In my last post, Strong Shoulders, I talked about the importance of having family and mentors who shape a young person’s life from birth. I was blessed to have people like this in my life. The first one I want to tell you about is a friend of the my family we called, The Bishop. He was not a man of the cloth as the name suggests and I’m not sure how he got this nickname but that’s what my father, who was his lifelong friend, called him. The Bishop was known for his sage advice and one day, he  told me,

“Granville, be grateful in your life if you can have three friends – your mother, your father and one other person.”

I am grateful that for more than fifty years, I  had, my mother and father in my life, guiding, supporting and encouraging me. They are the ones who helped me learn how to think and how to express myself. As long as we lived at home, they  my sister and me to be home for dinner six days a week – Sunday through Friday. Saturday you were on your own and that helped me  learn to cook to eat on the weekend!  However, each night we had a family dinner, we would finish the meal and then do what I call, “talk some good talk”. There were no restrictions on what we could talk about or  who could talk. All comments were taken seriously and responded to critically. Not that what was said was criticized but that meant that if you didn’t have something substantive to say, you  listened and learned until,  then you talked. I learned so much about people and the world at that dinner table. As I approached adulthood, the discussions became more important to me than the meals. I always learned something.

My wife and I had the same rules in our house – home for dinner six days a week for good food and good talk. Our friends and our daughters’ friends were always welcome to join us for dinner and conversation – around our table, everyone was family. My daughters who are now 25 and 32, one with children of her own, still say how much they enjoyed being able to talk with us about anything and, to some extent, reconnect at the end of each day.

My mother use to say that you can’t make the world safe for your kids you have to make your kids safe for the world. I think talking good talk at dinner is a great way to do that. Even though I can’t be with them at dinner, I take every opportunity to talk some good talk with my students in my roles as teach and mentor. I believe this can be just as important to student success as doing well in the classroom.