Year 6: Week 18 - A Lesson On David Bowie

This week I taught my kids about David Bowie.  Here's the lecture I have my 8th graders.  If you are interested on my thoughts on "Space Oddity" check out this post.

I want you to think about these facts:

In America:
24% of teachers are men
8.4% of marriages interracial
5.6% of people are Asian-American
2% of teachers are Asian-American

And 1.6% of men on earth are 5”4’

In almost every aspect of who I am, I am not in the majority. The things that make me an individual, the things about myself that I’m most proud of, set me apart from most other people in our country. It has taken me most of my life to embrace the things that make me an individual.

What make you special, what makes you an individual will often set you apart from other people.  In this way, being yourself can be a very lonely but it's one of the most important things you do in your life.

When people think of David Bowie, they think of his music, his acting and his art but most of all people think of a person who was brave enough to be different, to be the person he wanted to be regardless of what other people said.

Even though interracial marriage was legal for decades, when David Bowie married Iman, it was still a big deal to have a public figure be involved in an interracial marriage. As a young boy seeing pictures of them together, it opened up my mind to the possibility that marriage could be between people of difference races. No one told me that I couldn’t marry someone outside of my race but this didn’t really seem like a possibility until I saw the beautiful images of David Bowie and Iman as a couple.



Bowie’s music was imaginative, ground-breaking and beautiful. He use of harmony and his chord progressions were fascinating and challenging. Bowie’s lyrics were haunting, profound, and insightful. He never settled as an artist, and worlds he created with his music are unique and unforgettable.

I look around this room and I see guys wearing clothing with bright colors, shoes with neon accents. There are girls with interesting trim on their glasses and some really cool designs on some shirts. Once upon a time, men didn’t have as many options with the color clothing they wore. Girls were limited as well in their fashion choices. When people like David Bowie were brave enough to push those barriers, dress in crazy ways that sometimes made people question whether he was a man or a woman, it set our culture down a path that allowed the rest of us to be a little weird and embrace the expression of individuality as beauty.

Being an individual can be lonely and when someone has the bravery to an individual in front of the entire world, it makes the loneliness not feel so bad. David Bowie did that for millions of people and he did that for me.

This is “Space Oddity,” his most famous song. He’s tells a great story and it’s a got a beautiful chord progression and melody.  The instruments and Bowie's voice create an amazing journey that and matter how many times I experience this song, it always makes me feel less alone in the world.

Butterfly

Parenthood: Week 135 - Showing Love To A Toddler

Sometimes it's hard to show love to a toddler.

It’s starting to become a regular thing. Right before bed, Ollie refuses to let me read a book to him and demands that my wife read to him. Sometimes I give up and other times Diana validates his feelings but tells him that we will reads a book together. She starts reading and we take turns. Sometimes Ollie protests, but more often than not, once we get into the book, he accepts us reading to him together.

A couple nights ago when Ollie angrily protested again when I offered to read a book to him, I examined my options. I could try to read to him and hope that he accepts me reading, which probably wouldn’t work or I could just get Diana. I thought, “it’s not a big deal, Ollie isn’t showing me love, so I should just get Diana.” As I started walking away from Ollie I realized that I had another option.

Whenever Diana intervened and convinced Ollie to let both of us read to him, she was showing him the love that he wasn’t showing love to either of us. Instead of pulling away, Diana brought him closer to herself, dug deeper and got creative.

Instead of walking downstairs to get Diana, I walked over to the other room and got Ollie’s stuffed giraffe, Gigi. I asked Ollie if he wanted Gigi to read him. He became excited about this idea and a proceeded to read to him in a voice that was a cross between Eric Cartman and Lindsay Graham. Almost immediately we were both giggling and enjoying Mister Dog: The Dog Who Belonged to Himself.

In the face of tantrums, and meltdowns, which as toddlers get older become more verbal, parents have to dig deeper and deeper to express love that is truly unconditional.

A while back I wrote this post about the idea of unconditional love. It's a term that many people discuss as something they express but in reality is part of the human condition that few of us truly achieve.

To love unconditionally to express kindness, care and empathy to another person regardless of what feelings they express towards you and the choices that person make in their life. Our society is full if examples of parents loving conditionally. There's the mother who will not allow their son to come home for thanksgiving unless he doesn't bring his boyfriend and agrees to keep quiet about what she views as his "lifestyle" choice. There's the father of a teenage girl who gives up reaching out to his daughter after she rejects his invitations to go out to lunch for the tenth time. There's the parent who just can't take the pressure of life who decides to walk away.

If you think about the idea of love in the context of what you get from other people than you are thinking about a business transaction, not love. A child who expresses a lack of gratitude or respect to their parents at any age is no less deserving of their parents love than any other kid.

It’s really hard to give love to kids and not have this reciprocated. But you have to dig deep, and keep throwing love bombs. This kind of love is one of the most important things we give to our children.

When children receive love from their parents, no matter what those children say or do, it shows them that they are always deserving of love.  This external love become internal love and as these children becomes an adult, they love themselves throughout their lives. 

Is this way your love for your child will always be with them.

Year 6: Week 17 - Festival On The Horizon

It started as an idea. Let’s provide for our students an experience that helps them understand the greater musical community outside of our school and host a music festival. This was an idea, I first said aloud three years ago and now we are a month away from hosting our first festival.

Music festivals are a part of most students’ music education. A music festival is when schools, usually within a school district, join together once a year and play for each other. In addition, there are invited music educators who are invited to work with students.

Music festivals were part of my life growing up and part of my previous teaching job. In previous jobs, these festivals filled up weekends, took up a lot of class time to prepare for and were stressful. So I was glad when I started at this school and found that it was not as performance focused and didn’t participate in any festivals. Also, my first charge when I was hired was to start a band program, and doing a festival without and established band program didn’t make a lot of sense.

I had been floating around this idea of hosting a festival as a long term goal and then last year, my principal asked me, “why don’t we do the festival next year?” And without any good reason why not, I agreed that we would make it happen.

I stopped keeping track of how many tasks were on my to do list for this festival and how many emails I had sent out concerning this event.  There have been a bunch of meetings and some pretty wild twists and turns. While I’ve gotten a lot of work done and we are making good progress, there’s still a ton to do and it’s a lot to handle. The crazy thing is that it feels like the people in my department and my administration has more faith in my ability to pull this thing off than I do.

Before break, I was feeling annoyed because it seemed like people at my school just assumed that I would handle things.  "It Kingsley is involved things will just come together because he can make anything happen."  However on further reflection I’ve realized this isn’t about people taking advantage of me, it’s a feeling of confidence and belief in my vision and my abilities. It is because this community believes in me that I should put in the extra time, work and effort to makes things like this festival happen for my school.

It’s been a really busy week, but the work I’ve done for the festival this week feels satisfying.  I found time to enjoy my teaching with my students amongst all of the madness, which was an important reminder of the why behind all of the work.

There's a lot more to do for this festival, I'm trying some new stuff with some of classes and grades just around the corner.

Bring it on.

Jump

Parenthood: Week 134 - New Years Trip 2015-2016

This past week, we went on our yearly new year's trip to visit my family in Seattle. For the past couple years, we’ve spent the week of Christmas with Diana’s family and for the week of New Years we go and visit my side of the family. Since my family does not really celebrate Christmas, this works out pretty well.

We brought everyone on this trip, Buffy and Ollie and we had a great trip spending quality time with my parents as well as my brother, his wife and their daughter, my wonderful niece.

Spending time at my parent’s is really nice. We have our own bedroom suite. They put a crib in my dad’s office so Ollie has his own space and Buffy enjoy the different couches around the house that she turns into her own beds. She has her own dog bed over there but I have to do some herding to get her off the couch to come into our room and sleep in her dog bed.

We enjoyed some really nice moments on this trip. Diana, Ollie and I went to the Pacific Science Center. While the Dinosaur exhibit, which is more than thirty years old, may seem outdated to some, but to Ollie it was fascinating. I had a nice lunch with my dad, Diana got to go shopping with my mom and we had some quality time with my brother’s family. Also my brother and I got to geek out and play the X-Wing Miniature game, which truly is an awesome, though comically entertaining experience because of our lack of skill at the game.

One of my favorite moments was when Ollie and his cousin were taking turns performing songs. Now toddlers singing is one of the most entertaining things you will ever see. At a certain point Ollie’s cousin was playing the tambourine and Ollie was singing along. He felt it necessary to hold a music book in front on him while he was singing so he would run to the piano, grab a songbook, run back to his cousin, open the book and start singing. Never once in the numerous times he did this, did the songbook actually have the song he was singing. One time I calmly told him his book was upside down, so he stopped singing, turned the book right-side-up and continued singing.

Then there was the moment when Ollie sang “Puff, The Magic Dragon” for my mom. This was my brother’s favorite song when he was Ollie age and it is one of my son's favorites. Watching Ollie sing this song for my mom was like taking a look into the past of what it might have been like for my mom to hear my brother sing this song to her. My brother and I are her sons and my mom loves us as adults but she’ll never have us back as little kids and it felt really special that she could relive that moment of my brother as a toddler through Ollie.

I take for granted that I can hug my son and kiss him. I can pick him up and cuddle him and as much as this is for Ollie, I enjoy it as a parent. There was a moment when my dad tussled my hair when saying goodnight and I initially felt annoyed and then I immediately remember how it feels touch Ollie's head. Then instead I felt love through that gesture.

Another new year’s trip done, back to “reality.” While I’m tired from the plane ride, my heart feels refreshed from the love of my family.

30 Days Dry – Part 4: What Drinking Means To Me

When I taste that first sip of beer, I am reminded of how my mom first started going out with my dad because he liked how she enjoyed drinking beer. When I hear the rattle of ice against the side of my high ball glass full of whiskey, I'm transported back to my childhood bedroom. Listening in the dark as I lay in my bed, I would wait until I heard the sound of the ice in my dad’s whiskey glass as a signal that he was home from a late night at work. Only then would I feel relaxed and let myself slip into sleep. In the soft warmth that comes from a great drink I am reminded of the camaraderie and the joy of times with friends, sharing drinks, helping me learn to stop trying to be someone else and to love being myself.

Alcoholic beverages are as central to many cultures’ identity as fashion, cuisines, art and music. You can understand Italian culture without knowing great Italian operas, but you miss experiencing something profound about being Italian without knowing these great works of art. In the same way drinking an American lager will bring you an understanding of Midwestern working class roots in a way that few other experiences can.

Wines, beers, liquors and spirits are powerfully personal and culturally significant. My understanding of these beverages has connected me with my family and my cultural history. I have extended family members who barely speak English that only through drinking whiskey have we crossed cultural barriers and created meaningful memories.

As a second-generation immigrant, learning about American drinking culture in college and beyond has helped me make sense of a world that far too often, still feels foreign. Each new drink I tried and each new tradition I participated related to drinking brought me closer to what it meant to be American.

In each sip of an alcoholic drink I feel my culture and my family. I feel closer to the world around me, connecting with generations of artisans that contributed to the creation of what I am enjoying. I am also sharing an experience with people around the world and through time who have drank the same beverage that I am enjoying.

The process of distilling, brewing and fermenting has the potential to create unparalleled flavors with wonderful nuances and complexity. Like a great opera, knowing a great whiskey takes work, exposure and expertise to appreciate. And like with a masterpiece of an aria, after learning about a great whisky, the experience of drinking that great spirit can be an emotional and beautiful experience.

It's not all about high art. Like a hot dog on a Fourth of July cookout, even a mediocre beer with the right friends can help create unforgettable eating experiences.

On the same section in a store that you can find artfully crated spirits that reflect great human achievement built on years of study and innovation you can also find lower down on a bottom shelf, mass-produced beverages only drunk for escapism. It is in these extremes that we find the best and the worst of the human experience of drinking alcohol. In that top shelf you find the beauty of human expression through flavor and tradition and in the bottom shelf there is only a stale taste that reflects the burden of a pleasure turned into a darkness that clouds one's soul in regret.

To love alcohol is to know what it can bring to life and what it can take away. Alcohol can feel both essential and extraneous, inspiring and depressing. It is a force that has brought families together and torn families apart. Alcoholic beverages for some bring out the best in us but in others bring forth the worst parts of our humanity.

I really enjoy drinking but I've taken this break because it seems like far too often drinking was not a culturally meaningful experience. It was simply a way to escape. I have my stress and my difficulties but I have a blessed life and never did the escapism of drinking alcohol make me feel better about the challenges in my life.

My relationship with alcohol continues to evolve. If I find myself missing the meaningful experience of drinking, I will take a break, like a recently have to reevaluate. Someday, I will probably walk way from drinking for good. Will I miss it? I hope so, and for the right reasons. If I miss it for the wrong reasons than it'll be a confirmation that walking away truly is for the best.