Great Expectations

A horrible photo, but true documentation of the richness and texture in the life I am blessed to live.

This could be a post about seeing an amazing piece of art; looking at the dimension, the fatness and thickness of Van Gogh's strokes, the depth of color, the energy of the painting.

But this is a post about a teacher.

I'm going to tell you a truth about me. I wasn't an amazing student. I liked school and wanted to be successful in my life. But I had a life while I was in school. I had a part time job all 4 years of high school and all my years in college. I was involved in student government (a little in High school and more in college) and I wanted to make and keep some friends. My freshman year I played sports, and all my years of high school and college I sang in choirs, with performances and even some travel thrown in. And I was part of a family. My parents needed me to help at our house, and to help in our family owned business. They are amazing parents, and provided me with fantastic blessings and lessons at home, one of those lessons being the responsibility to look after other siblings (a lot).

So my studies just weren't the main thing, ya know?

There is one huge exception to this general truth.

I aced my Humanities class.

Humanities was a college level course. Only senior year students could take it. Mrs. Hewlett was the teacher. She required the best from her students. She crammed amazing information into our heads with an understanding that we would keep it there (for good). She required us to perform well on exams or we were excused from the course. We had to learn how to articulate our beliefs about art and history and literature and music. We had to be able to tell her what we knew in many different ways and at any given time during the year-long experience that was Humanities class.

She had great expectations.

And I worked hard to meet to them.

My grades were nearly perfect in her class. I could not let her down. And as I left my mediocre high school performance and looked forward to college, it was her expectations and the way I rose to them that made me feel I could succeed in the more challenging work of University studies.

And its because of those great expectations that I, when seeing the paint practically erupting from Van Gogh's canvas, could remember the reason his work was so monumental in the history of art and culture. I knew why the large brush strokes were significant in the context of the time period in which he painted. Why it was revolutionary. Why he is one of the masters. And the viewing of the painting meant something more than colors and strokes on a canvas. It was an experience. It was full, it had meaning and depth-and I was more for having had the experience.


And as I realized that I could remember those things that I learned more than 20 years ago, I thought about expectations, and why we rise to them. And I thought about my children, and about what I expect of them. And I wondered and hoped and prayed that maybe, some 20 years from now that one of my kids (or all of them) would see something or do something and be reminded of the expectations their parents had of them-and be grateful that there experiences could make them more for having risen to the expectations we'd set. That their lives could become like the masterpiece, full of texture and color and depth-

because of my great expectations.