THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2014 by R. J. Palacio
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
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“Gracias a la Vida” copyright © 1966 by Violeta Parra
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ISBN 978-0-553-49904-9 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-553-49905-6 (lib. bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-553-50996-0 (intl. tr. pbk.)
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v3.1
To Papi,
my first teacher
A teacher affects eternity;
he can never tell where his influence stops.
—Henry Adams
Precepts or maxims are of great weight;
and a few useful ones at hand do more
toward a happy life than whole volumes
that we know not where to find.
—Seneca
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Precepts
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Acknowledgments
Contributors of Original Precepts, Artwork, and Lettering
PRECEPTS
My father’s name was Thomas Browne. And his father’s name was Thomas Browne. That’s why my name is Thomas Browne. I didn’t know until I was a college senior that there was a far more illustrious Thomas Browne, who had lived in England in the seventeenth century. Sir Thomas Browne was a gifted author, a student of the natural world, a scientist, a scholar, and an outspoken supporter of tolerance at a time when intolerance was the norm. In short, I couldn’t have asked for a better namesake.
I started reading a lot of Sir Thomas Browne’s works in college, including Enquiries into Very many received Tenets, and commonly presumed Truths, a book that set out to debunk the prevalent false beliefs of the day, and Religio Medici, a work that contained a number of religious inquiries that were considered highly unorthodox at the time. It was while reading the latter that I came across this wonderful line:
We carry within us the wonders we seek around us.
The beauty and power of that line stopped me cold, for some reason. Maybe it was exactly what I needed to hear at that particular moment in my life, a time when I was racked with indecision about whether the career I had chosen for myself—teaching—was full of enough “wonder” to keep me happy. I wrote the line down on a little slip of paper and taped it onto my wall, where it remained until I graduated. I took it with me to graduate school. I traveled with the Peace Corps and carried it in my wallet. My wife had it laminated and framed for me when we got married, and it now hangs in the foyer of our apartment in the Bronx.
It was the first of many precepts in my life, which I began collecting in a scrapbook. Lines from books I’ve read. Fortune cookies. Hallmark card homilies. I even wrote down the Nike ad line “Just do it!” because I thought it was the perfect directive for me. You can draw inspiration from anywhere, after all.
I first introduced precepts to my students as a student teacher. I was having a hard time getting my kids interested in the essay-writing unit—I believe I had asked them to write one hundred words on something that meant a lot to them—so I brought in the laminated Thomas Browne quote to show them something that meant a lot to me. Well, it turned out they were much more interested in exploring the meaning of the quote itself than they were in its impact on me, so I asked them to write about that instead. I was amazed at the things they came up with!
Ever since then, I’ve used precepts in my classroom. According to Merriam-Webster, a precept is “a command or principle intended especially as a general rule of action.” For my students, I’ve always defined it in simpler terms: precepts are “words to live by.” Easy. At the beginning of every month, I write a new precept on the board, they copy it, and then we discuss it. At the end of the month, they write an essay about the precept. Then at the end of the year, I give out my home address and ask the kids to send me a postcard over the summer with a new precept of their own, which could be a quote from a famous person or a precept they’ve made up. The first year I did this, I remember wondering if I’d get a single precept. I was floored when, by the end of summer, every single student in each of my classes had sent one in! You can imagine my further astonishment when, the following summer, the same thing happened again. Only this time, it wasn’t only from my current class that I received postcards. I also got a handful from the previous year’s class!
I’ve been teaching for ten years. As of this writing, I have about two thousand precepts. When Mr. Tushman, the middle-school director at Beecher Prep, heard this, he suggested that I collect them and turn them into a book that I could share with the world.
I was intrigued by the idea, for sure, but where to start? How to choose what precepts to include? I decided I would focus on themes with particular resonance for kids: kindness, strength of character, overcoming adversity, or simply doing good in the world. I like precepts that somehow elevate the soul. I chose one precept for every day of the year. My hope is that the reader of this book will begin every new day with one of these “words to live by.”
I’m thrilled to be able to share my favorite precepts here. Many are ones I’ve collected myself over the years. Some were submitted by students. All mean a lot to me. As I hope they will to you.
—Mr. Browne
Teach him then the sayings of the past,
so that he may become a good example
for the children.… No one is born wise.
— The Maxims of Ptahhotep,
2200 BC
THE SANDBOX VIRTUES
Here’s a secret, kids: parents spend a lot of time teaching you how to be polite when you’re very young because, it’s a scientific fact, the world is nicer to polite people. “Don’t forget to say please,” we tell you. “Play nice. Say thank you.” These are elemental virtues. We teach them because they’re good things to teach. And we want people to like you.
By the time you guys get to middle school, though, our priorities seem to shift. “Do well in school. Succeed. Study harder. Have you finished your homework yet?” That’s what we tend to harp on then. Somewhere along the way, we stop emphasizing those elemental virtues. Maybe it’s because we assume you’ve learned them by now. Or maybe it’s because we’ve got so many other things we want you to learn. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because there’s an unwritten law about middle-school kids: it’s hard to be nice. The world may prefer polite children, but other middle schoolers don’t seem to really appreciate them. And we parents, eager to see you guys get through these Lord of the Flies years, often turn a blind eye to some of the mean stuff that passes for normal.
I personally don’t buy this notion that all kids go through a “mean phase.” In fact, I think it’s a lot of malarkey! Not to mention a little insulting to kids. When I talk to parents who tell me, as a way of justifying something unkind their child has d
one, “What can I do? Kids will be kids,” it’s all I can do not to bop them on their heads with a friendship bracelet.
Here’s the thing: with all due respect, guys, I don’t think you’re always equipped to figure things out on your own. Sometimes there’s a lot of unnecessary meanness that happens while you’re trying to sort out who you want to be, who your friends are, who your friends are not. Adults spend a lot of time talking about bullying in schools these days, but the real problem isn’t as obvious as one kid throwing a Slurpee in another kid’s face. It’s about social isolation. It’s about cruel jokes. It’s about the way kids treat one another. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, how old friends can turn against each other: it seems, sometimes, that it’s not enough for them to go their separate ways—they literally have to “ice” their old buddies out just to prove to the new friends that they’re no longer still friends. That’s the kind of stuff I don’t find acceptable. Fine, don’t be friends anymore: but stay kind about it. Be respectful. Is that too much to ask?
Na-hah. I don’t think so.
Every day at 3:10 p.m., my fifth graders stream out of Beecher Prep at dismissal time. A few of you, the ones who live nearby, walk home. Some of you take a bus or the subway. A lot of you, though, are picked up by parents or caregivers. The point is, either way, most parents don’t allow their kids to roam around the city without knowing where they are, who they’re with, and what they’re doing. Why is that? Because you’re still kids! So why should we let you roam wild in the uncharted territory of middle school without just a little bit of guidance? You’re asked to navigate social situations every day—lunchroom politics, peer pressure, teacher relations. Some of you do it very well on your own, absolutely! But others—and let’s be honest here—don’t. Some of you still need a little help figuring things out.
So, kids, don’t get mad at us if we try to help you in this regard. Be patient with us. It’s always tricky, as a parent, striking the right balance between too much intervention and too little. So bear with us. We’re only trying to help. When we remind you about those old, elemental virtues we used to teach you back in your toddler days, when you were still playing in sandboxes, it’s because “playing nice” is something that doesn’t end when you start middle school. It’s something you need to remember every day as you walk through the school hallways on your way to becoming adults.
The truth of the matter is this: there’s so much nobility lurking inside your souls. Our job as parents, and educators, and teachers, is to nurture it, to bring it out, and to let it shine.
—Mr. Browne
THE LONGEST MONTH OF THE YEAR
I like including a precept about discovery at this time of year. Why this time of year? Because, although February is the shortest month, it also happens to be the longest stretch of time without an event to look forward to (Presidents’ Day notwithstanding). In January, students have just come off the holiday high that is December. With the rush of presents and the thrill of the first few snowfalls behind them, by January 31 the realization hits: “We won’t have another big stretch of vacation time until spring break!” Argh! Hence: the February doldrums.
I’ve always found that it helps to get my students thinking about unexplored frontiers—be they frontiers of the imagination or geographical frontiers. The latter dovetail nicely with what they’re usually doing in history at this time of year (exploring either ancient China or ancient Greece, depending on their history teacher), and the former are a great segue into my Creative Writing unit.
I recently used the James Thurber precept “It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers” and got a really interesting essay back from a student named Jack Will.
I like this precept a lot a lot a lot. It makes me think about all the stuff I don’t know. And maybe never, ever will know. I spend a lot of time asking myself questions. Some are stupid questions. Like, why does poop smell so bad? Why don’t human beings come in as many shapes and sizes as dog breeds do? (I mean, a mastiff is like ten times bigger than a Chihuahua, so why aren’t there humans who are sixty feet tall?) But I also ask myself bigger questions. Like, why do people have to die? Why can’t we just print more money and give it to people who don’t have enough of it? Stuff like that.
So, the big question I’ve been asking myself a lot this year is, why do we all look the way we do? Why do I have one friend who looks “normal” and another friend who doesn’t? These are the kinds of questions that I don’t think I’ll ever know the answers to. But asking myself the questions did make me ask myself another question, which is, what is “normal” anyway?
So I looked it up in oxforddictionaries.com. This is what it said:
normal (adjective): Conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.
And I was like, “conforming to a standard”? “Usual? Typical? Expected?” Ugh! Who the heck wants to be “expected” anyway? How lame is that?
So that’s why I really like this precept. Because it’s true! It’s better to ask some really awesome questions than it is to know a lot of dumb answers to stupid stuff. Like, who cares what x equals in some dumb equation? Duh! Answers like that don’t matter! But the question “What is normal?” does matter! It matters because there’s never going to be a right answer. And there’s no wrong answer, either. The question is all that matters!
This is why I love using precepts in my classroom. You throw them out there, and you never know what you’re getting back, what’s going to strike a chord with a kid, or what’s going to make them think a little deeper, a little bigger, than if they were just trying to answer a question from a book. It’s one of the things I love most about precepts: the sentiments they voice are usually about things that human beings have been grappling with since the dawn of time. I love that my fifth graders are doing the same!
—Mr. Browne
A SPOONFUL OF KINDNESS
When Tommy, my son, was three years old, my wife, Lilly, and I took him for his annual checkup and the pediatrician asked us what his eating habits were like.
“Well,” we confessed, “he’s going through this phase of only liking chicken fingers and carbs, so we’ve kind of given up trying to get him to eat vegetables for now. It’s become too much of a struggle every night.”
The pediatrician nodded and smiled, and then said, “Well, you can’t really force him to eat the veggies, guys, but your job is to make sure they’re on his plate. He can’t eat them if they’re not even on his plate.”
I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. I think about it with teaching. My students can’t learn what I don’t teach them. Kindness. Empathy. Compassion. It’s not part of the curriculum, I know, but I still have to keep dishing it out onto their plates every day. Maybe they’ll eat it; maybe they won’t. Either way, my job is to keep on serving it to them. Hopefully, a little mouthful of kindness today may make them hungry for a bigger taste of it tomorrow.
—Mr. Browne
PLAY YOUR TILES
My grandparents were avid Scrabble players. They played every night, whether they had company or not—on the same Scrabble board they’d had for over fifty years. Their matches were formidable because they were both incredible players. Interestingly, my grand-father, who was known in my family as being the “intellectual,” almost always lost to my grandmother. It’s not that Grandma wasn’t every bit as smart as Grandpa, by the way—it’s just that he was the one who had gotten a degree at Columbia while Grandma stayed home to raise my mother and her sisters. Grandpa was a lawyer, and Grandma was a homemaker. Grandpa had a library of books, and Grandma liked doing crosswords. Grandpa hated to lose, and Grandma whipped his butt nine out of every ten games for over fifty years.
One time I asked Grandma what her secret to winning was, and she said, “It’s simple. Just play your tiles.”
“Okay, Grandma, a little elaboration is needed here,” I answered.
“Here’s why I always beat your grandfather. He hoards his tile
s. When he gets good letters, he holds on to them, waiting to play them on a triple-word score. He’ll skip a turn to try and get a seven-letter word to get the fifty-point bonus. Or he’ll trade in his letters in the hope he’ll get better ones. That’s no way to play!”
“It’s his strategy,” I said, trying to defend him.
She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Me, I just play my tiles—whatever tiles I get. Doesn’t matter if they’re good letters or bad letters. Doesn’t matter if they’re on a triple-word score or not. Whatever tiles I get, I play. I make the most of them. That’s why I always beat your grandpa.”
“Does he know this?” I asked. “Haven’t you ever shared this secret with him?”
“What secret? He’s watched me play every night for fifty years—do you think my way of playing is a secret? Play the tiles you get! That’s my secret.”
“Grandpa,” I said later to my grandfather. “Grandma told me the reason she always beats you at Scrabble is because she always plays her tiles and you hold on to yours. Have you ever thought about changing your style of playing a bit? Maybe you would win more often!”
Grandpa poked his finger into my chest. “That’s the difference between your grandma and me,” he answered. “I want to win, but only if I can win beautifully. Big, long words. Words no one’s ever heard of before. That’s me. Your grandmother, she’s fine winning with nothing but a string of A’s and O’s. You know the old saying: Suum cuique pulchrum est! To each, his own is beautiful.”
“That may be true, Grandpa, but Grandma’s kicking your butt!” I said.
Grandpa laughed. “Suum cuique pulchrum est!”
—Mr. Browne
365 Days of Wonder Page 1
