Year 13: Week 17 - Return Of The Winter Programs - Part 1

"You must have been waiting for years to do this. You were having so much fun!" 

"Thanks, and yes, I have been waiting a long time for this."

The last time we had a JK-5 Winter Program was in 2019. Three years later, this event was finally back. Every time this program was put on before 2019, it was a great achievement by the students and the music faculty. This program is the only time all of the students in JK-5 share a program with their families in the audience. Every single student in seven grade go on up on stage and performs. The students worked on the music for weeks and also worked on the performance skills of walking on and off stage and how to stand and perform for an audience.

The music is all memorized; instruments and choreography are often involved in these performances, and for many students, this is one of the few times they are up on stage performing in the school year.

For the music faculty, a lot of work goes into this program. A lot of time is spent on the selection of music. It's important to find a piece at the pedagogical level for the students and meaningful music reflecting diverse cultures and shared values. Focused on the student's experience, teachers carefully plan everything from seating charts to lighting.

These challenges and hard work were present in "normal years." This year was anything but normal.

For the 2022 winter program, we knew we were dealing with a unique situation. Instead of having one grade, the JK students who had never experienced this MX had three grades: JK, SK, and 1st. In addition, the older grade students only have vague memories of their performance in 2019, when they were younger.

Our students had three years of the modified curriculum because of the pandemic. Students were remote in the last part of the 2019-2020 school year. During the 2020-2021 school year, COVID-19 mitigations meant we couldn't have our students sing. Then in the 2021-2022 school year, we had to modify everything we taught considering our students' experience since the pandemic started.

We needed to consider who the students were as musicians affected by our curriculum changes throughout the pandemic. More importantly, we needed to examine who our students were as learners and human beings. The younger students lived most of their with the COVID-19 pandemic, and older students only have vague memories of a time before masks and social distancing.

We had students who needed to learn what this program meant and missed out on meaningful learning that would have helped them during this performance. We had to completely rethink who our students were as learners and people compared to pre-pandemic years, and we, as faculty, had yet to do this performance in three years.

This all would have been enough to make this performance an enormous challenge. 

All of this made the success and joy of the JK-5 Winter Program even more extraordinary.

Parenthood: Week 506 - Through It All

I haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately. 

Four nights ago, our little one Lucas developed a fever. He came into our room late at night. We pulled him into our bed and gave him some Tylenol. A couple of minutes later, he threw up in our bed. After we cleaned things up, he struggled to sleep but found comfort in being near us. 

The next night, because he spent most of the afternoon napping, Lucas got up very early, around 4 am. After it became clear after his crawling around in our bed he was not going to go back to sleep, I got up with him and watched some cartoons with this. And by "watch with him," I mean dozing off on the couch while Lucas watched cartoons and jabbed the remote into the face whenever a show was over so I could start a new one for him.

Two nights ago, Lucas woke up at 2 am upset. I comforted him, and after five minutes of trying to sleep with him in our bed, I walked him over to his room and crawled into bed with him. I remembered that having him fall asleep in his bed and leaving him was a lot easier than him falling asleep in our bed and then trying to transfer him back to his bed. I ended up sleeping with Lucas for a couple of hours and heading back to our bed for half an hour before I needed to get up before the kids. It was Christmas morning, and I wanted to be up before the kids.

Last night I went to sleep late, having spent the late evening packing to visit my parents in Seattle the next morning. The plane flight was in the morning, and I planned to get up around 6ish and sleep around 12:40.

This lack of sleep and all of the preparation and activity for Christmas was what had already drained me before facing today. When I got up, my mom texted me and told me our flight had been canceled. She was concerned since Seattle had been having issues with flight cancellations all week. Even though the weather was fine on both ends, our flight had to be canceled, and after some frustrating work, we realized there was only one feasible way to get to Seattle later this week which didn't work with my winter break schedule.

I tried to sleep a little bit, knowing my kids wouldn't be up, but that didn't work. So I got up, emptied the dishwasher, and made myself breakfast. Later my children got up one at a time, and I told them about changing plans. We were sad together, but we did have some bright sides, like being able to go to a local family part now could go to because we were not traveling out of town.

So I made my kids breakfast and we watched a movie with my kids on the couch, which was the first time I sat and watched a movie for a long time. Most of the time, I'm on the treadmill working out when I watch movies. Afterwards I decided that was enough time to mope about, so I got in gear. We all went to the grocery store, and we got back home. I spent an hour cooking for the party, got it all ready to go, and we went to the party. The pressure, and concentration of cooking helped me feel productive, and it felt good to set out a goal and make it happen. 

In the past 24 hours, I've dealt with the stress of packing for a trip, on little sleep, and then having that trip yanked away, taking a moment to breathe, and finally getting in gear. This is the work of parenthood. It is unforgiving and requires a depth of strength that I sometimes struggle to find in myself.

While I'm really sad and disappointed about how the last 24 hours worked out, I'm proud that I exhibited the strength my mother has always believed was in me and handled this situation well. Thought it all, I did right by myself and my family. 

In tough moments knowing you did your best doesn't take way the sadness, but it bring forward pride, and that's something. 

Taking a break...

So, I'm taking a break for a little bit. I've still got a lot on my mind, and more stories to tell. Writing continues to be exercise for my brain and self-care. However tonight self-care will be getting to sleep earlier. 

More to come...

Parenthood: Week 505 - The Week Of...

It’s the week of Christmas! 

This year feels different because my children and I have different winter breaks. I’m off this week and next week, and they are off next week and the following week. So while I do like the idea of having time to prepare for the holiday while they are at school, later, it is not ideal when they are at home, and I’m at work.

There’s shopping, cooking, wrapping presents, and other chores unrelated to the holidays. Also there are at home things, that I put off because† I’m too busy to get to them because of stuff I have to do for work.

I find it really difficult to take care of home stuff when I’m at work. I am often able to make the time, but it’s hard to get into the “taking care of home stuff”-mind frame when I’m at work. Of course, when something needs to be done, I can make that happen, but like how bills pile up, home stuff has a way of doing that too.

The tricky thing is that you can’t put off most parenting until a later time. The last two weeks of work have been challenging and draining. I found myself at home with little patience and struggling to focus on my children’s needs.

My children themselves helped me get energized and focused. The sound of their giggles, the hugs, and simple acts of care like bathing them allowed me to leave work behind. Part of what you realize when you are home with children and you are drained is that you have to let things go, and sometimes this feels like a significant compromise, and other times, you realize that maybe you were being too rigid about certain things.

I remember going to a seminar years ago as an assistant teacher. One topic was how to recharge your batteries after you get home from work. Most people think you should do something less active like sit in front of the television or scroll through social media. The training leader said that what worked was doing simple, achievable tasks, like doing dishes. It’s kind of like physical exercise. If you are tired, sometimes making yourself more tired through exercise helps you sleep better and, in turn, will make you less tired.

This advice to take when all you want to do is hide when you get home, and all you see is the tantrums and the fights from children who are also tired. Sometimes this means you turn on the television to make dinner, or dinner can be a frozen pizza. Making things work when you don’t have a lot left means something has to give.

I’m still trying to figure out this balancing act between work and parenting. It gets better and worse, and in the moments when it feels right, something inevitably throws it out of whack. The struggle is a good thing. It’s a sign that my life is dynamic and that I’m invested in my work and my children. In this tension, there is the struggle that brings meaning that purpose to my life.

Year 13: Week 15 - Leaving With Love

Do you ever feel you have so much to say that it's hard to know where to start?

It seems like the easiest way is to start at the beginning, but I'm not even sure where that is, and how much I should say. So I will start as clearly as I can.

The last week and a couple of days have been some of the most challenging days of my teaching career. There were challenges that I expected. We had our first JK-5 winter assembly since 2019. There were two other winter concerts for our older students, which we last did in 2019. Planning for and putting on these events asked us to use a "muscle" that we hadn't used in years. We had pressure on ourselves to have these events be at a certain standard, and at the same time, we were trying to figure out how to make adjustments for our students.

Students had seen these concerts in years past and knew what to expect. Also, students who previously performed in these concerts carried on that learning to the next concert. But, unfortunately, we were without all of this. W    e had to balance our idea of how these concerts could go with the reality of our student's lived experiences.

All of these events went really well. I'm very proud of our students and my music department faculty. The students were well prepared, the performances were at a high standard, and most importantly, it was clear our work came from a place of love and joy.

All of this happened as the chaos and strife of the outside world directly effected our community. When you are a teacher, you cannot ignore the outside world. Part of our job, part of our work, is helpings student process and understand the world around them. Sometimes it's around times of joy, like when the Cubs won the world series, and other times it's during moments of great tragedy, like when a school shooting occurs.

I've had to talk to students about anti-immigrant rhetoric, racism, sexism, and many other issues and acts of oppression that affect the world, but never have I had to process and deal with a show of hatred and lies directed at my school community.

A little bit more than a week ago, my school was attacked by people who identified as journalist. And at the start of this week, my school had to evacuate and cancel due to a threat that was later found to be false. Both of these situations have been traumatic and exhausting. Reading hateful and vile comments online based on lies is discouraging and sad. Even though I know that these comments are not based on facts, they are still hard to read. It's hard to see that they are out there, and in taking the higher ground and not responding and engaging, it feels like we are doing nothing.

Dealing with an evacuation in the online attack's shadow was hard. While the faculty and staff kept it together for the students when making eye contact with other teachers and the staff, you could tell we were all really scared. When the school made the call to send students's home, our fears were validated, and even though the threat was found to be unsubstantiated, the anxiety lingered. 

In the past week, there has been so much to process. I've felt so many different emotions that seem to change hourly. There have been a half dozen times in the past week that I have felt like crying at random times, like walking down the hallway, and another half dozen times when I have cried hearing about how challenging this situation has been for individuals in our community.

Mr. Rogers talked about looking for helpers in challenging situations, and I've found this advice helpful this past week when I noticed how much help and love was in this community.

There is love in the quiet, attentive listening of employees listening and supporting each other. In the small gestures of getting doughnuts and helping people with tech issues, there is love, and in coming to this work, and being with our students, for our students, despite our fear, despite our anxiety, there is love.

The other place where I noticed love was between families and my students. Look, I'm a parent. I know what it means to hug my child, and I've seen parents lovingly interact with their children at my school, but something felt different this week. I was so profoundly touched witnessing parents' joy in greeting their elementary school-age children after their choir concert performance. Seeing the relief and smiles of parents picking up their children from the evacuation location was powerful. I was so glad, in a small way, I could help them feel their children in their arms and know they were safe. Then at the moment I hoped for and wasn't sure would happen, I felt the love of parents and family members as I invited them to dance in the audience along with my students on stage at the end of our JK-5 MX.

I have done dance-along with students before but never with an auditorium full of parents and students, and as they stood up and danced along with my almost 60 fourth graders on stage, I felt their love and support for all that we do at my school.

Most of all, I felt the love in the words of a parent after our choir concert. She came up to me with a grateful look in her eyes and a soft smile. Then, as she started talking, she started crying. She thanked me for all that I did for her children and wanted me to know, to really know, that the comments online are wrong and that I am a good person, a really good person.

I left school today for winter break, tired of the work and the anxiety, proud of how I led, and feeling love. We have a choice on how we reflect on events and what we focus on. 

I chose to focus on the stories that bring me light. I chose love. This doesn't make the bad go away, but it'll help not to remember that my community did right in the face of treats, and so did I. 

Parenthood: Week 504 - 12/13/22

Ollie went to his first chess tournament last weekend. My wife took him and I stayed with the other two boys. I’m really glad that he had this experience. I don’t remember what got Ollie first into chess, but it was about the age of six-years-old when it clicked. I think he might have started learning he saw a chess set out in my father-in-laws house.

Ollie first started learning chess through some iPad apps that I found. For example, Magnus Kingdom Of Chess is a role-playing adventure game, except you use chess pieces. The game has a story, and Ollie learned how the pieces move through this game.

I played with Ollie quite a bit. This was a time when Ethan had just been born, so it was nice to have an activity I could do with Ollie that gave him attention. I was never that great at chess, so after a couple of weeks, he definitely got better than me.

Ollie’s interest in chess waned, but he did join the chess club at this school last year, and really enjoys it. This tournament was an extension of this club. This event wasn’t too formal. It was hosted at a local elementary school. Ollie had three wins and two loses, but most importantly, he had fun, had some time with his friends, and got to try something new.

*****

It was Lucas’ birthday last week. He turned 3 years old. Yet, somehow, he’s been talking about wanting to be six-years-old for a couple of days now. Ollie revealed that he was helping him count and taught him how to say “six.” So maybe it’s not that he wants to be older. He just likes to use this word he just learned.

Lucas is doing really well. He’s spent his whole life chasing his brothers, so he’s fast, can climb anything, and is fearless. Lucas’ speech is getting stronger and stronger, and he takes really well to us teaching him words and helping him pronounce them with more clarity.

It’s been hard to accept that Lucas is no longer my “baby, baby” which is the what I mostly call him. I’ve been seeing how far he can follow commands and comprehend whan I’m saying, and he’s further along than I thought he was. I don’t think I ever babied him, I just didn’t realize how much he has grown.

I am looking forward to having Lucas as a toddler, but part of me doesn’t want to let go of him being my baby.

*****

Ethan is really blossoming as a big brother to Lucas. He spends a lot of energy taking care of him. When Lucas is sad, Ethan is right there to hug him, and he tries to cuddle with him when they are watching television together.

They do have disagreements when Lucas wants a toy Ethan is playing with, but more often than not Ethan is trying to help Lucas and has a very satisfied look on his face. At least four or five times a day, I hear Ethan tell Lucas that he loves him. Every so often, Ethan will look at me and say, “Lucas is so cute,” I can’t help but smile and hug him for being such a sweetheart.

Year 13: Week 14 - Indeed I Do

Next week is our JK-5 Winter Program. We haven’t had one since the winter of 2019. Last year, we got close by doing a separate JK-3 and 4-5 assembly, but this was just for the students, and no parents or families were invited. This year, we are finally, after three years, bringing this event back. 

The current 5th graders were in 2nd grade the last time they participated in this performance, and most don’t have strong memories of this event. So in some ways, we are starting new and fresh, especially since many families and teachers were not part of our school community the last time we did this event in 2019.  

I teach 4th and 5th grade, so it was up to me to program this part of the program. Since they hadn’t performed as students in 4th and 5th grade before the pandemic, I needed to find a song that was easier to sing and teach and fun. After much thinking and research, I landed on “People Got To Be Free” by the

Rascals. 

 

The Rascals are a wonderful rock band, and having a song that felt more like “rock” would make students feel less apprehensive about it than a slower song. But, most importantly, this song has great connections to the Civil Rights movement and has important themes like freedom and caring for each other. 

Initially, my 5th graders didn’t catch on to this song, but I kept on, and slowly they came to like it. We’ve had some great conversations about the lyrics of these songs. I have a small group of volunteers who will sing parts of this song in small groups, which will be a nice touch.  

My 4th graders will perform “Crowded Table” by The Highwomen.  

 

I first taught this song to my 3rd graders in 2019 as part of a Thanksgiving presentation. I’ve continued to teach it to my students. I’m really excited for my 4th graders to perform it for the community.  

Everything about this song reflects the values of my school. The story of the Highwomen, a group of women coming together to create music and support each other, is beautiful and powerful. The lyrics during the pandemic became an anthem of all we were missing and all we were hoping for, and my students love singing this song.  

 

My 4th graders are then going to end the program by leading a dance-along with me. On his most recent album, Bruce Springsteen covered the Motown classic “Do I Love You (Indeed I do).”  

 

I commissioned a co-worker to choreograph a dance to his song and taught it to my 4th and 5th graders. This was so much fun with them that we will do it with everyone in the auditorium. I’ve led dance-along at my school, but never with parents and families in the audience. I’m a little nervous, but more than that, I’m looking forward to helping my community have a moment to affirm our love for each other and feel what it means to be a community through music and dance.

Parenthood: Week 503 - Goodbye To The Crib

It was just a crib. Four wooden sides with slats and a metal frame with springs stretched across it. 

The crib is well used. Ten years old, to be precise. To my surprise, I started feeling emotional as I took it apart. We didn't need it anymore. My youngest son, Lucas, should have transitioned out of it a couple of months ago. He could easily climb in and out of it for a long time, and it made my heart warm knowing that the crib would go to a family who really needed it. 

I paused as I looked at the crib on the floor in pieces. All three of my sons slept, played, giggled, and smiled in this crib. They all cried in that crib, got sick, and had blowouts in it. We placed our hopes, dreams, fears, and anxieties in that crib. We trusted that crib's sturdiness to keep our children safe, and it never failed us.  

I'll never forget how absurd Ollie looked when we first put him in that crib. Swaddled up, he barely took up even an eighth of that crib. We placed him carefully in the center of the crib, and when we would return to check on him, there he would be, not yet able to turn over, right where we left him, safe and sound.  

I remember how Ollie as a toddler, would wake up from naps in his crib and sit there and lounge, joyfully cooing. He would wake up from his afternoon nap right when I got home from work. One day, I went into his room and saw him sit up and smile at me. I went over to pick him up, and he pulled himself up, not yet fully able to stand. As I was about to pick him up, he let go and fell on his bottom, giggling. So, I climbed into the crib and cuddled with him. The crib probably wasn't made to support my weight, but Ollie and I spent a lot of time together in that crib, cuddling, playing, and laughing.  

Ethan never liked that crib. We would rock him to sleep and put him in his crib as a baby, and as soon as he would finish a sleep cycle, he would be up crying and often spend most of the night in our bed. Before he figured out how to climb out of this crib, something Ollie never did because he was never motivated to do, Ethan would wage war. He'd throw things out of the crib, chew on the crib, and scream. And oh, how Ethan would scream when he wanted to get out of that crib.  

I did fight the fight. I spent many nights sleeping on the floor next to his crib, trying to get Ethan to sleep in his crib. Some of these nights, he slept on the floor with me; other nights, he'd be in his crib, and slowly, over time, he finally got better and spent more time than not in his crib and less time in our bed. 

In the darkest time of the COVID-19 pandemic, when streets were deserted and loved ones didn't know when they see each other again, Lucas put himself to sleep in the crib. Unlike Ollie, he didn't really want to be rocked for very long before being put in the crib, and unlike Ethan, Lucas liked his crib. Sometimes all he would want was only a couple minutes of cuddling, and then he would squirm. I would put him in the crib, and he would settle down and put himself to sleep. 

In that time of great fear and anxiety, Lucas finding comfort in that crib, and being the best sleeper as a baby out of all of our children, was what we needed. I remember watching him settle himself in his bed on a sunny spring morning in 2020 and saying "thank you" as he closed his eyes. The peace he found in his crib was a reminder that even in the worst of times, there were still moments of family and love. There was still hope.  

As I say goodbye to this crib, I am grateful for the memories, longing for the past, and wishing I could hold one of my sons as a baby again. Unfortunately, life doesn't always wait for you to be ready to let go, and parenthood keeps you busy enough to remind you that you don't have a choice but to move on. 

So as I paused, my children's voice brought me back to the present, as I faced the future.

Year 13: Week 13 - I Never Did Believe In Miracles…

Sometimes when I play the music that I love for my students, I'm unsure how they will react. I've been listening to Christine McVie's work, ever since she passed away earlier this week. I didn't really have time to teach about her this week, but I wanted my students to have an experience with her beautiful voice, incredible songwriting, and masterful musicianship. So during our opening warm-up activity, I played "You Make Loving Fun."

 

As soon as the keyboard groove hit, I could tell that my students were feeling this song. I wondered how they would react to the dated keyboard sound, but they didn't seem to mind. As I led my class in stretching and some breathing exercises, I smiled and sang along softly to this song. While I did this, I could see in my students' eyes they were enjoying this song too.

  *****

We had a modified schedule on Thursday for a community partnership project. This meant my middle schoolers would have half an hour of band on Thursday afternoon instead of an hour of band class on Thursday morning.

With all that was going on in the next couple of weeks, it was important to go over this change earlier in the week. So I opened band class on Monday and Tuesday, letting them know about the schedule change. I explained this to them as a heads-up more than a big piece of news. I didn't think they would react strongly to this, but they did. My students expressed anger, confusion, and shock. They were not happy about having a shortened band class on Thursday.

My first reaction was to calm them down and ask them to temper their responses, look at the positive and express their opinions more constructively. Then I paused and thought, "Band is going so well this school year that my students are upset that their band class is shortened. This is a great sign." So I sat there for a moment listening to their protests and enjoyed this expression of how much they enjoyed band.

*****

There is a pride I feel when someone I hire finds success. It's one of my favorite things about my job. When I hire someone, my approach is to put faith in them and their abilities. I manage them believing that they will be successful. And I continue to work with people this way until they prove me wrong.

One of the new teachers I hired this past week had their first concert, which was wonderful. His students performed at a high musical level and worked really hard, and there was a great feeling during the whole event.

It's nice to be proven right, but more than that, it's wonderful to be part of someone else's success and know that I did right by this teacher and our students.