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| Isn't this the happiest damn horse you've ever seen?! |
I usually like to do one kind of serious blog and then have the next one be some random experience that I had that helps me to remember to not take life too seriously. Usually it’s something that really allows me to laugh at myself and hopefully allows some of our readers to relate and maybe not feel so bad about some of the things that they’ve done.
But I also wrote quite a bit this year about one of my “firsts”
this year, that being, the first time I drove a full time school bus route, and
I just wanted to reflect a little bit on the year that was…
I took the bus driving job this year with the stipulation
that I would drive mornings to start off with landscaping for one of my best
friends, Kyle, being my main job. When I started the year it seemed like I was
doing the school more of a favor and I really didn’t think I was going to get
much out of it other than the stress of driving a bunch of kids around.
I quickly began to see how great these kids could be though.
Sure they could be a little loud from time to time, maybe a bit unruly, but they
ended up giving me a better understanding of myself and helped me to remember
that patience is a virtue.
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| Some really cool "scratch art from some great kids! |
I began to post daily “Life Lessons” on my bus around the
same time I picked up my pen again and started writing for this blog. As
previously mentioned in Mike’s blog, these things we write are even more for us
as individuals as they are for you our readers. I don’t write about life
lessons because I have everything figured out, I write and post life lessons on
my bus to open the doors of conversation so that we can figure out this thing
called life together.
You’d be surprised by some of the awesome conversations you
can have with kids when you post a life lesson about making sure to try and
live a happy life, or how to live a creative one.
When you really stop to think about the time I spent with
these kids this past year, and how much time they spend riding school buses,
you might stop to wonder why we don’t use this time to try and teach a little
more.
On average each kid that lived in the country rode my bus
between two and three hours per day, five days a week for a total of 180 days…now
I’m not expecting you to do the math, because lets face it…very few of us
enjoyed Math in school, or life (lucky for you, I’m in the minority thanks to
great teachers like Steve Philion!), but that figures out to each of those kids
riding the bus for 360 – 540 hours a year.
In contrast, a typical University course, assuming a 3 credit
hour class, has the students for 48 hours in the class room…
Crazy right?
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| Just a little sample of the hundreds of pieces of art the kids gave me this year! |
I just figured those numbers out recently and was astounded.
I was lucky enough to live close to the schools in Red Lake Falls, so as a kid
I rode for an average of 10 minutes per day unless I was biking or getting a
ride from my older siblings. I say lucky, and most people would because when
you think about riding a school bus for that long you think to yourself, what a
waste of valuable time!
For the most part, the kids on my bus didn’t seem to see it
that way though. Maybe it was because they could tell that I genuinely cared
about them, or maybe they just thought that the longer they rode, the fewer
chores they’d have to do at home! But part way through the year I switched up
the route so that the first kid I picked up in the morning got to be the first
one I dropped off at night, which reduced the amount of time he rode the bus by
about an hour and a half to two hours! It also made it so that almost all of
the country kids were riding the bus for about the exact same amount of time.
There were certainly days the kids just wanted to get home,
especially the really young ones, but I was able to keep them pretty engaged in
conversation that it really seemed to help the time go by a little faster, but
when you’ve only been on this planet for a short time, two hours feels like an
eternity…I guess when the kids were a little crazy it sometimes felt like an
eternity to an old codger like me too!
But in September we started the life lessons, and a pretty
cool thing happened. Not only were kids reading them daily, they were engaging
in conversations about what they meant. I was very pleasantly surprised that
these life lessons, that certainly meant something to me, were also things that
these fine young people could also relate too. It opened up my eyes to the fact
that many of the reminders I needed in my life are things that we all too often
forget, that we’ve been making some of these “mistakes” since we were children.
But kids are a lot more resilient then us old curmudgeons. They
make a “mistake,” learn that it was bad, then learn from it and move on. No big
show of resentment is needed. They mess up, they fix it, they move on. It doesn’t
mean they won’t do it again, it just means that they don’t dwell on things, and
that’s something I think we can all look at and wonder, how?
As adults we get caught up in our own heads too often (once
again, this definitely is a message for me more than any others). We do waste
too much time worrying about the “what if’s” and not enough time thinking, “why
not?”
After a few months of posting these “Route 10 Life Lessons,”
as well as watching a ton of Kid President videos, I started to really see how
awesome these kids were and how awesome they could become, so I decided to do
something a lot of bus drivers might not consider, something a lot of kids
would probably hate their bus drivers for…I started to give them assignments!
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| One of the coolest things that was made for me this year! I framed it and am putting it up on my wall...kids are awesome! You might not be able to read them, but the heart is surrounded by life lessons! |
Now these weren’t your typical, read 3 chapters of this book
and write a report on what you found assignments, they were geared towards
unlocking their creativity and getting them to do more fun things. Very rarely
did we discuss just how awesome sitting in front of a TV was, or how playing
video games was just a valuable way to spend your time.
We talked about how important it was to read. How reading
develops your imagination and with a good imagination and a great book, you can
go anywhere you want!
We talked about their hobbies; hunting, gopher trapping,
knitting, making bracelets and scarves, drawing, playing different sports,
their vacations, and all of the things that you truly hope kids are taking part
in.
What I found out from most of these conversations is that
people today worry too much about this next generation. They think that they’re
lazy, and that they spend entirely too much time wrapped up in technology, but
I think that’s more so our problem (advice for me again!).
Some kids will turn out “bad” no matter what their parents do
for them. It may be a chemical imbalance or something that occurred in their
lives that really changed the person they could have been, but for the most
part we truly are shaped by our parents. I can honestly say that the parents I
get to deal with because I drive their children to and from school, are
fantastic.
There’s no way I would have given these kids the assignments
to create something, write a short story, or invent a new game, if I didn’t
think that their parents would actively get involved with them and help to
spark their creativity as well. Maybe some of the parents have the wool pulled
over my eyes, but I strongly believe that they’re all doing a fantastic job and
turning out some very caring, compassionate, and creative children.
The results of the assignments I gave were fantastic. Not
every kid created something for me throughout the year, but everyone spent some
time talking to me about creative things.
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| Such an awesome story/life lesson! |
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| The kids are multi-talented, writers as well as illustrators! |
The daily life lessons will continue next year and I can’t
wait to see what the kids and I learn over our summer vacations!
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| This kids read over 8 Million words this year! |
What started out as a job for me has really become something
I look forward to doing now, and I can honestly say that I’m going to miss not
getting to see all of these awesome kids throughout the summer. Somehow, 540
hours just wasn’t enough…
I hope everyone has a fantastic summer, experience as many “firsts”
as you can, take some chances, make some bad choices, and learn some life
lessons. The BD&LL crew will continue to try and keep spreading the lessons
we learn and need to remember ourselves, and we hope that you can relate a bit!
This is the crazy time of year for me, so I’m hoping to keep up with my weekly
posts, but if I can’t…I promise to at least keep up with my Banana Daiquiris!
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| On my last day, some very awesome kids gave me this...then stole all my cookies on the way home! Haha, I love the kids on my bus! |
Have a great summer everyone!
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