When Ollie was a baby and I’d carry him into a family gathering, we would be swarmed. Everyone was excited to see him. People would ask to hold him. Others would gather around and try to hold his little hand or just point out the parts of him that they found most adorable.
Almost everyone would try to make him smile by grinning at him and making silly sounds. Even the most serious people would become goofballs attempting to get a reaction out of him. People wanted to just be near him. It felt great to be welcomed so enthusiastically and to be adored by everyone. I believe that all of those smiles and warmth is one reason Ollie is such a happy person.
This is different now that Ollie is a toddler. When we walking into a room full of family, a couple people will come by to say hello to us and say hi to Ollie but we are no longer swarmed. Ollie sometimes reciprocates these greetings but sometimes doesn’t. While people would spend a lot of time trying to get Ollie to smile as a baby, they are less likely to try to make Ollie smile as a toddler.
People no longer come up to him and want to hold him (I know he’s three, but he’s still a fan of being held and cuddle). Many fewer people try to actively interact with him now that he is a toddler.
I make this observation not to be critical of any people or any group of people but rather to point out an interesting phenomenon. People go crazier over babies than toddlers partially because of evolutionary biology and the adaptions we have made to be incredibly cute as babies, the time when we need others the most for our survival.
The other piece is that we don’t always know what to do with toddlers. A baby is pretty easy for a short interaction. You sit-down, support the head and cuddle it and smile at it. That's it. When you got a walking, talking three-year-old, it can seem a little bit more intimidating. It’s not so bad. It’s just different.
Ollie can have a short conversation, he can laugh at jokes, he can play simple games, and will listen to songs and loves to be read to. He can give a lot more back through social interactions than when he was younger. In many ways, it is a much more rewarding social interaction to play with Ollie now as a three-year-old, than when he was a baby.
Next time you see a toddler, talk to them. Play with them. Find a book and try to read to them. Chances are, most people besides their parents will not be actively paying attention, so give them some of your attention and love. Yes, their little brother is a squishy and smells like baby (which is one of the happiest smells in existence), but toddlers randomly make up dances and songs and this is also awesome.
I believe that every person should hold a baby and change a diaper before they become an adult. I also believe that everyone should play a game, sing a song and dance with a toddler before adulthood.
Next time you are at a party, and you see a toddler on their own playing, join in. The games they are playing may not make any sense and you might have no idea what they are saying, but the time will be just as meaningful or more meaningful than any small talk you will have with other adults at the gathering.
Monday, December 19, 2016
Friday, December 16, 2016
Year 7: Week 16 - Concert Talks
Concert Introduction
Good evening. Thank you for being with us tonight.
A thought: this is the only time that this exact group of people will be in this auditorium together. This collection of people will be never together ever again.
I bring this up because I want us to take a moment to reflect how special it is that we are all here together, in this space for the purpose of bringing beauty into this world through music. The diversity in this room is inspiring and is something we sometimes take for granted. This night is expression of what is unique, beautiful and wonderful about our school.
The performances you see tonight are acts of courage (you think public speaking is scary? try public singing), acts of giving and acts of fellowship. Let’s honor that and make the people in this auditorium the most important thing in our life for the next hour. These things, your phones, let’s not let them get in the way of our experience together, so please silence them and maybe even put them in airplane mode.
I totally get taking a video of your child on stage. Capture the moment and then bring yourself back to all us so that we can make this night special, together.
You may regret being distracted by your phone and missing a once in a lifetime musical moment, but I promise you will not regret being present and supporting our young musicians with your attention, your love and your pride.
End Of Concert Goodbye
My son is three and we’ve had a couple after school events. These are hard to make happen. Picking up my kid, feeding them, getting to back to school later. This is not an easy task. I’ll be honest; my track record for being on time with these events at my son’s school isn’t fantastic.
I say this because I want to acknowledge that you being here, getting your kids here and fed and ready to perform tonight wasn’t easy. I’ve seen many of you do this many times and I’m in awe of you. Thank you for that effort.
I’m thanking you on behalf of your children. They may not thank you for helping get them ready for this concert tonight and being here to support them, but they do appreciate your effort and your presence. While the most important work we do is during our preparation, your attention and positivity as audience members adds layers of meaning to their work and validates our students’ efforts.
Another thing I’ve learned as a parent, the food is as much us, as it is for the kids. Children, let’s not swarm too quickly. Let your parents get in there too and grab some food.
Have a great night. Take care.
Good evening. Thank you for being with us tonight.
A thought: this is the only time that this exact group of people will be in this auditorium together. This collection of people will be never together ever again.
I bring this up because I want us to take a moment to reflect how special it is that we are all here together, in this space for the purpose of bringing beauty into this world through music. The diversity in this room is inspiring and is something we sometimes take for granted. This night is expression of what is unique, beautiful and wonderful about our school.
The performances you see tonight are acts of courage (you think public speaking is scary? try public singing), acts of giving and acts of fellowship. Let’s honor that and make the people in this auditorium the most important thing in our life for the next hour. These things, your phones, let’s not let them get in the way of our experience together, so please silence them and maybe even put them in airplane mode.
I totally get taking a video of your child on stage. Capture the moment and then bring yourself back to all us so that we can make this night special, together.
You may regret being distracted by your phone and missing a once in a lifetime musical moment, but I promise you will not regret being present and supporting our young musicians with your attention, your love and your pride.
End Of Concert Goodbye
My son is three and we’ve had a couple after school events. These are hard to make happen. Picking up my kid, feeding them, getting to back to school later. This is not an easy task. I’ll be honest; my track record for being on time with these events at my son’s school isn’t fantastic.
I say this because I want to acknowledge that you being here, getting your kids here and fed and ready to perform tonight wasn’t easy. I’ve seen many of you do this many times and I’m in awe of you. Thank you for that effort.
I’m thanking you on behalf of your children. They may not thank you for helping get them ready for this concert tonight and being here to support them, but they do appreciate your effort and your presence. While the most important work we do is during our preparation, your attention and positivity as audience members adds layers of meaning to their work and validates our students’ efforts.
Another thing I’ve learned as a parent, the food is as much us, as it is for the kids. Children, let’s not swarm too quickly. Let your parents get in there too and grab some food.
Have a great night. Take care.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Parenthood: Week 182 - 3 1/2 Year-Old Milestones
The milestones in toddlerhood aren’t as noticeable as learning how to walk, but they are important and worthy of mention. So here are a couple we’ve noticed lately as our son is now three and a half.
Sing-Along
For a while now, Ollie has been able to learn songs that are sung to him like the “ABC” song or songs that he learned in his music class. Other more complicated songs or songs he simply heard recordings of, he could recognize but he wouldn’t pick up. This has started to change. Just from listening to “You’re Welcome” from the Disney film, Moana, Ollie can sing probably 60% of the lyrics. It’s really adorable when the song gets to the rap and Ollie just mumbles his way through it.
Ollie’s favorite song from Hamilton is “Aaron Burr, Sir” and he does a pretty good job picking out louder parts of the rap. When it transitions to “My Shot,” Ollie nails the words “My Shot,” really well and the chanting towards the end of the song.
And the dancing that accompanies his singing, well, let’s just say that he’s working his way up to be a triple threat.
To The Moon
Two nights ago, I was getting Ollie dressed into his pajamas and he pointed to his height chart. On the chart it reads “I love you to the moon and back.” He pointed to “the” and said “the.” I pointed to “to” and he read that as well. Without much help he got “back.” “Moon” took a little bit more work, but before we knew it, he read the entire sentence. I almost cried in joy.
Reading is one of the most important things that Ollie learns how to do. This skill will open up the world to him, help him open up himself to others and nurture his emotional growth and empathy. We read to him all of the time. Lately, he’s been crawling all over me wanting to check out whatever I’m reading. There are times when he asks to read the same book for the third time and I feel tired, but I push through because whenever I get going, I never regret spending that time and effort to share a book with him.
Beyond Twenty
When Ollie asks for things, sometimes I ask him how many he wants. For a while there the highest number he knew was twenty. Our school drop-off ritual ends with him getting twenty hugs. Now he knows thirty and forty (though he hasn’t asked for that many hugs). While it takes him a while to count that high, he’s starting to understand that the world through numbers is larger, more complex and more beautiful in it’s multiplicity.
Here’s the thing. Diana and I don’t drill him on his letters and his numbers. We surround him with toys that let him play with concepts related to counting and reading. His sense of wonder and inquiry has really blossomed.
Ollie, as you show us what’s inside of you, we feel as Alexander Hamilton sings: “Pride is not the word I’m looking for, there is so much more inside me now.”
Sing-Along
For a while now, Ollie has been able to learn songs that are sung to him like the “ABC” song or songs that he learned in his music class. Other more complicated songs or songs he simply heard recordings of, he could recognize but he wouldn’t pick up. This has started to change. Just from listening to “You’re Welcome” from the Disney film, Moana, Ollie can sing probably 60% of the lyrics. It’s really adorable when the song gets to the rap and Ollie just mumbles his way through it.
Ollie’s favorite song from Hamilton is “Aaron Burr, Sir” and he does a pretty good job picking out louder parts of the rap. When it transitions to “My Shot,” Ollie nails the words “My Shot,” really well and the chanting towards the end of the song.
And the dancing that accompanies his singing, well, let’s just say that he’s working his way up to be a triple threat.
To The Moon
Two nights ago, I was getting Ollie dressed into his pajamas and he pointed to his height chart. On the chart it reads “I love you to the moon and back.” He pointed to “the” and said “the.” I pointed to “to” and he read that as well. Without much help he got “back.” “Moon” took a little bit more work, but before we knew it, he read the entire sentence. I almost cried in joy.
Reading is one of the most important things that Ollie learns how to do. This skill will open up the world to him, help him open up himself to others and nurture his emotional growth and empathy. We read to him all of the time. Lately, he’s been crawling all over me wanting to check out whatever I’m reading. There are times when he asks to read the same book for the third time and I feel tired, but I push through because whenever I get going, I never regret spending that time and effort to share a book with him.
Beyond Twenty
When Ollie asks for things, sometimes I ask him how many he wants. For a while there the highest number he knew was twenty. Our school drop-off ritual ends with him getting twenty hugs. Now he knows thirty and forty (though he hasn’t asked for that many hugs). While it takes him a while to count that high, he’s starting to understand that the world through numbers is larger, more complex and more beautiful in it’s multiplicity.
Here’s the thing. Diana and I don’t drill him on his letters and his numbers. We surround him with toys that let him play with concepts related to counting and reading. His sense of wonder and inquiry has really blossomed.
Ollie, as you show us what’s inside of you, we feel as Alexander Hamilton sings: “Pride is not the word I’m looking for, there is so much more inside me now.”
Friday, December 9, 2016
Year 7: Week 15 – The Past Month And The How We Find Hope
“I don’t pretend to know the challenges we are facing.”
The past month has been challenging. I got a massive head cold the weekend before (11/5) our 5th grade outdoor education trip and went on the trip anyways even though I wasn’t better. That cold stuck around, got slightly better but a cough remained and I found out two days ago that this cough became pneumonia, and now I’m home taking a sick day.
Things with my students haven’t been bad; there have been no major issues. Lots of little ones but that’s the nature of my job. None of this is new for me. It’s my seventh year at this school, but my illness combined with this other piece, the results of the election, have added another layer of struggle to my job as a teacher.
We found out the news when we were on the camping trip the morning of Wednesday 11/9. Many of the adults on the trip stayed up after the kids went to sleep and sat is disbelief like most Americans at how the night turned out against our expectations.
The next morning we collected the kids and they all had a sense that we would tell them the results of the election. As one of the teachers started talking about the election, I stood and noticed two girls sitting next to each other. They were holding hands and their hands moved up and down, like they were skipping. When the teacher told them that he had one, their hands tightened around each other and dropped to the ground. The smiles melted from their faces. One girl put her head on the other one’s shoulder. The other girl patted her head gently as she started crying. At that point I had to look away as I felt tears coming to my eyes.
Somehow I kept it together for the rest of the trip, but when I was driving home from the trip, I felt myself falling apart. I wanted to see Ollie but I also dreaded looking in his face and knowing how much we had all let him down. When I entered the house and hugged Diana and Ollie. I completely lost it. I tried to apologize to Ollie through sobs, but I could barely talk. Diana see how distraught I was, wisely took Ollie away to give me some space.
I calmed down a little bit and walked into the kitchen where my mom was, and when I saw her, I lost it all over again. She almost seemed panicked to see me this upset and she asked over and over what was wrong and as I managed to get the words out, “the election,” she pulled me close and I cried, and cried, trembling in my mother’s arms.
I’ve never cried like this before. I’ve never fallen apart over politics or for anything else in my life except for the loss of a loved one.
That moment and the feeling of pain and loss is still with me. I feel my mom’s arms around me, the wetness of the tears, and the strong, powerful look in my mom’s eyes when she told me after I calmed down a little, “I don’t know how to explain this to you, but I can tell you that you are not alone.”
I walk down the hallways of my school and I see my kids and their parents and when I least expect it, I’m back at that moment. I try my best to make the emotions from that moment motivated me to be more kind to my students, to take more time to listen to what they have to say and make a stronger effort to make my school and in turn the world a more accepting, respectful and inclusive world. But it’s hard.
It hasn’t gotten better. Every day the news gets worse. As a teacher it demoralizing that the next secretary of education in charge of our public school system has no experience in the public schools as a student, parent, teacher or administrator.
There are some of you who know exactly how I feel and there are those who probably think I’m just need to get over this and stop whining. If you are in the latter, please have a conversation who is someone is in mourning this election and do more listening than talking. If you just want to ride us all off as whiners, then you are taking the lead from him and creating a less tolerant and harmonious society.
I don’t know what’s up ahead and how all of this will impact my teaching. I know it strengthened my belief that my primary goal a teacher is not musical but rather to help my students embrace diversity and actively work to ensure the rights of all people.
Yes, journalists are an essential part of our democracy, but so are teachers. It is up to us to educate our student to be positive citizens that make our country a better place. It’s a role that is difficult to learn, and it’s not a role that’s easy to play. However, it’s our blessing and our burden. Teachers now have to help our children understand this critical part of their lives.
Teaching is harder than ever in America, and as we create citizens, we are also creating hope.
The past month has been challenging. I got a massive head cold the weekend before (11/5) our 5th grade outdoor education trip and went on the trip anyways even though I wasn’t better. That cold stuck around, got slightly better but a cough remained and I found out two days ago that this cough became pneumonia, and now I’m home taking a sick day.
Things with my students haven’t been bad; there have been no major issues. Lots of little ones but that’s the nature of my job. None of this is new for me. It’s my seventh year at this school, but my illness combined with this other piece, the results of the election, have added another layer of struggle to my job as a teacher.
We found out the news when we were on the camping trip the morning of Wednesday 11/9. Many of the adults on the trip stayed up after the kids went to sleep and sat is disbelief like most Americans at how the night turned out against our expectations.
The next morning we collected the kids and they all had a sense that we would tell them the results of the election. As one of the teachers started talking about the election, I stood and noticed two girls sitting next to each other. They were holding hands and their hands moved up and down, like they were skipping. When the teacher told them that he had one, their hands tightened around each other and dropped to the ground. The smiles melted from their faces. One girl put her head on the other one’s shoulder. The other girl patted her head gently as she started crying. At that point I had to look away as I felt tears coming to my eyes.
Somehow I kept it together for the rest of the trip, but when I was driving home from the trip, I felt myself falling apart. I wanted to see Ollie but I also dreaded looking in his face and knowing how much we had all let him down. When I entered the house and hugged Diana and Ollie. I completely lost it. I tried to apologize to Ollie through sobs, but I could barely talk. Diana see how distraught I was, wisely took Ollie away to give me some space.
I calmed down a little bit and walked into the kitchen where my mom was, and when I saw her, I lost it all over again. She almost seemed panicked to see me this upset and she asked over and over what was wrong and as I managed to get the words out, “the election,” she pulled me close and I cried, and cried, trembling in my mother’s arms.
I’ve never cried like this before. I’ve never fallen apart over politics or for anything else in my life except for the loss of a loved one.
That moment and the feeling of pain and loss is still with me. I feel my mom’s arms around me, the wetness of the tears, and the strong, powerful look in my mom’s eyes when she told me after I calmed down a little, “I don’t know how to explain this to you, but I can tell you that you are not alone.”
I walk down the hallways of my school and I see my kids and their parents and when I least expect it, I’m back at that moment. I try my best to make the emotions from that moment motivated me to be more kind to my students, to take more time to listen to what they have to say and make a stronger effort to make my school and in turn the world a more accepting, respectful and inclusive world. But it’s hard.
It hasn’t gotten better. Every day the news gets worse. As a teacher it demoralizing that the next secretary of education in charge of our public school system has no experience in the public schools as a student, parent, teacher or administrator.
There are some of you who know exactly how I feel and there are those who probably think I’m just need to get over this and stop whining. If you are in the latter, please have a conversation who is someone is in mourning this election and do more listening than talking. If you just want to ride us all off as whiners, then you are taking the lead from him and creating a less tolerant and harmonious society.
I don’t know what’s up ahead and how all of this will impact my teaching. I know it strengthened my belief that my primary goal a teacher is not musical but rather to help my students embrace diversity and actively work to ensure the rights of all people.
Yes, journalists are an essential part of our democracy, but so are teachers. It is up to us to educate our student to be positive citizens that make our country a better place. It’s a role that is difficult to learn, and it’s not a role that’s easy to play. However, it’s our blessing and our burden. Teachers now have to help our children understand this critical part of their lives.
Teaching is harder than ever in America, and as we create citizens, we are also creating hope.
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Monday, December 5, 2016
Parenthood: Week 181 - Gilmore Girl & Tea Time
Gilmore Girl
She just kept whining.
Diana took Buffy out for a good walk, we fed her dinner and still, she whined. Maybe it was the falling snow we wondered, but we knew it was something else: Ollie was over at grandma’s house.
Buffy is comfortable being alone in the house or with the whole family. However sometimes when unexpected combinations of people are in the house, she doesn’t always know what to do. This is especially true when Ollie is gone but Diana and me are home. I think she worries that if we are here, than who is with Ollie?
We tried giving her treats, snuggling with her and we even ended up giving her some table scraps, which we rarely do (though Ollie pretty regularly shares his dinner with her, which has required that everything Ollie is fed is safe for dogs). She got an extra walk and was let out in the back but nothing seemed to settle her down.
I had a crazy idea. The previous night we had been watching Gilmore Girls: A Year In the Life mini-series and Buffy had relaxed on the couch next to us and became a throw-blanket of puppy relaxation. So I put Buffy on the couch, played the episode we had watched last night and within two minutes Buffy was splayed out on the couch, struggling to keep her eyes open.
Thank you Lorelei and your wanderlust (Buffy relaxed in the part when Lorelei tries to “Wild.”)
Tea Time
Ollie has always enjoyed teatime. He has two tea sets and even though we haven’t had a tea party lately, there was a solid month when his tea sets were his favorite toy. Beyond that time he would periodically pull out his tea set and carefully pour water into his cups and serve little plastic cakes.
Diana and I drink tea daily, so it’s not a surprise that he wants to emulate us. One of Ollie’s common requests is to drink “daddy tea,” and since I exclusively drink herbal, non-caffeinated teas, it’s not a big deal for me to share.
We were having a lazy weekend morning. Ollie got up and I made him breakfast and let Diana sleep in. After Ollie finished his French toast, he asked for some Ollie tea. I poured him some of my tea and put a little cold water in it to cool it down. Ollie climbed up into one of the dining room table chairs and proceeded to talk to me about what was on his mind.
I love talking to Ollie, but he’s not always interested in having a conversation when I am, which is okay, he’s still learning about how to talk to people. Something about the tea and the French toast in his tummy put Ollie in a conversational mood and he opened up to me about school, his friends he liked to play with and his world.
Teas is an important part of my culture. Maybe there's something in his DNA from his ancestors that connects conversation with the act of drinking tea. All I know for sure is that I'm always happy to share my tea with my boy.
She just kept whining.
Diana took Buffy out for a good walk, we fed her dinner and still, she whined. Maybe it was the falling snow we wondered, but we knew it was something else: Ollie was over at grandma’s house.
Buffy is comfortable being alone in the house or with the whole family. However sometimes when unexpected combinations of people are in the house, she doesn’t always know what to do. This is especially true when Ollie is gone but Diana and me are home. I think she worries that if we are here, than who is with Ollie?
We tried giving her treats, snuggling with her and we even ended up giving her some table scraps, which we rarely do (though Ollie pretty regularly shares his dinner with her, which has required that everything Ollie is fed is safe for dogs). She got an extra walk and was let out in the back but nothing seemed to settle her down.
I had a crazy idea. The previous night we had been watching Gilmore Girls: A Year In the Life mini-series and Buffy had relaxed on the couch next to us and became a throw-blanket of puppy relaxation. So I put Buffy on the couch, played the episode we had watched last night and within two minutes Buffy was splayed out on the couch, struggling to keep her eyes open.
Thank you Lorelei and your wanderlust (Buffy relaxed in the part when Lorelei tries to “Wild.”)
Tea Time
Ollie has always enjoyed teatime. He has two tea sets and even though we haven’t had a tea party lately, there was a solid month when his tea sets were his favorite toy. Beyond that time he would periodically pull out his tea set and carefully pour water into his cups and serve little plastic cakes.
Diana and I drink tea daily, so it’s not a surprise that he wants to emulate us. One of Ollie’s common requests is to drink “daddy tea,” and since I exclusively drink herbal, non-caffeinated teas, it’s not a big deal for me to share.
We were having a lazy weekend morning. Ollie got up and I made him breakfast and let Diana sleep in. After Ollie finished his French toast, he asked for some Ollie tea. I poured him some of my tea and put a little cold water in it to cool it down. Ollie climbed up into one of the dining room table chairs and proceeded to talk to me about what was on his mind.
I love talking to Ollie, but he’s not always interested in having a conversation when I am, which is okay, he’s still learning about how to talk to people. Something about the tea and the French toast in his tummy put Ollie in a conversational mood and he opened up to me about school, his friends he liked to play with and his world.
Teas is an important part of my culture. Maybe there's something in his DNA from his ancestors that connects conversation with the act of drinking tea. All I know for sure is that I'm always happy to share my tea with my boy.
Friday, December 2, 2016
Year 7: Week 14 – The Best Of 8th Grade
“Mr. Tang, I missed you.”
My 8th grade class meets on Mondays and Fridays. Because of various reasons, including me being away on the 5th grade trip, being sick, in-service days and the World Series (we cancelled school the Friday after they won), I haven’t seen my 8th graders in almost a month.
I started class earlier this week, asking them to raise their hand if I haven’t taught in them in the past month, and after some reflection, all of them of did. One of my trumpet players raised her hand and after I called on her, she said, “Mr. Tang, I missed you.” Thinking that she was being sarcastic, I replied jokingly, “Oh yeah, it’s you. Yeah, I um . . . thought about you.” Then I saw a look of disappointment on her face and realized that she wasn’t joking.
I felt horrible. I apologized to her immediately afterwards and again after class. I completely misread the intent of her comment. Way to go Tang.
Something really special happened in that moment. This student had shed all of her armor and genuinely expressed a feeling that displayed sensitivity and vulnerability. This is something that is difficult for 8th graders, but isn’t impossible.
I like to think that it has something to do with the atmosphere I have set up in my own classroom but I think it has more to do with how my school approaches middle school students.
It takes a lot of deliberate and proactive work to create a middle school space that makes students feel safe enough to be themselves. There is a lot of relationship building that happens inside and outside the classroom and consistently expresses to the students that we believe in them.
Middle school students don’t get a lot of props from our culture and the challenges of being a middle school student have colored most people’s memories of this time in their lives as being mostly negative. Kids sense this, so please be conscientious about how you talk about your own experiences at their age.
They frustrate me and push me but they have the potential to be wonderfully perceptive, empathetic and kind. I believe that the vast majority of middle school students who misbehave aren’t bad, they just don’t have adults around them who believe in their incredible potential for goodness and work to show them the way to make their own lives and the world a better place.
We’ve got an uphill battle. When a person gets an important job and isn't held accountable for his hateful, ignorant, sexist and racist words, the expectations we tell our students can seem unreasonable and silly. However if they know that we care and we model a better way, which engenders a genuine sense of community and kindness, we can be a more powerful force than the worst among us.
My 8th grade class meets on Mondays and Fridays. Because of various reasons, including me being away on the 5th grade trip, being sick, in-service days and the World Series (we cancelled school the Friday after they won), I haven’t seen my 8th graders in almost a month.
I started class earlier this week, asking them to raise their hand if I haven’t taught in them in the past month, and after some reflection, all of them of did. One of my trumpet players raised her hand and after I called on her, she said, “Mr. Tang, I missed you.” Thinking that she was being sarcastic, I replied jokingly, “Oh yeah, it’s you. Yeah, I um . . . thought about you.” Then I saw a look of disappointment on her face and realized that she wasn’t joking.
I felt horrible. I apologized to her immediately afterwards and again after class. I completely misread the intent of her comment. Way to go Tang.
Something really special happened in that moment. This student had shed all of her armor and genuinely expressed a feeling that displayed sensitivity and vulnerability. This is something that is difficult for 8th graders, but isn’t impossible.
I like to think that it has something to do with the atmosphere I have set up in my own classroom but I think it has more to do with how my school approaches middle school students.
It takes a lot of deliberate and proactive work to create a middle school space that makes students feel safe enough to be themselves. There is a lot of relationship building that happens inside and outside the classroom and consistently expresses to the students that we believe in them.
Middle school students don’t get a lot of props from our culture and the challenges of being a middle school student have colored most people’s memories of this time in their lives as being mostly negative. Kids sense this, so please be conscientious about how you talk about your own experiences at their age.
They frustrate me and push me but they have the potential to be wonderfully perceptive, empathetic and kind. I believe that the vast majority of middle school students who misbehave aren’t bad, they just don’t have adults around them who believe in their incredible potential for goodness and work to show them the way to make their own lives and the world a better place.
We’ve got an uphill battle. When a person gets an important job and isn't held accountable for his hateful, ignorant, sexist and racist words, the expectations we tell our students can seem unreasonable and silly. However if they know that we care and we model a better way, which engenders a genuine sense of community and kindness, we can be a more powerful force than the worst among us.
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