Parenthood: Week 468 - No To Hitting

“Hitting is never okay.” 

My children have hit each other, and we have had some issues with our children hitting us. However, none of this has happened in abnormal or not developmentally appropriate ways. For example, two of my sons are fighting over a toy. One of them gets annoyed and hits the other one. Then there are situations like when Ethan gets upset that I took a toy away from him when he was throwing a tantrum, and he hits me. Learning to deal with intense emotion and violent impulses constructively is part of growing up. 

Like most people, I have a complicated and contradictory relationship with violence. I think physical violence in interpersonal relationships is unacceptable. There is no justification for partners to hit their loved ones, parents to hit their children, and employees to hit each other. And I love to watch professional wrestling, and I’ve watched many films that have a lot of violence. I have watched all of the Rocky multiple times. 

I have tried my best to keep movies and television shows with a lot of violence away from my children, though I have made exceptions for the Star Wars films, which have a fair amount of violence. I don’t let my children have any guns as toys. When people have given Ollie dart guns, they disappear. However, we have five toy lightsabers in my house. I continue to preach that violence is not a way to solve problems for my children. Yet, they have seen “age-appropriate” television shows where violence is a prominent tool for conflict resolution. 

Among all of these contradictions, which create dissonance inside my mind, I am confident in the model that I am displaying for my children. I have never hit my wife, Diana. Therefore my children have never seen me hit her. I’ve never hit our dog Buffy and never hit any of my children. I’ve never gotten into a physical fight in my entire life besides an amateur wrestling bout with a college friend on the wrestling team. Like when I was wrestling with Ollie, this exchange had no anger involved and felt like a friendly contest of skill, in which I lost…badly. 

All of these contradictions that lie inside of me reflect the contradictions in our society. We have laws against violence, yet we glorify violence in video games, films, television shows, and sports. We are a country that loves peace but has been engaged in some level of military violence for most of its history and spends billions of dollars on its military every year. And while the expressed norms in our society are that violence is unacceptable, Will Smith has faced no meaningful consequences for his violent outbursts at the Academy Awards, and many are defending his actions. He probably will not because of his level of privilege. Yes, there are nuances around this incident, but violent acts do not effectively counter violent words. Period. 

I want to raise my children in a world that doesn’t exist, where violence is not pervasive. I know that I was able to make distinctions about violence at some point, and I’m not sure how that happened. I remember getting one of the first Nerf guns (The Nerf Sharpshooter) and LOVING it. I play with that thing so much. I remember playing a very violent video game Perfect Dark, arming my character with a magnum and nailing headshots as enemies walked through a door and bodies piled up to the ceiling, but now I hate guns. 

I’m not worried about my children being violent. They have known their entire lives a loving touch over a violent touch. This is how people come to understand that love is at the core of human interactions. However, I worry about them living in a violent world and how they will struggle with the contradictions around violence in our society. If Ollie saw what Will Smith did, I would know exactly what to say: hitting is wrong, even when someone says something hurtful. Don't forget, use your words."

Year 12: Week 27 - Protecting The Joy

"I won't let them steal my joy." 

During her confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, Senator Cory Bookers declared his refusal to let the racist, sexist, and absurd questioning of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson by Republican senators dampen the joy of her nomination, her contributions, and the historic nature of her nomination.  

 

Listening to this speech, I got emotional because of the power of his reflections and how he contextually Judge Jackson's work in the context of history, present, and the future. His speech touched me on a personal level because of how his words reflected my struggles.  

Like any week, some things pull away from the joy of teaching, but this week they felt different. After a couple of weeks of masks-optional policy and lull in positive COVID-19 cases, we had several cases and close-contacts were told to wear masks for ten days. Having to wear a mask again felt discouraging and disorientating. Even though I wore a mask teaching at school for almost all of the time I've taught in-person during the pandemic, putting it back on felt so limiting. One of the things I've loved the most about not wearing a mask was showing my smile to my students, and this week that was taken away.  

There were other things this week that pulled away at my joy. There were students whose insecurities were expressed in disruptive behavior in class. I had some meetings that felt more laborious and negative than productive. Communication issues led to me addressing an issue with a student in a way that was not effective. There was rain all week that like Noah's storm, that seemed to be non-stop. Then there was the lockdown drill. While the students I was with behaved appropriately and followed directions during the drill, every time I have to do one of these drills, it is a depressing reminder of how low a priority school safety is in this country. Schools do all this work to make schools safe, while little to no actions have been made as a society to address the culture of gun violence and desperately needed policies around gun control.  

There was joy this week. I'm part of a wonderful hiring committee that makes me feel valued and included. My sixth graders have been excelling at our current recorder unit. My 4th and 5th graders are engaging well with the work in class and are enjoying the new songs we are starting. There are also great exciting projects to look forward to in the next couple of months.

Senator Booker is right. We have to refuse to give up our joy. It's not always easy, but it's something we can't forget. I have the pleasure and privilege of working with children. It's a joy that I can't forget and a joy worth fighting for.

Parenthood: Week 467 - New Adventures In Co-sleeping

In the quiet of the night, there are times when I am so tired that moving fully out of sleep seems like an impossible lift. Sometimes there is not a reason to get up. When I hear Lucas cry, I know that if I get up, he will get frustrated that it's me and throw himself down on his crib mattress and continue screaming for Diana. So I stay in bed and wait for Diana to get him, trying to fall back deeper asleep. 

There was a time when Ethan's cries were a nightly thing. He would wake up when he was 2-year-old wanting to get out of the crib. I'd lay there, annoyed, wishing that he could sleep through without waking me up for at least one night. Eventually, I would get up and comfort him and try unsuccessfully to get him back into his crib. Eventually, I would relent and let him sleep with me in my bed. While I lay sleepless, at least Ethan was quiet.  

That time has passed, and now on the rare occasion Ethan does cry at night, I am up quickly. There is a cry when Ethan is unhappy because I didn't get him a toy or another cookie. That cry doesn't move me, and it doesn't bother me. The cry when Ethan is scared at night or feeling sick moves me to fully being awake in seconds, moving quickly into his room cradling him in my arms.  

There are times when I wake up, and Lucas lies between Diana and me. Sometimes after nursing at night, Diana and Lucas fall asleep, and this little one is sleeping next to me. There are nights when he is lying perpendicular to Diana and me. On the best of these nights, I get the head side and feel his head on my chest, and on the worst of these nights, his little feet kick me. More often than not, he is lying nicely between us. Diana and I sleep better once he's back in his crib, so I'm usually quick to move him back into his crib.  

I'm most comfortable lifting up my children with their heads on my left arm, and the way that Lucas lies on his bed, it's hard to pick him up this way. So to pick him up, I pull Lucas on top of my chest, sit up slowly, and have him roll down into my arms. Some nights, as he lays on my chest, I give up and let him rest there for a couple of minutes. Then there are the nights when his weight feels heavier than usual, and I have to swing my legs up and then back down off the side of my bed to get the momentum to stand up while holding Lucas in my arms.  

Ethan only comes into my bed once or twice a week. A couple of days ago, I found myself with Lucas sleeping on my right and Ethan on my left. The bed was so crowded that I couldn't lay down flat, or else I would end up on top of Lucas. Ethan was sleeping peacefully nestled up to me, and I realized that if it weren't for my arms, Ethan would fall off the little piece of bed he had managed to crawl onto.  

I started trying to figure out a plan to get Ethan back to his bed and then work on getting Lucas to his crib. I craned my neck around and looked at Lucas sleeping peacefully. I reached over and felt his little toes and curled his hair between my fingers. As I felt Ethan exhale and relax into my arms, I couldn't help but smile.  

As tired as I was I smiled to myself thinking, "sleep can wait."

Year 12: Week 26 - Three Moments That Made Me Smile

Students crowded the hallway as they walked towards the auditorium for the assembly. 

I stood on the stairs leading up to the auditorium, thinking about the introduction I would give for the musical group that was going to perform during the assembly.  Then, as I looked to my left, I saw her outstretched arms. I was confused for a second seeing my colleague, and then I saw him run up to her and embrace her joyously.  

This student wasn’t worried about what it looked like to his friends for him to hug his mother, a colleague. More important than anything else, they were happy to see each other. 

One of the features of our school is that there are children of employees who go to our school. Little moments like these are wonderful. It’s beautiful to see my colleagues switch to the role of a parent, and it’s heart-warming to see students have a moment of comfort and connection with their parents.  

*****

“Can we do it again?” 

We had just finished working on our dance for “What Else Can I Do?” I was out of breath, and the day was catching up to me. This was my busy day, and I had taught very active lessons throughout the afternoon. I thought to myself, “Are you kidding me? I’m getting too old for this?” But then I saw the smile in one of my student’s eyes as she heard a classmate make the request that we dance one more time.  

It seems silly, but sometimes I get annoyed when my students ask me to do something again. I’m thinking about moving through the lesson and ensuring we accomplish what I had planned. However, sometimes the positivity and will of the students lead me to think, “screw the lesson plan.”  

“Sure,” I said softly, and the class cheered in approval. I couldn’t help but smile as I gathered my strength, and we danced again.   

*****

It was the first time I had a class with my 4th graders as we went masks-optional. It was a weird day. I had no idea how to approach and process this new reality of teaching with some instruments with masks on and some with masks off. So I decided to approach my lesson as I had previously planned. Part of my lesson was wrapping up the unit on “Lift Every Voice And Sing.”  

I asked my students to stand up. I looked out at my students. Some of them wear masks, and some of them do not. I wondered if I should say something before we started, but I shook off the feeling and started the piano introduction.  

I gave a breath to start the class singing, and then they lifted their voices and sang louder and clearer than I have ever heard a class of students singing in a classroom in over two years. The sound felt like the sun shining on a spring day. In a time of great turmoil, anxiety, and uncertainty, it was a moment of clarity, connection, power, and hope.

Parenthood: Week 466 - Lucas Foraging

I swear we feed Lucas enough food. 

If you asked me to list Lucas’ favorite activities, I would include playing with his brothers, reading books, watching television, and foraging.  

Meals usually go something like this. First off, Lucas is often the first one to the table asking for food. Sometimes this means that he gets some kind of snack when I’m trying to get food on the table. During meals, Lucas works really hard at eating. He is the most into using utensils at his age than my other two sons when they were at his age. Since his brothers are sometimes light eaters, Lucas sometimes eats the best of my three children.  

At some point, Ollie and Ethan are done eating and want to be excused. Diana and I are usually not done, so we stay at the table with Lucas. After Lucas is done eating or notices that his brothers are playing, Lucas will wave his hand frantically for his “all done” sign to get out of his high chair.  

Then Lucas begins his foraging. As Diana and I are finishing our meals, Lucas will crawl up into his brother’s chairs and eat their dinner. Usually, it’s Ethan’s first, since he is the one who is most likely to have more food left on his plate. After eating Ethan’s food Lucas will climb down, go play with his brothers, and then a couple of minutes later, he will climb up and see if Ollie left any food on his plate.  

Usually, we close the gate to our kitchen so Lucas can’t get in and go into the basement. However, Lucas manages to sneak into the kitchen when we don’t notice and go down the stairs in the basement. When he is down there he doesn't mess with Ollie’s Legos sets on display or the myriad of other toys that are down there. Instead, Lucas finds our shelves of food we store down there, grabs a bag of snacks from the boxes of snacks we buy at Costco, and brings snacks upstairs. This is how when I am trying to get something done upstairs or I’m playing with my other sons, I find Lucas pushing a bag of chips into my legs as he grunts at me.  

Lucas is more subtle than Ethan. I mean there is nothing subtle about that one. The other day, I heard him yelling, and I mean loudly how he was going to be sneaky. This works to his advantage. This is how Lucas will end up watching television with a bag of Goldfish crackers. We don’t have a lot of rules in our house. The only one I really enforce regularly is that they have to eat at the table, and somehow Lucas manages to get food and eat it around the house.  

Does Lucas get away with things because he’s the baby? Yup. I do try to keep him eating in his own place, but when he doesn’t, it’s hard to be stern with him. He’s really cute. Lucas will come up to Ollie's plate and I will pick up the plate and tell him to go to his own chair if he wants to eat. Then Lucas will look up to me with a sad face and start wrinkling his face up into a pout. Then I give him another stern look and he smiles at me, drops out of his chair, and walks to other side of the table to his own chair.  

Lucas truly is the cutest of all the patooties.

Year 12: Week 25 - Why Teaching With Mask-Optionals is…sigh.

I didn't think masks-optional was going to be so hard.

This week was weird because this week was when we started the masks-optional policy. While it is obvious to me that a mask-optional policy is beneficial, logical, and the right policy. Teaching when students choose to wear masks is weird, joyful at times, and frustrating. 

Like so much that has happened during this pandemic, teaching in a mask-optional school is a new experience. Like remote teaching and teaching with mitigations during the fall of 2020, we are jumping into teaching in a mask-optional school with little training, lots of anxiety, and more unknown than known.

The transitions masks-optional policy in America is a shameful mess. Instead of a smooth transition that acknowledges evolving science and centered on the need of children, the movement towards mask-optional policy was muddled by politics, misinformation, overreactions, power battles, and lawsuits. This is the context that people in my school community had to make decisions around a mask-optional policy this week.

I chose to teach without a mask. I am boosted, my wife and oldest son are vaccinated, and my children are in the age brackets where COVID-19 has very low chances of being a severe illness. I accept that the likelihood of I’ll get COVID-19 is moderate, and I also know that the possibility of I will get a severe case of COVID-19 after exposure is diminishingly low. There is no reason for me to wear a mask.

After this week, here’s the bad news about the masks-optional policy.

• Kids were wacky this week. There is an unsettled feeling in the school. More students are distracted and express anxiety in unproductive ways. Hopefully, this will pass.
• So much feels unsaid. Why is a student wearing a mask? Why is someone not wearing a mask? Are people wearing a mask resenting those who aren’t? Am I making other people uncomfortable by not wearing a mask? We don’t know how to talk about these wonders, but we are all thinking about them.
• There are new concerns as a teacher. Am I paying more attention to students not wearing masks? Do I have a bias around mask-wearing that I am unintentionally expressing?
• It’s really to know how to handle teaching a class where not wearing masks except for two students and then teach a class immediately after where everyone but two ARE wearing masks.
• Some students choose to wear masks for specific classes and then go unmasked for other times during the school day. I had two students walk into my music class, grab an extra masks by my door, and wear it throughout the class. Then when they left my classroom they threw the masks away. I checked in with their homeroom teacher. He hadn't seen them wear masks that day.

The good part of masks-optional.

• The smile on the students' faces who aren't wearing masks combined with the light in the eyes of those are wearing masks enjoying other people's faces feels great.
• I feel more connected to my students when I’m not wearing a mask. They react to my smile, and my “teacher face.” Teaching feels more unrestrained without a mask. It feels like shedding a layer of fear.
• Mask-optional is progress. This is a movement when hope has been fulfilled in a time when hope is not something we have in excess.

We can’t do this forever. Mask-optional is a way for people to transition into the next stage of this pandemic, but it can’t be an arrival point. Maybe all of the negatives I experienced this week will go away with time. I hope because among the bright moments this week, I felt many frustrating moments of “I don’t know,” which unfortunately has become the norm for the past two years.

Parenthood: Week 465 - How Masks Have Been Going

Ollie has done really well with mask-wearing. Early he had some complaints about the typical masks hurting his ears. I had to do some shopping and eventually found him masks that go around the back of his head. Once we got those for him, he never really had an issue wearing a mask. 

Sometimes we would pick him up from school and still wear his mask in the car, and we would have to remind him to take off his mask. Like with other things for Ollie, like gloves, we have to remind him to wear a mask.  

We’ve never really had to fight him to keep a mask on. He’s really been great with it. Ollie wears a mask in his dance class, and he has worn it outside on playgrounds and planes, with no problem at all.  

I do have some concerns. He has told me that he prefers to wear a mask in social situations, which I feel may express his shyness. For Ollie, I don’t think there’s a lot of thought about why he needs to wear a mask. For him, it’s more about norms and doing as others in his class.  

Ethan has had an interesting experience with masks. When he started wearing masks, he was drooling a lot, and the masks gave him tactile feedback, which got him to stop drooling. Unlike Ollie, Ethan commonly expresses that he doesn’t want to wear a mask. However, he doesn’t seem to resist in school or dance class by wearing a mask. Sometimes Ethan wants to suck his thumb in the grocery store instead of wearing his mask, and honestly, most of the time, I let it go.  

Ethan’s mask resistance isn’t just about masks. He is resistant to holding my hand in the parking lot, washing his hands after he uses the bathroom, going to the bathroom when he needs to go to the bathroom, eating when he is hungry, sleeping when he is tired, changing into his pajamas, taking a bath, cleaning up his toys, and generally follow directions.  

Lucas sigh. Ok, So Ollie is eight, which meant that he started mask-wearing when he was six. Ethan is four, so he began when he was three years old. Lucas began to the right when he turned two years old this past December. 2022 is different than 2020, and while we have supported Lucas’ school has requested to wear masks, I haven’t pushed him to wear a mask in public. Out in stores, he’s not near anyone else than his family.  

Lucas doesn’t actively fight to wear a mask, but his body does. As a result, his masks get wet with drool very quickly, and he has developed skin irritation around his mouth due to his mask-wearing.  

Now that we are moving into a world where masks are optional, I am looking forward to my children not wearing masks. However, reflecting on my children’s experiences with masks makes me wonder about the impact of wearing covers on their future. I also wonder how my children will process other people wearing a mask.  

Ollie will remember wearing a mask, Ethan will have limited memories of wearing a show, and Lucas probably will have none. However, this experience, as it has reflected who they are, will impact all of their lives, and I hope that somehow I can help with the negative effects of their mask-wearing experience in their present and future.

Year 12: Week 24 - What Else Can I Do...With The Boys?

This is easily the girliest thing I've done in my music class. 

Now, I don't mean girly in a derogatory way. Instead, I'm talking about embracing one type of feminine expression. I'm talking about teaching my students to dance to Isabella's song from Encanto, "What Else Can I Do?"  

​​ 

After watching Encanto with my children, I knew I wanted to explore some music from this film with my students. So, I went with "What Else Can I Do?" This song has a story arc that students can understand who had not seen the film. I am a huge fan of Diane Gurrero, and I saw this as a great opportunity to bring her immigration advocacy work into my classroom. In addition, there are some musical factors in this song that taught topics that we part of my curriculum.  

I usually come up with my movement activities to songs, but for this one, I commissioned one of the fifth-grade teachers to choreograph a dance to "What Else Can I Do?" And she did a fantastic job.  

I created a unit around this song. We were going to the clip from the film, and check out part of this great interview with Diane Gurrero (we stopped before the Doom Patrol stuff:  

 

I planned to explicate the lyrics with my students and talk about how Isabella started by making roses native to Columbia to embracing making plants native to South America, symbolizing her journey. 

The main part of this unit was the dance. 

For the first lesson of this unit, I taught the choreography for the first part of the song without the music and without telling the students what we were doing. Then I turned on the music. Some students immediately got very excited and started jumping up and down, others were neutral unsure of what they were hearing, and others were...less excited. 

As we worked through the choreography and I fully got into the dance, my energy brought the students along. Most of the choreography was not overly girly. Though there is one move which is a hair flip. I modeled it but had to ask a girl in the class who had long hair that wasn't tied up to demonstrate. The song is unapologetically feminine, and even though there are no princesses in Encanto, this song feels like it's in the canon of Disney Princess songs. 

As I've been working on this song, I've noticed that some boys, at least one or two in each class, are struggling. I can see their brains trying to figure out what to do. I see this in their eyes, "okay, a man is leading a dance, but the dance is to a Disney song sung by a  girl." I see their struggle in lack of energy when working on the dance, and also it is the fact that some of these boys are just sitting down in the middle of this part of the lesson and need encouragement to stand up and get moving. It is important to note that at the same time, other boys who present in heteronormative sports-loving ways are super into this dance, hair flip and all.  

These are 4th and 5th-grade boys. There is a pandemic, the world is upside down, and I get that this activity is short-circuiting their conceptions of masculinity for some of them. So I'm leaning towards just letting them sit with their struggle and positively encouraging them to participate while giving them space. It feels like enough that most of the class is enjoying this activity and that they are seeing their male teacher embrace taking the role of a Disney "Princess."   

We have got to take steps every day to help all our students move away from traditional ideas of gender roles. It's critical to help our students be more accepting of others and learn to love themselves. Sometimes the best way to do this is by having fun and dancing.  

What else can I do?  

Bring it in, bring it in…