If you look at the title of this post, you may remember this song. For whatever reason, I can specifically remember running around in my elementary gymnasium and listening to this song playing from the "boom-box." I used to get such a huge rush when the gym teacher played this song. I quite literally thought that I could run faster, smile bigger, be better. I think it was the first moment actually where I realized the power of music in one's soul. You may have felt it before, but sometimes when you connect to a song or you hear someone else play a song that speaks to you, it quite literally runs through your body and you feel like it almost accelerates your heartbeat. If you have had this experience, you know what I'm talking about. I also remember every kid in my elementary class singing along with the refrain. And I think this is what made is so powerful for me as a kid. This idea that every single student was hearing the power of this song. 

Flash forward many years, I attended a prom at Pittsburgh Conroy which happened to be one of the most special pre-student teaching experiences of my life. It was this placement that taught me no matter where a student comes from or their differences, every kid can fly, every school can fly. Community is everything. And this school had one of the most powerful and genuine communities I had ever seen. And the night I attended the "Conroy Prom," they played this song. The same feeling rushed through me. A confirmation of our purpose as educators, to see to it that every kid, every student leaves the class feeling like they can fly. Because every student can and that is what makes life so beautiful. 

Now Monday night at Urban Impact two things happened which one may say is coincidence but I say was nothing short of a reminder that life is a circle. And the stories we connect and are part of always have away of making their way back to us-truly the miracle of life. One of my students I had back at my pre-student placement was this energetic and very intelligent student. I remember her eyes quite distincly and her smile. We worked so hard that semester on learning our alphabet and our letters and learning how to read. She was certainly my buddy and there was something about her soul that was just angelic. Well tonight at dinner as I was meeting some of our students, I was drawn to a table which had a single student sitting there, and I introduced myself. The minute she said her name, I asked if she had attended that same school so many years ago (about 6 years.) She looked at me and said, "I remember you." Six years later, that same student from that beautiful placement was sitting in the Urban Impact cafeteria. She was six years older, must more mature and grownup but still the same eyes and the same soul I had taught the alphabet to so many years ago. 

And of course, to top it all off, we began our singing that night with the song, "I believe I can fly." And you know the more I pay attention to life, the more I find these little coincidences. And they aren't coincidences at all but just a reminder that even if it doesn't make sense at that moment, every tiny moment you have in your life has some way of connecting to another moment and then another moment making a beautiful tapestry of moments and lessons and reminders. And certainly this student is a reminder to all students no matter where they come from, their abilities or struggles or talents, that we are meant to fly and spread our wings. Believe you can soar and encourage someone else you can do the same.