Year 2: Week 22 - Working On The Weekend

This weekend is the first weekend in about a month that I’m not going to do any work.

For the past couple weeks I’ve been completing my grades and comments for the semester. I turned in the last batch yesterday and I’m going to take a break for doing work for school.

Now this post is not about complaining about working on the weekend. I think it’s more than a fair trade to work on a couple weekends if it means that you get summer break. What I do want to reflect on is why teachers work on weekends and what that means to the community.

My first teaching job was a high school band position. I had limited time during the day to prepare for the classes I teach. I probably had about an hour in the day. I would get to work early and stay late to plan my lessons but it wasn’t enough. My department head actually told me outright that the only way I could keep up with my teaching was by working on the weekends.

So every Sunday morning and often on Saturdays I worked. That added onto the many Saturdays through out the year that were taken up by festivals and competitions pretty much obliterated a good percentage of my weekends during the school year. This was exhausting and even with doing work on the weekends I barely was able to keep up, which was one of reasons I eventually left that job.

One of the things I mentioned during my job interview at my current gig was that I wanted to maintain a life outside of school. Now this may seem like a dumb thing to say at an interview but the response I got really attracted me to the school. I was told that a lot of teachers put in extra hours, but a lot don’t and many have very interesting lives outside of the school which the school values.

Our school includes published writers, a internationally known professional musician, stand-up comics, a boxing coach and many other things. Because our teachers have these outside interests, it makes them more relaxed and interesting people who are better teachers.

A big reason why this happens is because we a good deal more prep time in our day than most teachers. While it’s not enough time during grading time to keep work off of the weekend it is most of the time.

The other reasons sometimes I work on the weekends is because, well, I teach what I love. “Working” consists of me singing music, writing arrangements, and researching the history of songs, which is stuff I do for fun in my free time. What do you do when your hobby becomes work? Get a new hobby? Hence, the blog. . .

I know that there are plenty of people who have jobs in which they have to work unpaid overtime on weekends. For most teachers, it’s part of the gig. Should it be?  I'm not sure.  I know at least for me, having less work to do on the weekends has made me a happier person and a better teacher.

Why Chris Brown needs to go away, why Jeremy Lin should stay and issue with the Westminster Dog Show

It's been an interesting week with some issues that I take very seriously.  What has been really cool is that I've found some articles that capture the way that I'm feeling and bring some great perspectives to the table.

First there's the issue of Chris Brown performing at the Grammy's.  I’m not okay with Chris Brown performing at the Grammys and I'm not sure why you are provides the history of the beating of his former girlfriend Rihanna and why this is still an important and relevant issue.  This blog also covers why it is unacceptable that he is so widely accepted by our culture.


Then there's the this brilliant article Why Jeremy Lin's race matters.  It's been a rough couple months to be Asian-American and the success of Lin int he NBA is a breath of fresh air.  Unfortunately his success has revealed further racism in our culture we need to deal with.

Oh, and then there's the whole thing about a Pekingese winning at the Westminster Dog show this week.  This is not a good thing.  The breed standard for this dog creates pressure on breeders to create dogs with massive health problems.  This BBC documentary talks about a former Pekingese champions health issues (about 5:50 in).

Whitney Houston-The Voice

When I wrote this post a couple weeks ago about Whitney Houston.  I didn’t imagine that less than a month later I would be writing about losing her.

As much as I would like to think that I’m an expert on music, at the end of the day, I simply a man who loves music. What I speak from is my experiences and my life.  So when Etta James died, I didn’t feel much. I respect her as one of the most important artists in music history and I never formed an emotional attachment to her music. Hearing the news Saturday night that Whitney was dead hit me in the same way that the death of Michael Jackson affected me. It’s like her death left an open space inside of me somewhere and it hurts. No it’s not the same as when my grandparents died, but it's hard to deal with.

Like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston was an idealized picture of what it means to be American. The image of her singing the National Anthem at the Superbowl and her singing “I Will Always Love You,” is my vision of what was a pop star. But when I was a kid, I needed that. And when things started falling apart for Whitney, it was at the exact time when I began to realize that no one is perfect and the fact that we all have our battles. And as this reality came crashing into my idealized worldview, Whitney’s life came crashing down right in front of us.



Even though, I know now that Whitney like all of us is not some super-hero, the image of her smiling, dancing around and being that perfect artist is one of my fondest childhood memories. Whitney at her best was one of the greatest singers in American history. She managed to balance her soul and gospel background with pop sensibilities influencing every musical artist that heard her. Now we may have artists who didn’t grow up listening to her but I bet they listen to people who did. Her image was sensual, but not overly sexualized. The grace she carried herself with was something that we just don’t see anymore.

When pop music got dark, she kept to her guns and melded modern sounds, which other female artists utilized to objectify themselves and continued to spread a message of love and strength.

We all have to grow up. We all have to go through a stage when we realize the heroes of our youth are flawed, that the images we look to have dark edges and the that sometimes, no matter how much we hope, we have to watch the people who inspired our souls pass along to another place.

I just wish it didn't have to be this way.

Thanks Whitney for the music, the memories and the dreams.

Year 2: Week 21 - What Difference Can 7 Hours Really Do?

Children go to school for about 7 hours. For the other 17 hours of the day their parents or whoever is responsible for raising them controls their lives. Also, there's the weekend so in a week a students will spend 35 hours a week at school and 133 hours away from school. So basically if a child's parents doesn’t agree with what a school is teaching it's a losing battle.

I’ve fought this battle to different degrees and on different fronts. I’ve had high school parents lie on notes to get kids out of band concerts, claiming family emergencies while in reality they were doing homework. I’ve also had parent who disregarded my phone calls about their child being disruptive and made excuses. While these situations are annoying, in the bigger scheme of things, they aren’t huge issues.

If a parent wants to teach a kid to lie and make excuses in the face of authority, that’s there prerogative. That undermines some of what I’m teaching at school, but in other situations, it feels like parents are undoing everything we try to teach.

A couple years ago I worked with a student named Thomas. He was a fourth grader who a really likeable kid who was very creative. At home he was allowed to do anything he wanted to do without any consequence. He went home after school, played video games, ate junk food and feel asleep whenever he felt like it. So when I saw him first thing in the morning he was tired and cranky and didn’t want to be at school because he didn’t get to do anything he wanted at school.

Thomas would throw fits, hide underneath tables, run around the school and do whatever he could to get what he wanted. Slowly but surely as the week would progress Thomas would get better and he would start following rules and get in the groove of school. By the time Friday rolled around, he usually had pretty good days. He would go home for the weekend, live an unstructured life for two days and come back to school Monday a complete disaster.

After a while, I had to ask myself, what’s the point? Thomas’ parents basically undid any work we got done in school

Thomas was put in an impossible situation for a fourth grader. He had to operate completely differently at home as he did in school. Adults do this all the time acting different at work, home, out with friends and in other social situations. Developing children can’t make these distinctions easily. For kids in these situations in order for them to be successful they have to learn how to adjust their behavior to situations earlier than other children.

Was Thomas capable of developing these skills? I don’t know.  Over the year, he made little to no progress academically or with his behavior. But we kept trying with him. Why? Well, because he needed to know that there was an alternative, that life could be different. All you can do sometimes is just show a child that there’s more than one way to live life and eventually, hopefully, they will catch on.

It’s difficult, annoying and aggravating, but this is the gig we as teachers sign up for.  Not every parent will be on the same page as you and you’ve got to make it work. Sometimes like with Thomas’ parents it seems hopeless but for the kids sake you can’t give up.

I love talking to parents who back me up as a teacher. It’s not an ego thing as much as a feeling that we’re a team. This could not be more important. It’s the foundation of successful education because we only get the kids 7 hours a day.  If that time is valued at home and supported there's no limit to what we can do for a child.

Civil Rights In America: Good News & Bad News

Good News:



Bad News:

Unfortunately we've got a long way to go. One Town's War On Gay Teens is an important article in the new issue of Rolling Stone.  The lead is:

In Michele Bachmann's home district, evangelicals have created an extreme anti-gay climate. After a rash of suicides, the kids are fighting back.

This article is deep, powerful and brings into focus what this discussion really is about.  This is not a questions about marriage, or sexuality but rather an acceptance of diversity.  The lawyers behind the anti-Prop 8 case have allied themselves with Republicans and are characterized as conservative lawyers, but they went beyond politics and saw this as exactly what this is: a civil rights issue.

The heartbreaking research that was part of the Brown vs. The Board of Education Supreme Court Case, which featured African-American children characterizing caucasian-style dolls with light skin as being prettier than African-America dolls with dark skin proved how devastating segregation was to children.

What research do we have that the anti-gay marriage movement and similar anti-gay arguments are causing damage to our children?

The ones who are dead from hate crimes and suicide.

Dear Jessie by Madonna

In the 1980s, Madonna’s role in pop culture was clear. Like Lady Gaga she was a pop musician using provocative ideas and ways of expression to both entertain and shock audiences. In the 1990s, things changed as Madonna took on the challenging lead role in the film Evita and tried to redefine her role as a more mature musician.



This made it hard to know what to make of Madonna’s Super Bowl performance last weekend. Madonna has continued to tour but she’s not a mainstay on television the way she used to be and doesn’t fill up the tabloids like she once did. Our popular culture has moved on to people like Lady Gaga to give us that shock and awe fix.

Looking back on Madonna’s career, what really sticks out? The music. So much of what made Madonna controversial has simply become irrelevant in many people’s memories.  It’s amazing how people forgotten that “Like A Prayer,” the closing song of the show was promoted with a music video that featured burning crosses and Madonna kissing a statue of Saint that came alive. There are probably still some people who would take issue with this video but everyone else has moved on (I discussed this song and video in depth in this previous post).  Through all of this what has maintained her relevance is her wide variety of innovative and interesting songs.

The album that showed the most diversity and depth of Madonna’s musical ability was Like A Prayer. A solid album from start to finish, the album covered a wide variety of topics and interesting musical styles. It also features one of my favorite Madonna songs, the heart-warming ode to childhood, “Dear Jessie.”



The ode to childhood joins a group of songs in pop music that celebrate the innocence of childhood including “Forever Young,” by Bob Dylan and “Never Grow Old” by Taylor Swift. “Dear Jessie” was inspired by the daughter of one her producers, Patrick Leonard. He wrote this letter for his daughter and Madonna agreed to record it after meeting Jessie.

Some have compared this song to music the Beatles and this actually is a fitting description. Like many of the Beatles' greatest songs, it’s not about a subject that most pop singers focus on. The instrumentation is interesting and inventive and it features a fascinating meter change, a musical device the Beatles often utilized that most pop musicians stay far away from.

With fairy-tale like imagery, Madonna takes us on journey through the imagination of childhood. Hopeful and gentle, she points out to Jessie how amazing the world around them something many adults overlook and kids often revel in. Swirling strings, dynamics horns and a flurry of other instruments take us to a magical sonic world that pop music often doesn’t take us.

Is this song the definitive Madonna song? No, of course not. She is far too complicated an artists to relegate her expression to one song. But this is a song that defines one facet of the artist that Madonna was and the artists she continues to be.

Year 2: Week 20 - The Mystery Of Third Grade Boys

When I was in third grade I remember looking at the other boys and not understanding them at all.  All they wanted to do was run around and play sports.  Also they kept laughing at things and being silly in a way that I thought was below my level of maturity and now that I’m teach third graders, I still don’t understand third grade boys.

Third grade boys laugh when they are happy, when they are uncomfortable, when they are confused and when they are excited.  They try to act like they are into things that older boys are into but are entertained by things that you would expect only first grade boys to enjoy.   They have the potential to work through abstract thought and understand concept of multiple solutions to a single question.  While at the same time many of them have yet to develop spatial reasoning. 

This is only the third year that I’ve taught third graders.  My first two years teaching was with high school students.  Then there was the one-year as a fourth grade assistant and the year after I entered third grade land. 

Now my first year teaching third grade seemed simpler.  Part of it had to do with the school atmosphere, the expectations ofnthe music teachers and my own skills as a teacher.  That third grade was a relatively calm group of students and while we did accomplish a lot, I didn’t really push them very hard.

Last year, which was my first year at my current school, it was completely different.  Music was integrated into the curriculum, the philosophy of the school was different and there was a very different school atmosphere.  There were a lot of moments when I didn’t really feel like I knew what to do with my third grade boys. 

I wasn’t sure how hard I could be on them, or how goofy I could be.  I wasn’t sure what to expect out of them musically and I didn’t really understand why they were so different than the third grade boys I had previously taught.

Over the year, I figured out a lot of these things the hard way.  Because of this, my relationships with these boys did not end up the way I would have liked but I did the best I could at the time.

This year things are going a lot better with my third grade boys.  I have a better sense of what kind of teacher they need me to be, what kinds of activities appeal to them and how to pace the class to keep them involved.  Most of all, I’ve given up on trying to “understand” these boys and simply focus on getting to know them. 

At every developmental stage there’s a lot of generalizations that one can make, but you can’t forget that regardless of what stage kids are in, they are still people.  The foundation of teaching is knowing your students not as an age group but as individuals.  While I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand my third grade boys, I feel like I know them pretty well and they are great people.