Year 9: Week 36 – The Roses

This morning, I started my day with about half an hour of prep time followed by a post-observation evaluation meeting. Then I went straight into a parent meeting. I got a 15-minute break and called into a conference call about an artist-in-residence program. Then I prepped one of my classrooms for a guest musician presentation. Right before that started, I found out a piano was supposed to be moved for a talent show, so I ran off to help with that.
There were two presentations in a row. The ideas was to let the students see these musicians in smaller groups so they could interact with them more and both of these experiences went really well. After the second presentation I run upstairs to a wonderful affinity group celebration. All of the MS affinity groups had a celebratory lunch together, which was all kinds of awesome.

I got a little time to breathe before I had to set-up the stage for a 6th grade parent presentation. I got my 6th grade band kids ready for it, ran the presentation, and then I was done.

First off to clarify, the presentations happened during my class time, and my 8th graders were away on a trip. That’s why it didn’t seem like I actually taught much today.

What made the day so tricky wasn’t the amount of stuff that I had going on, it was the fact that I had to switch roles, and deal with so many different projects and situations. In some ways it would be easier to simply teach 3rd grade classes all day long.

As I left the house today, I told Diana, my wife what was going on today and she told me to do something for myself. So, on the way to school I stopped by Starbucks and used up some gifts card I got. The drink and breakfast sandwich was nice, but in some ways it wasn’t quite enough.

I looked and I found some ways to stop and smell the roses. During one of my short breaks, I played a piano duet with one of the other music teachers. I hung out after the affinity group lunch to chat with a teacher about our work in a really meaningful way. I made a point to see the face of my 3rd graders when they watched in wonder as our guest musicians perform for them. When my 6th graders performed, I stopped conducting, allowed them to play on their own and enjoyed them as a teacher, and an audience member.

Life as a teacher can be really hectic. There’s always stuff going on, and the job is never done. However, we are so lucky, because there are “roses” everywhere to smell. It’s stopping to chat with a student, saying good morning to a colleague, or something as simple as pausing at a bulletin board of student work and taking time to read their words and/or experience their art.

There’s a lot to do, and not a lot of time, but please take a moment to enjoy being a teacher before the year is done. You won’t regret it.

Parenthood: Week 320 – The Moment of Absurdity

I was surprised to hear Diana laughing out loud in the dark theater.

We were watching this short film in the 4D theater at the LEGOLAND Discovery Center in a Chicago suburb. The film was a mini-sequel to The Lego Movie. It was funny, but it wasn’t that funny. While Diana respected Ollie’s enjoying of these films, she didn’t really find them that entertaning. While I chuckled at some of the jokes, I wasn’t laughing out loud. Looking over to Diana laughing along with Ollie, I smiled thinking, “hey Diana is actually getting into this whole Lego thing.”

As we left the theater, I told Diana about how I thought that it was interesting that she found that film so funny when she wasn’t into the other Lego movies. She replied, “I wasn’t laughing at the movie, I was laughing at my life.” In that moment I knew exactly what she was talking about. Diana loves all of us, and she is more than happy to do things for Ollie including things she doesn’t necessarily enjoy doing. However, sitting in that 4D theater, which basically was..okay, hang on a second, I got to digress here...

A 4D theater experience is basically a 3D movie another “dimension.” This means that during the movie air will be sprayed at you from a tube near your chair or from an overhead fan.  Also there are sprays of water. All of these effects are coordinated with the film so for example, if at some point in a film a submarine goes underwater you feel water sprayed in your face. The air unfortunately is the dead air of a movie theater, and the water never feels sanitary. Overall it’s unpleasant and kind of uncomfortable “dimension” to add to watching a film. I find myself on edge the entire time wondering when I will feel a gust of warm dead air, or water spraying in my face as I try to follow what is inevitable a mediocre short film.

So sitting in a theater anticipating being sprayed in the face with, in this Lego film was lemonade can feel absurd, and ridiculous.

We all have these moments as parents when you  wonder how your life got to this point of ridiculousness. I’ve had many of these moments. There was that time I was installing a car-seat when the wind-chill temperature was below zero. Searching through ebay for the exact Thomas The Tank Engine toy that Ollie was obsessed with that no longer was in production (I was trying to find a spare after he freaked out after misplacing it one afternoon).

Any time I’ve watched Super Wings with Ollie (that show is AWFUL). Listening to “Hotel California” for an hour straight in the car with the vain hope that it would stop Ollie from screaming during a long drive (he it worked some of the time). Shopping at three different hardware stores for hardware for a kitchen play-set that I trash picked from a house five doors down and spent a week cleaning and repairing. Oh, and there was the time, that the morning after a rain storm, I was sifting through mud by a storm drain for an arm that fell off one of Ollie’s Transformer toy’s that he lost the night before running in from the rain, which I somehow found.

You laugh at these moments, but the laughter doesn't stop you from stopping the activity, or giving up. You just keep on, because even though you know it’s ridiculous, you are doing it for the little one in your life, and even though it’s absurd, you know it’s worth it.

Year 9: Week 35 - The Summer Ahead

There is a false sense of finality with the end of the school year. While students (and many teachers) countdown the days left in the school year, I find myself thinking about next school year as much as the final days of this school year.

That is the push, the rub, and the difficulty of keeping the work moving. Closing the chapter on one school year and taking the time to reflect on the current year is hard but it’s an important opportunity. In the same way that many of the best reflections about classes happen right after a class is over, some of the best thoughts and planning can happen at the end of the school year.

At the same time, teachers need to do work on themselves to process the year personally. Some need time away from it all, others lean into other work, and some of us just keep on through the summer.

Balancing all of this is tough. Some summers I have completely disconnected from the work at school, other times I’ve taken some time away, and reconnected later. This summer I’m choosing to stay connected, and lean in to do summer work for my school with more depth than I have in years past.

My school has funds to allow teachers to collaborate to work on projects like developing curriculum. I’ve worked together with some other teachers to put together proposals and we have been fortunate to have funds allotted to us.

I’m looking forward to this time with these other teachers. The pace of the school year doesn’t seem to allow enough time to have deeper conversations, and really slow down to think and about the work of teaching. Many great ideas are often left to a “later” that never comes. This summer that “later” will become a reality.

It might be nice to have some time away from the “work” but something I’ve learned about being away is that it’s not always location faraway, and doesn’t need to happen in a long period of time.

Sometime being away can be in a book, in a ten minute walk with your dog, or in a conversation with a friend. You can be thousands of miles away from the work and still be stuck with work on your mind. How we can switch in and out of how we engage with this work mentally is often aided by the physical separation, but a trip doesn’t guarantee time to process and refresh.

This summer is going to feel different, and I think that’s going to be good for me. My family is a priority of course, and work will have to fit in with that. What is nice is that my work can bend to my family as opposed to the other way around, which is how it feels for much of the school year. Two more weeks with students, and then it begins.

Parenthood: Week 319 – “There Goes My Miracle” Dealing With School Shooting As A Parent

This is a response to a recent Facebook post. Last Friday, I responded as a teacher. Today I’m answering this question as a parent.

I know exactly who I would call in my school to cover my classes if I got that phone call, text, or saw the news pop up on my feed.  I’ve imagined myself leaving my school in a hurry, the hurried pace of my car, texting my parents at red lights and talking to my wife on with the speaker phone function as I raced to my son’s school.  And I believe in the power of my community, my friends and my family to work through the unimaginable, and make an event like this mean something.

When Ollie my oldest son started kindergarten at his current school, the PTA and the district had moved forward in the construction of a secure entrance for the school. What that means is that there’s a double door and a security window between the two doors. This allows a visitor to check in before being allowed into the building. It is a straight-forward and simple way to make every school safer, however many schools in my son’s district don’t have a secure entrance. The way that my son’s school got this entrance approved was through PTA advocacy.

This made me really frustrated. On one hand, I’m glad that the community at my son’s school rallied and made this happen. At the same time, it angered me that they would even have to work to get this entrance made, and that there remained schools in the district that didn’t have secure entrances.

What kind of country do we live in that our students don’t even have a secure entrance for their schools? Securing entrances to schools is one of the most effective ways to make schools safer. The federal government should make an emergency resolution to make every school in America have a secure entrance, right now.

It is beyond anger that so many in our country, reflected in our leaderships simply do not prioritize the safety of our schools, and my son’s safety. It should not just be on parents to advocate for the needs of children in America in the same way it should not be just on people of color to be anti-racist, and it should not just be on women to fight for women’s rights. Our children are all our responsibility, and the soul of the nation is darkened and tainted every time we chose to do less...or nothing at all.

Every time there’s a school shooting tragedy, I come home from school a little earlier, I hug my children a little longer, and I tell them that I love them a couple extra times. I try not to express to fear, but rather gratitude and pride for how these little ones have enriched my life and made my life more meaningful. Being reminded about the finite-ness of life isn’t always a bad thing and making sure that your words to the ones you love are words you would be happy with being your final ones isn’t a bad way to live your life.

I do fear the loss of my children. I am not a religious person and while I have learned to accept death in my life, the death of my children is something that is beyond my comprehension and dealing with this loss through a school shooting is beyond my imagination.

All of these thoughts and feelings are inside of me every day, but there’s something more powerful at play.

This morning after I walked Ollie up to the door of his school, he turned to me and said goodbye. We hugged and he gave me a kiss. Ollie reminded me to wait to wave to him through the windows of the kindergarten hallway after he entered the building.  As I watched him walk away from me, this is all I felt:



I’ve never hesitated to drop Ollie off at school for fear of his safety. I’ve had issues separating from him because I’m worried that he will be help from me, needed comfort only I could provide, or because I don’t want to miss out on his day.

I’m not so naive to think that a school tragedy couldn’t happen at my son's school. I’m well aware that there is no demographic that hasn’t been touched by school violence. So, it’s not ignorance that brings me optimism when I drive away from school after dropping him off.

I believe in schools. The only way to solve the problems in schools, and in our world is for us to send out children to school, and to support them and our schools. That knowledge, that feeling, that power we are handing to our children through education, that potential to change everything that is dark and oppressive pushes the fear in my heart into the corners.

So how do I send my kid to school?  I do it with the same belief and optimism that get me up every morning as I ask myself, how I can better person today for myself, my family, and my community.  I cope with the stress by doing good work, and if the real thing did happen?  I believe I would do the exactly same thing.  

Year 9: Week 34 – “What do you do?” Dealing With School Shootings As a Teacher

I saw this post on my Facebook feed from a friend and it has stayed in the back of my mind for the past two weeks. I’m going to address this over two posts, one from a teacher point of view and one on Monday from my perspective as a parent.

School shootings are still happening, and our government, even with people fighting to address this issue, has yet to make any significant progress in making our school’s safer. The normalization of school shootings is occurring in the education community like it is in the media and in our cultural consciousness. I clearly remember a faculty meeting called the Monday after the Sandy Hook Tragedy (the shooting was on a Friday). However, we have not responded as a school with a similar faculty conversation after the recent school shootings for the 14 gun related incidence in schools that have occurred so far in 2019. Yeah, 14 in 2019, 29 deaths. I point this out not to say that my school is making any grievous error in our response. This is our reality.

As my school brings in experts, and works hard to make our school safer, it can feel discouraging that and isolating as no one there is a sense that we are alone in this work. Federal funding isn’t being spent in a significant way to make our schools safer. The gun industry and the NRA is making no efforts to makes school safer. Education in America is trying to address an issue we cannot fix alone, but that’s what teachers do all of the time. And educators do this every day, even though no one else seems to care. Can schools solve racism in America? Of course not, but that keep us from trying, hoping and doing the work. The same can be said for school safety.

Do I fear for my safety when I come to work? No. Have I ever been concerned for my safety in the thirteen years as an educator? No. Have I had nightmares about school shootings? Yes. Have I envisioned scenarios of school shootings, and my response? Yes. Is it hard to keep it together during lock down drills? Yes, it is.

So, what do I do? My job. I try to stay focused. I keep in my mind that my feeling about school shootings are mine and are not necessarily the way my students feel about these issues. And I do the best I can to make my time with my students have meaning.

After the attacks on 9/11, my mom’s advice was to start doing, get busy, and get to work. The hard times will give us pause and that’s okay but life is about moving forward and doing good. Every time there’s a school shooting, I pause, sometimes I feel it more deeply than other times. I let the sadness come over me, and remind myself that each one of these tragedies only solidifies the importance of my essential job as an educator.

Then I take a deep breath, and I get to work.

Parenthood: Week 318 – Ethan In May 2019

Ethan, our little one and half year old, is really moving now. He’s climbing up on tables, opening every cabinet, and pretty much making it clear to us that he needs to be watched most of the time. He has this little gleeful smile every time he does something that he knows he probably shouldn’t. It doesn’t always convince us to not be stern with him, but it’s effective more often than not.

Ethan is a fan of putting on people’s shoes which was more of an issue during the winter. Though sometimes it can be pain trying to locate shoes when you are on the way out the door. He does everything possible to get into Ollie’s toys, especially the ones that aren’t age-appropriate.

Our Blu-ray player has provided many minutes of entertainment.  We rarely use it, but Ethan loves opening it and closing it watching the tray go in and out.  Also, somehow Ethan has figured out how to turn the television on and off, using the remote control and by pressing the buttons on the televisions itself. Interested that Ollie, our older boy didn’t figure this out until he was at least 3 years old.

Another of Ethan’s favorite things is our food pantry. We have a broom closet in our living room that we installed built-in drawers to turn into a food pantry. We have two large plastic food storage containers that we store on the floor of the pantry. One container has Buffy’s dog food, and the other one has Cheerios.

Sometimes I find Ethan in the closet with a handful of Cheerios walking casually walking out of the closet, satisfied with his snack. Other times, Ethan will carefully carry the measuring cup we leave in Buffy’s food container carrying about three pieces of kibble. He then will carry the cup to Buffy’s food dish, squat down and gently pour the kibble into Buffy’s bowl. Ethan stands up with great pride after accomplishing this task, while Buffy looks up to me with confusion.

Ethan is into trains now. He really likes the bridge and the slopes. I try to make him some nice series of tracks but whenever I make something that is a closed track, Ethan joyfully flips over the whole track. Another one of his favorite toys is a little plastic cow that makes kissy sounds when you have it touch noses with a little baby cow that came with it in a set.

Ethan is still into his taking off his socks for no good reason. The other morning, I found a sock stuffed into one of his snack cups. I do enjoy now watching him try to put on his socks and shoes. Especially when he takes off his shoe and sock and then try to put on his shoe without a sock. The concentration is amazing to witness and the its endlessly entertaining because he still has a long way to go until he figures this out, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

Year 9: Week 33 – Her Crew

She was late.

I had already started working with the 6th graders, and one of the 8th graders. Our time was short and I wanted to make sure that the students felt comfortable on stage. Our middle school bands were joining together to perform “Glory,” from the film Selma. As part of this performance I let students audition to be featured to perform Common’s first rap verse from the song. The group ended up being a mix of 6th, 7th and 8th graders.

Everyone I was expected to be there had shown up except for one of the 8th graders so we got to work. This was during their lunch break and the other students had hustled to get there so I didn’t want to waste their time waiting for the last 8th grader.

As I was standing in the audience giving directions I heard the door open behind me. I looked back and to my dismay, the last 8th grader was there along with a group of six other students. My immediate thought was to ask the other girls to leave. I didn’t have time for distractions, this wasn’t an open rehearsal, and I was worried that the students on stage would be distracted with these other students in the audience.

The 8th grader explained that they were her “crew,” and they were there to hype everyone up.

Then I had one of those teacher moment. It only last a couple second in reality but feels like a couple minutes in your head.  In this time, you speed through possibilities and scenarios almost like viewing alternate timelines trying to figure out the best way to “choose your own adventure.”

It came down to the fact that I needed to show this 8th grade girl trust and give her crew a chance. I figured that the worst case scenario is that I kick them out.

The crew settled down in the center of the auditorium, and they were awesome. After every repetition, they cheered and encouraged the people on stage. They gave as much love to the 6th graders as they did the 8th graders. When I broke lines down and worked the rappers, the crew was quiet.  Then they erupted in cheers when the rappers on stage put together what they had fixed.

We had a pretty good vibe before but the crew made the vibe incredible. The students on stage got a chance to work in front of a friendly audience and get used to the feeling of having people watch them as they performed.

It is worth noting that the 8th grader is a student of color and her crew were also students of color. It’s wonderful that their support of each other has been nurtured in my school and that they extended this to the 6th graders in this space.  This was a wonderful highlight of my week and was an important reminder of how great 8th graders can be with each other and for others.

Parenthood: Week 317 - The Fleeting Anger

It takes a lot of energy to not stay mad.

Last week, after a day that was stressful, and after evening where chores took up too much time and kept me up too late, I was awoken around 2am by Ethan crying. In only a couple hours I’d have to be up getting ready for work, on a day where my 5th graders had a culminating musical performance that I was leading.

Ethan’s awakening at that time pretty much ensured that a feeling of being rested was an impossibility. If he had gotten up a couple hours earlier, most likely he would have gotten back to sleep and provide time after settling down for me to get a couple hours of sleep. Getting up a 2am though meant that even if he did get back down to sleep, the hour or two afterwards before I needed to get going in the morning would not be that restful.

I was frustrated to be woken up, and somewhere inside of me, in a place more primal than logical, I was mad at Ethan. His disturbance in the early morning was going to make my entire day more difficult. There was no time to have a nap that day or to somehow magically make it right until the next evening. Even that wasn’t a guaranteed fix, because there was a chance that the next night wouldn’t be much better.

Of course, I couldn’t be mad at Ethan. He’s only one and half years old. Ethan isn’t waking up to spite me. Maybe he’s hungry, maybe he’s cold, or maybe he woke up lonely, fearful in the dark that his memory of his family was only a fleeting impression in his mind.

The process, the mental exercise of changing this emotion, this feeling from anger to calm, anytime, especially in the early morning is very difficult. It’s a process that goes counter to how I normally work to validate my own emotions. It’s asking me to push aside an emotion quickly, and not deal with it, which run contrary to how I try to treat the people I encounter in my life. It’s a selfless refocusing of a  pragmatic need over emotion.  Ethan needed to fell my clam to calm down himself. 

This emotional process would be close to impossible if not for the baby in my arms, and the sadness in his cry. As Brandi Carlile, so eloquently sings in “The Mother,” “The first things that she took from me were selfishness and sleep.” It is this lack of selfishness, that helps us endure through the lack of sleep and the anger. Because our children teach us that while our emotions are important, in some moments how others feel are more important.  If we allow ourselves to be for another, our emotions can change. This is not an invalidation, but rather a way that we as humans can inspire change, and be better for each other, and in turn be better for ourselves.

Year 9: Week 32 – The Question Of "Should"

I actually backed off my load recently. There was an assembly that I was tentatively planning that I’m putting off until next year and another grade presentation that had some good momentum, but I decided to put the brakes on and cancel  as well.

I usually operate with the approach that if an idea is good enough, I will figure how to make it work. This approach has served me well over the past year I’ve been at this school, but something feels different as we move through this spring.

I’m tired. My little one (the one and a-half-year-old) isn’t sleepy badly, but he’s not sleeping great either and it’s not unusual as of late to spend early morning hours with him, and by early I mean 2am. Mentally there’s a lot going on at work and in my personal life. I’m managing, but I’m always weary that at some point I might get overwhelmed and I don’t want to find out where that point is the hard way.

Sitting down earlier this week, I thought I saw a glimpse of that moment up ahead.

I have a saying taped up on the hutch of my desk that reads, “It’s never a question of can. It’s always a question of should.” I’ve taken this approach to project, curriculum, and initiatives. Lately I’ve realized that I should probably apply this saying to my work load. I could plan all of this extra stuff, but should I?

I love my job. I love the work, making connection, planning things and watching it all come together. There have always been thing in this job that I love that feel like a chore and that’s cool and fine. You don’t have to love everything about your job to love your job. However, I only got so much that I can do, and my question of "should" I do things need to focus more now in my life not in the philosophy, but in my own capacity to get things done.

I have no plans at all to leave my job anytime soon, but how I work and the long-term effect I can have on this school community are intertwined. If I’m putting on an assembly and I do all of the work, I may have created a meaningful experience for my school community, but I would have done nothing to help this work continue.  The process of how we create and work needs to be done with others in order for others to grow, learn and understand what it means to meaningfully engage in work.

If I am to be more collaborative that means that the process of putting projects may feel less productive but that’s okay. As much as we want to make things happen pragmatically, the true growth, and our true legacy comes from how we work in an inclusive way to help other feel empowered to create meaningful contributions to school community.

No one is pushing me harder at this school than myself. I guess that’s a good thing? I’m not sure, but right now, in this moment in the year in my life, I should push a little less, focus on what’s already in front of me.  This will allow me to more fully enjoy the time I have left to work with my amazing students.