Repost - The Highest form of flattery

Pin It When Mom first started getting really sick two years ago, my dad called and told us; I took a leave of absence from work for a week and flew home in order to spend time with her. When I finally came back to my classroom, I was surprised by what awaited me.

The Last Lecture

Pin It There are things and people we encounter in life who inspire us… these little wonders grab us, shake us, and refuse to let go. Today I’d like to share one of these people who changed me. By viewing this, I hope it will change you and become a part of your life as much as it has now become a part of mine.

Meet, Professor Randy Pausch, a man who’s made a tremendous impact on the lives of millions of people, a man who lived his childhood dreams of meeting Captain James T. Kirk and experiencing zero gravity, a man who fathered three children, a man who died today of pancreatic cancer.

The wisdom Mr. Pausch…only, he’d want to be called Randy—left behind speaks long after he is physically able to do so.

His message will inspire you.

Randy Pausch - ABC Special.

A condensed version of Randy's Lecture recently given on Oprah.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture.

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us the chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”

- Randy Pausch

The Dollar

Pin It I used to be a PE teacher.

Of course, this was several years ago, back when I was going to BYU.

During that time I made friends with a family whom I’ve kept in contact with for the past decade of my life. I’ve been over to their house for the 4^th of July, Thanksgiving, and even had them over to my house for dinner. I took Robbie’s senior pictures and family photos as well. They’ve come to see me perform at ComedySportz too. In short, they are some very close friends of mine.

Well, the years have flown since Robbie was a fifth grader in one of my PE classes, and he has since left for The Netherlands to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Recently, I was writing Robbie a letter. As I did, I felt compelled to slip a dollar bill in the envelope and added a quick P.S. which said, Everyone needs a dollar. I then sent the letter, giving no more thought to it, or the dollar bill.

Robbie’s mom called me two days ago and told me that Robbie had written to her. In his letter he said the following:

Mr. Z sent me a package a little bit ago and at the end of the letter, he wrote, “P.S. Everyone needs a dollar” and gave me a dollar. Ever since I was like 11 or 12, I have carried a dollar with me in my scriptures, because he told me that he always carried one around too. What is funny is that a month ago, we were tracting and we met this Iraqi family, and this little kid was asking me all these different things about America like, “Have you met Arnold Schwarzenegger?” “Have you been to Hollywood?” etc. Anyway, he was really into it, so I gave him my American Dollar, only to have it replaced by Mr. Z…

Isn’t it amazing, that something we may tell a child in their youth may be the thing which sticks with them throughout their life? Like this simple dollar, the example we set before them each day may have a greater impact than we can ever fully realize.

I’m glad I sent the dollar…

Was it coincidence?

Probably not.

The Challenge

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Do you remember “Chase”? You know, that kid who dressed up in a shirt and tie for the days I had gone home for a family emergency back in October? Well, he made me a little challenge today…

About 9 weeks ago I got a student teacher, Miss Grubbs. As the weeks she spent in my classroom progressed, she began to take over the teaching almost entirely. There were days that I taught for only a few minutes—aside from a few of my reading groups in the afternoons. Well, as my teaching time went down, I sort of got out of the habit of dressing up when I went to school.

Chase noticed.

A few days ago Chase said, “Mr. Z, you used to dress up all the time at school, and now you don’t do it anymore…why not?”

Well, I’d thought about this myself. A part of me was wondering if any of the students would notice…more importantly, if any of them would say anything about the change. After all, how often does someone change something about themselves and we don’t seem to notice or mention it to them? Also, I had to admit, it was much more comfortable wearing jeans and a nice shirt instead of being crammed into a shirt and tie for eight plus hours.

Why had I been dressing that way so long?

Today my class went to listen to a symphony perform. The students, as well as teachers, were required to dress up for the occasion. I have to admit that my class was looking quite dapper in their “best” clothing today. After we’d returned from the symphony we finished the school day but Chase lingered. He walked up to me and said, “Mr. Z, I’m going to dress up every day from now on if you will.”

I looked at this boy. Why was he asking me to do this? There is no dress code at my school other than it has to be modest and reasonably nice. “What do you mean?” I asked, wondering how he’d explain his proposal.

“I will wear a shirt and tie every day for the rest of the school year if you’ll do it too.”

“Really?” I asked. “Are you sure about this, Chase?”

He nodded and extended his hand. “I’m sure.”

I shook his hand to seal the deal. Before he left for home he added, “But Fridays will be dress-down days for both of us, okay?”

“Sure, Chase. Fridays off,” I agreed.

Tomorrow is day one.

The best Halloween costume

Pin It No, it isn't this one...


Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays of all time. I can remember being a kid on Halloween and looking forward with anticipation to the night festivities…AKA: trick-or-treating. When I was little, my mom had me dress up as Andy, from Raggedy Ann and Andy because she’d made the costume. But, as a kid, I didn’t mind…after all, what is there that a kid won’t do for a great, big bag of candy?


When I turned 9 years old, I began to pick my own costumes and one of my favorites was dressing up as Zorro. There was something amazing about dressing up as a guy who defies a tyrannical government and who could single-handedly take on an entire army of villains and come out on top. Plus the fact that I’d get to wear a mask and carry a sword were always perks to being Zorro as well…not to mention that since my last name started with a Z, I could always leave that mark of his on my papers at school, claiming it as my own.

Costumes come and go, and as they do I would find myself choosing them much more carefully than I had when I was younger. Who would I want to be this year? Lately, a personal favorite costume of mine is Professor Severus Snape. Since I am elementary school teacher, dressing up as Snape makes school much more fun, considering the fact that I black out the windows, have thunder and rain sound effects playing, and very little lighting in the room…it’s amazing just how you can make a bright and cheery classroom feel so much like a dungeon. All of this plus the fact that I can be a ruthless character whom the kids absolutely love to have as a sub.

This year I decided to not only dress up as Snape, but in a few other costumes as well. It started off last year with the thought that it would be fun to be two different characters. So, I was Snape to start off the morning, and then after morning recess was a military commander whom I’d named, Sir Yessir. It was fun for the morning hours and as my class went to lunch I heard a few of them comment to each other with things like, “I can’t wait to see who’s going to be here after lunch!” Well, I hadn’t thought about being anybody else so the class had to content themselves with only two teachers that year.

Well, wanting to have a little more fun, I spent quite a few more hours preparing for Halloween this year. Not only did I have to get the classroom ready, but I had to get the costumes ready as well. It was at 12:30 on the eve before Halloween that I found myself driving home from the school and it was at about 1:30 that morning that I finally got to sleep.

When my alarm clock sounded a few hours later I thought that it was much too early…after all, it had just seemed that I had put my head to my pillow when it was time for me to go to school again. I rolled out of bed and quickly got ready…gathering up a large bunch of costume props which I needed for the day and headed out to school.

The beginning of the day was great. Playing Snape is always a lot of fun…especially considering the entrance I make when I have this ominous song for my entry and I turn off the lights so that only the dim lighting in the classroom I’d set up before is now noticeable. It’s strange too…for some reason, the kids absolutely love it when I would take points from their “houses” and mostly from any student dressed up as a character from the Harry Potter books (this year it was Lilly Evans).

After first recess my class was surprised when the next character arrived. A military commander who made them run obstacle courses on the playground, made them listen to patriotic music, and profess his love of America. I have to admit, last year I was much more brutal as this character (whom the kids still loved). This year, Sir Yessir had mellowed quite a bit from what he’d been in the past.


After lunch I was a character whom I decided to simply name, “Captain.” This was merely from the fact that I was supposed to be Jack Sparrow, however, my sister was unable to finish the costume so I was just a pirate captain instead. This was a fun character who gave the entire class pirate names like, Worm Gut and Ugly Pete.

A bit later I came in as “Earl.” Earl is an employee of Wal-Mart who is the host of multiple personalities whom would all surface at various times of his visit to our classroom. My favorite personality he housed was Blanche—a 50 year-old lounge singer whose voice had deteriorated into a gravely quality.

At the end of the day I had chosen to be a Jedi…a pretty cool costume which is a lot of fun to wear. In all, it was a fun Halloween.

A lot of work? Yes.
Fun? Yes.
Would I do it again? Not sure.

The reason I would not want to repeat my Halloween costume fest is mostly from the fact that it was an amazing amount of work which took far too much time in the end.


On a different note, however, I did get a little pleasant surprise before the day was through…do you remember what I said before about imitation being the most sincere form of flattery? Well, imagine my surprise when I found the 8 year-old boy across the hall dressed up in HIS Halloween costume.

Now, I can only wonder…did his mom make him dress up that way? After all, he’s only 8.

The highest form of flattery

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When I was growing up I had written a story. It was a story of which I was incredibly proud. I had shared this story with my little brother, Yancy. A few weeks later my little brother was very excited because a short story he had written won a writing contest and would be included in a publication at his elementary school. It wasn’t long before the stapled-together booklet came home with my brother’s short story. As I read the first sentence I found myself my temper beginning to rise within me. The reason I was feeling angry was because the story my brother had written was my story. The one I had written and had told him about.

I immediately wanted justice for this “stealing” of my idea. Had I known what the word plagiarism was back then, I probably would have used that when I was stating my case to my mom who, after listening, responded with something like, “Jason, your little brother copied your idea because he looks up to you. You’re his big brother who wrote a story; he wanted to write a similar story…he did it because you’re his hero.”

I didn’t see how stealing my idea had anything to do with being a hero, and once-again tried to get my mom to see my side of the situation. After listening to me rant on yet again, my mom tried to get me to see what she was trying to say. I just didn’t get it. She ended the conversation with the following words, “Jason, imitation is the highest form of flattery, and one day you’ll understand it.”

Many years have flown since that day when my brother and I were both children, and I have to say that over these days I have finally came to understand what it was my mother meant. When we copy what someone else does, we are in essence saying, “I want to be like you,” or “You are somebody that I look up to.” By imitating them, we are sending a message, a message without any words.

I was recently absent for about a week from the classroom where I teach sixth grade. When I returned to school today, I was greeted with a surprise. You see, four days each week I dress up for school—usually with a white shirt and tie. Today was no exception. However, as I went outside this morning to retrieve my class, I noticed that one of my students, whom I’ll christen as “Chase,” was wearing a white shirt and tie as well.

At first I didn’t say anything to him about this, but instead just gave him a little wink and a smile as he walked into the school with the rest of his classmates. After the first few hours of classes I found myself on recess duty, walking the playground with Chase following in my wake. I stopped and began to talk to him, “Chase, you dressed up today. Could I ask you why?”

Chase smiled and said, “Well Mr. Z, you were gone all last week and I knew you were coming back today and, well, I just felt like dressing up.”

As Chase and I walked the playground together talking, I began to remember that time as a boy when my little brother had copied my story. I’ll admit I hadn’t thought about this story for quite some time. As I did I smiled. My mom was right when she’d said that one of the greatest compliments we can give to others is our emulation of them.

I spoke with Chase’s mother this evening. In our conversation she said that Chase had had worn his white shirt and tie for several of the days I was absent from school. She also said that last night he was adamant that his white shirt needed to be laundered; it needed to be clean in order for him to wear again at school. “I think he was trying to impress someone,” she said.

Impress someone he had.

When the end of the school day arrived I thanked Chase. I thanked him for the compliment he had given to me. There are no words more powerful this boy could have spoken to his teacher which could have sent a message greater than the one he did by simply coming to school wearing a white shirt and a tie.