When we were kids, there was a big community Easter Egg Hunt. They told us that somewhere in the park a true treasure was hidden: the Prize Egg. Wouldn’t it be something to find it?    

       The event was fun. Afterward, Dad told me at one time I was standing right next to the Prize Egg. It was in the grass beside the water fountain, the same fountain from which I’d slurped. Otherwise occupied, I’d walked right past it.   

       In class, we did an activity centered around the hiding of a dollar. While the student volunteer is out of the room, the rest of the class is given instructions as to how we will let the volunteer know how close to or far from the dollar he is. We will hum; the closer to the dollar the student gets, the louder we will hum. The purpose is to demonstrate that sometimes we are getting accurate information but it’s being communicated in an unfamiliar way. The volunteer almost always eventually catches on.

       When let back in, the volunteer is told, “Somewhere in this room a dollar is hidden. If you can find it, you can keep it.”

       One time, I “hid” the dollar in plain sight. I put it in the marker tray below the whiteboard. The student looked right at it as he walked right past it despite the loud humming. Why did he walk right past it? Because he was looking for a green piece of paper. The dollar that day was a Sacagawea dollar.

       Just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. It may just be we don’t recognize it.

       What might we be missing? In ourselves? In people we may have prejudged? In an opportunity disguised as a calamity?   

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