The 3 Ships: Inspirational Passages for Educators

By Randy Russell

"The 3 Ships: Inspirational Passages for Educators" shares stories, examples, and practical experiences to help each reader develop the skills and abilities necessary to successfully navigate their three ships - relationships, leadership, and partnerships – in education. This book provides guidance for growth, development, and happiness as it relates to these three important concepts. At the end of each chapter, the reader will have an opportunity to reflect on the information and identify key concepts and strategies to refine their skills. The information in this book provides readers with the necessary resources to develop an action plan to succeed in their everyday life and at work. Additional resources and tools can be found at randyrussell.org.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098374754

Randy Russell

Randy Russell believes in ghosts. He conducts an annual ghost seminar for the State of North Carolina and can be found most summers sharing true ghost stories at visitor centers in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He wrote Dead Rules because he believes ghosts should be allowed to share their stories of encounters with humans. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

Book preview

Introduction: Developing The 3 Ships: Inspirational Passages for Educators

Educators are called to serve. Daily, teachers and educational leaders serve children, families, colleagues, and the common good. When speaking with teachers, they overwhelmingly report their desire to be helpful, to be encouraging, and to make a difference for others. I have seen first-hand the difference educators can make in the lives of others. In achieving this work, it is more important than ever to cultivate resilience, self-care, and self-compassion. These inspirational passages and quotes are intended to inspire this work. Each story is connected to the three ships of education: relationships, leadership, and partnerships, and can help inspire educators, and those who lead them, in their calling to make an impact on students’ lives.

This book, The 3 Ships: Inspirational Passages for Educators, is a companion guide to The 3 Ships: Relationships, Leadership, and Partnerships (2020) and will inspire readers as they respond to several key questions, including,

•Do you want to build and develop meaningful relationships?

•Are you ready to improve your leadership capacity and skills?

•Do you want to increase and strengthen your partnerships?

How might you answer these three questions? How can you strengthen relationships, grow and develop leadership skills, and identify and promote partnerships? The order of these three ships is intentional. The book begins with relationships because relationships are foundational to all forms of service in community with others, whether as educators, parents, or leaders. Any form of leadership first begins by building meaningful and productive relationships with both individuals and teams. The book concludes with partnerships, because successful partnerships rely on strong relationships and effective leadership, within the school community and beyond it.

Relationships connect us to one another and provide a foundation for service, effective leadership and successful partnerships. Throughout the book, I will share inspiring stories and insights that connect to strategies and techniques which will help each reader to develop an action plan. This action plan will guide the reader toward more meaningful relationships, improved leadership skills, and increased partnerships, both personally and professionally, in order to better serve our students, families, and communities.

Happiness Brings Success

If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else.

Chinese Proverb

We often hear success brings happiness, but the opposite is also true: happiness brings success. One way we can develop resilience and foster happiness is by seeking out bright spots in our everyday lives and recalling meaningful stories along our journey. Humans are storytellers by nature, we enjoy gathering tales and sharing them. Whether humorous tales or parables with life lessons, we like to fill the pages of our time with stories of our meaningful life experiences. The personal stories we collect provide a running account of our identity, our purpose, our contribution, and our place in history.

Frank Kermode (2000), in the book The Sense of an ending: Studies in the theory of fiction, commented, All human beings are born and die in the middle of history. So, we must make up stories that give meaning to our lives [...] in the infinite perspectives of time past and time to come. Some individuals have the opportunity to reflect on time past and a sense of their life contribution. In doing so, they offer perspective about the meaning they derived from their life and this offer others practice in perspective taking and meaning-making for their own lives. Prior to her passing, actress Gilda Radner (2009) in her autobiography, Its always something, offered a poignant reflection about the ambiguities of life,

I wanted a perfect ending... Now as I approach death, I’ve learned the hard way that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, or end. Life is about not knowing, having to change often, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. (p.74)

If only we could see around the corner to catch a glimpse of what is going to happen next, but that’s not possible! Faith and optimism allow us to make the best of our days and, not surprisingly, the most of our lives. But what stories matter and how do we know? How can we make our stories count as we seek out success and happiness in our lives?

Simple, every day, experiences and stories matter; but they are hard to use to measure success. Some say, if you cannot measure it, then it doesn’t count. This is false. In fact, Einstein was insightful when he famously observed, Not everything that counts can be measured. Not everything that can be measured counts. How do we raise up desirable characteristics like integrity, character, kindness, and respect for others? This is especially difficult if we are busy measuring things that may be means, but not ends, to achieve happiness and meaningful success, such as wealth, prestige, and power. The stories that matter are stories about relationships, leadership, and partnerships. These stories connect us as persons who have shared goals, experience similar trials, and belong to communities working to be courageous and connected.

One of these stories is The Corsican Fisherman story and it is a good reminder of the peace found in simplicity. This story was contributed by Dr. Gene Sharratt who has served as a teacher, principal and superintendent. He is a motivational speaker, mentor, and author.

The story begins with a lone fisherman who sits on a stretch of beach. His single fishing pole is planted in the sand. Soon, he is joined by a businessperson on vacation. Why don’t you have two poles so you can catch more fish? the businessperson