Parenthood: Week 104 – No, no, no . . .

There are some milestones you look forward to as a parent like first steps, first words and the first song your child learns to sing.  And then there are the milestones you dread. There’s the first painful burn, the first allergic reaction and the first notes your child plays on a viola.

In the past couple weeks, it’s become clear that we have hit one of “those” milestones: the use of the word “no.”

“No,” isn’t really a common word in our household. When we were raising Buffy, we were very conscientious to only use “no” rarely and really focus on positive feedback.  Buffy’s trainer taught us that using the word “yes,” with a bright smile make a dog want to look at you whenever you talk, which makes the times that you need to use an assertive “no” have more impact. If you are always saying “no” to a dog, like humans, they begin tuning it out.

In Ollie’s first year of life, it wasn’t really necessary to tell him “no.” If he was getting into something that he wasn’t suppose to, it was more our fault than his own, so it didn’t make sense to lay the blame on him. Now that he is 103 weeks old, he is comfortably walking, running (kind of) and jumping. There are things around the house that he needs to know he shouldn’t get into and there are actions that he needs to learn how to control. So the word “no” has become part of the way we interact with Ollie. And of course, it comes to no surprise that he is now using this word in his interactions with us.

There’s the expected “no, no, no” whining when we turn off the television or take away a toy that he is not done playing with. That’s easy to take and not a big deal, but the screams of “no, no, no” when I reach to pick him up out of his crib are a different thing altogether.

Some when I go to pick him up or reach out to him, he will yell “no, no no,” and push me away. Diana responds by telling him that this is not how we respond to people in our family and she will give me a hug. Seeing this, Ollie will often walk over and want to join in on the embrace.

Here’s the thing about Ollie saying “no.” Often, he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. If I ask him if he wants to eat a certain kind of food and he says “no.” if I then show him the food, he will often say “yes” and smile. The word “no” for Ollie isn’t so much a negative but one of the few verbal ways he can express confusion, frustration or discomfort. While I get that he is not being purposely hurtful, it’s difficult to deal your child screaming at you to get away when you approach.

This past Thursday, before I left for work, I heard him stirring so I went in to say good morning and he was not happy to see me. He screamed “no” at me, wanting his mom. Diana got him to calm down, but he was cranky and in a bad mood so I left after unsuccessfully trying to get him to calm down.

I got home about an hour after he had gone to bed. As I was walking around the house, I heard him giggling in his crib. Most of the time, I would just ignore this and let him work himself back to bed but I decided to peek in. As I looked down at him in the darkness, he softly said “dada” and reached up to me. I picked him, settled into the rocking chair and sat him down on my lap.  Then turned his body around so he was facing me and with a big smile began talking to me.

Ollie sat up, reached toward my face, giggled when I playfully chomped at his finger. Then he hugged himself and said “I love you” and fell forward into my chest. After we talked some more, I put him back into his crib and let him fall asleep.

Do I know for sure that his words at the nighttime were more sincere than his protests earlier in the morning?

Yes.

Ollie may verbally say “no” to me, and he may push me away sometimes when he would prefer my wife or to be left alone. As much as we sometimes try to define ourselves by what we don’t like (which can be an endless list), it is where we find solace in difficult times in our lives that we find what is most meaningful to who we are as people. 

Does it hurt when Ollie says “no” to my presence? Yes, but its easy to get over, because even if he doesn’t want me at a certain moment, I know that other times, more often than the moments of rejection we bring meaning and love into each other’s lives.

Year 5: Week 37 – The Biggest Mistake

“The biggest mistake I made when I was a younger teacher and that I see other less experienced teachers make is that they get too close to their students.”

Yesterday, one of the middle school teachers that I have a high level of respect for made this comment in conversation. We were talking about the fact that even though I’m not any less committed to my job as a teacher, since becoming a father being a teacher is not as high a priority in life. Problems at work still occur, but they don’t stay in my head when I go home like they used to before becoming a father.

People have different ideas of what it means to be a teachers. There is that “Mr. Holland’s’ Opus,” fantasy of being a teacher where you make deep emotional connections with your students and you change their lives. A lot of young teachers, including myself years ago, attempt to chase these kinds of deep and meaningful relationships with our students. The problem is that for most of our students, this is not what they need from us.

We are teachers. We aren’t parents. Teachers should never love their students as parents love their kids. Students, even in the best situations, don’t really care about their teachers as people. It’s easy to forget this especially as a young teacher.

When you are a young teacher in the school, you are often walking into a situation when there is also a far amount of older teachers. Students see a fresh face who understands their cultural references and likes the same music they do and they get excited. As a teacher and human being, this positive attention feels great. Your kids get comfortable with you, tell you their personal concerns and issues and you feel like you are really connecting with them and helping them in a meaningful way.

The difficult thing is that this dynamic makes it hard to maintain authority, and control especially when conflicts arise. The younger students get, the more difficult it is to have a relationship with a teacher that is both authoritative and buddy-buddy. The switch between the two, which may seem logical to a teacher, can feel like betrayal even to the most mature high school students.

I’m not advocating that we don’t foster meaningful bonds with out students but there is a line that should not be crossed. The difficulty is that there is no black and white rules in understand these boundaries in the relationships that we foster with our students.

While there are legal ways to look at these boundaries, there is a broader, philosophical question that helps us guide the way we interact with our students. Who truly benefits? Are your interactions with your students more about their educational growth as a human being or your social and emotional gratification? While friendships should have a level of equity, student-teacher relationships do not.

We should feel professional satisfaction from our work with our students but emotional support and social stimulus should not come from our students. To do so takes advantage of our place of authority.

Teachers serve students’ needs, not the other way around. To teach our students with equity, compassion, and professionalism, we need to keep a level of distance so we can make clear decisions as professionals.  The balance between relating to our students and getting too close to our students can be difficult, but it's an important issue to struggle with.

Keeping this distance may not be as fun, but having "fun" isn't what this gig is about.  Like I tell my students, the satisfaction from hard work and good choices made as a citizen will last far longer than "fun." And the same thing can be said about teaching.

Parenthood: Week 103 - Success As A Parent

“ . . . a parent knows success when his child turns out better than he did.”

Vice President Joe Biden wrote this in his message announcing the passing of his son, Beau Biden. It is a sentiment that has been echoed by many other people, however in this context, it gives us pause. How can you be more successful than a man who is the Vice President of the most powerful nation on the planet? What does success really mean? To our Vice President, success isn’t about political power, but how his son Beau “measured himself as a husband, father, son and brother.” In these significant ways, our Vice President sees his son as being more successful, which brings him pride.

This viewpoint of parenthood embodies a selflessness and a lack of insecurity. It’s an approach to parenting in which the parents find energy and life through their kids reaching beyond the parents’ abilities.

Not every parent feels this way. There are people who do not parent selflessly. Through their children they try to prove to themselves and others that their life has meaning. These people push their children to fulfill their fantasies. Sometimes these people also get embittered when their children reach beyond their own personal achievements. This type of parental relationship inevitably leads to resentment from the child and a deeper layer of regret as the parent now lives with their own failures as an individual and a parent.

I can imagine the difficulty in the shifting role of a parent if Ollie at some point becomes a better pianist than me. For years, I am the one teaching him and at some point he overcomes my abilities. It’s not so much that I don’t want Ollie to be better than me, but it’s sign of him growing up. The thing is that even if he does surpass all of my musical skills, there are things that he will always needs from me as a father.  Yes, on one level it’s sad that he doesn’t need me the same way he did a year ago.  At the same time, the challenge of being the dad he needs now is a thrill.  While the transition is difficult, like every other stage in parenthood, I know that this one will bring us closer.

If our Vice President is right, than I'm a successful parent. Ollie is more outgoing and adventurous than me. He has a deeper well of empathy and his optimism is truly inspiring. Ollie is giving, compassionate and generous. He’s a lot more likely to share his meal with you than I am (and he’s also more likely to simply take food off your plate, if you don’t seem to be interested in eating). And if you’ve met Ollie and you know me, there is no doubt that Ollie is so much cooler than I am.

Ollie surpassing me doesn’t really seem like it comes from me being a “successful” parent. I’m make mistakes up all of the time and I’m still working toward feeling truly successful.  Right now Ollie being awesome feels less like a result of my work, and more like a blessing.

Year 5: Week 36 - Reactions To The Coming End

There’s this point in the year when you start your lesson planning from the last day of the year backwards. There is a mixture of feelings that come when you are leading up to that last class. There’s excitement looking forward to end of the year lessons but then there’s also an inevitable crunch when you realize how little time you have left to wrap things up.

The added layer is that there is a level of craziness from the kids that makes these classes sometimes a little rowdier and less productive, which throws another wrench into the end of the year teaching. I’ve joked that we should tell the kids that school is out in July and surprise them by letting them out early in an attempt to delay their end of the year squirrelyness.

Students express end of the year excitement in different ways. Right now, I can’t get my 3rd graders to stop vibrating. I’m not joking. They are having a hard time settling down and they are very distractible. However, they are still into getting work done and have a good level of buy-in.

My 5th graders are checking out a little more. They don’t want to work as much as my 3rd graders but they are still doing some good work. Their issue is a level reversion, especially by the boys. There is a lot of discussion about the transition into the 6th grade in the end of 5th grade. Many girls seem to respond to this looming transition by wanting to act more mature, while a lot of the boys respond to their feelings of insecurity of being an older student by acting more immature. My 5th graders are much more of mixed bag.

The 6th graders are doing a nice job of maintaining right now. Part of this is that they have their big performance and presentation is next week so they have still have concrete and consequential work to do. My 5th graders’ big presentation was in early May. Also, the 6th graders don’t have a major transition to think about moving into 7th grade. They just go down the hall to a new locker bay.

Then there are my 8th graders. I don’t know what the term is for the 8th grade version of seniorities, but it’s definitely a thing. Even though they are performing a song for their 8th Grade Tribute (our version of 8th grade graduation), they started mentally checking out weeks ago. Right after out concert in mid-May, they walked into class expecting to do nothing. Despite all of their whining and complaining, they have been having some good music classes and I’m really looking forward to their upcoming performance. However the effort it has taken to get them into the right mindset and navigating the layers of teenage attitude has been exhausting. One of the things that it's important to remember at this age isn’t to judge their opinions and thoughts on what they say.  Instead its important to focus on their actions. Right now their actions are demonstrating a good level of work and commitment.

We can’t forget the teachers. You would think that the teachers are starting to mail things in but they really aren’t. Two of my fellow teachers who are retiring are not letting up at all. They are driving hard all the way to the end and when I’m feeling at all like letting some things go their dedication is inspiring. No one would blame them for skating a little bit towards the end of their career but they continue to keep at it and that dedication is one of the many reasons I’m going to miss them so much next year and beyond.

There’s two weeks, lots of grades and comments to complete and the end of the year rituals.

Here we go, time to finish strong.

Parenthood: Week 102 – The Things They Don’t Remember

“Don’t worry, it’s not like they will remember this when they are an adult.”

This is what we tell ourselves when something goes wrong and we feel guilt and regret about something that has occurred with our child. Most of what we do with babies and toddlers they don’t actually remember as adults. It’s important to remember this as we try our best as parents and inevitably make mistakes. Don’t freak out about small things not going as planned with your kid, because chances are at the time they don’t realize something is awry and they probably will not remember that moment.

This same idea is also used to justify not doing things for our kids. Why bother take a kid to Disneyland when they will not remember it? Why take them on a trip when they will have no memory of this experience? Save the money for a time later when they will actually be able to hold onto these memories in a meaningful way. Sometimes it’s important that we remind ourselves to not go overboard with a birthday party or a trip when your kids are young. Remembering the fact that they will have little memory of an event gets us to relax a little bit and be more present in the moment.

Do experiences in our lives only have value is they are remembered? That’s a pretty depressing thought when you think about it because most of the moments in our lives are not committed to memory permanently. I reject this notion that we place value on the moments in our lives based on our memories. Often experiences that leave lasting memories are significant in our lives but there’s a lot of moments that we don’t remember that have significant impact on who we are as human beings.

I don’t remember the first time my dad held me as a newborn and I don’t think Ollie will remember the first time I held him. However this is one of the most important moments in my own life and Ollie’s life. That moment, the devotion of a dad being there, present with love and care is not something to be taken for granted. It is in that moment a connection was formed that grew and sustains my relationship with my father and my son.

Part of what we need to consider is that we do for our children for ourselves at the same time. Every times we go above and beyond, push a little harder to make a moment special for our children, we are giving of ourselves. Every single time we show care in this way, we are placing an importance on our children that makes them more significant in our thoughts and in our hearts.

I’m sure Ollie will not remember this birthday party that we put on for him earlier today. But through the pictures, he will know that it happened. More importantly today he felt what it meant to be loved by being surrounded by people who hold him in their hearts. It is this feeling that will sustain him and carry him through difficult moments in his life in a way that he will never be able to articulate, because it’s not a memory. It’s something deeper that is woven into his being. It is something that he will know, but can’t remember, a feeling that is stronger than a moment and an emotion that is more powerful than a thought.

Year 5: Week 35 - The Class After The Performance

How do we end the year?

Many music teachers feel their job is done after the final performance. I once observed a teacher who had her students literally watch movies for a solid three weeks because the performance was done. This is a ludicrous and self-defeating way to teach.

One of the reasons our job as music teachers at my school is so challenging is because we insist on not only having our students put on great performance that reflect high levels of musicianship but also because we are committed to having meaning and significance in the process of preparing for performances.

We all understand that a meaningful process brings significance to a performances and it is often in the preparation that our students experience their most important musical memories at our school, not the performances.

If the time after a performance is not spent doing meaningful work in music class, than it is communicating to our students "since we don't have any more performances, we have nothing to do in class." This goes contrary to our process-orientated philosophy indirectly elevating the performance.

Yes, we need to give our kids and ourselves mental breaks after performances. But beyond a class or two to relax, it is important that we take full advantage of the time we have left in the school year. This is prime time for students to reflect on the year, do important assessments, to revisit favorite activities and songs, and do the lessons that or so often hindered by preparing by performances.

We want our students' last memory of music this year to be of creative, joyous, and focused music making. Creating this memory will help our students have a better transition in the beginning of music class next fall. For example if a class of 3rd graders ends the year watching a week of DVDs that have no curricular significance, than how can we expect them to walk into 4th grade music in the fall ready to work?

Even if you don’t go along with my school’s philosophy of music education and have a stronger focus on the performance, you must recognize that any time wasted even at the end of the school year is a wasted opportunity to lay ground work for future great work.

I reject the notion that class is less significant after a performance is done. Yes, because of the reality of the tension between process and performances expectations, it often feels that preparing for the performance is critical class time and post-performance classes are more relaxed.  Regardless, we should always strive to make every minute of class, regardless of where it lies in the school year, as meaningful as we can for our students.

Mother's Day 2015