Never Any Less

“I always have one main goal for all of the classes I teach. I want my students to leave my class with more poker chips than they came with.” --Alice Hammel, Teaching Music to Students with Autism

Imagine that each of us is born with a certain amount of poker chips. As we go through our first years of life, people constantly add to our pile or take away from our pile. They add to it by paying attention to us, talking to us, spending time with us, saying kind things to us, making sure that we have everything we need. They take away from it by ignoring us, yelling us, saying mean things to us, not caring when we are lacking that which we need.

By the time we enter Kindergarten, we arrive with different numbers of chips. Some of us arrive with a bunch. Some of us arrive with only a few.

As with those who gamble, those of us who have a bunch of chips are more willing to take risks and try new things because we have more to fall back on if we mess up or lose. If, however, we only have a few chips, then we are less likely to take risks. Things become more calculated and we have to decide what we are willing to risk and what we are determined to hold onto.

The same holds true for the rest of our lives.

I have a new goal for all of the classes I teach—and all of the relationships I keep. I want my students to leave my class and my people to leave my presence with more poker chips in their love tank buckets than they came with—and never any less.

Never any less.