Parenthood: Week 100 – The Magic Dragon

As I carefully picked up Ollie out of his crib, I could feel a fever emanating from his body. He whimpered quietly as I picked him up and I lifted him high up on my chest so that he could snuggle into the side of my neck. It was clear us that Ollie was sick and as I headed off to work, leaving Ollie in Diana’s care I wished there was something I could do to make him feel better.

Diana took Ollie to the doctor, and while we were thankful that Ollie didn’t have any other symptoms besides a fever, we were frustrated. Ollie’s energy was low, and he wasn’t his normal silly and inquisitive self. He was irritable and cranky and all of the things that usually got him in a better mood were not working.

I got back home after work as soon as I could. When I got home Ollie wasn’t doing worse, but he wasn’t doing a lot better. He didn’t eat a lot for dinner but we managed to get some fluids in him. Diana had made some commitments that took her out of the house for the evening, and we both felt that Ollie wasn’t so bad that she had to stay home so I found myself alone with my little sick son.

Ollie didn’t want to do anything but cuddle, but every time I held him close he got restless and wanted to be released from my arms. As soon as he was down, he would ask again for me to hold him. So I turned on some Sesame Street and he lay down of my chest as I reclined on the couch. He seemed comfortable, but he still seemed unsettled.

I turned off the television, reached to my iPhone and played “Puff The Magic Dragon.” He gently said “Puff,” and settled back down on my chest and finally relaxed. As soon as the song was done, he sat up on my torso and said “more Puff,” and I played the song again. After the fourth time, I simply put the song on repeat and we lay there together for almost a half an hour hearing about the land of Honali.



I carried him upstairs for his bath. This usually relaxing activity was full of crying and screaming. The rest of the bedtime routine didn’t go very smoothly either.

In Ollie’s bedroom, I placed Ollie against my chest as I sat in the rocking chair and again played “Puff The Magic Dragon.” Every time we got to the end, he would pick his head up off my chest and say “more Puff. Each time we got to the end of the song his request would get quieter, barely a whisper, until one time at the end of the song, there was silence and Ollie was asleep.

We probably listened to “Puff The Magic Dragon,” for more than an hour that night and not once did I feel like I was getting sick of this song (I’ve written about this song in this blog post). There’s a special place that I hold Peter, Paul and Mary for creating such a wonderful song that along with my embrace could bring him peace.

Like all parents, I hate it when Ollie was sick, but there was special that I will never forget about cuddling him and listening to “Puff The Magic Dragon” as he fell asleep.

Ollie doesn’t need me to rock him to sleep anymore. And it’s nice to now that even though he’s older, there are still times that he needs me to cuddle with him and along with a little help from Puff, I can make my son feel better.

Year 5: Week 33 – All Call

Sometimes music teachers get this idea in their head that it would be a good idea to put masses of students on stage for a performance. Wouldn’t it be fun to have an entire grade perform a song? It’s only about sixty kids. Why not combine all of the bands to make a massive ensemble of almost one hundred kids? Or do some fun cross grade work and have 3rd graders perform with 7th graders to make a massive choir that also reaches into the triple digits.

This past week, my thoughts have been deep into preparing for an all-call band performance at an assembly on Monday that also features a cross-grade 3rd grade and 7th grade choir. These are the kind of crazy ideas that cause a lot of stress, make us second-guess ourselves and put us in situations that seem to teeter from being phenomenal to being a complete disaster.

Whenever I’m thinking of putting together one of these projects, I try to focus on the “should,” more than the “can.” No, just because you have the will doesn’t mean that the way will always work itself out, but focusing too much on logistics early on can kill great ideas before they get developed.

The logistics are a big deal and providing students with a sense that their needs are being considered even though they are performing in a larger group is critical. There are seating charts, teaching kids transitions, making sure there are enough chairs and stands, and figuring out how to move said chairs and stands. Honestly I’ve spent more time in the past two weeks focusing on these issues then the actual music. If students do not have an appropriate space to perform, the music will not matter.

The rehearsals went pretty well this past week. Here are a couple things that helped make these the insane proposition of these mass rehearsal be more successful.

1. Preparation: We’ve been talking to the students about these mass rehearsals for a couple weeks now. I’ve explained how they need to adjust their rehearsal decorum and their playing so that they know how to manage themselves. We talked about how they need to be more independent and that the thing I hate the most about these rehearsals are that we can’t have discussions and I can’t get students feedback.

2. Making the rehearsal meaningful: Before the mass band rehearsal I told the band that we were already proud of them. Now it’s their job to work in a way that makes them proud of themselves and each other. The mass rehearsal was a time to prepare for the performance but more importantly, it was a time to share, explore and connect with each other as musicians and human beings through music.

3. Have fun: Sometimes as music teachers we forget to show our students the joy of music. While it’s necessary to maintain a certain decorum to keep the focus of a large group of students, you need to show the kids how much fun you are having. We need to remind the students that while all of this is hard work, it’s also a lot of fun.

We’ll see how next week goes. Even if the performance doesn’t go perfectly, I’ll feel ok, because I know that my students had a lot of fun getting there.

Parenthood: Week 99 – Degrees Of Cuteness

When Ollie was an infant almost everything he did was cute. It was cute when he sneezed, it was cute when he farted, and it was even cute sometimes when he cried. Now that Ollie is a toddler, none of these things are cute anymore. Ollie’s sneezes are accompanied by steams of snot, that if we don't wipe off quickly, he’ll rub all over his face, his are farts are stinky and gross, and there is nothing cute about a toddler crying at full volume, or any volume.

This doesn’t mean that Ollie isn’t cute anymore. Every stage of Ollie’s life has been cuter than the previous, and while I don’t think Ollie has reached his pinnacle of cuteness, I’m sure he is still heading in that direction. What is cute about Ollie has evolved.

When Ollie was an infant every little thing about him was cute, but for the most part all of the things he did that we found so adorable were not deliberate actions. What we found so cute in those early days of his life was things like how he yawned. This wasn’t an action made with any intention to interact with us; it was just something he did instinctually. So what are we left with now that so much of what made him so cute has evolved into things that are not so adorable anymore?

Well, we are left with a lot.

The things that Ollie does now that are cute are expressions of his effort to interact with the world. Here’s a couple examples of Ollie’s current cuteness from the past week: When Ollie gets excited and “runs,” his arms flail behind him in the most adorable way. Ollie's ball handling skills are so awesome that they often result in him throwing a toy basketball behind him intentionally. There’s Ollie’s effort to talk, which while baffling at times is almost always adorable. Then there’s his new bedtime ritual in which he says “cheek to cheek” and wants to go from hugging Diana to me and back to Diana squeezing his face against ours.

The cute-factor is getting ridiculous right now. It is exactly his intentionality that has raised Ollie’s actions to this new level of cuteness. Now along with the cute stuff, the challenging stuff has gone into a much higher gear as well. This is probably why toddlers have developed through evolution a heightened level of cuteness.

Will Ollie ever stop being cute? Ehh. . . I’ve watched my own students loose their cute-ness and it’s tough to watch, but here’s the thing. As awkward as my teenage students get, I never forget how cute they were when they were in younger grades and this memory sustains me and give me strength when I’m dealing with their oh so special teenage issues.

No matter how old Ollie gets, I’ll never forget how cute he was as a toddler, and just like with my students, while sometimes I miss the cuteness, I really love what comes after cute: a maturing young adult. While I will miss the eventual passing of the cuteness, I looking forward to Ollie being so much more than “cute.”

Year 5: Week 32 – The "Perfect" Day

As a teacher you plan and you prep your students for experience and you hope for the best. Along with this optimism, teaching requires you to brace yourself for disruptions, because along with every great accomplishment there are issues.

When the work we do with our kids is combined with the interpersonal dynamics of adults working together, it is inevitable that things go awry. Things cannot go perfectly at a school. Disorder and chaos will occur, students will misbehave during a concert, some students will get into a heated disagreement and faculty will disagree about important issues.

Our instinct is to strive to minimize these problems that seem to get in the way our teaching. We can always do better, but no matter how many talks we have with students, things will happen. The best students act thoughtlessly, and the greatest teachers’ passion create disagreements.

It’s hard to not get frustrated when things don’t seem to work as well as they should. I’m doing a project where my 3rd graders are doing a joint performance with the 7th grade choir of songs from Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Yesterday, I dove into the insanity of rehearsing almost on hundred students crammed into our choir room. Overall the kids did a fantastic job.

When we were debriefing about the experience one of my 3rd graders pointed out that she observed one of the 7th grade students misbehaving. This was disappointing for me because I had told the 3rd graders that 7th graders were good role models and I had reminded the 7th graders of how the 3rd graders looked up to them.

We talked to that 7th grade student and it all got worked out. We reflected and tried to figure out what we could have done better but the reality is that with one hundred kids in the room, an issue was bound to come up.

It took a while to get over and accept the “bad” that happened in that mass rehearsal as just part of the process of working on this performance.  Sometimes rehearsals need to not go perfectly in order for better rehearsals to happen. Sometimes people need to step in puddles so that others can remind them of how to be good students. And sometimes our younger students need to see that older students while more mature in many ways, share the same struggles to behave respectfully.

As we strive to be better educators, sometimes we forget the positive that comes when things don’t go perfectly. Some of the most important life lessons happen when students misbehave and some of the most important decisions are made through embracing the tension of disagreements between teachers.

We have got to be self-critical and strive to create the best learning environments for our students and be self-reflective when issues come up. At the same time we need to embrace issues, frustrations and conflicts that arise as inevitable and as parts of a students' experience. This is a very tough thing to do, that I still struggle with, but this is what teaching is and this is the gig I chose.

If your idea of a perfect day as a teacher or a perfect event with students doesn’t include any unexpected issues, then you are in the wrong profession. Teachers don’t strive for everything going right, we work for our students to help them learn how to be better humans beings and that can’t happen if everything goes “right.” And anyways, if teaching was filled with “perfect” days, I’d quit from boredom. It’s the downs along with the ups that makes this job so much fun.

Parenthood – Week 98: Other People’s Children

Do you know what is the worst? When you go to an indoor play space or playground and other people’s children come up and try to talk to you? Really?!?  Are you kidding me? I get paid to interact with children all week long. I am not talking to other people’s kids on my off time.

I’m joking . . . partially.

I’ve spent my entire professional life with other people’s children and I really enjoy this part of my job. I find kids fascinating, challenging and a lot of fun to work with. Years ago when I started as a teacher, I got my kid fix and when I got home from work, I had time away from kids. This changed when Ollie came into the picture. Now when I come home there’s a kid waiting for me who wants my attention.

I’ve heard some teachers, who don’t have kids, talk about the fact that they can’t imagine teaching kids all day long and coming home to deal with another kid.  I wondered about this too. Would I have the patience and stamina to be around kids and my kid?

When I have a stressful day at work, I do have to dig deeper when I come home and I’m with Ollie but that’s true for any job. It’s true what teachers who are parents say, it’s completely different when it’s your own kid.

Ollie never leaves my mind. His presence in my mind, in my life is more central and never ceasing. Being his father is more central to who I am than being a teacher. The children I work with at school are just my students.

The more time I’m a father, the less I carry the issues and drama of my students’ home with me from work. It’s easier to leave the care I feel for my students at work because I’ve realized from being Ollie’s dad that there’s someone else, my students' parents, who are giving that undivided care and love to that child. I don’t need to do this as a teacher, that’s not my role in my students’ lives.

It’s not that I care about my students any less, but with Ollie, there’s clearly a child in my life that I care about much more than any of the children that I teach. Because at the end of the day, these kids truly are other people’s children. They may be my “kids” but they aren’t my children.

Now for the other people’s children I see out and about. I just want to focus on my son when I’m spending time with him and I’ll be polite to other kids but I’m not going to go into my teacher mode and get to know them. However it’s different if these are kids that are friends with Ollie.

There’s a group of toddlers that Ollie gets together with and it has been really fun getting to know them and their family. As the family friend I get to play with them, be a little silly with a different level of responsibility. I still watch out for them and keep them out of trouble but I can be more relaxed than when I’m at school.

Now my life is full of children, at school, at home, and during most of our social outings. While I still need some quiet time and time with just adults, I really enjoy all the different ways that young people are in my life. It’s exhausting, confusing and kind of crazy, but it’s meaningful.

It's the job I chose, the family I'm proud of and the life I embrace.

Year 5: Week 31 – Prototype Week

For the past five years, I’ve had the same teaching schedule with a couple adjustments here and there. From what I understand it’s been over a decade since my school has had a holistic schedule change. For the past year the administrative team has been working on a new schedule and this week we had a prototype week where we tried out a draft of a new schedule.

In some ways, it was crazy. I felt like every five minutes I was checking my phone or the times I wrote on the board to see what time class was ending. There was a frantic energy around the teachers as we tried our best to negotiate unfamiliar transitions. Then there was the marathon-like feeling of teaching different classes in different orders, which challenged the rhythm teachers were accustom to.

At the same the craziness was kind of fun. Many kids came to class more fresh and ready to work, reveling in the novelty of having class at a different time of day. While there was some complaining about the schedule the kids rolled with it pretty well and the sense of discovery, seeing kids on different days and different times was refreshing.

Now what? It’s time for us to reflect on the schedule, but this is not an easy thing to do. There are different perspectives that we need to separate out as we examine the schedule. The hard thing is that some of these viewpoints are so interwoven in our day to day teaching that it’s difficult to pull them apart. Here’s what I mean:

The contract: Schedules have to address the contractual agreement between faculty and the administration. I don’t think this is the place where conversations about the schedule should start, but it’s a factor that at some point must be considered. Teaching minutes sometimes seem like limitations to education, but if these get steam-rolled, it effects planning time, which in turn negatively affects the quality of teaching.

Personal teaching preferences: We all have our own personal preferences about when we have prep time and when we like to teach certain classes. A lot of this builds up from what we are used to doing. It’s hard not to think about this because if our schedules line up with who we are naturally as teachers our kids will benefit, but this is not the nature of what it means to be a teacher. We are the teachers are kids need us to be as opposed to being the teacher we want to be.  We teach not at time we want to teach but rather times we need to teach. All of this needs to be put aside for the most important point:

What works best for the future of our students’ education: When reflecting on the schedule, we need to imagine that we are creating an idea schedule for someone else to teach. Based on research, the rhythm of the day and the curricular needs of students, we need to seek out a schedule that addresses the future of education. It is not enough to simply fix problems from the past, we need to set up a schedule that can help evolve the way the we want to teach.

In some ways it’s impossible to pull these three perspectives apart because they inevitably affect each other. Why even consider a schedule that you know for sure wouldn’t work within contract minutes? Because only by considering what seems impossible can imagination make something happen. It’s never a question of can. It’s always a question of should.

We’ll pull together our feedback, keep talking about schedule and see what happens. And even after the madness of this past week, I’m still feeling optimistic.

In focus