Charlotte Coppenhaver

 
“Energy, fervor, drive, and the will to approach my entire life differently”…
It’s difficult for me to put into words what your work has meant to my life. {qluetip title=[…read full review] sticky=[1]} I can use phrases such as “life-changing” or “mind-altering” and “critical to my well-being” – they are true and accurate. But they do not do justice to what this means to me.

As a successful educator, a “got a lot” baby-boomer, a long-time spouse, I was coasting toward retirement, vaguely dissatisfied with my life and work. Ultimately I was wondering, just as many of my friends and colleagues had voiced, “Is this all there is?” … and then YOU came along! I first read your newsletters as part of my attempt to keep up to date with developments in my field of teaching and learning and something was distinctly different. Your discussions of character, team-building, and responsibility went beyond familiar platitudes to real “how-to’s.” I was intrigued, went to a day-long session to learn more, and followed this introduction to the Global Educators’ Academy.

In the process, I discovered that I was not accepting responsibility for my life, my work, my relationships … oh, I THOUGHT I was doing all that. I had it all figured out; everybody else in my world just wasn’t living up to what they needed to do. None of it was my fault because I was doing the best I knew how; I just wasn’t sure how I was going to get all those other folks in my life whipped into shape! When I acknowledged that indeed I was not living in a responsible way, and that I was living on some other islands in my mind (as you call them) that limited my power, it was as if someone had turned my world upside down. Then the spotlight showed clearly that my choices and my way of looking at the world were the limits that shaped my world.

You helped me develop insight about what it means to be free to choose and powerful – responsible. That discovery gave me energy, fervor, drive, and the will to approach my entire life differently. Am I THERE yet? No, but I have each day the power and the ability to choose what I do and say. I have the insight to work between. And my colleagues have noticed; my boss has noticed; I approach life with a zest and gusto that matters to my work.

I am focusing my efforts now on my personal life, my interactions with spouse and family. The journey is fascinating and full of unexpected twists and turns. But because I know how powerful, and free I really am to choose a position of responsibility in all that I do, I am confident that I can make a difference for me.{/qluetip}

Thank you,

Dr. Charlotte (“Anne”) Coppenhaver
Director, Center for Educational Programs, and Clinical Associate Professor
School of Education
University of Houston-Clear Lake

 
 
Posted in on 01/20/2011 11:09 pm
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