Redding School District

Partnership Educators,  

You’re looking over the fence at a schoolyard in Cleveland, Ohio and here is what you see.   It is recess and kids are dancing about playing the music in their heads of fun and exhaustion.  The first-grade students are playing together but one youngster stands out because he stands alone.   You don’t know but he is the new boy in school.   He has already been teased mercilessly and has already been given and unflattering nickname and he is alone and wondering why.

He is dressed differently than the other boys his age as he is wearing clothing that you might find in a British school with an Eton collar and flowing tie.  This is understandable since this child has only recently moved with his parents from England.   He was born in a London suburb.  He would still be there if his father’s irresponsibility had not interfered with the family business.  His father is one who believes that he needs to live a life that is higher than the current position or means would really allow.    In reality, he is a talented stonemason who fancies fast horses and gin.   It seems though that Dad is trying to mend his ways and make a fresh start in America.  His young son shares little of the enthusiasm that Dad may have with this new start. 

There the boy stands in the schoolyard, wearing his fancy English schoolboy suit.  His formal manner and misplaced English civility have already created a barrier that seems too much.  On his first day of school, our boy did what he was taught to do in an old-world academic environment.  It is quite correct to introduce yourself by reciting one's last name first.  That is what this new boy had done.  When his curious fellow first-graders asked who he was, he gave the last name and then the first name.  When both names are uttered in the reverse order, unfortunately, they produce the sound of a single unrelated word.  Hence how the nickname had come about.

The boy that you have just met went on to great success beyond imagination even after the problematic start.   The lonely little boy’s unwanted nickname was hopelessly.  His first name was Leslie and his last name was Hope.   The first name that our boy eventually chose for himself was Robert.   However, since changing his name, no one has ever called him anything but Bob Hope.

Bob Hope was a comedian and film star starting in the 1920s.  His career spanned nearly 80 years.  He was most celebrated for his long career performing in the USO shows to entertain active-duty American military personnel from 1941 to 1991. 

We do not begin to know all the varieties of cultures and values that our students bring with them to make up our classrooms.  It is our job though to build an environment where those varieties thrive for all involved.  This is our challenge.  How do we affect and change the lives of our students every day?  Bob Hope said, “When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things, not the great occasions, that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness.”