we like - she didn't like golf (white man's sport) - started to not like Tiger Woods)

Should be the American way to claim every aspect of yourself

Remove your barriers so others can get thru theirs

5- Get rid of the noise and static in your own life, esp before going to bed
- turn off the noise
- get rid of the clothes in your closet that never fit and never will
- you start to feel inadequate about yourself when you are tied to

It is amazing how we treat others when we feel insecure about ourselves

Eat well and excercise

Being fit has nothing to do with your size, you HAVE to be fit to do the

Listen to your TONE (don't use jargon)
- speak English
- listen to your children
- keep a journal every day of the things that tick you off, otherwise you are internalizing the things that make you mad
- also write down new words you learn

Don't allow your anger / things that make you upset to BE YOUR DAY

Closed with a book (The Bookstore?)
- Iona, the 2 who have walked

Too often the information we need is right where we are

Every day you encounter people who are at the beginning of their story
- whose work / life were you sent to complete?

All these people's lives are changed

You ain't free to do what you want to do, you're free to

don't let the big things get in the way of you doing the right things

Freedom isn't about being free, it's about living free

Page last updated: Friday, December 6, 2002 2:26 PM