Blog Post #66

Teachers Make Dreams Come True

Category: Teaching

There once was a boy that loved to dream. All he needed was someone to acknowledge his dream had value, convince him he could reach it, and help him put together a plan on how to get there.

The Dream of Being a Seaman
He was born in Den Helder, Holland, a small community cuddled in the northwest of The Netherlands, adjacent to the North Sea. At age three, he would climb the enormous dike and sit for hours watching the ships come into the harbor. He dreamed of being on one of those ships and exploring the world but no one told him he could.

Also at age three, his parents divorced. His mother had custody but could not afford all three children (an older sister and younger brother) so he and his sister became foster children.  

At age five, his mother, younger brother, and stepfather moved to the United States, promising to bring he and his sister over later. But four more years passed and nothing happened. He and his sister ended up in a home for children that were not wanted or had no parents. Summers were spent with either grandmother. His mother’s mother lived on a farm and his father’s mother in Amsterdam. There, he spent time drawing ships. He began dreaming again.

When he was nine, a nationally televised television program brought he and his sister to America and they were reunited with their family. Shortly, he had a lot to dream about.

The Dream of Being an Artist
One week later, he entered the fourth grade, not knowing English. He was different from the other children and, as a result, there was daily hardship. His mother was an artist and showed him the works of Michelangelo. He began copying his work, with charcoal pencils, on paper grocery sacks. He dreamed but no one told him he could be a great artist.  

The Dream of Being a Violinist
In middle school, he began learning the violin. He practiced and practiced and excelled to the point he was chosen to be the featured soloist for the school’s recital. He dreamed of playing in Carnegie Hall, but no one told him his dream was doable.

The Dream of Being a Professional Basketball Player
In middle school, he began to love basketball. He came to school one hour early to play pickup ball with some of the other boys. He had good hands and a nice touch with the basketball. He was an excellent shooter from the free throw line. He discovered, the school record for consecutive made free throws was six so he challenged it. He made the first and missed the second. No one told him to keep trying.

In high school, as a junior, he tried out for the basketball team. He was the tallest boy in the school but was cut. He never tried out as a senior but played pickup basketball after school, almost every day. But no one recognized his talent and no one told him he could be a good basketball player if he tried. 

On the first day of community college, as he was eating lunch on the outside benches, one of the basketball players, noticing he was 6’9”, asked him if he was planning on playing basketball. He said he wasn’t sure. That player introduced him to Tom Lubin, the assistant coach and chemistry professor. Tom had been a good basketball in his own right, but had an uncle, Frank Lubin, that had been UCLA All-America and starting center on the Olympic team. Tom worked with him every day on the outside courts. 

He didn’t play at all for the first half of the season but he was improving. Tom continued worked with him every day outside of practice, teaching him the hook shot. In time, it was becoming a weapon. Toward the end of the season, the head coach, Don Johnson, put him in a very important game. He made several hook shots, blocked some shots, and got key rebounds. He helped the team win.

That summer, he told Tom Lubin he had dreams of becoming an NBA player, particularly, a Laker. Tom told him, that was a good dream and there was no reason he couldn’t make it a reality, providing he put in the work. That was all he needed to hear. Finally he had met someone that believed in his dream. Lubin took him to the ghettos of Los Angeles to test his skills. Once tested, they would go back and work on his weaknesses.

He became a community college All-American and was recruited to UCLA. He signed with UCLA but did not play much because of inexperience and the fact, one of the best players of all time played the same position. But, playing against that great player, and being coached by the most successful basketball coach of all time, kept his dream alive. He knew he was going to get a chance.

He became the only person in basketball history to be a first round draft choice, while not being a starter in college. He went on to play 12 years of professional basketball and, yes, one of those years was with the Los Angeles Lakers. The dream had come true, just as Tom Lubin promised.

The moral of the story is: as a teacher, don’t look at a child’s exterior. Assume, in that student’s heart, is a dream. Find out what the dream is, acknowledge it as valuable and doable, and help the student create a plan for making it a reality.