TEACHER OF THE YEAR
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Posted:Oct 30, 2013 8:31 am
Last Updated:Oct 31, 2013 10:55 pm 2303 Views
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In contravention of my own blogging code NOT TO POST A FRESH BLOG BEFORE RESPONDING TO COMMENTS/OBSERVATIONS ON MY PREVIOUS BLOG, I could not resist posting this story that I just received in an e-mail from a veteran in the UK. It is a true story (I hope) - please read on :-
This story relates to USA. I wonder and if we have a Martha Cothren in India too.
In September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a History teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock, did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the Principal and the Building supervisor, she removed all of the desks in her classroom. When the first period entered the room they discovered that there were no desks. 'Ms. Cothren, where are our desks?'
She replied, 'You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.'
They thought, 'Well, maybe it's our grades.' 'No,' she said.
'Maybe it's our behavior.' She told them, 'No, it's not even your behavior.'
And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom. called their parents to tell them what was happening and by early afternoon television news crews had started gathering at the school to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.
The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the desk-less classroom. Martha Cothren said, 'Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he or she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.'
At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it. Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniform, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall. By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned.
Martha said, 'You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. They went halfway around the world, giving up their education and interrupting their careers and families so you could have the freedom you have. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it.'
By the way, this is a true story. And this teacher was awarded Veterans of Foreign Wars Teacher of the Year for the State of Arkansas in 2006. She is the of a WWII POW.
Do you think this email is worth passing along so others won't forget either, that the freedoms we have in this great country were earned by our Veterans?
Let us always remember the men and women of our military and the Rights they have won for us.
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HUMANELY CORPORATE - 26/11 AT MUMBAI
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Posted:Oct 29, 2013 6:15 am
Last Updated:Oct 31, 2013 11:53 pm 2416 Views
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Most of the members at SFF would be aware of the terrorist attack in Mumbai on 26 November 2008. This is what the Mr Ratan Tata, the Chairman of the Tata Group, the owners of the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai, did :-
1. All category of employees including those who had completed even 1 day as casuals were treated on duty during the time the hotel was closed.
2. Relief and assistance to all those who were injured and killed
3. The relief and assistance was extended to all those who died at the railway station, surroundings including the Pav- Bhaji vendor and the pan shop owners.
4. During the time the hotel was closed, the salaries were sent by money order.
5. A psychiatric cell was established in collaboration with Tata Institute of Social Sciences to counsel those who needed such help.
6. The thoughts and anxieties going on people’s mind was constantly tracked and where needed psychological help provided.
7. Employee outreach centers were opened where all help, food, water, sanitation, first aid and counseling was provided. 1600 employees were covered by this facility.
8. Every employee was assigned to one mentor and it was that person’s responsibility to act as a “single window” clearance for any help that the person required.
9. Ratan Tata personally visited the families of all the 80 employees who in some manner – either through injury or getting killed – were affected.
10. The dependents of the employees were flown from outside Mumbai to Mumbai and taken care off in terms of ensuring mental assurance and peace. They were all accommodated in Hotel President for 3 weeks.
11. Ratan Tata himself asked the families and dependents – as to what they wanted him to do.
12. In a record time of 20 days, a new trust was created by the Tatas for the purpose of relief of employees.
13. What is unique is that even the other people, the railway employees, the police staff, the pedestrians who had nothing to do with Tatas were covered by compensation. Each one of them was provided subsistence allowance of Rs. 10K per month for all these people for 6 months.
14. A 4 year old granddaughter of a vendor got 4 bullets in her and only one was removed in the Government hospital. She was taken to Bombay hospital and several lacs were spent by the Tatas on her to fully recover her.
15. New hand carts were provided to several vendors who lost their carts.
16. Tata will take responsibility of life education of 46 of the victims of the terror.
17. This was the most trying period in the life of the organization. Senior managers including Ratan Tata were visiting funeral to funeral over the 3 days that were most horrible.
18. The settlement for every deceased member ranged from Rs. 36 to 85 lacs [One lakh rupees tranlates to approx 20000 US $ ] in addition to the following benefits:
a. Full last salary for life for the family and dependents.
b. Complete responsibility of education of and dependents – anywhere in the world.
c. Full Medical facility for the whole family and dependents for rest of their life.
d. All loans and advances were waived off – irrespective of the amount.
e. Counselor for life for each person
B. Epilogue
1. How was such passion created among the employees? How and why did they behave the way they did?
2. The organization is clear that it is not something that someone can take credit for. It is not some training and development that created such behaviour. If someone suggests that – everyone laughs
3. It has to do with the DNA of the organization, with the way Tata culture exists and above all with the situation that prevailed that time. The organization has always been telling that customers and guests are #1 priority
4. The hotel business was started by Jamshedji Tata when he was insulted in one of the British hotels and not allowed to stay there.
5. He created several institutions which later became icons of progress, culture and modernity. IISc is one such institute. He was told by the rulers that time that he can acquire land for IISc to the extent he could fence the same. He could afford fencing only 400 acres.
6. When the HR function hesitatingly made a very rich proposal to Ratan – he said – do you think we are doing enough?
7. The whole approach was that the organization would spend several hundred crore (a crore = 10 million) in re-building the property – why not spend equally on the employees who gave their life?
This is not covered by any news channel but is true!
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SIMPLE INSPIRATIONS OF THE WEEK
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Posted:Oct 27, 2013 7:24 am
Last Updated:Nov 4, 2013 5:46 pm 2512 Views
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Once, all villagers decided to pray for rain, on the day of prayer all people gathered & only one boy came with an umbrella.
THAT IS FAITH
Example of the feeling of a one year old baby. When you throw him in the air, he laughs because he knows you will catch him
THAT IS TRUST
Every night we go to bed, without any of assurance of being alive the next morning but still we set the alarms in our watch to wake up.
THAT IS HOPE
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CLOUD OF MY DREAMS
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Posted:Oct 23, 2013 8:37 am
Last Updated:Oct 27, 2013 7:28 am 2489 Views
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I reach my hands up to the clouds
And I grab the side one cloud that interests me
I pull myself up onto the cloud
I look around and I see things that I don't normally see
For we live in a world full of hate, violence, and poverty
And on this cloud, I don't see any of these things
Instead, I see monkeys playing with hippos
And I see dogs playing with cats
I see butterflies flying with birds
And I see snakes talking with rats.
There is no hunger and there is no pain
There is no poverty and there is no violence
I only see happiness
It's a happiness in which I have never seen before
In this day and age,
it's almost impossible for that to happen
But if we all come together,
We can make a difference
The cloud I saw is so unlike the world in which we live
Because on this cloud
Everyone gets along...
Unfortunately, this cloud is only a dream.
- PravsWorld
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THE BLUE MAX - ADAM'S STORY
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Posted:Oct 20, 2013 8:19 am
Last Updated:Oct 22, 2013 8:55 pm 2496 Views
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Sharing with you a poignant story received in an e-mail ..... a little boy's dream and a loving uncle ......
Since the early years of the last century, when the bewildering sight of flying machines began to fill the sky, the dreams of and girls were lit by a new fire, one painted in lofty colours of blue and warmed by the unearthly possibility of dancing among the clouds, with hearts pounding as the sun sent shadows spinning through their imaginations.
The boys grew into the men and the girls into the women that became the pilots who filled the years of aviation history; the brave ones, the enduring ones, the wild ones, the famous ones and the nameless ones. Universally they walked with swagger and spoke with bravado but, underneath that outer coating of dauntless weathered braggadocio, beat the staccato hearts of wing-struck and girls whose precious dreams were unfolding around them.
As it was then, it remains now. still wonder what it is to look down upon the patchwork of the land and rush headlong through canyons of brilliant white. For so many, flight is the stuff of their dreams and those that embrace it will someday take to the sky.
On the first day of October 1992, as autumn flared around him like a fanned ember, 13-year-old Adam Kirkpatrick sat at the desk in his room and wrote a simple story. Every night that school year, he attempted to pen a simple and short story—an exercise to gain a hard-earned skill in writing. Writing did not come easy for Adam but he worked diligently and when he wrote from his young heart, his words broke from his hand onto the page and, what at first was difficult work, became a gentle and clear minded statement.
That cool October evening so long ago, he wrote, “When we are on the ground staring into the sky, wishing we could fly without a plane. Thinking, wishing, dreaming of flying in the sky, flying so high about the clouds that when I look down at the world it looks like toy cars, like little dolls, like Lego buildings. But you need a plane, a glider or a hand [sic] glider. When you have a hand glider you are as close as you can be to not having a plane so I want to try it someday. I really want to fly a hand glider. The end.”
He dated the sheet of three-ring-binder paper 01,10,92 and placed it aside. He planned to show it the following day to his mother.
The next day was Friday and the end of the school week brought out the exuberance of life fuelled by the crispness of the autumn air, fragrant with woodsmoke, turned earth and sun-dried leaves. As twilight fell, a boisterous game of Hide and Seek set Adam’s neighbourhood in a happy din of shouts and flashing colour. Breathless laughed and shrieked, calling to one another in the low light of a dying sun.
Adam, with his heart lit with joy, laughter and friendship, made a dash for the safety of “Home Free”, cutting across the busy street just below a rise in the road. He was struck down by a car. He took into his coma the glee and perfection of that last moment. His story sat unnoticed at home on his desk.
For many days, Adam lay in a coma, his brave fight for life hidden deep inside, beneath gentle lashes. His mother, Anne, found his last story and shared it with me while they held a vigil in the hospital. From a cabinet at home, I took a replica First World War German medal which my brother had given me. It was the famous “Blue Max”—the medal bestowed upon German pilots in the “Great War”, usually the result of continuous bravery and accomplishment in combat. Many of Germany’s highest performing aces were awarded the medal, and all wore it with tremendous pride. The inscription it bore said simply “Pour le Mérite”—For Merit. It felt right as I handed it to his aunt (my wife) who in turn gave it to Adam’s mother. The medal stayed with him for the next two weeks as he lay slender and motionless in his intensive care hospital bed. For everyone at the hospital, it stood for the silent fight that Adam was caught in. It stood for the bravery of a little boy’s soul, the courage of his mother and her sister. It gave a small focus. It wasn’t everything. I wasn’t even much, but it was something.
After two and a half weeks, Adam let go and slipped gently from this world, with the joy of an autumn evening still locked within his heart. The Blue Max still hung next to him. That very night, three airplanes, from Toronto, London and Montréal, came to Ottawa, landing in the dark of night, carrying anxious nurses and doctors fighting for other people’s lives. Adam sent them home with gifts from his body for waiting and grateful recipients. That cold October night in 1992, Adam was finally flying.
Somewhere in Montréal the next morning, a ’s new heart began to beat a steady rhythm and perhaps filled his or her soul with an unexplained and previously unnoticed desire to fly a hang-glider.
When I went to the funeral home, there was much I wished to say to his mother, but as we stood next to Adam’s slender body I knew that, despite my ineloquence, she was comforted by the presence of myself and the hundreds of others who came to help her carry her burden. As Adam lay there, Anne took from the breast pocket of his shirt the Blue Max and pressed it to my hand. “Take this with you when you fly Dave” she said. “Look for my . Tell him I love him.”
A week later, as I opened the throttle on the Challenger ultralight and lifted from the cool grassy strip in the mountains near Buckingham, Québec, the Blue Max lay thrust deep in my pants pocket, its metal cool against my thigh.
Settling out at a thousand feet, I felt my way through a few turns in the cold blue sky then swung north towards the hazy mountains. Beneath me, the trees, now bare of leaves, stretched in rolling smokey ridges to the horizon, exposing small farm houses and tiny villages—Adam’s Lego world just beginning its long winter sleep.
A silent thought completed my promise to Anne as I took my hand from the throttle and touched the Blue Max through glove and denim. I looked out over the horizon and the town to the toy-like world Adam had imagined and the final words of John Gillespie Magee’s poem came to me as I knew they would:
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
It is 21 years this week since my nephew Adam died. He would be 34, but to his mother and family, he is forever thirteen.
By Dave O’Malley
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RARE DIVINE MOMENTS - POWER OF PRAYER
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Posted:Oct 19, 2013 6:59 pm
Last Updated:Oct 21, 2013 5:17 pm 2436 Views
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The poem below by Meena Om reminds of those rare moments of meditation and power of prayer -------
Those rare and few moments
In unguarded state of mind
One blissfully slips into
Deep deep within to the deepest core
Those some moments
When the eyelids
Just glide and get closed
Effortlessly…
Without any awareness
Of life being lived
To witness absolute
Silence n peace
Where celestial energy flashes
Just like a beautiful streak
Of mixed cosmic rays
Of silvery moonish n golden sunny
Pure sparkle of bliss n delight
Feather touching
Mystic plight
Those moments
When experience is being experienced
To realise the reality
Of Supreme presence
One is here to feel
That essence
In this mortal self
Containing the mortal light
Some moments
When one witnesses
That spriteful sparkling splendor
And melts into
That divinity inside
The moments of pure love n light
The gate to infinite space flight
The light that creates
Nourishes eliminates hurdled moments
For Transformation into
Supreme delight
To become being of light
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COMPASSION
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Posted:Oct 19, 2013 7:39 am
Last Updated:Oct 21, 2013 5:22 pm 2368 Views
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A human being is part of a whole, called by us ' the Universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
- Albert Einstein -
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KNOWLEDGE BANK
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Posted:Oct 17, 2013 9:33 pm
Last Updated:Oct 18, 2013 5:54 pm 2436 Views
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The more we believe we know, and are satisfied with our knowledge, the less self-aware we are in the present.
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I WANT A TANK
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Posted:Oct 17, 2013 5:40 am
Last Updated:Oct 17, 2013 9:28 pm 2319 Views
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Have a wonderful day, Friends. 
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