Over my last few years of teaching, if there is anything I have learned about humans and life, love and trust is that the magic sticks. If you are studying for a test or trying to complete something and you find yourself unable to do so...ask yourself this question: "Are you trying to stick magic?" Because what has magic and purpose and passion automatically sticks to the brain. This is why we can remember some of the most detailed moments of our lives that happened years and years ago. Like I can still distinctly remember going to Chincoteague and playing with all of my cousins and my uncle rolling so many ice cream cones in sprinkles for us during the evenings. And it could be that I only remember this exact moment and picture because it has been talked about before, but I like to think that this memory had a stickiness too it that hopefully will never lose its stick. It's why I can remember the rolled sprinkles, but I cannot remember whether or not I bought skim milk three days ago at Aldi's. Plain and simple...milk isn't as magical. So if you do find yourself forgetting a little bit of this or that just remember that it probably doesn't hold a whimsical stick. Your brain is pretty good at detecting the stickiness level. 

In education, I find more often than not that we are asked sometimes as educators to throw out the stickiness. Is that art project really valuable? Are the students REALLY learning from completing THAT project? I think we sometimes confuse stickiness for fluff. Stickiness is not fluff. It is intentional whimsy. It is intentional whimsy that requires thought and cooperation, love and commitement. My students every year create a scene from our first novel we read during the year. In past years, students constructed a tree with real leaves that reached the ceiling. This year, students decided to create a life sized diaramma of sorts based on the bully Dillon Samreen and Joe and Ravee who struggle with personal problems during the school day based on culture and other differences. My entire class volunteered to come into recess to complete the masterpiece, and I have to say this time of stickiness always makes me smile. Because when years go by and middle schoolers come to visit me once again, they always mention two levels of stickiness "the life-sized creation during open house" and the salt dough maps of Pittsburgh. And I think these types of stickiness make the world more powerful and more beautiful. Embrace the adhesive experiences and realize the ones others are trying to have you get rid of...those are probably the stickiest whimsies of all.