Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2009. We were at my friend Christine's house and celebrating Mattie's seventh birthday. This was Mattie's second birthday party that year, because his actual birthday was celebrated in the hospital. Mattie was a huge fan of roaches. Most likely because he knew how much I despised them! So as you can see Mattie had a cake in the shape of a roach and Christine's husband, James, even purchased a roach costume for the event and brought Mattie's cake out dressed as a giant roach. Mattie was STUNNED and had a HUGE smile on his face. In honor of Mattie, James wore this costume once again at our Foundation Walk in 2014!
Quote of the day: Why should society feel responsible only for the education of children, and not for the education of all adults of every age? ~ Erich Fromm
Prior to Mattie developing cancer, I had the opportunity to educate young minds. Of course when we think of young minds, we tend to think of children in elementary or secondary school. Naturally teaching these age groups is crucial, but I think learning at any age is important and teaching adult learners is also a skill. It is a skill because adult learners typically are independent thinkers, they are motivated by different things, they have the ability to analyze a problem in-depth and from different perspectives, but it is not unusual for the adult learner to challenge the instructor on differences of opinions. It takes a certain level of confidence, preparation, and command of a classroom to manage these dynamics. For the most part, after Mattie died I have never looked back about not teaching. The only true aspect that I miss about education is my students. I heard from two of my students today, which is why I am bringing this issues up. I just learned that one of my students became the head of guidance of a large public high school in Maryland. I am very proud of her. This particular student stays in touch with me and even comes to our Foundation Walk each year with her family.
The second former student of mine, got her Ph.D. over a year ago and is a professional herself now! She wrote to me to congratulate me on "my book." A book she had just received a copy of at the university she is teaching at! At first I had NO IDEA what she was talking about, but then as she continued telling me about the subject matter, I knew exactly what she was talking about. When I was getting my doctoral degree, the experience was so challenging that I began advocating to help others through this horrific hazing process. I submitted many professional conference proposals on this subject matter, and they were accepted throughout the country. I presented this topic on how to survive the dissertation process with two of my mentors from the university. When I tell you these sessions at national conferences were standing room only, I am not kidding. Students in attendance would beg us to write a book! So one day my mentors said to me..... you are writing conference proposals, we need to turn this into a book! So I agreed with them. However, around the time this brainstorming was happening Mattie got cancer.
My mentors ran with the idea and as you can see they did a beautiful job with what I consider my brainchild. They dedicated the book to Mattie and even incorporated my writings that I did with them when Mattie was well into their book chapters. I was no help to them in the publishing of this book during Mattie's battle, but it was a true gift to see this book in its final format in 2010. I almost forgot about this book until Sara wrote to me today. You can see a preview of the book below.
Selecting and Surviving a Doctoral Program in Counseling
http://www.universityreaders.com/pdf/Selecting-and-Surviving-a-Doctoral-Program-in-Counseling_sneak_preview.pdf
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