Tony Hollowell's blog

When someone gets told to do something that they do not want to do, they usually complain. In the complaining, the stories get changed. How do I know this? Two reasons. One, because I have done it before. Two, because it happens almost every time I correct a student.

It happens something like this. I tell a student to stay after school for twenty minutes because they were continually disruptive in class. The student mumbles under their breath and gets mad. Later that day, they go home and tell their friends, “Mr. Hollowell was so rude and inconsiderate. I got up to go use the bathroom, and then he yelled at me and told me to sit down and he gave me a detention. Can you believe he made me stay after school for twenty minutes just because I needed to use the restroom?” Actually, Billy, you have to stay after school for 20 minutes because you were a complete train wreck in class, and your final disaster was getting out of your chair in a disruptive manner and pushing two students on your way out of my room. You do not have a detention for going to the restroom. You have a detention for being a moron. continue reading this post

Recently, I was given an option: go work out in an open space with plenty of leg room, ventilated air, and easy access to what I needed, or I could go work in a small closet that offered none of these amenities. I picked the closet.

Several factors converged to inspire this decision. continue reading this post

Music By Danielle Rose

There is so much to tell you, but I can't. The video is my best attempt to describe how awesome it was to be in Haiti. The people are beautiful, the land is beautiful, and the trip was awesome.

We visited a few schools. When asked what is the biggest challenge that a school faces, the answer was always the same: feeding the children and paying the teachers.

There are miracle workers at some of these schools. I saw a teacher with nothing but chairs in her room (and hungry children sitting in the chairs), but the students were more disciplined and more learning was occurring than in any of my best days as a teacher.

The people love soccer. It is in their blood. Soccer truly is the universal sport. The clip at the beginning of the video is from a "senior vs. sophomore" soccer game, and the little kids are cheering for the sophomores after they just scored a goal. Let's just say that I went crazier than I ever had for a touchdown at Notre Dame stadium. It was bananas.

They need help to feed their kids and pay their teachers. If you want to help out, you can send money to our fund that we started. Our goal is to raise $50,000. The money goes straight to the kids and families you see in this video, and many are refugees of the recent earthquake. There is no middle man. This is not the Red Cross. The money gets wired directly to the school to help the kids and to support their learning. Shoot me an email if you want more information at tony@tonysclassroom.com

The head of the school told us: "You can't develop a country without education."

The world is my classroom, and I learned so much from the people of Haiti.

When you do not have money, you must get creative. If you don’t have money to get what you want, then you need to find ways to get what you want without the money. No, you don’t steal, but you begin to analyze the situation, to do the unusual, and get creative.

Every school, business, and person should understand this fact: a lack of money breeds ingenuity.

Money is not the biggest barrier to attaining a goal. The biggest barrier to attaining a goal is a lack of raging desire: a deep, pulsating desire to do something, to create something. When you have this raging desire but lack sufficient money, then you begin to get creative.

You learn to buy used goods. You don’t take no for an answer. You beg and plead your case to anyone who will listen. Things just start happening, and it is all happening without money.

Ingenuity is being born because you wanted to do something but didn’t have the money. If you have been in this situation before, you know it is so much fun! continue reading this post

This is the best movie I have ever seen.

It's about a basketball team in the inner city of Jersey. The school is a financial mess. They don't have a gym. The kids come from broken homes.

And they have won 23 state championships in 30 years.

If you care about education, you want to watch this movie. If you are a coach, you want to watch this movie. If you are an athlete, you want to watch this movie. If you are a human being, you want to watch this movie.

If you think miracles don't happen anymore, you must never have watched this movie. Buy it (proceeds benefit their school), watch it, and then tell other people about it. The movie website is http://www.thestreetstopsheremovie.com/

My favorite quote: “I seem more annoyed at your failure than you do.”

Photo: Ted Fines

GM went bankrupt because they cared more about themselves than about their customers. Their primary focus was no longer on developing great cars. Their primary focus was on getting paid. So the Executives decided to invest their future in gas-guzzling SUV’s, and the unions demanded higher pay for less work. There was a strong sense of entitlement, they sought profit without production, and they wanted more money for less work. This will bankrupt you every time.

American Education is the next GM, and it is going to go bankrupt (unless something changes) for the exact same reason: because the people working in the company have an unconquerable sense of entitlement. American Education is a “company” filled with people who are seeking profit without production. I already told you what this causes. continue reading this post

Whenever I am trying to improve a situation, I am faced with a choice: do I continue doing the same thing that is currently producing mediocre results with the hope that it will eventually pay off, or do I try something that could be unfavorable but also has the potential to be incredibly beneficial?

I am always trying to improve things, whether it is my class, my school, or lately, my own life. With the help of a friend on a canoe trip, we conjured up a phrase that adequately describes my own perspective on what to do in this situation:

“I would rather prove myself wrong than wonder if I could have been right.” continue reading this post

You should always keep something to yourself. You should never lay down your whole hand. You should always keep an ace in the hole.

An “ace in the hole” is something about you that no one else knows or understands. An ace in the hole is not about what you do. It is about WHY you do it.

In his book “No More Mondays”, Dan Miller writes about a time when he was broke and he had creditors coming to his house daily, threatening to take the house if he didn’t pay up on some of his debts (debts that he was trying to pay off). He explains that during this time in life, when everyone was trying to get every ounce of property that he owned, he always left a $100 bill in his pocket to remind himself that he was never broke. This $100 bill was an ace in the hole. continue reading this post

If you want to get things done, you will occasionally need to use some dynamite. But before using dynamite, one must understand the difference between necessary work and important work. Necessary work is work that people tell you to do. In teaching, the necessary work is the following: continue reading this post