10 Moments Of 2021: Part 1

10. Admiral Rachel Levine

Confirming a pediatrician and Four-Star Admiral for the United States Assistant Secretary for Health should have been straightforward and non-controversial.  That was not the case as the “senator” from Kentucky, Rand Paul, decided to engage in a disgusting line of questioning attacking Admiral Levine because she is transgender.

President Biden nominated Admiral Levine for the United States Assistant Secretary in a powerful statement of inclusion, making her the first transgender American to be nominated for a Senate-confirmed position. More than a “diversity” hire, Admiral Levine was an example of how you can have diversity and excellence in positions.

Paul and the Republicans could have joined President Biden in making America a more equitable and accessible society. Instead, the Republicans continue to make up false crises, “boogeymen” to make their supporters feel insecure and consolidate power. In the past year, their shameless attempts to do so have been sadly effective in riling their base. Once upon a time, it was the idea that Black men would assault white women, and now it’s CRT in schools, COVID-19 vaccines, and transgender rights.

In the face of paul’s attacks, Adrimral Levine did speak with dignity and grace. This is an important reminder that transgender Americans suffer from unjust discrimination and oppression. If a four-star Admiral can face such an attack on live television, imagine what is happening to less powerful transgender individuals.  We must all work deliberately to support transgender rights. 

The Republican party and most of its leadership have no intention to work to make American’s lives better, so it’s up to us.

9. Simone Biles

Simone Biles changed the narrative. She helped us all see what it meant to be tough and what it meant to be a hero. She further revealed exploitation and trauma in the “heroic” past of USA Gymnastics. And she showed us how to take care of others and ourselves.

Biles made me realize that sacrifice for your job was overrated and that our admiration for those who achieve “greatness” at the cost of their own mental and physical health needed to be questioned.

My entire life, I have had women who were described as “petite” as central figures in my life, my mother and my wife. I’ve witnessed how they have been condescended to, insulted, and belittled because of their stature. Watching Simone Biles last summer in the Olympics, it occurred to me that there is something very wrong and disturbing about how we see and treat women who happen to be shorter than others.  

The most important thing that Simone did for me was raise questions. These aren’t questions that had easy answers, but they are essential questions that change how we see our heroes, athletes, and the women in our lives who are a couple inches short than average, who in my experiences are anything but average. 

8. Amanda Gorman

I’ve talked and about almost every single part of my life and my identity except for one until I heard the words of Amanda Gorman.  Amanda Gorman gave me the strength to see the face part of my life and identity. I have rarely talked about but thought about every day of my life: my speech impediment.

I thought I heard signs of it in her voice when I researched her before the inauguration, which was confirmed in many of the interviews and lectures that she gave. Gorman is the first person I have ever seen in my life to talk openly and honestly about the type of speech impediment that I had growing up.

After hearing Gorman talk about her struggles, I didn’t immediately decide to dive into my feelings about my speech. It took a couple of months. Then, when it did feel like the right time, I wrote about my speech impediment in these blog posts and decided to see a speech therapist. 

This was a challenging and emotional process, but it was worth it. I know that I’m a “powerful speaker,” and I have taken more joy in speaking to others as a teacher and a person. I understand my daily challenges with speech better, and I’m getting closer to having pride in my journey with speech.

No, I am not yet proud of how I speak, but I see my speech as a strength and part of my life that has made me the man I’m proud to be today.

Year 11 – Week 37: The 2021-2022 School Year

Here’s what we know for sure about the 2021-2022 school year.


Next fall, at its worst, mitigation practices will look like they do right now.

As vaccination rates rise and more and more children receive vaccinations, we will transition even more into a new normal next school year. Children twelve-years-old and up can be vaccinated, but it is unclear when younger students can be vaccinated. Even though most adults are vaccinated, it is difficult to imagine a situation when young students under the age of twelve can resume school without mitigation factors without being vaccinated. Likely there will be two different school phases next year, one where students wear masks and one where they do not.

We know what works, we know what is gratuitous, and we know what we need to do to modify our teaching to help our students.

School populations will change.

In early May, Evanston public schools, District 65, reported that their student enrollment had declined by more than 300 students and that this number will likely grow. This decline in enrollment will be accompanied by staff and faculty layoffs. In my school, we have three new upper-level administrators coming to our school this spring and many new faculty who we hired this spring.

The vast majority of schools next fall will have significant changes in their population due to faculty and staff changes and/or student changes. For some school communities, this will have its benefits, for other schools, this will be devastating, and for every school, these changes will be challenging.

I predict that these changes will continue in the 2022-2023 school year, as people who do not have the financial ability to move for this school year will do so the following year.


Curriculum will have to adapt.

For music programs like mine, which had little band and choir at 7th and 8th-grade level and no beginning 6th-grade band and choir, we will have to modify our curriculum from previous years next year. Even schools with mostly in-person school cannot expect students to transition into the curriculum comfortably; they would typically learn at the grade level they are entering next fall.

Discussions of “catching students up” and learning loss will continue in the next couple of months, and schools will have to wrestle with how to serve students academically. After two years of schooling, in the very best of circumstances, students could not achieve the learning growth that would have happened without the pandemic.

Changes in the curriculum to meet the needs of the students are not a concern just for the next school year but will continue for many years.


The crises continues.

When many educators talked about the challenges of the 2020-2021 school year, many of them spoke about three crises: the pandemic, the political tensions, and the upcoming election, and racism in America.

All three of the crises will be present in the 2021-2022 school year. Even if most Americans get vaccinated, the pandemic will continue to have a profound effect on the human race. Few countries are vaccinating at the rate of America, and the incomprehensible suffering and trauma due to COVID-19 will continue around the world as America return to “normal.”

It is a disservice to our students and our humanity if we ignore how the pandemic continues while we remove masks and reengage with each other.

The losers did not go silently into the night. trump’s insecurities, whims, and desire for power continue to influence the Republican party.  Lies continue to be embraced by many Americans and racism as a tool to consolidate power. Democracy didn’t win when President Biden was elected, it survived an assault, and the battles continue.

“In recent weeks, Republican legislatures in roughly half a dozen states have either adopted or advanced bills purporting to take aim for the teaching of critical race theory, an academic approach that examines how race and racism function in law and society.”

- Adrian Florido, this NPR article

This is where we are with the essential integrating of lessons about racism into American public schools.

Black and brown people continue to be mistreated by police officers, and racial injustice permeates every facet of our society.  America has failed to address the systemic racism in public education made painfully clear by the pandemic in a meaningful way.

Instead of leaning into these issues, Republicans are trying to pretend they don’t exist. This crisis continues.

While we have many reasons to be optimistic about the 2021-2022 school year, we need to be realistic about the challenges that we are facing. As the masks come off, we have to use this comfort and lessened anxiety to focus on creating an educational experience that truly meets the present challenges while meeting students where they are at.  This means focusing on mental health, inequity, and community.

We can see this as a burden, and we can see this as a wonderful opportunity to engaging in meaningful, invigorating, and society-changing work. Every day, regardless of the past, we can make choices to do better for our students.  We have to remember these past two years, but we can't dwell on them.

Don’t look back in anger.  Look forward to next fall with hope. I’ll be there with you.

Parenthood: Week 421 – Bedtime

I have many great bedtime memories with my children: Singing "Ollie-bear" ("Edelweiss with different lyrics to Ollie as a toddler), cuddling with Ethan under the covers and reading books with him, trying to ignore Lucas giggles as I rock him to sleep, and just giving up and laughing along with him.  

I also have a lot of really rough memories of bedtime: holding Ollie as a baby pacing around the room with a pacifier wedged between my chest as his mouth to keep it in as he screamed, Ethan refusing to go to sleep and screaming for forty-five minutes straight.  

Lucas, well, I'll be honest. So far, he's been a great sleeper. There are likely issues later in his life, but I haven't dealt with many issues. This is probably because since he is still nursing at night, Diana handles most of his sleep needs.  

An effective bedtime routine is a tricky thing to pull off. There are processes to move through like bath and tooth-brushing. Then there are more wind-down routines like storytime, journaling, and singing, and cuddling. You want to move things along at a deliberate pace because children stall and draw out the entire process if you don't. At the same time, you don't want things to feel frantic or rushed.  

You don't want it to be a power struggle, but sometimes you have to pick up the kid and make it happen. Ollie is very compliment about getting ready for bed when we tell him to. Ethan isn't. This dynamic is tricky. I'd rather Ethan chose to engage in the process independently, but if he doesn't, I can only wait and cajole him so much before I need to pick him up and carry him up the stairs.  

When I try to be positive and pleasant, sometimes my children take advantage of that and ask for more books and more hugs. So, I find that being clear by saying "I'm reading two books only" is more effective, but that sometimes feels more structured than I'd like.  

It's hard to say no to more hugs, and it's annoying to end the night negatively ordering kids back to the room or sternly telling them to get back in their bed and be quiet. I do know that this pays off, as I have seen with Ollie. The structure we put into place has resulted in his understanding of the need to go to bed and put himself to sleep. Even though Ethan is still a challenge, he has significantly improved.  

A year ago, Ethan was getting out of his crib and coming into my bed multiple times a night. When I would try to put him back in his crib, he'd scream in protest. Now, Ethan periodically visits me at night to try to get a cuddle, but I can put him back in his bed, and he goes back to sleep without a sound. Most nights, he wants me to sit in the room for a couple of minutes while he lays in bed, and I usually leave while he's still awake. Sometimes I find this annoying, but this is much better than him needing me in his bed to get him to be all the way asleep. 

Sleep is an unknown.  

It's a place of uncertainty where dreams can take you to places of comfort and also places of fear. In a developing mind of child where object permanence is not established, they can have great anxiety about what can be lost when their eyes are closed and what they will find when they wake up. Sleep is a time of great vulnerability when children are defenseless against the unknown, and in the dark, there is more unseen than seen.  

This is why our work at bedtime with our children is essential. Like many important things about parenthood, this work is hard, it's changing, and it takes a lot out of us. The work is also a gift, proof that our love can carry them into the unknown and provide the comfort that we will be there on the other side through the darkness into light.

Parenthood: Week 418 - Peace In the Forest

I'm not what you would call "outdoorsy." 

Before I had children of my own, I'd go on hiking on occasion, but more often than not, I would stay inside. I do enjoy the 5th-grade outdoor education trip that I've been on most years. It includes long hikes, some at nighttime without flashlights. These are challenging hikes, and at times they have been cold and wet, but I'm always glad that I go on these trips. However, I do spend a couple afterward thinking how I'm never going to go on one of these trips every again.  

I've definitely spent more time outside since having my first son Ollie. Going on walks and parks is one thing you do as a parent with a baby or young child. The child needs fresh air, and so do you. A parent can easily spend all day inside, and that can make a person stir-crazy, so taking a baby in a stroller around the block helps the parent and the child.  

As Ollie got older and the other two came along, getting outside was one of those things we did more and more. All our children are early risers, and we found that if we got them out of the house early in the day, they would be in a better mood for the remainder of the day.  

So, while it's tough to get moving on a weekend when your kids get you up at 6:45 am, the effort to get moving and out of the house is almost always worth it.  

When the pandemic, we responded by getting our children out to nature even more. It was unclear a year ago what was safe. Taking our children to the book store, library, and other indoor outings seemed like they were not a good idea or off-limits, so we went to forest preserves instead. 

Almost every weekend, and many weekdays when we could, we got out children outside, even when the weather wasn't great. During the summer we spent more time at the beach than we have in any previous summer. We have continued to get outside almost every weekend morning, even when there were two feet of snow on the ground.  

Yes, our children are in better moods if they spend the morning outside, but it's more than that. My children are rarely bored when we are in nature. They are less likely to get bored in an outside playground than at home, and they are even more unlikely to get bored if we are exploring the woods of a forest preserve.  

Ethan and Ollie are fascinated by poking sticks into pools of ice, climbing over fallen trees, and finding new paths in the forest. They find sticks to play with and examine how plants grow, and while they scare off most animals with how noisy they are, they enjoy seeing birds and bugs that they find.  

I find myself standing in the woods, often tired but feeling content that I'm away from it all, hearing the activity of my children behind me. Buffy at my side, I feel that we are doing right helping our children have a good relationship with nature. Sometimes when you do things for children, you end up doing something for yourself that you would never otherwise do. Spending time in nature is one of those things for me that my children have helped me do for myself, and especially in all of the chaos of the past year, it has brought me moments of peace.

Year 11 – Week 30: To The End Of The School Year

What am I going to do for the rest of the school year? 

Usually, I come back from Spring break with preparing for my 5th graders' performance and the middle school band concert. 3rd grade is usually deep into their recorder unit and moving along at a good pace.  

There is no live performance. My 5th graders cannot sing and play recorder as part of the COVID-19 mitigation practices, and we can't bring parents into our school for a performance anyways, so that is done. The middle school band concert is canceled for the same reason. We haven't had band or choir all year. This year I'm not teaching 3rd grade for the first time in almost a dozen years because of scheduling issues, so I'm with 4th grade, and I'm not sure what we are doing in that class when we get back from break.  

I'm unsure.  

Like every stage of this school year, there are new challenges and changes. My 4th and 5th grader classes were split up into six pods/grade of 9-10 students, and they will now be combined into three pods (classes)/grade. The CDC recommends that social distances in schools can be changed from 6 feet to 3 feet means that we can combine these students into the class sizes that we have done in previous years.  

This will be a significant change. Having twice as many students in a classroom will feel different. Having only 9-10 students spaced out in a room felt pretty good. It felt right for students to have so much space around them, so this will feel crowded. I'm probably going to feel a bit uneasy being in those classrooms with so many students. That is something I am going to have to process.  

The classroom community will need work. It takes a while for a group of students to feel out the social and power dynamics in a class. It will be interesting trying to balance out the time needed for this classroom community to realign and reorganize with curricular goals. I'm not sure how to play it yet. Part of me just wants to get to curricular work and establish norms as we work, but part of me thinks clear reminders and discussions may be necessary.  

I'm excited.

My 8th graders have been in their larger sections about 18 students this whole year but have not been able to be in classrooms because of the 6-foot social distancing recommendations. Now that we are down 3 feet, they can finally be in classrooms. I've been teaching them in hallways, in part of the library, an art classroom, which worked pretty well, so it's going to be nice to teach them in a classroom. Teaching them in two rows spaced out down a hallway is not fun. I'm not going to miss that.  

And I'm worried.

Will we more exposures at my school, which will lead to more quarantines? Now that I'm vaccinated, I'm not concerned about my health that much, and with the layers of mitigations my school has put into place, we have not had students get COVID-19 from being exposed to COIVD-19 from other students in classrooms.  

The first time I was exposed to a COVID-19 positive student was one of the most challenging days of my teaching career. That was before I was vaccinated, and it was very stressful. Since then, I've been exposed two other times after being vaccinated, and it's still hard to process. I don't have to quarantine since I am vaccinated, but the students do, and it's unsettling.  

I don't want the year to end with more of this, but that may be something I need to accept. I don't know if I should mentally prepare for more quarantines or hope to make it to the end without these situations coming up. The fact that we have not had spread from our classrooms means that our mitigation practices are working. That is a good thing, but the fact that we even have to deal with this feels still so wrong after all this time.  

What will the end of the school year feel like? Will it feel like a moment of great accomplishment in the worst of times, or will it be filled with regret? What will the parents say, what will the teachers say, and what will our students say about all we did this year to make in-person school work? 

We will find out, and until then, like everything about my job in the past year, we have to take it one task at a time, one day at a time. Accept uncertainty, be flexible, and stay focused on what is best for the students.