His poems and words move me.  They speak to me.  They have when I was five-years old and now when I am thirty-seven years old.  I tease people that I feel like I am a five-year old trapped in an adult’s body, because I do not feel my age and I do not think that I act my age.  I do believe this is one of the reasons why I am able to connect and understand my students.  They still “see” and “hear” the child inside of me. 

     I am still the “dreamer, the wisher, the liar, the hope-er, pray-er, and magic bean buyer.”  I have never lost those abilities, and I still use them every day.  I know that in my heart and mind, I still live in an idealistic world.  When I say, “if others played by my rules, all would be right in the world,” it is not me being conceited.  It is me, wishing the world would be idealistic. 

     Shel Silverstein lived and breathed in an idealistic world, his world.  That is the world he brings to me when I read his words, a world where any “flax-golden tale” can be spun and become reality.

     As I work through the Ph.D. program I have come to realize that I have an idealistic view about the current educational system and how to manage students with emotional and behavioral disabilities (EBD).  The courses I have taken cause me to question why school administrators act and react to certain situations with regard to special education programs.  The experiences I have gained through my own personal meditation practice and teaching yoga to students with EBD cause me to believe that sharing contemplative practices with students with EBD will help them develop coping skills they could use in a school setting to be more successful.  Through a structured research agenda I plan to show that my idealistic views are realistic and possible to be implemented successfully into a school system.