“Runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin'”
Last time I wrote about running, it was when I hit 500 miles.
It took about 10 months to run that hundred miles, which was a big improvement. And in the 13 months since I hit 500 miles, I’ve run 260 miles. In the last year and change, I’ve run two 5K’s. In-between those 5K’s I did eight weeks of physical therapy.
The first time I did a 5K in 2013, I ran it in 29:29. I was just happy to finish. That was a great time for me. When I did my second 5K, last spring, I got my time down to 26:40, which blew me away. It was a tough race to run, colder than I was used it with wind coming off of the lake, but I got it done. This last 5K that I ran a couple weeks ago, I really wanted to improve my time. My last practice run before the race was 26:36. It wasn’t a lot quicker than my that 5K time I was trying to beat, but I figured with adrenaline, I’d run a faster time on the race day.
I ran 26:55.
I was really disappointed. The thing that people tell you running is that when you start running, your running times just get faster and faster. This is true. It’s pretty incredible going from having your fastest comfortable mile time go from 15 minutes to 10 minutes in a matter weeks. Every time I’ve taken a break from running for physical therapy or other issues, getting myself back into running shape has been an enjoyable process because improvement is noticeable. But towards the end of my training for this past 5K, I felt like I plateaued, which was frustrating.
This last 5K I was watching my time more closely than the other two 5K’s I did, and this made this experience more frustrating than fun. I simply wasn’t hitting the times I wanted to mile after mile. It took a couple hours after the race and talking to my parents to not feel so down on myself.
I took a break from running in the fall and did some physical therapy to work on my feet and ankles, which needed work to fully recovered from that 5K last Spring. I didn’t run consistently from August until February. I only ran forty miles over that five-month span compared to the forty miles I ran this past March. Getting my body back in shape after working through physical therapy and getting back to a good time, even if it wasn’t as good as I wanted, took a lot of work.
My dad talked to me about the reality of being in my mid-30s where things don’t come as easy with physical development and how we need to look beyond our running times to find success.
My parents and Diana are all really proud of me and sometimes you need to let other people’s pride overcome your own disappointments in life. No, my time wasn’t as good as I wanted, but I am proud of my training.
I’m not sure what’s next. Maybe I’ll do a 10K. It’s not beyond my ability and doing something new might help me focus more on completion, than the time. We’ll see. I’m not done with running, not sure where I’m going, but regardless of my time, I know I’m making progress.
On to mile 800.
Friday, April 8, 2016
Monday, April 4, 2016
Parenthood: Week 146 – Chatterbox
Witnessing a human being learn how to talk is an amazing experience. From the first phonemes to his first sentence, Ollie’s development as a speaker has been really fun and exciting.
Ollie is only a couple months short of his third birthday, so we are solidly in the “kid’s say the darndest things” zone (ugh, I hate how that phrase brings up the memory of Bill Cosby).
There are so many cute things he does with his voice. Like his dad, Ollie sometimes makes up words (or sounds) to songs that he is singing. Ollie had a phase where he would narrate everything he would do as he was doing it. It’s really cute how most of the time when I tell him to say something to his mommy, he will repeat it word for word, or try to.
Letting Ollie make mistakes and not correcting him all of the time is one of those things that teaching has really helped me deal with. I believe that first graders should be allowed to display work they are doing that has misspellings and I think that middle school band students should learn how to play mistakes with grace and not play in the fear that they will be yelled at if they miss a note.
Yes, there is a right and wrong way to do things and now that Ollie is speaking so much more, errors in the expression of his thoughts are much more clear than before. He will often skip numbers when counting, especially when he gets to teens, when he counts objects sometimes he counts an object twice and when he talks he makes all kinds of grammatical mistakes.
If his brain fully understood all of the concepts that he was speaking with and about than it would be time to be correcting him, but for right now the most important thing is that he is being curious and exploring language. Yes, I do help him when he is struggling and sometimes I do correct him, especially when his mistake is dramatically changing the meaning of what he is saying, otherwise I let it go.
I’m loving toddler-hood and the speaking is one of the main reasons. There’s so much fun in talking, making silly voices, and playing around with language. It’s a great feeling helping him learn new words and when we make a connection through conversations, I can see the excitement in his eyes.
I’ll never understand the “children should be seen, not heard” thing. I never get tired of hearing Ollie talk. Now I do get tired of his whining and the unintelligible sounds that goes along with tantrums, but all the other speaking he does, it’s just all kinds of “awwww.”
Ollie is only a couple months short of his third birthday, so we are solidly in the “kid’s say the darndest things” zone (ugh, I hate how that phrase brings up the memory of Bill Cosby).
There are so many cute things he does with his voice. Like his dad, Ollie sometimes makes up words (or sounds) to songs that he is singing. Ollie had a phase where he would narrate everything he would do as he was doing it. It’s really cute how most of the time when I tell him to say something to his mommy, he will repeat it word for word, or try to.
Letting Ollie make mistakes and not correcting him all of the time is one of those things that teaching has really helped me deal with. I believe that first graders should be allowed to display work they are doing that has misspellings and I think that middle school band students should learn how to play mistakes with grace and not play in the fear that they will be yelled at if they miss a note.
Yes, there is a right and wrong way to do things and now that Ollie is speaking so much more, errors in the expression of his thoughts are much more clear than before. He will often skip numbers when counting, especially when he gets to teens, when he counts objects sometimes he counts an object twice and when he talks he makes all kinds of grammatical mistakes.
If his brain fully understood all of the concepts that he was speaking with and about than it would be time to be correcting him, but for right now the most important thing is that he is being curious and exploring language. Yes, I do help him when he is struggling and sometimes I do correct him, especially when his mistake is dramatically changing the meaning of what he is saying, otherwise I let it go.
I’m loving toddler-hood and the speaking is one of the main reasons. There’s so much fun in talking, making silly voices, and playing around with language. It’s a great feeling helping him learn new words and when we make a connection through conversations, I can see the excitement in his eyes.
I’ll never understand the “children should be seen, not heard” thing. I never get tired of hearing Ollie talk. Now I do get tired of his whining and the unintelligible sounds that goes along with tantrums, but all the other speaking he does, it’s just all kinds of “awwww.”
Friday, April 1, 2016
Year 6: Week 29 – Politics & Pop Rocks
Let’s see what happened this week.
There was that 3rd grade class that ended with me addressing students imitating one of Donald Trumps racist remark from a video cartoon mocking trump. That was incredibly aggravating and annoying. It’s rare that I’m not sure how to address students in a situation but that was one of them. I hesitated, and when another student asked why other teachers didn’t want them talking about politics, I stumbled even more. We’ve entered the uncharted territory where a presidential candidate's speech, like an episode of South Park is not inappropriate for grade school students to watch.
Trump’s lies and his racist, sexist, misogynistic and xenophobic remarks continues spread throughout our culture. And seriously, to quote Helen Lovejoy “won’t somebody please think of the children?” Now I don’t find Trump funny ay all, but you do, in a South Park or a "professional wrestling smack talk" kind of way, do you really want the children of America repeating things the horrible things that he says? Really?
If the teachers of American aren’t against Trump yet, they will be as his words continue to seep into our culture and into our classrooms.
Enough of that.
The elementary school science room was set-up this week to share science fair projects. I was standing at the back of the room while a student was setting up his science fair experiment at the front of the room.
Another teacher was standing next to me. She had just changed the water in our trout tank (one of the science projects they are doing is raising trout). The science teacher in the class directed the students’ attention to me and the other teacher standing next to me and starting explaining why she changes the water and how fish breathe. While the students were looking at us, the student preparing his science fair presentation is having some difficulties.
He was trying to set-up a demonstration using Pop Rocks, a balloon and some Pepsi to demonstrate a chemical reaction. First he had issues with getting the Pop Rocks in the balloon, and then he sills Pepsi all over the table. He looked left and then right, and after concluding that no one were watching him, he proceeded to dump a package of Pop Rocks in his mouth.
This entire time, me and the other teacher with the entire class of students looking at us are dying trying to keep from laughing watching the student create a mess of candy and soda pop oblivious to the fact that we are watching him. At one point I simply turned around and faced the back of the room unable to keep from cracking up.
Then the science teacher turns around and saw the mess, Pepsi on the table, Pop Rocks sticking to the lips and cheeks of the student and sternly reminded the student should not be eating the candy as another student came up and tried to help cleanup the mess.
Wow.
There was that 3rd grade class that ended with me addressing students imitating one of Donald Trumps racist remark from a video cartoon mocking trump. That was incredibly aggravating and annoying. It’s rare that I’m not sure how to address students in a situation but that was one of them. I hesitated, and when another student asked why other teachers didn’t want them talking about politics, I stumbled even more. We’ve entered the uncharted territory where a presidential candidate's speech, like an episode of South Park is not inappropriate for grade school students to watch.
Trump’s lies and his racist, sexist, misogynistic and xenophobic remarks continues spread throughout our culture. And seriously, to quote Helen Lovejoy “won’t somebody please think of the children?” Now I don’t find Trump funny ay all, but you do, in a South Park or a "professional wrestling smack talk" kind of way, do you really want the children of America repeating things the horrible things that he says? Really?
If the teachers of American aren’t against Trump yet, they will be as his words continue to seep into our culture and into our classrooms.
Enough of that.
The elementary school science room was set-up this week to share science fair projects. I was standing at the back of the room while a student was setting up his science fair experiment at the front of the room.
Another teacher was standing next to me. She had just changed the water in our trout tank (one of the science projects they are doing is raising trout). The science teacher in the class directed the students’ attention to me and the other teacher standing next to me and starting explaining why she changes the water and how fish breathe. While the students were looking at us, the student preparing his science fair presentation is having some difficulties.
He was trying to set-up a demonstration using Pop Rocks, a balloon and some Pepsi to demonstrate a chemical reaction. First he had issues with getting the Pop Rocks in the balloon, and then he sills Pepsi all over the table. He looked left and then right, and after concluding that no one were watching him, he proceeded to dump a package of Pop Rocks in his mouth.
This entire time, me and the other teacher with the entire class of students looking at us are dying trying to keep from laughing watching the student create a mess of candy and soda pop oblivious to the fact that we are watching him. At one point I simply turned around and faced the back of the room unable to keep from cracking up.
Then the science teacher turns around and saw the mess, Pepsi on the table, Pop Rocks sticking to the lips and cheeks of the student and sternly reminded the student should not be eating the candy as another student came up and tried to help cleanup the mess.
Wow.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Monday, March 28, 2016
Parenthood: Week 145 – Ollie's Love Of Books
“Ollie loves reading. Sometimes in the middle of the day, he will walk over to the book corner by himself and read books for fifteen minutes.”
Ollie’s teachers told us a lot of positive things about Ollie at his conference last week, but this comment made me the most proud.
I remember the first time I read a book to Ollie. He was six days old and the book was a board book version of Are You My Mother? I somehow managed, still new at this newborn thing, to hold Ollie in my arms and the book at the same time. Almost every since then of Ollie’s life, he has read at least one book, usually upwards of five or six books. Often the same book multiple times.
I’ve always had great respect for people who love to read. I grew up looking up to my older brother Ed, who was constantly reading. I wasn’t as a natural a reader as he was but I wished that I could get into book with the same passion. Ed would read serious of fantasy and science fiction novels and he’s tell me the stories. When Ed wasn’t around I would often go into his room and look at the covers, wished I could get lost in the words.
It’s hard for me to find a book that I can get into, but when I do, I love being able to read before going to bed and talk about books with people. I wish that I could quote Shakespeare, Dickens and have the skills to appreciate Jane Austin, but I am thankful that I have the abilities that I do have to read Steinbeck, enjoy comic books, and dive into non-fiction history books.
Diana is like Ed. She reads as naturally as she breathes. With our passion for reading, of course we would want books to be a big part of Ollie’s lives. Here’s the thing, if reading didn’t have a strong correlation to higher test scores, I would still be reading books to Ollie ever day. That’s not the reason why Ollie has books that he can read in every single room in our house.
I read to Ollie every day, because it’s magical. It’s time when we can be present with each other, thinking about the same characters and the same story. We want books to be present in his life so he can be surrounding by the empowering force that is the written word. When Ollie brings a book to me and asks me to read it to him, I feel successful as a parent because I know that he gets it. To love books is to love life.
Ollie is starting playing around with the alphabet and letter sounds. He asks us what letters are in words that he sees and its super cute. Ollie gets fixated on certain books and wants us to read them over and over again. While this can be tiresome, we understand as Diana and me often geek out about things. As obsessed as Ollie gets with a book, his joy for a new book will bring out even more excitement.
Ollie’s got an incredible world of books that he has only begun to explore and I’m looking forward to helping him along the way, every single day,
one book at a time.
Ollie’s teachers told us a lot of positive things about Ollie at his conference last week, but this comment made me the most proud.
I remember the first time I read a book to Ollie. He was six days old and the book was a board book version of Are You My Mother? I somehow managed, still new at this newborn thing, to hold Ollie in my arms and the book at the same time. Almost every since then of Ollie’s life, he has read at least one book, usually upwards of five or six books. Often the same book multiple times.
I’ve always had great respect for people who love to read. I grew up looking up to my older brother Ed, who was constantly reading. I wasn’t as a natural a reader as he was but I wished that I could get into book with the same passion. Ed would read serious of fantasy and science fiction novels and he’s tell me the stories. When Ed wasn’t around I would often go into his room and look at the covers, wished I could get lost in the words.
It’s hard for me to find a book that I can get into, but when I do, I love being able to read before going to bed and talk about books with people. I wish that I could quote Shakespeare, Dickens and have the skills to appreciate Jane Austin, but I am thankful that I have the abilities that I do have to read Steinbeck, enjoy comic books, and dive into non-fiction history books.
Diana is like Ed. She reads as naturally as she breathes. With our passion for reading, of course we would want books to be a big part of Ollie’s lives. Here’s the thing, if reading didn’t have a strong correlation to higher test scores, I would still be reading books to Ollie ever day. That’s not the reason why Ollie has books that he can read in every single room in our house.
I read to Ollie every day, because it’s magical. It’s time when we can be present with each other, thinking about the same characters and the same story. We want books to be present in his life so he can be surrounding by the empowering force that is the written word. When Ollie brings a book to me and asks me to read it to him, I feel successful as a parent because I know that he gets it. To love books is to love life.
Ollie is starting playing around with the alphabet and letter sounds. He asks us what letters are in words that he sees and its super cute. Ollie gets fixated on certain books and wants us to read them over and over again. While this can be tiresome, we understand as Diana and me often geek out about things. As obsessed as Ollie gets with a book, his joy for a new book will bring out even more excitement.
Ollie’s got an incredible world of books that he has only begun to explore and I’m looking forward to helping him along the way, every single day,
one book at a time.
Friday, March 25, 2016
Year 6: Week 28 – Finding 8th Grade's American Skin
Eighth grade is a tricky year in music class. They aren’t content to do the folk music of 6th grade but they don’t necessarily have the skills to play more advanced music they find interesting. They have strong opinions about the music that they like and it’s take a lot effort to get buy-in.
We’ve tried many different things to get kids invested in music class. Utilizing technology has helped, doing more pop music really hasn’t. Creating a variety of activities has helped make rehearsals more engaging and what has really made the difference is doing music that has meaning and depth.
Last year we did music from Green Day’s “American Idiot.” While the music was exciting because of the genre, what made kids interested were the themes of disillusionment, patriotism and Green Day’s perspective on what it means to be American.
This year, we decided to dive deeper tackling one of the most important and controversial topics of our times: police shootings of African-Americans. To learn about this topic we are focusing on “American Skin (41 Shots)” by Bruce Springsteen (I talked about this song in this previous post).
This song and this topic are difficult issues but with the work the students are doing studying the American Civil Rights unit in eight grade history and reading books like “Black Boy” in English class, we felt well-supported in this unit.
Last week I summarized the tragic death of Amadou Diallo, connected it with some themes they have studied in music class, history class and their English class. Then we watched this performance:
This last Monday we watched this documentary, which was actually made by students at my school a couple years ago.
We asked the students to write down their reactions to this video and to make connections with other things they have learned in school. It was important that we started there before having any classroom discussions. We needed to get a sense of where students were with sensitive issues related to race and privilege.
The student reflections showed an awareness of what was going on a good level of empathy. However it was hard to gauge our students’ level of interest in this song and this topic through their reflection.
Today in music class I have them their parts to “American Skin.” I prepped them explaining that we would do one section at a time and hack our way through this piece. We ran the first eight measures and when I stopped, they immediately started talking and playing. I was about to stop them and explain that they needed to be quiet when I cut them off but I hesitated. The students were asking each other about notes and rhythms and practicing the piece. So I let them work for another minute.
I yelled at them to stop and we played the introduction again. After I cut them off, again they went back to work. We worked this way, going section by section and I let them help each out and practice after I cut them off. No, this is not the way I would like to them to rehearse, but they were invested, working really hard, so I decided to let it go.
With eight graders, actions often speak louder than words and their focus and interest in learning the song today, showed me that they were into this song and that it was connecting with something that made sense to them and mattered.
The next step is to explicate the lyrics, help the students figure out what the phrase "American Skin" means in the song and in their lives. It's going to be a challenging unit, but the students have already impressed me with their thoughtfulness.
I'll let you know how it goes.
We’ve tried many different things to get kids invested in music class. Utilizing technology has helped, doing more pop music really hasn’t. Creating a variety of activities has helped make rehearsals more engaging and what has really made the difference is doing music that has meaning and depth.
Last year we did music from Green Day’s “American Idiot.” While the music was exciting because of the genre, what made kids interested were the themes of disillusionment, patriotism and Green Day’s perspective on what it means to be American.
This year, we decided to dive deeper tackling one of the most important and controversial topics of our times: police shootings of African-Americans. To learn about this topic we are focusing on “American Skin (41 Shots)” by Bruce Springsteen (I talked about this song in this previous post).
This song and this topic are difficult issues but with the work the students are doing studying the American Civil Rights unit in eight grade history and reading books like “Black Boy” in English class, we felt well-supported in this unit.
Last week I summarized the tragic death of Amadou Diallo, connected it with some themes they have studied in music class, history class and their English class. Then we watched this performance:
This last Monday we watched this documentary, which was actually made by students at my school a couple years ago.
We asked the students to write down their reactions to this video and to make connections with other things they have learned in school. It was important that we started there before having any classroom discussions. We needed to get a sense of where students were with sensitive issues related to race and privilege.
The student reflections showed an awareness of what was going on a good level of empathy. However it was hard to gauge our students’ level of interest in this song and this topic through their reflection.
Today in music class I have them their parts to “American Skin.” I prepped them explaining that we would do one section at a time and hack our way through this piece. We ran the first eight measures and when I stopped, they immediately started talking and playing. I was about to stop them and explain that they needed to be quiet when I cut them off but I hesitated. The students were asking each other about notes and rhythms and practicing the piece. So I let them work for another minute.
I yelled at them to stop and we played the introduction again. After I cut them off, again they went back to work. We worked this way, going section by section and I let them help each out and practice after I cut them off. No, this is not the way I would like to them to rehearse, but they were invested, working really hard, so I decided to let it go.
With eight graders, actions often speak louder than words and their focus and interest in learning the song today, showed me that they were into this song and that it was connecting with something that made sense to them and mattered.
The next step is to explicate the lyrics, help the students figure out what the phrase "American Skin" means in the song and in their lives. It's going to be a challenging unit, but the students have already impressed me with their thoughtfulness.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
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