20 Moments Of 2020: Part 5

8. I'm going to go with Lovett

My first thought after almost every single political news story this year was, "What Jon Lovett think?

During the Obama administration, Jon Lovett, a former White House staffer, helped me interpret, process, and better understand politics in 2020. On his podcast Lovett or Leave It, and Pod Save America, which he hosts along with Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor, and Dan Pfeiffer, he brought humor, truth, and empathy during some of the most difficult traumatic parts of 2020.

In his analysis, Lovett never forgot the human factor, the power of emotion, and empathy.

So much about trump and his movement is about denying pain.

It's about denying their own pain. 'Oh you feel bad, you feel a loss of purpose, you feel like America is leaving you behind, it's not on you. Hate some other people. Point your anger elsewhere.' And a lot of it is about trying to convince people that they don't matter.

That's why you don't need masks at a rally. That's why you don't have to take COVID seriously. Convince yourself that you are so strong, you're so tough, that you don't feel pain. You don't need to worry about pain, you'll be okay. To deny services, to deny help, to deny compassion to other people; that is so core to what trump does.

At the core of Lovett does is the opposite of trump. Beyond the humor and the shtick, Lovett seeks to understand and help others be understood. Every time I turned to Lovett to better help me understand what was happening in our country, he never failed to inform me, think more deeply about my beliefs, and inspire me to be a better citizen.

7. Justice Ginsburg's Rainbow

I was sitting on the floor leaning against my bed, weeping, as "Rainbow" played on repeat through my earbuds.



We had lost so many before her death came last September. Maybe it was the struggle of trying to teach in-person and the ongoing stress of the pandemic. But something happened; something finally broke inside of me when I heard about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's passing. She had done so much in her life to benefit all Americans. She gave me one more gift with her passing, the push to mourn, to feel deeply, and let go.

Just because she is gone doesn't mean that we are without her spirit and others like her fighting for equity and justice. There is "always a rainbow hanging over your head."

6. Breonna Taylor's Life Still Matters

Breonna Taylor should still be alive. Her murderers should be in jail, and the system that allowed the circumstances of her death to occur should be dismantled. She is one of many and part of the American story of racism, which has been with us since before our country's founding.

Our work is not done because there will be another racist murder, but there will never be another Breonna Taylor.

It's been months since her death, and I'm still processing her murder. I think I always will be. 

Parenthood: Week 403 – 20 Moments Of 2020: Part 4

11. Home of The Brave 

When that nine-year-old asked Mayor Pete Buttigieg how to be brave, instead of drawing upon his years of military service or lecturing the boy, Buttigieg did something remarkable. He acknowledged the bravery within children that many do not understand. 

 

Like a great teacher and a great parent, Buttigieg did not lie to this boy or color the challenging process of coming out as Gay as being easy. He was unambiguous in his answer about the challenges that he would face. Like a great leader Buttigieg empower that boy by helping him understand how his bravery could inspire others and how there will always be people rooting for the ones brave enough to be themselves.

Pete Buttigieg showed the world in 2020 what it meant to be brave running as a Presidential candidate, never fearing to be honest and true to himself. More importantly, he showed America's children that there is power in the bravery in their hearts.

10. Waitin' On A Sunny Day

There was no election victory. For four days, we waited. Even though it was certain that President-elect Biden was going to win before Saturday, November 7th, America was holding its breath, wanting to be sure of the results.

On top of the election, I was exposed to a student with COVID-19 that Wednesday, and the stress of getting tested (the tests came back negative) and having to transition to teaching remotely was palpable. By the time we got to Saturday, I was exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Watching my children play in the grassy hills in the Chicago Botanical Gardens after hearing the news that President-elect Biden had indeed won was wonderful. The challenges were still in front of us. COVID-19 was still raging, systems of oppression continued to create savage inequalities in our country, and we still weeks before Biden would be inaugurated. But the sun was out, the sky looked a slightly different shade of blue, and my children were laughing.

That morning we got something that we all needed to keep ongoing.

Hope.

 

9. My Ancestor

I miss my dad.

I haven't in a little over a year, and I likely will not see him until this summer. It's been tough not being able to share so much of my life with him.

Like many men, I struggle with what it means to be a son and be a father. As destructive masculinity continues to be modeled and respected by so many, it isn't easy to know how to be a man, especially with a father across the country.

Bruce Springsteen is one of those men who struggle along with me.

In 2020, Bruce Springsteen opened up about his philosophy, his insecurities, and his life. The film Westerns Stars was a beautiful reflection on his life, and the album Letter To You was a love letter to past friends and memories of the music he shares with his fans. And in 2020, we were finally able to see Springsteen On Broadway as a film. 

 

Watching alone, my sons sleeping peacefully in their rooms, Springsteen's thoughts about his father affected me deeply.

We are ghosts or we are ancestors in our children's lives. We either lay our mistakes, our burdens upon them, and we haunt them, or we assist them in laying those old burdens down, and we free them from the chain of our own flawed behavior. And as ancestors, we walk alongside of them, and we assist them in finding their own way, and some transcendence. My father, on that day, was petitioning me for an ancestral role in my life after being a ghost for a long, long time.

About a month ago, I wrote a letter to my dad for the first time in my life and shared with him these words. I told him that he is and has always been an ancestor. Life is too short to let things be left unsaid, so I took this opportunity to make sure he knew how much I loved him and that I was grateful that he was always there for me and always with me. 

Year 11 – Week 16: 20 Moments Of 2020: Part 3

14. Student teaching…mentor 

This fall, I took on the role of student teaching mentor for the first time in my sixteen-year teaching career.  It may have the worst of times to take on a student teacher, but it was the best of times in more ways. With all of the curriculum changes, it gave the student-teacher space to work on curriculum development, and I also really needed this help. I was teaching general music without singing and a band class without instruments. I needed help, and my student teacher needed the experience. Because of our mutual effort to make this partnership work and a shared paradigm of teaching, we could help each other grow as educators. Both despite the pandemic and because of it, student teaching was a success for both of us.  

There is more than teaching students in my future as an educator. A path lies ahead of me, and after being a student teaching mentor, it's becoming clearer.  

 

13. Inspiring John Lewis

The late Representative, John Lewis, is one of my most important influences as a teacher. His work continues to inspire me to work harder for my students, myself, and our country. Striving to continue his work in my classroom in some small way brings meaning to my work. When Representative Lewis passed away on July 17th, he left an essay, one final lesson. 

His final essay was a gift and a reminder that we all have the power to inspire and make the world a better place, as he did.  

When Representative John Lewis came to my school and spoke to all of the students and teachers, I don't remember clearly the content of his entire speech. However, I do remember how he made me feel.   

Representative Lewis made me feel like I belonged, I mattered, and I had the power to make right the injustice I see in the world. I hope that someday I can make my student feel Representative Lewis made me feel that day.  

 

12.  Opening In-Person

The opening of this school year was the most difficult school year openings in my career. It was a process filled with fear, uncertainty, and tension. There was no guidebook and no clear process. My views on what should happen in the fall evolved. I started with being completely anti-in-person school to fully supporting and spending extra hours late and night and on weekends trying to make in-person school work.  

I can't fully explain how this happened, nor do I fully understand how I came to be working so hard to make something work that many people felt was the wrong choice.  

In times like these, all I could, all we can do is "the next right thing." One choice, one step at a time. With the future as uncertain as it is, all you can do focus on the next choice in front of you. And now that I think about it, the future was never as certain as we thought. Maybe it's not that I had it wrong this fall or last summer, but I had something else wrong in previous years.

20 Moments Of 2020: Part 2

17. America The Beautiful 

There is beauty in America. The diversity in our land, in our people, and our history is complex, nuanced, and inspiring. Nowhere was this clearer during the Democratic Roll Call during the Democratic National Convention.

In the previous conventions, I found watching this part of the program boring and tedious. This year, the convention organizers took the challenge of doing a roll call during a pandemic as an opportunity. We saw our cities' beauty, our land, and most powerfully, our people during this roll call.

People of all genders, sexual identify, generations, and positions represented their states with dignity and pride. There are too many moments in this role call that were meaningful to name here. In the words that were spoken and in the backgrounds through pictures and settings, we saw America's story. This is the story of people who have made America great by fighting the oppression that founders built into our government's structure and lie in the darker corners of our hearts. It was a wonderful experience to watch this, so much that we re-watched in with our seven-year-old.

There are very dark and disturbing corners of our country. Still, good people continue to work to make America a more inclusive, equitable, and beautiful country with hard work, love, and optimism.

 

16. Gaslighter

The anger, bitterness, and rage, and the hope that I felt in 2020, were mirrored nowhere more directly and beautifully than in The Chick's album Gaslighter.

There was a lot of great music during 2020, but no musicians spoke directly to the emotions that I felt during this past year. While the stories told in this album were mostly related to the divorce, they were not ones I could directly relate to; these stories paralleled what was happening in my life and what was happening in our country.

In our country, many leaders gaslighted the citizens, acted in unspeakably immoral ways, and left Americans battered, scarred, and left for dead. This was the year that the "courage of man" failed, and like The Chicks, I felt rage at many men in America for having the ability and privileged to ease the trauma of this difficult year and made it worse for their own personal gain.

There was more than rage in this music. The was also the revenge of living well, the feeling of being, and the power of acceptance.

In "Texas Man," Natalie sings about not being young but still having worth and value.

I'm a little bit unraveled.

Everybody wants the new model

But I'm a little bit more traveled

If you got the strength, I do.

Then sign me up.

If I'm not too much for you.

Then sign me up, sign me up.

I'm a little bit unraveled, but I'm ready.

This album is about how we can persevere and make it through the difficult times and the horrible things that people do to us. Maines sings at the end of "My Best Friend's Wedding," an affirmation of how we can make something out of all that has been burned down and rise.

I'm back here at my best friend's wedding,

Yeah, she married again.

I've never seen her look more happy,

Guess from ashes, we can really grow.

And my wildfire's comin'

Burnin' the path that I've known.

Watch me, yeah, watch me run with it,

Take it wherever it goes.

 

15. Dr. Fauci elevates Dr. Corbett

During the AIDs crisis 1980s, Dr. Fauci stood up against the prejudice and the discrimination that people had against people who have AIDs. As a scientist, he used facts and research to dispel illusions that were spread about AIDs and helped people see the humanity in those suffering from this syndrome.

In 2020, Dr. Fauci's work demonstrated his value of individuals, their self-worth, and a belief that we can do better for each other and ourselves. So it's no surprise that given the opportunity, he elevated Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, a Black woman who was a key scientist behind the COVID-19 vaccine. Even though this action reflected Dr. Fauci's character, it was still significant in a field where women and minorities are under-represented. Black women are dehumanized by many in our country, including the soon to be former President trump.

Embracing diversity and having the most qualified and imaginative people working on your team is a reality in many different places. If this model worked to develop the COVID-19 vaccines, it could work for every workplace in America. 

 

 

Parenthood: Week 402 – 20 Moments Of 2020: Part 1

As 2020 comes to a close, I wanted to somehow talk about what happened and what this year has meant to me. After a couple of weeks of thinking, I've settled on the twenty most impactful, emotional, and meaningful moments of the year. One of my goals with this blog to put more beauty, joy, and love on the internet, which so full of cruelty and callousness. However, it seems disingenuous this year to only focus on the good. So I will talk about difficult moments, and I'm not going to twist every entry into having a "silver lining" because there isn't always good that comes out of bad. Sometimes creating the meaning of tragedy can feel like gaslighting because sometimes, sadness is nothing more than loss. 

 

20. When Super Me Becomes Super We

DC Super Hero Girls was my favorite show that my sons got obsessed with this year. It's a show that is everything that many superhero films and shows are not. It is funny, made for children, not focused on patriarchal ways of conflict resolution (e.g., fighting), and is racially diverse. It embraced teenage drama without stereotyping teenage girls and uses DC mythology to tell stories that creative, relationship-focused, and funny. It's a modern show that deals with tough issues. One of my favorite episodes has to do with cyberbullying, and it was addressed very well, and like all of the episodes were more about empathy than superpowers. 

 

It's the only superhero show or film that I feel is appropriate for their ages (seven-years-old, and three-year-old), and it was really wonderful to share my own love of DC Comic through this show.

Over the summer, Ollie earned DC Super Hero Girl dolls with his sticker chart for school work and chores. There were some adorable moments of Ollie and Ethan playing with these dolls and observing Ollie comb their hair as Diana taught him.

Superheroes can be for adults, and they can be dark and gritty. Superheroes, as portrayed in DC Super Hero Girls, should also be young children and be colorful, fun, and feminist. 

 

19. Lucas' Curly Hairs

It was heart-breaking when my mom wrote to me in an email, "we can't touch Lucas's curly hairs yet. "

After months of hope, lots of research, my parents had decided that we would not see each other this fall. This conclusion and the loss that would continue from so much time apart felt even sadder when thinking about Lucas' hair.

One of the wonderful things about having bi-racial children is that you can never be quite sure what you will get when it comes to hair. Lucas was born with hair like my other two sons, but what surprised us is as it grew longer, curls starter to develop. Little ringlets from on top of his head and the side of his head around his ears. It's super cute and something that is uniquely Lucas.

The last time I saw my parents was last December when Lucas was born, and they will likely not see him again until the summer. Effectively they will have missed out on being there for the first year of his life.

There are so many moments and changes that they have only experienced from afar.

There are so many things I love about Lucas. Every night right before I go to bed, I check on him. I tell him that I love him, and I gently feel the curls in his hair. It's a reminder of all that is magical and wonderful about this child and what my parents are missing.

My parents will hold Lucas, feel his curls between their fingers, and he gazes up at them, smiling.

It makes me sad to think that it can't happen now, but I am hopeful, knowing that it's only a matter of time.

 

18. Child COVID-19 tests

First, it was Lucas, not even one-year-old, sitting in the back seat of our mini-van, fussing and crying as we waited for his turn to get his COVID-19 test. There were no appointments, and the wait was much longer than predicted by the front desk staff. I wasn't sure what to do. Ethan was hungry, and I had no food for him. I'll never the look on his face as he cried while we waited.

Then it was Ethan. This time we got an appointment, but it was a long drive. The people were great, and they did the best they could. However, it was scary for Ethan as two people in full PPE gear reached into the car. One of them help his arms down and his head still, while the other stuck the swab in his nose. I'll never forget his scream as they took his sample.

Both of my children were negative on their COVID-19 test and tested as a precaution, not because of known exposure.

The stress of waiting for your child's COVID-19 test results is a horrible experience that parents all across America have suffered through.

Yes, I am grateful that we could get my children tested and have the peace of mind that they did not have COVID-19. However, the challenges of COVID-19 testing for children are real and, in many places, are still left unaddressed.

Many people in power in America do not prioritize the needs of children. That much has always been clear. In 2020, people's lack of determination to do what is best for our nation's children led to dire consequences. If we don't care to make testing easy and accessible to children, it's no surprise that schools have failed to get needed resources while the number of children who do not have enough food to eat continues to skyrocket.

Year 11 – Week 15: The Other Side Of Student Teaching

During the pandemic, remote and in-person, in schools and homes across America, school continued. Even though many students have experienced incalculable trauma, unfulfilled potential, and the loss of school itself, others experienced the rhythms of the school year, different in many ways, but felt deeply nonetheless. First-year teachers struggled through their work, while master teachers began their retirement year. Students nervously met new teachers while enthusiastically reunited with friends after a summer apart. And college students began the most important part of their teacher education: student teaching. 

This year I took on a role as a student teaching mentor for the first time in my sixteen-year teaching career. One reason for this is that while there are student teachers at my school periodically, it's not very common. Also, I felt like I wanted to have a solid hold on my craft and my work at this school to allocate time and energy away from other responsibilities to being a good student teaching mentor. Last spring, when I agreed to take on a student-teacher, it seemed like 2020-2021 would be a great time to have a student-teacher. I wasn't planning on taking any leaves, I felt good about my position in my school, and I knew it was long overdue that I gave back and did right by my amazing student teaching mentors and pay it forwards.  

When I interviewed the then prospective student teacher last February, I had no idea what the following months would bring. She came in for an interview, and it went really well, and I was happy to bring her on board. I submitted the paperwork to make it official on March 11th, two days before my school closed, and went remote on March 13th, which was the beginning of the pandemic experience for me. 

I didn't really think too much about having a student-teacher that spring. Last spring, I was focused on the present, and maybe a week ahead.  The next school year was not on my radar.  

Knowing what I knew as things rolled out unpredictably, we just moved forward in the next couple of months. My student teacher and I had a couple of excellent phone meetings, and we were moving along.  

On August 3rd, I got an email from one of the professors at my student teacher's university. Basically, they gave me an out. I always knew that having on a student-teacher was taking a chance. A great student teacher is a partner who teaches the mentor as well and enriches the educational experience for everyone involved. A bad student teacher is a burden that can create extra work and stress for the mentor teacher. I made a commitment to her, and no matter how difficult the fall was going to be, I didn't want to let her down. So I decided that I would let her decided how we would proceed. With all the uncertainty and lack of information I could give her, she said she wanted to move forward, so I emailed the professor that we would proceed as planned. 

There's a lot I can about having a student-teacher. I may go into it more later; I may not. What I will say now is that this experience was one of the most rewarding I've had as a teacher. What originally was going to an eight-week placement became a sixteen-week placement because things were going so well. And I can't imagine making it through this past fall, one of the most challenging periods of my teaching career, without such a wonderful partner.

Parenthood: Week 401 – Butterfly On The Cheek

Would you have any issue with your son getting a butterfly painted on his cheek? 

One set of parents did. 

Diana shared this Twitter thread with me recently, in which a face painting artist tells the story of a boy who wants a butterfly on his face, and his parent resists this request, and have him get a skull instead. 

I've been thinking a lot about this and trying to figure out why the parents wouldn't allow their son to express himself through a less typically masculine marking of a butterfly.  

It's too simple to say that they are explicitly promoting sexism or that they are willfully promoting toxic masculinity, and they are horrible people because there is a chance that these parents are acting out of love.  

One of the most effective and insidious ways people made Gay try to be straight was to be convinced that they didn't have a future and wouldn't be loved.  

Unfortunately, this strategy worked, as demonstrated in this heartbreaking clip from Rocketman.  

 

This is one reason why the It Gets Better Project was so effective. It proved this narrative wrong and showed young people that there was a future, there was family, and there was love for Gay people.  

 

While we've made progress, our culture is still filled predominately with images of male success, and happiness is based on traditional gender roles: athletes and businessmen. Yes, there are exceptions, but they are exceptions. Parents want their sons to be successful, and many of them are just trying to get their sons to the success that culture shows them, which doesn't include butterflies painting on boys' faces.  

Raising a son and letting them explore masculinity in gender non-conforming ways is believing that defining their individuality against gender stereotypes will help them learn to love themselves. Not being a traditional "man" in America likely means that you will feel left out, that you feel lonely, and that you have to work harder to find acceptance. Because sometimes it is the choice. Have your son be themselves and not play football with the other boys, or tell them to compromise to appear to have a group of friends. 

We need to think about the men who are successful in a different way. We need to look at people like Joe Biden, who demonstrate that success as a man is about elevating others and expressing strength, not through aggression but empathy. We need to elevate men those successful despite their masculine gender non-conformity for more of our sons to be successful because of their genuine expression of who they are beyond the false binary of gender roles. And we need to acknowledge, name, and deconstruct the fears that so many have of the perceived sadness and lack of a future a boy may have if they want a butterfly painted on their cheek by being themselves.  

Our sons are destined to be haunted by our unresolved trauma due to the ideas of masculinity in our culture if we cannot break the destructive masculinity. 

Our sons can show us how to let them explore their gender expression if we let their joy be a greater guide than our comfort.  

And our sons deserve to have the freedom to love themselves and not face the loneliness that is so often accompanied by truly being themselves.  

This is all a lot harder to do than it appears, so yes, those parents really should have let their son have a butterfly on his cheek, but maybe they need empathy, more than scorn to understand better how to be better parents.

Year 11 – Week 14: Who I Am?

This week is usually one of the most stressful of the year. It's typically the week before the JK-5 winter performance and the choir concert. Even though I've done these performances for years, each time this week has come around, it's been filed seemingly endless amounts of work, anxiety, and stress. More than all of that, it's a week full of possibility, excitement, and hope.  

This year, this week has felt, like, well, just another week. We have no performances next week. We are putting together a video that features student work that will be shared, but the bulk of that work was done weeks ago. There is a feeling that winter break is coming but not a rush of excitement that comes from events, but rather a sense of finality that comes with time.  

I've been prepping for a performance week for every year for the past 12 years, except for last year when I was on leave for the birth of my third son Lucas. Like last year, in a way, it's nice to not have the stress of these performances during this time of year. This time of year is usually so difficult because my role as a teacher gets more time consuming while there, I need to spend time preparing for holiday events.  

Now, I don't have that extra stress and extra work, and it has allowed me to enjoy the holiday season more with my family. This is a nice change, but that doesn't mean that I want it to be like this next year.  

So many music teachers are trying to figure out how to feel about their work without public performances to prepare for. The absence of these events, and this pressure, allow for a significant opportunity to reflect on what is most important, most meaningful about our jobs as teachers and our lives as individuals.  

What if this was teaching for me moving forward? Would I still love teaching if there no more performance? Would I find the work of being a music education exciting and satisfying without the ebb and flow of stress of performance preparation anxiety?  

You know, I have left behind things in my life that were more exciting in some ways. I used to be a performer. I've sung choral masterpieces with a full orchestra in front of a packed audience. I used to be a conductor. I led a university basketball band, screaming out directions over thousands of fans, molding sound with my arms, hands, and my force of will. I used to be a composer, and collaborate with musicians, and put on concerts. I don't do any of these things anymore, and right now in my life, I don't miss them...most of the time.  

I miss putting students on stage and helping them perform, but it's not the most important thing to me as a teacher or a person. At some point, I'll move on from this work and find another way to challenge myself. Right now, I have more thinking to do because this school year has forced me to ask the ever-evolving question, "who am I?" In this quiet moment, with my life as a teacher so different than it has been in years past, it is clear that I am less sure of my answer to that question than I want to admit to myself.

Parenthood: Week 400 – 12/7/20

Remote Learning 

Ollie is in the third week of remote learning. His school switched from in-person learning to remote learning the week before Thanksgiving break. It has been going a lot better than the remote learning experience we had last Spring.  

The school is much more organized than the school Ollie was at last year. A web page that the school maintains has a clear schedule, Zoom links, and is updated regularly. The teachers do a great job managing the Zooms and maintaining good and reasonable norms for remote-learning. 

It is clear that his teachers worked very hard to establish a strong, positive, and caring classroom community during the time they were on campus. This carries across to his calls, which is evident in the joy Ollie has in starting his morning Zoom, and the laughter and engagement I overhear in his contributions to class discussions.  

In the afternoon, I can tell that he is drained from the online work, and I’m trying to remind myself to give him extra patience during his time away from in-person school. It’s hard being on Zooms so much, and he’s trying really hard to make it work. I’m proud of Ollie for giving this remote learning his all, and I’m thankful for his schools and his teachers for inspiring Ollie to stay engaged. 

 

The Video

I recently saw a video posted online of an adult who has unilateral hearing loss like Ethan. She talked about what it was like being raised by parents who didn’t talk slower for her, who didn’t give her the space to enter conversations, who didn’t help her understand that her frustrations were due to the challenges of her disability.  

The first time I watched the video, I had to stop because I could feel the rush of emotions coming over, and I knew at that moment that I didn’t have it in me to process this video.  

Later, when I watched the video, I was crushed. 

Look, I know that I’m a great dad to Ethan. I am patient and loving. But I also sometimes forget that he has a disability. A memory came to me as I watched this video. I asked Ethan in the morning quickly from the kitchen, “do you want milk or chocolate milk?”  

Ethan answered me from the other room, “milk.” When I brought him his milk, he said he wanted chocolate milk, and I got frustrated that he didn’t tell me this when I first asked. I felt horrible that I was frustrated with Ethan when he didn’t tell me what he wanted when I initially asked because he couldn’t hear me clearly.  I was in the other room, and I was talking too quickly.  

I’m glad that I don’t see Ethan’s disability as the central part of his identity. At the same time, I do need to remember he needs me to make accommodations for his needs, all of the time. It feels horrible knowing that I’ve made mistakes, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. 

Talking a little bit slower and making sure you are in the same room as your child so that they don’t have to work to understand is not too much to do for Ethan to feels more loved and develop a more profound love for himself.

Year 11 – Week 13: Goal Setting Statement 2020

As part of my evaluation process, I was asked to write a goal setting statement.  Here is an abridged version of my statement.

The answer came to me last June: My goal for the 2020-2021 school year was to take care of myself so that I would be around for the 2021-2022 school year. As hard as the 2020-2021 school year was going to be, I knew that things would not revert to "normal" the following school year, and with the crisis would come an incredible opportunity to rebuild. 

Since last June, I've come to realize that "take care of myself" is more than eating well, getting enough sleep, and engaging in other self-care practices. "Taking care of myself" also meant engaging in the work that I am privileged to have in my life right now. 

Parker has allowed me to go to sleep at night, knowing that time away from my family was work that will improve my students' lives and my own family's future. I teach lessons that deliberately work to create empathy deal with issues of racism to contribute to a world where Black Lives Matter. I am helping my students be more active and critical participants in discussions so that they will see through lies and speak out against the oppression of others, which will help prevent political crises in the future.  

This work is stressful, it's hard, and it's complicated, but it also makes me feel whole and powerful.  

Taking care of myself is a goal that leads me to think about how I can make my work meaningful and relevant for my students so that my time is spent engaging in work that lifts my spirit and brings me pride.  

This school year, I can't teach singing or wind instruments, so I have to modify the previous curriculum and come up with new units. Also, I'm teaching fourth grade for the first time in my teaching career. Even though many of the lessons and the units are new, the values and the philosophy behind my teaching hasn't changed. We are still helping students develop their individual voice through music and help them develop different facets of their identity by having them explore windows and mirrors in music.  

During in-person learning, my goal has been to focus on the joy of music and community. There's been a lot of dancing, varied projects, and space for students to explore what they love about music in their own lives.  

Distance learning has provided great opportunities for learning in different ways. I have been focusing on music class, feeling like screen time. Projects like when students listen to music and create comic books to tell the song's story are ways for music class to have less time for screen time and more about their own creativity.  

It's work that is right, it's work that I do with others, and it's work that is good.  

I spend all my time as a teacher trying to help people, and I spent my professional time around people doing the same thing, trying to help people. In this time of trauma, turmoil, and tragedy, what an awesome thing it is to spend my time helping people and be around wonderful people who want to do the same thing.  

I'm taking care of myself, so I'll be around next school year. I see now that an important part of this is how I care for others this school year, and while I am anxious about the challenges ahead, I am comforted knowing that I don't have to face the future alone and that there will be pride at the end of this journey.

Parenthood: Week 399 – Early Intervention, Part 3 - Going Remote

We started with a hearing specialist when Ethan was six months, and then Ethan started speech therapy a year later when he was a year and a half. From a very young age, Ethan had therapists in his life doing one on one work. Even though Diana or I was with him during these sessions, often we would not be active during this time as the therapist did a great job engaging him. When I was around, Ethan sometimes would want a hug when he was bored or need some redirection to stay focused, but more often than not, Ethan engaged and worked hard during these sessions. 

Therapy was tough work for Ethan. After these sessions, he would be exhausted and often have a great nap after the time with his therapist was done. There were times that it was a struggle to get him working or get him ready in time for sessions scheduled first thing in the morning, but the effort was always worth it. While there were times when I would feel frustration because Ethan wasn't focusing during sessions, Diana would remind me that he was barely a toddler who is working hard.  

The state government subsidizes Early Intervention. I submitted tax returns and other financial information, and they created a payment structure that they felt was appropriate for our income level. While the process of paying for Early Intervention feels overly complicated, the payment level that we paid for Ethan's therapy was very reasonable.  

These two therapists were part of our life. They came to our house, Buffy greeted them enthusiastically, and they were with us for a long time. Ethan enjoyed working with them, and we were so happy with his progress. Additionally, they served as counselors for us, helping us understand what it meant to have a child with a hearing disability and how to navigate the support systems that would help him throughout his childhood.  

When the pandemic hit, and my school and my children's schools went remote on 3/13/20, Ethan's therapy wasn't the first thing on my mind. With all of the stuff that we were juggling, having one less thing to think about at the time was nice. It was clear to us that if our therapists were not going to come to our house, we understood why. As days went on and it sunk in that Ethan couldn't have therapy, it made me really sad and frustrated at one more thing that we were losing because of this crisis. 

I didn't have high expectations for success when Ethan's therapist emailed us about the possibility of remote therapy. This wasn't because of them; it was because of the situation. Ethan was a three-year-old who is doing therapy to help him hearing disability. How effective could this be over Zoom?  

About a month later, we had our first remote session. It was so hard. Ethan didn't react very well to the therapist, it was hard to keep his attention, and it took a lot of work from me to keep him engaged. It felt weird and wrong to force him to interact with a screen when I've been spending so much energy trying to make sure that he didn't have too much screen time during the pandemic when it was a necessary evil.  

During some of those early sessions, Diana and I would have to tag-team because it took so much of us to keep Ethan focused and engaged throughout the session. I'd be exhausted half-way through, and Diana would swoop in with energy and positivity and get him across the finish line.  

The therapist worked so hard. They tried everything. They had music, videos, games, and toys. A lot of stuff they tried didn't work, but they always had something else to try.  

No one gave up. The therapist didn't give up. Diana didn't give up, and I didn't give up.  

Over time things started to get better. We better understood how to be assistant therapists, Ethan got used to interacting with his therapist through the iPad, and Ethan began getting excited once again to engage in the work.  

There were times when it was frustrating that all we could do was therapy over the iPad, but more than that, we were grateful for the incredible hard work that the therapist did to make the time they spent with Ethan meaningful.  

One of the therapists said that Ethan's work remotely was a success story among many children for whom remote therapy wasn't working well. I'm happy about this and sad knowing that even though Ethan had a level of success with remote therapy, he lost something, like so many, because remote therapy had to happen.  

Sometimes the best we can do isn't enough, but for Ethan, the best the therapists and me and Diana did for Ethan made the seemingly impossible happen and created something positive for my special one.

Year 11 – Week 12: The Pandemic, Part 6 - The Faculty

No group of people is a monolith. All people who identify as Black don't have the same political beliefs. All people who identify as Asian like Chinese food, and not all teachers in America, even in my school, felt the same way about school opening this fall. 

Some teachers were vehemently against any in-person learning, some teachers committed to the idea of teaching in-person, and I found that most teachers were somewhere in the middle.  

In the early summer, we left school, trying our best to recover and not over worry about the fall. It was not unreasonable to expect or even to hope that by the time august came around, we would have some clarity in how the best way to educate America's children in the next school year. As the summer wore on and the statistics did not drastically improve like so many of us hoped, schools stumbled at best, and many of them floundered, making unclear statements. Like I outlined in this earlier post, the path to the fall was complicated and ambiguous.  

The summer set-up the faculty at our school for a rough start. It felt like everything was going to be different. The students were entering campus differently; most students had different classrooms, students were taught in small pods, the class size was different for many grades, and the schedule was different. There was very little that felt "normal" as we geared up for that first week back. 

On top of all, most schools in Chicago, most notably the Chicago Public School (CPS), were not going back in-person. As a JK-12 school, we chose to bring our JK-8 students back to campus, and some other private schools had a similar approach, not because we had a consensus amongst the area private schools. Every school was making decisions with the knowledge they had and taking chances to do their best to mitigate risk.  

It didn't feel right, just, or equitable that my students could have in-person learning while students in CPS did not. Were we putting our students and faculty in risky situations to help our tuition dollars?  

Some parents felt like they wanted a refund from the distance learning last spring. Being in-person in a risky situation wasn't right. Shouldn't we be sensitive to the fact that by using our resources to open in-person, weren't we contributing to education equity issues?  

We know the Black and brown children are affected by COVID-19 disproportionally, so were we being sensitive to this fact as most white schools opening in-person? Everyone in this crisis needs to give more, but how much is giving too much?  

These questions were among valid questions that faculty had at our school about opening in-person. There were no easy answers to any of these questions. Some brilliant people I worked with at our school and Chicago decided that our school should not have an in-person school. Yes, there argued issues of equity, but I feel the major issue was the risk of spreading COVID-19. 

After two and a half months of in-person teaching, it is clear that our mitigation strategies worked. Even though students who contracted COVID-19 exposed people at my school, not one faculty or student got COVID-19 from the school building. We didn't know that this is how things would pan out at the beginning of the school year. Even though this is proof of our success and the administration's correct decisions to bring in JK-8 students in-person, others feel the lack of a breakout is just luck. They may be right.  

It felt like I was in the minority in union meetings in supporting our administration's decision to open in-person. I listened and did my best to process the arguments and thoughts of brilliant people who I respect. As the union had voted on actions and demanded more from the administration, my instinct was to work to help them directly. I second-guessed these feelings often and tried very hard to figure out if I was on the wrong side of this. I just kept coming back to this feeling, this idea that it had been done before. Daycares opened in New York that didn't lead to outbreaks. Doctors were working in hospitals and not getting COVID-19. The argument that daycares and hospitals are not schools is a valid one, but that wasn't even to dissuade me from jumping in to make in-person work.  

I worried that the fact that there were members of the faculty who felt differently about the administrator's decision would cause a rift in our school. To my knowledge, it hasn't. When I returned from being quarantined after being exposed by an 8th grader, there was some awkwardness. People weren't sure if I was happy or sad to be back in-person.  

Even though the faculty have varied opinions about the decisions that the demonstration made over the summer and how they came to these decisions, you would have never known watching the teachers with their students that first week of school. 

More than caring who is right and who is wrong, I feel a deep level of respect for my colleagues for handling the start of the school year with professionalism and dignity.     

Parenthood: Week 398 – 2/23/20 – Moments: Bears, Video Games, and Green Clocks

Lucas Bear  

Now that Lucas is putting everything he touches in his mouth, I feel comfortable letting him crawl around on the ground when we are at the park. We have this adorable full-body fleece bear suit that keeps him warm when we are outside. It's great.  

It's not that hard to get him in and out of, it has little glove flaps built in to keep his hands warm, and the best part is that the warm hood has little bear ears on it.  

Lucas has a strong crawl. When he sees a step-down, he knows to turn his body around and go feet first, and he can go up steps with ease. He learned this through one of his favorite activities, going up and down the stairs in our house (we make sure to spot him when he is doing this, and we have baby gates to keep him off the stairs).  

When Ollie was at this stage, he would cry every couple of minutes to check in with me. I would go over, hug him, and put him down, and he'd be good to crawl around and play by himself for a little bit longer.  

Lucas doesn't need this at all from me. He's good to explore on his own for long periods of time. The only time when I really interact with him is if he's about to put something in his mouth or if he's crawling in the direction of something unsafe.  

Lucas is an adorable and brave little bear, and it's wonderful to watch him explore the world with joy and curiosity.  

 

Ollie Getting Into Video Games 

On weekend afternoons, while Ethan takes his naps, we've been exploring playing video games. We started with retro video consoles, the NES Classic, SNES Classic, and Genesis Classic. Ollie got really into Street Fighter II, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Super Mario World.  

Complementing his interest in Star Wars, I got out my GameCube, and we've been working out way through Lego Star Wars II.  

It's an interesting process helping Ollie learn how to play video games. At times I give him space to figure things out, and other times I help him.  

I'm reminded of playing video games with my older brother. At times he would help me through difficult sections, and other times he would be annoyed because I was doing something in the game that made no sense, but I wanted to do it anyway. More often than not, my brother showed me patience with video games, and we had a lot of fun together.  

I'm taking on my brother's role with Ollie, and I see myself doing the same things that my brother did for me. It's fun, sometimes frustrating, and it's nice to have another way to bond with Ollie.  

 

Ethan And The Green Clock 

Ethan has been waking me early in the morning, every day for almost two years.  

When he was in his crib, he would wake up in the middle of the night, crying. I would pick him up and, more often than not, end up with him sleeping with me in my bed. As much as I would try, I couldn't get him to fall back asleep in his bed. One of the problems with this was that Ethan and I didn't get very much sleep when we co-slept. Ethan had this habit of scratching my neck as he slept.   Diana also took a heavy load of Ethan's early morning episodes as well, but I took the lead on Ethan's sleep when after Lucas was born.  

I had some success in getting him to go back to sleep in his crib over the spring, but it never got to the point when he slept for much past 6 am. 

About a month ago, we moved Ethan into Ollie's room. They share a bed with a trundle, and they have been enjoying sleeping in the same room together.  

Instead of Ethan screaming and waking me up in the middle of the night from his crib, I have Ethan waking up and sneaking into my bed early in the morning. Neither of us gets very much sleep when this happens, and we both end up being cranky because of this.  

In a moment of hope, I set up Ollie's old ready-to-wake alarm clock. It's basically an alarm clock that has a function where it lights up green to tell a child when to wake up. For six out of the past seven nights, it has worked!  

Except for one morning, I'm awoken at a reasonable for our household, 6:30 am, with Ethan running into my room holding the clock with its green light lit up. We are both better rested and in better moods because of this clock.  I'm sure there will be more restless nights dealing with Ethan's sleep issues, but it feels like there's a light at the end of the tunnel.  

When Ethan comes into my room with his clock, even brighter than the clock's green light is the smile on his face, full of pride and joy

Year 11 – Week 11: The Pandemic, Part 5 - Going Remote Again

I was planning on writing about how my school opened in the fall, the differing opinions within the faculty, the teacher association's role (our union), and tensions between the administration and the faculty. But then, Tuesday night, I got an email from my administration saying that our school would go remote after Thanksgiving break. I'm going to focus on the present right now and duck back into the past later.

Timeline of email calendar updates: 

• 7/15/20 The school calendar is released to faculty and families. 
• Week of 11/15: no classes on Thursday parent-teacher conferences. 
• Week of 11/22: Monday and Tuesday are full days of classes. Wednesday is a half-day, and Thursday and Friday are Thanksgiving break.  (This is the general approach to these two weeks that we've done in years past. This is expected.) 

• 10/30/20 
• Week of 11/15: no classes on Thursday AND Friday parent-teacher conferences.
• Week of 11/22: Monday and Tuesday are now remote learning classes so that teachers and students can gain some practice with the new remote learning schedules. Wednesday has no school and is now part of Thanksgiving break.

• 11/17/20 
• "All grades will go to remote learning between the end of the Thanksgiving Recess and the start of the December Recess (Monday, November 30, through Thursday, December 17). There will be no school on Friday, December 18, which was previously scheduled as a half-day." 

At the end of October, we knew that we had to prepare for two remote learning days on the week of the Thanksgiving break. That is plenty of time. We found out that we were going remote for after Thanksgiving break, the night before the last day of classes before conferences. Basically, we had less than a day to prepare the students mentally for going remote for December and prepare and disseminate materials for extended remote learning. Could parents come and pick up materials? Yes, like last spring, the how's and when's of this wasn't laid out clearly with the message that December would be remote.  

Did I see this coming?  

Similar to last March, I did, but I didn't want to admit it to myself. I have been so laser-focused on making in-person learning work despite all of the challenges that I haven't let myself focus on the issue of whether our school should be in-person or not and whether we should go remote for an extended period of time.  

I had heard last week that other schools had made the call to go remote for December. It made sense. The positivity rate was going up, and the cases were rising exponentially. Yes, this was concerning. Students and teachers at my school had been exposed by students who had tested positive to COVID-19 who came into the building. No one had gotten COVID-19 from exposure at my school, which means our mitigation practices were working. The issue is that even if we are doing everything right and more and more people are getting COVID-19, even with the best mitigation practices, a school can only do so much keeping people safe and staying functional as a school.  

One of the most difficult lessons I've learned over the eight months is that sometimes it doesn't matter how much I sacrifice and how hard I work. My family did everything we could to stop the spread of COVID-19 last spring and summer, and the case numbers went up. I worked so hard at my job as a teacher for two and half months, carefully following every safety guideline, to make in-person school safe joyful and, and we are going remote because COVID-19 is out of control in Chicago.  

The choices we make have always affected other people. However, we forget this sometimes, and the pandemic has been a painful reminder that the ignorance, lack of empathy, and selfishness of others has a real effect on other people's lives. It is frustrating that people who care so little can have power over my life and my efforts.

At some point, I will process these feelings of frustration and feel proud of what I accomplished teaching music in-person without singing or wind instruments, without a classroom of my own, and without a curriculum, I've used before. 

Right now, I'm just tired. 

While I am not looking forward to remote teaching, I will enjoy being able to let go of the stress of teaching while wearing a mask, and social distancing, in a school full of students, staff, and faculty.  

I take consolation knowing that my school's choices will make the faculty I admire so much and the students I care deeply in my heart safer this holiday season.

Parenthood: Week 397 – Early Intervention, Part 2

 "Duck." 

Looking into Ethan's eyes, she brought her hand close to her face, made the sign for "duck," the pointer and middle finger opening and closing on the thumb like a mouth, and said again "duck." Swiftly she pulled a stuffed toy duck out of her bag and said, "quack." Then she once again brought her hand up to her mouth and signed and spoke the word "duck."  

Ethan was sixth months old when he started with this therapist. We had a different therapist for about two months, but she didn't really work well with Ethan and us. I told a parent of a student who had hearing loss that I taught about this, and the parent told me to request a new therapist. Early Intervention therapists come into homes to work with children. If the vibe is not right, something needs to change. We did just that, and the one we ended up with was amazing.  

Our first meeting with our Early Intervention case manager was on 1/5/18 when Ethan was two months.  

She was talking about getting him started with therapy at four months old. I had made peace at this point that Ethan did have special and was disabled. I was delighted at the idea that he would be able to get therapy at a young age but four months old seemed really young.  

Until we switched therapists at six months old, I didn't really believe that it made sense to do therapy this young.  

At six months old, Ethan was not sitting reliably like most kids his age, so he often sat in our laps during therapy. His attention span could not last the forty minutes of work time that therapy sessions lasted, but this didn't deter his new therapist at all.  

As soon as Ethan lost interest in the duck, she would pull a ball out of her bag, make the sign for "ball," and roll it towards him. She had so many different ways to assess and teach him. For example, she would distract him with a bright spinning toy and then press the button on a noisemaker behind her back to see if he would notice. It was amazing to watch. 

I have had the privilege to watch master teachers work with students, and it is one of the most inspiring and impressive things to witness. She was clearly a master teacher, and she could get this baby to work and really engage. It was a struggle often to keep him engaged, and After these sessions, Ethan would be exhausted and nap really well. In every session, Buffy would always be close by within a couple of feet of Ethan and the therapist, watching carefully to make sure things were okay.  

We started with this amazing therapist on 4/25/18. Sometimes the session would be every two weeks and at other times every week. I was able to make some of these sessions, but Diana did most of them.  

I'll never forget coming home from work a couple of months into therapy and Diana coming up to me so excited.  

"Ethan did great in therapy today!" She exclaimed,  

"Yeah? That's great."  

I replied. "Ethan learned the work, duck!!" 

After months of work, Ethan finally demonstrated to his therapist that he understood the spoken word and the sign for the word "duck." I went over to Ethan and gave him a big hug. I was so proud at that moment. He was really doing the work, and he was growing.  

This therapist guided us through every question we had about Ethan's disability, and through it all, through all of her work with Ethan, she never stopped believing in him. Ethan did nothing to earn this. She walked into that door during their first session, and she looked at him and spoke to him, believing he could learn, he could grow, and that he was worth her time, effort, and care. That is so special to find in a teacher and a human being.  

I don't know how many times she said the word duck, made quacking sounds, and signed "duck" for Ethan, but she never got frustrated, never gave up. Little did we know that this perseverance would be further displayed by a pandemic that would force the therapist of a child with hearing loss to do remote therapy.

Year 11– Week 10: The Pandemic, Part 4 - The Break

More than any year, summer break was just that a break. 

In previous years Summer break was the time between the end of the school year and the beginning of the next year. Yes, there was planning that I did in the spring for the upcoming fall, but there seemed to be a clean break, a sense of finality. That feeling wasn't there. Maybe it was because all of our closing events like graduation were a shadow of themselves on Zoom, or because I never got to say goodbye to most of my students. More than anything else, the uncertainty of fall is what never allowed me to feel like I could truly be done as summer break began.  

We ended school, not knowing what fall was going to be like. No one knew if we would be in-person, remote, or some hybrid of in-person and remote.  

There was a flurry of conversation and debate about schools opening in the late spring, and once that idea got quashed down, we just rode the school year out to the end, and no one seemed to be talking about the fall. There was very much sense of let's not worry about this until later, because someone else is going to figure it out.  

The problem is that we didn't have time. Schools needed every single second from the end of school until the school's opening in the fall to figure out what to do. No help came.  

There was no massive influx of funds, no meaningful guidance from the federal government, and people behaved with complete ignorance of how their choices in spreading the pandemic further would affect schools' possibilities of opening in person.  

I needed to feel like I was doing something to help. I couldn't just sit back and not have a voice, so I volunteered to be on my school's Return to Campus Coordinating Committee. We met on the week of 6/14 a couple of times and talked about ideas and opening in the fall.  

This was followed by a couple of announcements that mirrored the messaging in the spring of how our school closed in the uncertainty.  

June 15th

Our administration explained that they were looking into different possibilities for the fall. No specifics were given at this time. Working on the committee at the time, I felt hopeful that we could find a better way to do remote learning, and I was intrigued by the idea of being in-person.  

 

June 26th  

We received another email saying that plans were in development. At this point, I was convinced that there was no way we would be in-person in the fall, except for maybe the younger grades. It didn't seem right, and it felt far too dangerous.  

 

July 10th

Our administration proudly announcements that all students JK-12 were going to return to campus. I was shocked by this email. It felt like the school was making this promise to differentiate itself from other schools, which at this point were already making announcements that school would not be in person. My more cynical part of my brain thought this was just about money, though part of me understood how, especially for our younger students, we had to make in-person happen.  

 

July 31st

With August coming quickly, the school announced that is Illinois was in stage 4, the 9-12 grade students would be remote, and JK-8 would be in-person. So much of what we were doing was hinging on these stages the governor set, and it was hard knowing that other people would so influence my job in the fall. At this point, I had a full on "freak-out" about being in person. I could not see how this was going to work.  

August 6th 

I was excited to have this meeting with all of the faculty and a leading expert in infectious diseases. I initially left this meeting, not feeling very good about teaching in person because her advice went to go against my fears. When she talked about how unlikely it would be for us to get COVID-19 with certain precautions, I didn't believe her. Later, most of what she said proved to be right, but at the time, I wanted to believe the worst of the possibilities of teaching in-person. I was resentful of not being treated well as a teacher, and it like by extenuated the worst-case scenario. I wanted to be a victim at that time. The problem was that my viewpoint wasn't right, and it didn't reflect the science.  

 

August 12th 

The administration announced that the 9-12 graders were going to be remote. In a way, this was a relief. It meant that getting the JK-8 students in the building would be more feasible. I was happy that my high school teacher colleagues didn't have to be in the building while I was still not feeling good about teaching in-person.  

 

 

Plans started slowly coming together at this point. We found out that students had the option to be remote, but teaches did not. Schedules less than a month before school was to open were still not solidified. I didn't know until the week before school started my schedule and what grades I would teach. While not having a teaching schedule and teaching assignment earlier was stressful and felt unreasonable at the time. 

 

In retrospect, the actual negative effects of this uncertainty were not that big a deal. No matter what, I was going to have to plan week by week. Knowing my schedule earlier wouldn't have really changed that.  

I was proud that I focused my frustration on helping out. I spent hours in the evening and one Saturday morning on the beach, working out schedule issues. While my children played in the Lake Michigan water, I was furiously writing out emails on my phone, trying to make pieces fit.  

 

At that point, I had moved on to the mindset of making things work. I gave up thinking about whether or not we should be in-person and instead focused on doing all that I could to make in-person work. People I trusted in the school felt like we could make this happen. In 12 years, they had the school had never let me down. Once again, I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt.  

 

While the chaos in my brain settled down and I began to focus on what I needed to do to make this work, the opening days of school would bring to light a new tension, one I did not expect and that felt like it could to pull apart our school community.

Parenthood: Week 396 – 11/7/20, The Moment We Knew For Sure

Driving into the Chicago Botanic Gardens, I was relieved. 

I had missed the freeway exit that led to the gardens and had to spend almost twenty minutes trying to figure out how to U-turn and make our way back to the gardens. After getting up early in the morning, Ethan fell asleep in his car seat, allowing us all a respite from his liveliness and energy.  

As I drove toward the parking lot, the Circle Round podcast's calming sound played in the car bringing in a story from a culture not of my own but feeling familiar and comforting.  

I noticed the kaleidoscope of light showered us as light streamed in through the changing fall leaves as I turned into the parking lot. I was looking forward to a good morning with my family. This had been a difficult week, but the weather had remained unseasonably warm, and the changing of fall leaves brought evolving beauty to the world.  

And then Diana, in hushed excitement, told me, "Joe won, it's confirmed." 

Diana had been reminding me all week that the mainstream media narrative was not giving the full picture of what was happening. It seemed like Biden was losing after Tuesday night, but he wasn't. The fact is that the mail-in ballots were going to swing towards Biden. The hope that Biden was going to win became fact on Friday even before major news outlets called it. By Friday, I accepted that the news organizations' final call was going to be a matter of time, and by Saturday, I was at peace with waiting. So when it happened, it didn't feel like a great moment or victory. It felt more like a relief.  

After exploring the orchards in the gardens and getting some lunch, we ended up in the Nature Play Garden.

Only a couple of other people were there as our boys ran around the open grassy field and the gently sloping hills. We reclined on the hills, felt the warmth of the sun, and let the children explore the space. 

Lucas, who is just one month shy of a year old, got very determined to climb one of the hills. He had climbed up some of the smaller ones and, at one point, adorably lost his balance and rolled down the hill giggling as he landed in the soft grass. As he started climbing this larger hill, I reflected on his life. He has no idea who the president is or who the president will be. His world is his family, and with every place he goes, there is something new to experience, something new to see. The hill in front of him was enormous for him to climb for his size, but he was undeterred.  Lucas saw something that he wanted to explore, and he was willing to persevere to get to the top. 

 

When he almost got the top, he lost balance and fell on his side. He screamed out, and I rushed over to him, picked him up, and told him, "everything is going to be okay." As I put him down and watched him make it to the top, it felt like, for the first time in what felt like forever, that things were really going to be okay.

Year 11 – Week 9: Quarantine On Election Day

For weeks I had been thinking about what the election would mean to me as a teacher. Four years ago, I was on an outdoor education retreat during the election. The results came in sitting in a lounge area with some great educators, and the next morning, we told the student the results and kept moving on the activities that we had planned. This was one of the most important moments in my teaching career. It kicked started a journey into diversity work and helped see the real importance of my work as a teacher to instill in my student the perspectives, and the skills to make a better America. 

This year would be different. Because of the pandemic, our retreat was canceled, and after going through the last election away from our families, we made sure to schedule it on a different week even before the pandemic hit. I thought about what I would say to my students if the election was decided Tuesday night or a later date. I tried to figure out what I would say if Vice President Biden won and how I would handle my own emotions in front of my students if trump won.  

I was concerned that my students had the space to process their feelings, and at the same time, I wanted to make sure that teachers didn’t bring up the election in every class and overdue discussions about the election. Most importantly, I wanted to make sure whatever I did around the election was for my students and not for me.  

Monday felt as normal as Mondays have felt teaching a new schedule wearing a mask, and doing lessons about music without singing and playing wind instruments. It ended up being a good day, and I came to school Tuesday, planning to focus on creative, fun lessons for my students. The election was on my mind, and I still wasn’t sure what I would do, if anything, about the election in my music class.  

Around 11 am, my student teacher and I walked to the 8th-grade classroom that we were going to teach our next class in. As I peeked my head in, the teacher in the room gave me a telling look and told me that she would talk to me in the hall. We waited outside for a minute, and she came out and told us that a student in 8th grade had tested positive for COVID-19 and to see when we last taught the class that included this student. I was pretty sure we had taught this student late last week, but I wasn’t sure, so I quickly sat on the ground and double-checked my schedule.  

Yes, we had taught this student. I was going home. 

While no COVID-19 cases have been spread at my school, students had gotten COVID-19 outside the school, come to school when they were asymptomatic, gotten tested, and been found to be positive. When this happens, all the other students in the pod and all teachers who taught that pod have to be quarantined and switch to remote learning and remote teaching.  

We went down to the middle school office, and a group of teachers was gathered there, talking about what was going on. The students in the pod and the teachers who taught this student in a specific time period were going home immediately. I knew that quarantine was a possibility from the moment I started teaching in-person, but all of the ramifications were just now coming down onto me like an avalanche of boulders. It took all I had to keep moving forward as I felt beaten down upon by the possibility of what could be. We went back to the music office, and I stood there looking at my student teacher in silence for a couple of seconds. I asked her if she was okay, and at that moment, looking in her eyes, I realized that I was not okay.  

We went to the school nurse, and she broke down the specifics of what we should when we would get tested and how to handle our specific familial situations. My two older sons would have to say home until I got a negative COVID-19 test, and the circumstances and timing of my teaching the pod with that students meant the chances that I would have gotten COVID-19 were very low.  

I grabbed all I could think to take out of my office and found the two teachers of the two remaining classes I had that day. I figured I could get home to teach one of them remotely and one I couldn’t, so I canceled one class and told the other one that I would teach remotely. I mixed up the schedule, and at the last second, I sent an email with a list of activities and told the other teacher that I could not get home in time to teach the class remotely.  

The next hour I sat in my car trying to schedule a COVID-19 test. It was a frustrating process, but I finally got a test scheduled (both rapid and PCR) and headed home.  

Wednesday, my children stayed home from school, and I got tested. The rapid test result came back quickly, and it was negative, to my relief, and my children were cleared to return to school on Thursday. I’ve been so used to coming up with new lessons and unique teaching situations that switching to teaching all my classes remotely didn’t feel that out of the ordinary. Like so many lessons this year, my first remote lessons were not good, but they got better as the rest of the week progressed. By the end of the week, I felt like I had an idea of handling teaching while quarantined at time.  

Tuesday night, I had no emotional energy to react strongly to the election results. I fell asleep in front of the television, and for the rest of the week, focused so much on my family’s health, the election had little emotional effect on me. I didn’t think to bring it up in my music classes. I had to focus on just making them work, and I was successful at that by the end of the week. 

I can’t imagine going through this past week, well this whole school year, without my student teacher. Each twist and turn, she was right with me, and her support and hard work helped keep my focus. In helping her grow as a teacher, I had helped myself grow and re-thinking what and how of what I do. In this difficult time, having someone share the experience with you makes the challenges feel that much more doable because I haven’t had to face any of them alone.  

I’m more okay than I was on Tuesday, but I’m not really okay. No one is right now. Even having the slightest possibility that I could have contracted COVID-19 from my job was scary, and this week, this part of my life felt more important than the election. I’m not angry at my school for putting me in this situation. I may have felt very different about this if I did contact COVID-19 from that student. Right now, in my mental exhaustion, I am proud of how I handled this week, and I am proud of the way my student teacher and my colleagues handled this difficult situation.  

In a school year full of hard days, Tuesday was the hardest day I’ve had this school year.  The difference from four years ago is that instead of feeling dread, I have hope in my heart.  With this feeling of Joe Biden having my back, I can do hard things.   

Parenthood: Week 395 – 11/2/20, The Night Before

Dear my sons, 

The past four years have had some of the most beautiful moments in my life. 

Ollie, I watched you grow from a toddler into a school-aged child. We danced together, sang together, and explored the world together.  You learned to read, write, and manipulate numbers. More importantly, you have learned how to be more empathetic, to show love, and know what it means to be loved. 

Ethan, you came to us full of determination and love. Your early life was full of the new challenges of understanding how to best serve you as parents with your hearing loss. In those moments of feeling lost, our hearts filled with more love for you. Watching you grow up into a toddler, full of love, passion, and joy has enriched our lives in ways that we never imagined, taught me to be a better human.  

Lucas, every single time I check on you before I go to sleep at night, you take my breath away. I reach down and touch your little hand, and then I play with the curl of your hair. I hold my hands to my chest as I gaze at you, barely being able to handle the wonder that is you. Your giggles, your curiosity, and your smiles always warm my heart. It's impossible to have a bad day with you in my life. 

In the past four years, your mom and I have been blessed with meaningful work. Our work in education reflects our values, has brought challenges that have helped us grow as professionals, and given us the flexibility to be present in your lives. While there are always challenges in balance our work/life schedule, our jobs have allowed us to be there for the critical points in your lives and when you needed us the most.  

We have had an incredibly blessed and privileged life these past four years. You, as part of our family, have brought challenges that made our life meaningful. We have overcome all of these tribulations with our friends and family's support and with you as our inspiration never to give up.  

For many people worldwide, these past four years have been some of the most challenging times in their lives. The Presidency of trump has caused needless and gratuitous immeasurable pain and trauma. The COVID-19 pandemic only heightened this. Even though we have provided you a warm and loving household during this time, the threats to our family's safety and trump' and his supporters questioning our family's right to exist have put a shadow over these past four years.  

Your mom and I engaged in this election because of the threats to our family and others' pain. We are all connected, and we all have to give more and do better for each other. This what makes us good. This is what brings meaning to our life. This is love. 

It's that love that makes us fight for a better future and imagine a world where our leaders also demonstrate kindness in your hearts.  

It has been a tough couple of years, and these past couples of months have been challenging. Your love and spirit have sustained us. I will forever be grateful for how you have made these four years beautiful and meaningful during this difficult time in our country.  

I am so proud of all of you. I am proud to be your father, and at this moment, thinking about all of the amazing people who fought for a better tomorrow these past four years, I am proud to be an American.

- Dad

Let them say of me,
I was one who believed.
In sharing the blessings I received,
Let me know in my heart.
When my days are through,
America, America I gave my best to you.

Year 11 – Week 8: The Pandemic, Part 3 - The Battle Lines

The end of the school year felt like a battlefield, empty and scared by explosions.  It was quiet, but panic, trauma, and violence hung in the air.  

All of the year ending rituals were on Zoom. At their best, they were a shadow of they were replacing, and at the worst, they were a painful exercise of technology failing to meet expectations and the needs of our community.  

Everything was hard when we went remote, and everything was overwhelming. Each week, each day had a new challenge. We were blessed with resources at our schools, but no amount of money could make up for the insecurity of doing things for the first time with students without adequate planning time.  

Most teachers teach with a combination of tried and true lessons and new units in their curriculum. Last spring, so many of us had to develop new units because what we had done in the past didn't work. I teach the middle school concert band.  

You can't do the middle school concert band over Zoom. So, the curriculum changed into small group lessons. I didn't know how to teach my 5th graders the music of the middle ages that they normally performed at the end of the year. Virtual choir is a lot harder and more expensive than it looks, and teaching almost sixty students how to sing a song over Zoom was a challenge I could not overcome. 

I had a lot of new material in my curriculum and lesson that I taught before from years past; I had to teach differently in a way I never taught before. Everything was new, and teaching last spring felt like being a first-year teacher.  

Teachers all across America were scrambling like I was because the schools were not ready to be remote. The transitions for most schools were sudden, rushed, and felt like a violent earthquake.  

Guardians panicked and struggled with remote learning. I was privileged to be a remote teacher while my child was in remote learning. Many adults were not so lucky. Some were able to work remotely. Schools' critical role in childcare for millions of children in America was taken away to little to no notice. Some parents' solutions included compromising their quarantine while others had to quit jobs to make distance learning work. The vast majority of the people who quit jobs were women.  

While I struggled with Google Classroom and Zooms, other teachers struggled with so much more. Some communities didn't have the privilege of access to fast internet. Teachers resorted to using WIFI from stores and churches sitting in their cars in parking lots.  

Many schools did not have enough devices for students, so siblings had to share, and some families had to go without. This led to teachers delivering packets of materials door to door and teaching over phone landlines to make things work.  

Many schools all across America weren't even focused on teaching when schools closed. They were trying to get food to children. 29.6 million children every day in America get free or reduced-price lunches from schools while 11.9 million get breakfast. For many children, this is the only meal they get that day. Administrators and teachers had no guidance or support from the federal government, and many only had little help from local governments. Communities came together in amazing ways to make sure food got to children. There were many bumps in the road to make this happen, but school came through in amazing ways during this tough time.  

As we are struggling to make this work, people are dying at alarming rates. Stressed, scared, overworked, and exhausted teachers yearning for a message of empathy and needing financial support instead get a president urging schools to open up before the school year ends. 

Even though it's an absurd idea, and it feels like a punch in the gut, a callous disregard for children and teachers' safety. In response, the battle lines are drawn, and teachers and parents fight to keep schools closed. Science and reasons prevail, and schools in America stayed closed for the end of the 2019-2020 school year, but the conflict is not over.  As teachers close the school year and walk away from school year shell-shocked, not knowing how or when they would have to return to battle.  

They take respite in the silence, many not realizing that there is something even more challenging up ahead. 

This is what I wrote about the possibility of going back to in-person learning on 5/8/20 from this blog post. 

Can American schools open in the fall with the current trends? No. The way that we think about schools, asking educator to make magic happen with limited resources, as opposed to asking them what they need to be successful and providing what they ask for is not setting us up for success in this crisis. By sheer force of will and hard work, a teacher can make an out of date history book work in a classroom, force of will cannot provide sanitation supplies and smaller class sizes.  

In the past week there have been a flurry of articles talking about plans for opening schools next year. Most of them completely lack an understanding of child development. Having first graders sit six feet apart, not move from classroom from classroom, eat lunch at their desks, and have no recess is not developmentally appropriate. Is it worse than having students stay at home? For some children yes, for others no. This makes things complicated. And articles that respond to these concerns that state that children are “resilient,” should be immediately disregarded, as this pop psychology myth of childhood resilience is completely false and misguided.  

If schools continue to have to make choices in the fall like they have this past spring with little financial support, meaningful leadership, and plans that are both educationally and psychologically sound, the only safe choice will be to start the year with distance learning that will last until at least until the new year.

Parenthood: Week 394 – Early Intervention, Part 1

I felt lost. 

In that first month of Ethan's life, we lived with the possibility that he did not have the ability to hear in one ear. He failed the initial hearing tests in his right ear, and all we had in front of us was another test the day after Thanksgiving to confirm what we knew was likely, our child had a disability. When it was confirmed that he had conductive non-sensorineural unilateral hearing loss in the right ear a couple of weeks later in December, it was a relief.  

We finally had a name for this thing that we had been worried about every single day of his life. While this felt like an affirmation of our concerns, it left more worries and anxiety in its wake. There were so many questions in my mind. Would we have to learn sign language? Can this be fixed with surgery? How do we raise a child who can only functionally hear out of one ear?  What do we have to do to help this baby love himself and know that he is loved with this disability?  

Soon after we got the results from Ethan's hearing test, we got a letter in the mail about how Ethan qualified for Early Intervention. This government program gave us hope, forever changed our lives, and dramatically affected the development of Ethan's hearing and speech abilities that forever changed the trajectory of his life for the better.  

When the program was first laid out to us in our first meeting with our Early Intervention case worker when Ethan was two months old, I was skeptical. They were going to send a therapist to come to our house and do sessions?  How good could this be?  

I thought at the time, "if the service in the DMV is any indicator, this is not going to go well."  

I was wrong, so wrong.

People like to complain about how things run by the government are mediocre. We've all heard people talk about how the lines are too long at the Post Office and how the Department of Motor Vehicles is the worst.  I literally laughed out loud when I watched this scene for the first time.  

 

I wonder though, how this makes people feel who work hard at the DMV to make the roads safer.  This depiction isn't fair.  

Some rant about how public schools are horrible and how the welfare system is mismanaged.  Many of these complaints reflect real, systemic issues in our society like the racism at the foundation of our police force, which leads to murders of Black and brown Americans regularly.  

Other complaints reflect a level of privilege and/or a lack of perspective. People are willing to wait in the grocery store to check out but, for some reason, feel like they shouldn't have to wait at the post office. Yes, there are horrible public schools, but there are great public schools out there too. On rare occasions, people exploit the welfare system, but far more rely on this program, albeit flawed, on getting through each day.  

There are government programs and agencies that fail and need to do better, and many do a great job. The myth that anything run by the government is bad is destructive, wrong, and needs to be privatized is racist. Just think about how our jail system's privatization continues to put Black and brown people in jail at an alarming rate.  

I'm a critic of our government as all citizens should be, and the solution to solving the problems I see is to make the government better, not smaller. Because there is so much good in what our government does that should be built upon and kept whole.  

I believe this more than ever now that we are on the other side of Early Intervention. This program showed us the way, gave us the tools to move forward, and changed how I thought about the government, myself as a parent, and my son Ethan. 

Though it didn't start off great with that first therapist...