The Size of Your Dreams, - [good books for high schoolers txt] 📗

We, the students of Mr. Griffin’s 5th-period trigonometry class, intend to learn all of the year’s material with full comprehension and retain this knowledge for life. We will complete this task by June 10, in time for the final exam.
To accomplish this goal, we will take the following steps:

Mr. Griffin’s hand froze over the board.

“Don’t stop now, Mr. Griffin,” Darnell said. “Tell us what the steps are.”

“I don’t know the steps, Darnell.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?”

“Use all you’ve learned this year to figure them out,” Mr. Griffin said. “Who can tell me a step we can take?”

I spoke first. “I suppose we can test ourselves to see what we already know. That could be a start.”

“Yes,” He wrote my strategy on the board. “Who else has an idea?”

“I’ve been watching tons of videos online about nutrition and cooking,” Darnell said. “With all the online tools available, we don’t have to be dependent on Mr. Griffin to teach us everything. We can do a lot of the learning at home at night, and come to Mr. Griffin when we get stuck.”

“And we could form a study group after school to help each other out,” Christy said.

“I can call my friend Cody,” Jarod said. “He took Mrs. Northrup’s trig class last year. That guy never throws anything away, so I bet he’s still got his final exam lying around somewhere. The questions won’t be the same, but I’m guessing she uses the same style of exam each year. Studying that will give us an idea of what we need to prepare.”

Mr. Griffin still stood at the board, writing all of this down. “What else can we do?”

* * *

Like any notecard process, some of our ideas worked and others didn’t.

Jarod’s friend Cody turned out to be a bust, which was just as well, as I didn’t love the idea of cutting corners and only studying what was likely to be on the test. We had to revise our plans multiple times, but within four weeks, none of us still harbored doubts about trouncing Mrs. Northrup’s class on the exam. As Mr. Griffin said, the curriculum was created with the expectation of a slow pace of learning, but when it came down to it, there weren’t all that many concepts to master in trigonometry.

Jarod surprised me by advancing faster through the material than either Christy or Darnell. Between his business taking off, his engagement, and his progress in math, he was absolutely flying. So it stumped me to see him walk into class in late May with a strut and a snarl, like the Jarod of old. Mr. Griffin wasn’t in class yet.

“You looked like you swallowed a cigarette,” Christy said. “What’s up?”

“Nothin’.” Jarod shrugged and slipped into his seat.

“I know what nothin’ looks like, and it isn’t that,” said Darnell.

“I just overheard Mrs. Northrup talking to Mr. Jones about finding a new trig teacher for next year.”

“You mean—?”

“Yeah, Mr. Griffin is skipping out.” Jarod slouched in his seat.

“You can’t know that, Jarod,” Christy said. “Maybe they just don’t want him anymore.”

“Come on, Christy. He’s the best teacher we’ve ever had in this dump, and you know it.”

I had to pipe in. “But he didn’t exactly teach us math.” Even over the last four weeks, we’d done most of our learning independently online and only turned to Mr. Griffin when we got stuck.

“Who cares?” Jarod said.

“Clearly the principal and the head of the math department,” I said.

“Why are you so mad, Jarod?” Darnell asked. “We’re almost graduating. I thought you were racing to get out of here.”

“Yeah, I am. But how could he just leave? I mean, look at us.” Jarod waved his arm across the room. “We’re all so different now. Don’t you want others to tap into that?”

“I do,” Christy said. “I was telling all the Juniors on the team to sign up for trig next year.”

“But still, how big can trig get?” Darnell asked. “He can’t teach the whole school.”

Just then, Mr. Griffin walked in.

“Speak of the devil,” Jarod mumbled.

“The devil, eh?” Mr. Griffin said. “Have I fallen out of favor so soon?”

“He just heard you might not be teaching here next year,” I said.

“I’m afraid not. That’s why I’m late.” Mr. Griffin dropped his satchel on his desk. “Mr. Higgs decided to make his retirement official. The principle was trying to convince me to take his place.”

“You have to stay,” Jarod said.

“No, Jarod. If I’ve taught you anything this year, I hope it’s that you don’t have to fill anyone else’s vision of who you should be.”

“But you said yourself that you wanted to give back by teaching these techniques to others.”

“Exactly. Working with the four of you this year has proved that I can successfully pass these lessons on to others and have transformational impacts in their lives.”

Jarod kicked the leg of his desk. “So why stop doing it now?”

“Stop? Who said anything about stopping? Now that I’ve proved to myself that it can work, I intend to ramp it up.”

“Ramp it up how?” Darnell asked.

“Remember when I taught you about incremental and exponential growth? Teaching in a classroom is great, but the constraint is that I can teach so few of you at a time.”

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

“Take it online. That way I can teach anyone the skills you’ve learned this year, plus other techniques I haven’t shared with you yet.”

“What are you going to call it?” Christy asked.

“You know, Christy, I haven’t thought of a name yet. Any suggestions?”

“I know exactly.” Jarod pointed to the board. “You should use that quote from that leaf lady…”

Mr. Griffin grinned. “You mean Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Liberian President?”

“Yeah, her. I remember she said something about dreaming big.”

Christy said, “I wrote that quote on the wall of the locker room. She said, ‘The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them.’”

“Exactly.” Jarod slapped his desk. “The size of your dreams. I dig it. Can you get TheSizeofYourDreams.com?”

Darnell pulled out his phone. “I’ll check to see if that’s available.”

“That’s a great name,” Christy piped in, “but there are like a zillion websites out there. How’s anyone going to find this one?”

“There are about 1.9 billion websites, actually,” I said. “You’ve got a good point.”

“What can we do to help, Mr. Griffin?” Christy asked.

“You tell me, Christy. From all that you’ve learned this year, what do you think can be most powerful in launching this website?”

Christy licked her lips. “I know when my coach search took off. It was when I embraced the power of my story.”

“So what are you saying?” Darnell asked. “That we should all put up videos telling our stories?”

“How about a book?” I asked.

“I’m not writing a book,” Jarod said.

“Me neither,” Christy added. “Essays are hard enough.”

“You should do it, Kelvin.” Darnell nudged my arm. “I’ve seen your short stories. You can write.”

“Me?”

“You don’t have to do anything, Kelvin,” Mr. Griffin said. “But you have helped everyone here see the power in their own stories. It’s your strength.”

Christy batted her eyelashes and flashed me a million-dollar smile I couldn’t refuse.

“Well….” I’d always wanted to be a published author, but I thought that was a dream for well in the future. Nonetheless, I did have the whole summer with nothing to do. “On condition all of you make voice recordings of your stories, your thoughts, and your challenges over the past year and send them to me…” I bit my lip. “I’ll do it.”

“Excellent,” Mr. Griffin said. “There’s no better way to learn than to teach.”

“What would we call it?” I asked.

“The Size of Your Dreams,” Jarod said, “Just like the website.”

Darnell called out, “TheSizeofYourDreams.com is available.”

“Let’s make it happen,” Mr. Griffin said. “I’ll create tools and courses teaching people how they can use these techniques to make massive improvements in their own lives, and I’ll use your stories to illustrate the lessons.”

Mr. Griffin walked over to his desk and opened up his laptop. Jarod called out, “What are you doing, Mr. Griffin?”

“I’m registering TheSizeofYourDreams.com.”

“Now? Can’t it wait until after school?”

“It can wait, but I can’t. I have a rule that I never make a decision without taking a practical step to move it forward. After all, the most important step to creating change is getting started.”

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About the Authors:
Dave Mason
Chana Mason

Dave and Chana Mason aren't just a married couple, they're a team. They share a passion for everything from personal growth, healthy living, and world travel. They share these passions with the young people they host, teach, and interact with daily. Their home is open to the many students, tourists, and explorers who fill Jerusalem's arts and cultural center. They see every moment as an opportunity to learn something new, grow from what they're facing, or share wisdom with others. The Masons sum up their mission in three words: Learn, Grow, Teach. Their greatest wish is that you can learn key lessons in this book, incorporate them into your life, and use them to inspire others.

Acknowledgements

We’d like to thank our parents, Barbara and Stephen Mason and Lucy and Alberto Gateno for supporting our explorations, adventures, and wild stories. We’d also like to thank Beth Shapiro, Tzila Bublil, Tova Malca, Jacob Herman, Yehuda Diskint,