There Are Many Ways to say You Matter

In my last post I told the story of how Angela Maiers told me that I matter. Angela’s “You Matter” campaign is catching on and people are encouraging each other to tell people that they matter.

My mother and father taught me that while words can have tremendous power and volume, actions speak louder than words. It is one thing to tell people they matter and a wholly different thing to show people they matter.

Today I had the privilege to help serve food to some people who needed it and realized they are many, many ways to show others that they matter.

Photo by Jersey JJ via Flikr

Every Sunday one of the local churches serves dinner to anyone who needs it. Tonight we served about three dozen people spiral ham, collard greens, sweet potato and mixed vegetables. We served juice, coffee, tea, hot chocolate and soda. The excellent local French bakery donates desert every week and this time it was delicious chocolate cupcakes with butter-cream swirl icing and Halloween themed sugar cookies. We had plenty of food and everyone got as much as they wanted.

Lots of churches, synagogues, mosques and community groups also serve meals to those in need, and all of it tells people that they matter. Excellent, but this group goes a little further.

This church enlists volunteers from other churches and other religions to participate in providing table service, cut flowers on every clothed table, all signs that our customers, and that’s what we call them, matter.

All that is very nice, but what really makes this a good experience, a mattering experience for volunteer and customer, is conversation. We talk to each other, we listen to each other. We try to get to know the people we work with and the people we serve.

They are not mouths, they are people. Complex people. People who are, and want to be acknowledged, as being more than needy. They are, and want to be acknowledged, as being part of our community. And that is what we try very hard to do.

And it feels good.

All that is great.

But tonight I had an insight. I had a realization. Not earth shattering, not transformative, but an insight nonetheless.

What I realized is that by telling and showing people that they matter, I come to matter to them.

That is why doing good feels so good; because showing someone else that they matter reaffirms that I matter. The more I can show people they matter the more I matter and the more I matter the more I can show people they matter.

Apparently that ham wasn’t the only thing spiraling tonight.

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I matter

I used to be very shy. VERY shy. Then Angela Maiers showed me that I matter. 

It was three years ago at a major technology education conference in Washington, DC. I thought of it again this weekend because I was in DC with Angela for the first Bammy Awards for Excellence in Education.

The NECC was my first education conference and it is a huge one. Five days and tens of thousands of people. I had been on Twitter for a few months and had made some soft connections; I’d had some conversations with people and I knew a few names. At that time my handle was @spedteacher, being shy I used my job at the time instead of my name as a moniker. I was a very small presence despite my large size.

In many ways the NECC was a huge step for me. I had not yet met anyone I knew through Twitter face-to-face and I was in awe of the knowledge, the experience and expertise of the people I followed there. I was learning so much and wanted to learn more. I always want to learn more. Curiosity is my driving force. So I decided to go to NECC.

Attending NECC was an expensive proposition. Registration is a few hundred dollars; DC hotels were not cheep and were at a premium, especially those within walking distance of the convention center. When a teacher from upstate NY, who I didn’t even know through Twitter, contacted me to ask if I’d be willing to share my hotel room so we could both cut our expenses I only hesitated for a moment before agreeing. Fortunately, Ryan Wassink and I got along well.

One of the features of the NECC is what they call a Bloggers Cafe where people gather to write their blogs, chat with others and generally just process the huge amount of information being presented. In this instance the cafe was a collection of small tables and cushioned benches and couches of different heights. I would go there and sit off away from anyone else. I was VERY shy.

One afternoon I got to the cafe and it was fairly empty, I sat on a bench leaning my back against the side of the empty couch next to it. I did not yet have this blog so I was on Twitter looking at tweets about the sessions I was not able to attend. Some people came and the cafe began to fill up. There was an interesting conversation going on behind me and I was listening intently. At one point I turned around to see who these people were and as soon as I did this very pretty woman looked at me and said, “You’re spedteacher!”

That woman was Angela Maiers. Angela is an award-winning educator, speaker, consultant and professional trainer known for her work in literacy, leadership and global communications. She is a big deal. She recognized me. And she introduced me to everyone else in the conversation. Then Angela asked me what my take was on the topic.

I have no idea what the topic was, but I will never forget that Angela thought what I had to say mattered.

Angela has been telling people that they matter for a long time. She talks about it, she writes about it, and she lives it.

I’m writing this to tell you that you matter, and I’m writing this to tell Angela how she mattered to me. Angela recently started a group on Facebook called Choose2Matter. She, and it, have helped me change my teaching this year.

I’m telling my students that they matter. It started the first time I saw them and played them this message (make sure your sound is on, then click the play button!)

There are geniuses here!

I asked them to tell me about the kind of genius they are. Engagement was instantaneous. They all wanted to make a Voki and tell their message about the kind of genius they are and how they matter.Everyone got right to work, thinking, writing planning.

All except one small girl who just sat there staring at her paper. I went to her, knelt to her level and asked if she was okay. She nodded yes. I asked if she was having difficulty writing. She nodded yes. I said, “you’re very shy, aren’t you?” She nodded yes. I told her to whisper in my ear the problem she was having.

She leaned over, cupped her hands around my ear and softly said, “I don’t know what kind of genius I am.”

I whispered back, “I don’t know you yet so I don’t know and can’t tell you what kind of genius you are, but my first job this year is to help you discover it for yourself and learn how to show it to the world.”

She smiled.

I mattered.

Thank you, Angela.