50,000 coaches

WARNING: this post contains 75% recycled contents (from my old blog). 

As I work on populating this blog, I'm revisiting the posts from my older one that I believe would make sense here, and bringing them to this forum.

In this case, the post was about the movie "Akeelah and the Bee", which I've seen twice so far (once in theaters, later in DVD), and whose connections with teachers, students, and their achievements is quite self-evident.

One of my favorite parts is the scene where Akeelah’s mother tells her that she has 50,000 coaches to count on to prepare for her final challenge (the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.), and everyone around Akeelah starts acting accordingly, teaching, coaching, and encouraging her.

Among many other precious nuggets, a powerful quotation (read aloud by the main character, 11-year old Akeelah) comes from the book “A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles” by Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? . . . We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

And, no, the final word she spelled was not “Frappuccino” (as Stephen Colbert — always faithful to truthiness as opposed to truth – suggested in his show, in a humorous reference to this movie being the first one heavily promoted by Starbucks)…