How will you be remembered?

I presented the "What's your Sentence?" lesson today. It exceeded my expectations! It was so much fun!

First, I showed the video of the Hoyt Team...the father son team who runs marathons, triathalons and ironmans together. Hoyt Team Video I asked the students to think about the two men, and how they would want to be remembered. It is such an inspirational piece, the students are speechless for the first bit after they've seen it.

We took a few minutes to talk about these men - and how they will be remembered. Then I presented Dan Pink's idea, "What's Your Sentence?" by showing this video from Dan Pink's website. We came up with a sentence for both Dick and Rick Hoyt and talked about why they would choose those sentences.

Then we talked about the students - and what their sentences would be. They each had one single piece of paper and started brainstorming. The kids came up with some pretty amazing sentences: "He told his story and thousands quit smoking." AND "He led a team to victory." AND "She changed the world - the world didn't change her."

Tomorrow I am cracking out the flip cam and we're going to make a video for each class. Of course, they are filling out release forms and I sent home parent letters - but I CANNOT wait to see the culmination of these projects. The kids (11th graders) are really excited about it, too.

I created a YouTube channel called teachlivelearn that I will start uploading these videos to, so I will post as soon as I start...it's just exciting to see the students thinking about how they want their lives to go - how they want to be remembered. I told them it's just one step closer to actually reaching their goals. Many of them chose making others happy as their way to be remembered. I was REALLY PROUD.

Great day.