Year 9: Week 34 – “What do you do?” Dealing With School Shootings As a Teacher

I saw this post on my Facebook feed from a friend and it has stayed in the back of my mind for the past two weeks. I’m going to address this over two posts, one from a teacher point of view and one on Monday from my perspective as a parent.

School shootings are still happening, and our government, even with people fighting to address this issue, has yet to make any significant progress in making our school’s safer. The normalization of school shootings is occurring in the education community like it is in the media and in our cultural consciousness. I clearly remember a faculty meeting called the Monday after the Sandy Hook Tragedy (the shooting was on a Friday). However, we have not responded as a school with a similar faculty conversation after the recent school shootings for the 14 gun related incidence in schools that have occurred so far in 2019. Yeah, 14 in 2019, 29 deaths. I point this out not to say that my school is making any grievous error in our response. This is our reality.

As my school brings in experts, and works hard to make our school safer, it can feel discouraging that and isolating as no one there is a sense that we are alone in this work. Federal funding isn’t being spent in a significant way to make our schools safer. The gun industry and the NRA is making no efforts to makes school safer. Education in America is trying to address an issue we cannot fix alone, but that’s what teachers do all of the time. And educators do this every day, even though no one else seems to care. Can schools solve racism in America? Of course not, but that keep us from trying, hoping and doing the work. The same can be said for school safety.

Do I fear for my safety when I come to work? No. Have I ever been concerned for my safety in the thirteen years as an educator? No. Have I had nightmares about school shootings? Yes. Have I envisioned scenarios of school shootings, and my response? Yes. Is it hard to keep it together during lock down drills? Yes, it is.

So, what do I do? My job. I try to stay focused. I keep in my mind that my feeling about school shootings are mine and are not necessarily the way my students feel about these issues. And I do the best I can to make my time with my students have meaning.

After the attacks on 9/11, my mom’s advice was to start doing, get busy, and get to work. The hard times will give us pause and that’s okay but life is about moving forward and doing good. Every time there’s a school shooting, I pause, sometimes I feel it more deeply than other times. I let the sadness come over me, and remind myself that each one of these tragedies only solidifies the importance of my essential job as an educator.

Then I take a deep breath, and I get to work.

Parenthood: Week 318 – Ethan In May 2019

Ethan, our little one and half year old, is really moving now. He’s climbing up on tables, opening every cabinet, and pretty much making it clear to us that he needs to be watched most of the time. He has this little gleeful smile every time he does something that he knows he probably shouldn’t. It doesn’t always convince us to not be stern with him, but it’s effective more often than not.

Ethan is a fan of putting on people’s shoes which was more of an issue during the winter. Though sometimes it can be pain trying to locate shoes when you are on the way out the door. He does everything possible to get into Ollie’s toys, especially the ones that aren’t age-appropriate.

Our Blu-ray player has provided many minutes of entertainment.  We rarely use it, but Ethan loves opening it and closing it watching the tray go in and out.  Also, somehow Ethan has figured out how to turn the television on and off, using the remote control and by pressing the buttons on the televisions itself. Interested that Ollie, our older boy didn’t figure this out until he was at least 3 years old.

Another of Ethan’s favorite things is our food pantry. We have a broom closet in our living room that we installed built-in drawers to turn into a food pantry. We have two large plastic food storage containers that we store on the floor of the pantry. One container has Buffy’s dog food, and the other one has Cheerios.

Sometimes I find Ethan in the closet with a handful of Cheerios walking casually walking out of the closet, satisfied with his snack. Other times, Ethan will carefully carry the measuring cup we leave in Buffy’s food container carrying about three pieces of kibble. He then will carry the cup to Buffy’s food dish, squat down and gently pour the kibble into Buffy’s bowl. Ethan stands up with great pride after accomplishing this task, while Buffy looks up to me with confusion.

Ethan is into trains now. He really likes the bridge and the slopes. I try to make him some nice series of tracks but whenever I make something that is a closed track, Ethan joyfully flips over the whole track. Another one of his favorite toys is a little plastic cow that makes kissy sounds when you have it touch noses with a little baby cow that came with it in a set.

Ethan is still into his taking off his socks for no good reason. The other morning, I found a sock stuffed into one of his snack cups. I do enjoy now watching him try to put on his socks and shoes. Especially when he takes off his shoe and sock and then try to put on his shoe without a sock. The concentration is amazing to witness and the its endlessly entertaining because he still has a long way to go until he figures this out, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

Year 9: Week 33 – Her Crew

She was late.

I had already started working with the 6th graders, and one of the 8th graders. Our time was short and I wanted to make sure that the students felt comfortable on stage. Our middle school bands were joining together to perform “Glory,” from the film Selma. As part of this performance I let students audition to be featured to perform Common’s first rap verse from the song. The group ended up being a mix of 6th, 7th and 8th graders.

Everyone I was expected to be there had shown up except for one of the 8th graders so we got to work. This was during their lunch break and the other students had hustled to get there so I didn’t want to waste their time waiting for the last 8th grader.

As I was standing in the audience giving directions I heard the door open behind me. I looked back and to my dismay, the last 8th grader was there along with a group of six other students. My immediate thought was to ask the other girls to leave. I didn’t have time for distractions, this wasn’t an open rehearsal, and I was worried that the students on stage would be distracted with these other students in the audience.

The 8th grader explained that they were her “crew,” and they were there to hype everyone up.

Then I had one of those teacher moment. It only last a couple second in reality but feels like a couple minutes in your head.  In this time, you speed through possibilities and scenarios almost like viewing alternate timelines trying to figure out the best way to “choose your own adventure.”

It came down to the fact that I needed to show this 8th grade girl trust and give her crew a chance. I figured that the worst case scenario is that I kick them out.

The crew settled down in the center of the auditorium, and they were awesome. After every repetition, they cheered and encouraged the people on stage. They gave as much love to the 6th graders as they did the 8th graders. When I broke lines down and worked the rappers, the crew was quiet.  Then they erupted in cheers when the rappers on stage put together what they had fixed.

We had a pretty good vibe before but the crew made the vibe incredible. The students on stage got a chance to work in front of a friendly audience and get used to the feeling of having people watch them as they performed.

It is worth noting that the 8th grader is a student of color and her crew were also students of color. It’s wonderful that their support of each other has been nurtured in my school and that they extended this to the 6th graders in this space.  This was a wonderful highlight of my week and was an important reminder of how great 8th graders can be with each other and for others.

Parenthood: Week 317 - The Fleeting Anger

It takes a lot of energy to not stay mad.

Last week, after a day that was stressful, and after evening where chores took up too much time and kept me up too late, I was awoken around 2am by Ethan crying. In only a couple hours I’d have to be up getting ready for work, on a day where my 5th graders had a culminating musical performance that I was leading.

Ethan’s awakening at that time pretty much ensured that a feeling of being rested was an impossibility. If he had gotten up a couple hours earlier, most likely he would have gotten back to sleep and provide time after settling down for me to get a couple hours of sleep. Getting up a 2am though meant that even if he did get back down to sleep, the hour or two afterwards before I needed to get going in the morning would not be that restful.

I was frustrated to be woken up, and somewhere inside of me, in a place more primal than logical, I was mad at Ethan. His disturbance in the early morning was going to make my entire day more difficult. There was no time to have a nap that day or to somehow magically make it right until the next evening. Even that wasn’t a guaranteed fix, because there was a chance that the next night wouldn’t be much better.

Of course, I couldn’t be mad at Ethan. He’s only one and half years old. Ethan isn’t waking up to spite me. Maybe he’s hungry, maybe he’s cold, or maybe he woke up lonely, fearful in the dark that his memory of his family was only a fleeting impression in his mind.

The process, the mental exercise of changing this emotion, this feeling from anger to calm, anytime, especially in the early morning is very difficult. It’s a process that goes counter to how I normally work to validate my own emotions. It’s asking me to push aside an emotion quickly, and not deal with it, which run contrary to how I try to treat the people I encounter in my life. It’s a selfless refocusing of a  pragmatic need over emotion.  Ethan needed to fell my clam to calm down himself. 

This emotional process would be close to impossible if not for the baby in my arms, and the sadness in his cry. As Brandi Carlile, so eloquently sings in “The Mother,” “The first things that she took from me were selfishness and sleep.” It is this lack of selfishness, that helps us endure through the lack of sleep and the anger. Because our children teach us that while our emotions are important, in some moments how others feel are more important.  If we allow ourselves to be for another, our emotions can change. This is not an invalidation, but rather a way that we as humans can inspire change, and be better for each other, and in turn be better for ourselves.

Year 9: Week 32 – The Question Of "Should"

I actually backed off my load recently. There was an assembly that I was tentatively planning that I’m putting off until next year and another grade presentation that had some good momentum, but I decided to put the brakes on and cancel  as well.

I usually operate with the approach that if an idea is good enough, I will figure how to make it work. This approach has served me well over the past year I’ve been at this school, but something feels different as we move through this spring.

I’m tired. My little one (the one and a-half-year-old) isn’t sleepy badly, but he’s not sleeping great either and it’s not unusual as of late to spend early morning hours with him, and by early I mean 2am. Mentally there’s a lot going on at work and in my personal life. I’m managing, but I’m always weary that at some point I might get overwhelmed and I don’t want to find out where that point is the hard way.

Sitting down earlier this week, I thought I saw a glimpse of that moment up ahead.

I have a saying taped up on the hutch of my desk that reads, “It’s never a question of can. It’s always a question of should.” I’ve taken this approach to project, curriculum, and initiatives. Lately I’ve realized that I should probably apply this saying to my work load. I could plan all of this extra stuff, but should I?

I love my job. I love the work, making connection, planning things and watching it all come together. There have always been thing in this job that I love that feel like a chore and that’s cool and fine. You don’t have to love everything about your job to love your job. However, I only got so much that I can do, and my question of "should" I do things need to focus more now in my life not in the philosophy, but in my own capacity to get things done.

I have no plans at all to leave my job anytime soon, but how I work and the long-term effect I can have on this school community are intertwined. If I’m putting on an assembly and I do all of the work, I may have created a meaningful experience for my school community, but I would have done nothing to help this work continue.  The process of how we create and work needs to be done with others in order for others to grow, learn and understand what it means to meaningfully engage in work.

If I am to be more collaborative that means that the process of putting projects may feel less productive but that’s okay. As much as we want to make things happen pragmatically, the true growth, and our true legacy comes from how we work in an inclusive way to help other feel empowered to create meaningful contributions to school community.

No one is pushing me harder at this school than myself. I guess that’s a good thing? I’m not sure, but right now, in this moment in the year in my life, I should push a little less, focus on what’s already in front of me.  This will allow me to more fully enjoy the time I have left to work with my amazing students.

Parenthood: Week 316 – The Identity of Parents

Living life is about change and transitions. Physically, the body goes through great changes in youth and continues to change as people get older. Along with the growth of our body, facets of our identity change. Sometimes we resist these changes which causes internal tension, and for those who accept the evolution of our identity, it’s a journey that is both challenging and rewarding.

Some of the changes in our identity come in unexpected and seemingly “organic” ways. For example, I used to love reading comic books. One of my weekly rituals for years was that every Wednesday morning was going to the comic book store. I stopped doing this not because of anything that happened in the comic industry. There wasn’t any event, I just naturally fell out of interest with that hobby. I didn’t lose friends over shedding the identity of a comic book, life went on, and I moved on to other interests.

There are parts of our identity that are an ever-developing process like my gender identity, and racial identity. Sometimes in my life I wrestle and think about these facets of who I am and sometimes I do not. How I feel about being a man and being Asian continues to evolve and is part of a process of coming to know myself that will never end…and I’ve learned to be okay with that.

Then there are the changes in identity that are events, that are a dramatically change the way that you view yourself and the way that the society treats you. Attending and graduating Northwestern University, and marrying my wife Diana changed facets of my identity on a dime. I transitioned from a high school student to an undergraduate student to an alumnus. With Diana I went from being a boyfriend, to being a fiancé and then finally being a spouse. These are facets of my identity that have changed titles and legal definitions of me as member of society.

Parenthood combines all of these different types of identities in one. Becoming parent starts far before actually having children, as you develop a conception of yourself as child as your relationships with your own parents. That happens without deliberate thought, and it’s ongoing. For some of us the idea of being a parent is always with us. There are events that change identity in a moment around parenting. Becoming pregnant, the birth of a child, the moment when your child enters grade school, and other moments like your when child going to college. Each of these things change who we are and are impossible disentangle from other facets of our identity that are intersected in meaningful and undeniable ways.

When people become parents, to friends and family members it can feel like it’s a strange new hobby that this person can’t stop talking about. It’s more than that, for many people becoming a parent is a fundamental change in identity and an existential shift in the understanding of the meaning of one’s life.

Be patient with your friends as they develop as parents.  You don't have always listen to them talk about parenting, but you should make an effort to show care and spend time learning what this new part of their identity means in their lives.  It may be annoying at times, and you may feel left out of a conversation with a group of parents if you don't have children yourself.  But sometimes being in this type of space is the best place to learn. 

Learning about identity is learning what it means to be a human, and even if you never have children yourself, learning what it means to have children through those you love will make you a better human being. 

Year 9: Week 31 – Why Teaching DEI is Harder

Teaching music is very difficult. When you teach a group of 5th graders a song, you are teaching lyrics, notes, rhythms, what a song is about and how to perform it. The work of learning of song is different for each student and requires quick and creative differentiation. Is teaching music harder that teaching math? Not necessarily, but it does have its unique challenge. In a middle school band, a single student’s mistake can affect every other students’ performance. Teaching students about this, and how to work hard together, in unison is unlike anything else in education.
While teaching music is difficult, it doesn’t feel treacherous or personal. Talking to people about music is something that is not uncommon. While there are times when I’m talking about musical concepts, I experience flashbacks of negative experiences around music from my life, this rarely happens, and it’s not negative to the degree of trauma. If there were many of these memories, it would be unlikely that I would be a music teacher.

Teaching about diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), and social justice is much harder to teach than music. It’s not the teaching techniques that are more difficult. I actually find it more difficult to utilize and cultivate my teaching back of tricks as a music teacher more than my toolbox as a diversity practitioner. It’s the subject itself and what teaching bring up in my memory and in my heart that makes it difficult to engage in as a teacher.

Most people have no problem telling you about their favorite song, or of an early memory with music. This kind of conversation isn’t going to rock Thanksgiving dinner or make strangers feel uncomfortable. Asking people their earliest memory of being aware of their racial identity or asking people to reflect on their personal bias will make many people very uncomfortable. People are uncomfortable talking about issues related to race and social justice.  People, parents and students alike are also uncomfortable with teachers discuss about these issues in the classroom.

I’ve taught many songs that I have not performed myself. However leading activities related to DEI that you haven’t done yourself and fully unpacked? Not a good idea. Unpacking your own experience with levesl of oppression related to race is essential in discussing racism because if you aren’t aware of the complexity of your own feelings, bad things can happen.  Difficult memories that are triggered in talking and hearing about these topics you may lead you to misspeak or break down. Not being able to carefully and deliberately speak about these topics is in most people’s thinking worse than not talking about these topics at all.

The worst thing that happens in a music lesson is that my students aren’t very productive in learning a song. The worst thing that happens when I’m teaching about DEI issues is that I misspeak, offend someone, and I lose my job.

It’s taken me a great deal of time, work, and practice to feel comfortable discussing issues related to DEI in my classroom, but I’m not completely there. For example, the topic of hearing loss is not something I can talk to my students about yet.

My feelings and experience with my son, Ethan’s hearing loss is not completely processed or understood. There’s something too raw inside of me related to hearing loss to teach about. Someday I will get there, but I’m not there yet. 

I’m not giving up.

We must find a way as educators to do the work to teach about DEI and social justice in all of our classrooms because it is what our students need, and our society needs more than anything else from us as educators. If you aren’t ready as a person and as educator to do it, that’s okay. That is where you are in your journey, but you have a responsibility, and a duty to get moving through that journey.

Your students are waiting.