“I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I'm so mean I make medicine sick." —Muhammad Ali, 1974
Muhammad Ali is widely regarded as the greatest boxer ever, known as much for his boxing prowess as he is for undeniable belief in himself. He once said that if he kept telling the world he was the greatest, the world would eventually believe he was. So he never stopped – every chance he could.
Consider this Ali quote:
“I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.”
We love greatness particularly when it is backed up with style, panache, and flair even.
President Obama in his address to the nation on September 10, 2013 regarding a possible attack on Syria closed his speech by saying that America should act on behalf of the innocent children in Syria that have been gassed to death because that is what makes America different, what “makes us exceptional”.
Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia and no small actor in this unfolding international crisis appealed directly to the American public in an op-ed in the New York Times today where he penned “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”
So who’s right?
Well, Putin is right that all men are created equal under God. But what we do with that starting position determines whether we become exceptional, or perhaps better said, determines whether we live up to the exceptional potential that God has endowed each of us with at birth.
Educators, the overwhelming majority of them, believe deeply that their role and the role of a functioning, democratic public system of education is to bring out the exceptional potential that lies dormant in every child. It is our American values (not our birthright or citizenship), which any country or its citizens can pursue, and how we’ve historically acted on those values that make us exceptional.
This question of America being exceptional has been a rising one of late, dividing Americans into one of 3 camps:
1) We are and always have been and will continue to be exceptional.
2) We were exceptional at one time but have lost that “greatest” title sometime within this last generation.
3) We were never exceptional and should not elevate or consider ourselves as such.
The first viewpoint above can be categorized as the “Ali camp”. The third camp can be considered the “Putin camp”. The second camp when coupled with recent statistics on our country’s academic performance relative to the rest of the world, not to mention our statistics on crime, poverty, infant mortality, physical fitness and emotional wellness would suggest a growing chorus of data and residents support this view. Case in point, dubbed the “most honest three and a half minutes of television ever”, when the new HBO series “The Newsroom” debuted its first episode, leading actor Jeff Daniels delivered a toxic and profane soliloquy on America no longer being the greatest country. This video has over 1,000,000 hits on YouTube so far.
So who’s right?
Well, it is not enough to have and to hold the belief that every child, regardless of race, gender, citizenship or religion has exceptional potential granted at birth. We must act on those beliefs. Only then will the beliefs truly be tested, proven and adopted. But acting on our beliefs does require us to channel our inner Muhammad Ali. We must consistently voice to ourselves and to the world just what it takes to be exceptional, until we all begin believing and acting on it again.
