Year 13: Week 1 - My Authentic Self

I stood for a couple of seconds, thinking, “what am I doing here?” 

It was the first class of the first day of the school year, and a class of 5th graders was quietly looking at me. It felt surreal. I wasn’t sure what to do. It felt like I hadn’t done this in years. Part of it was that I wasn’t as prepared to teach as I would have liked. I should have started my preparation earlier.  

So much of my week leading into teaching was taken up with tasks that kept me from planning and preparing for my classes that I didn’t come into this week with as clear a plan as I would have liked. I don’t feel bad about the choices I made about what I prioritized. I’m proud of some of the work I did last week, but the trade-off is hard to process.  

Being in front of my students felt right this week. It’s like playing a role that accentuates part of my personality. I still feel like I’m me in front of them, but different parts of me come forward. It’s like flexing a muscle. It’s all there inside of me, but I just let it out different ways and bring forth parts of who I am more than others.  

I don’t want to be inauthentic with my students. First off, they can see the right through teachers who aren’t being honest, real, and upfront with them. They can sense when you don’t believe what you say. To be an effective teacher, there has to be honesty in your words and intentions, even if they are presented deliberately, more appropriate for students. Second, I can’t do a job, which I can’t bring forward parts of my authentic self.  

I’ve spent too much learning to love myself and figure out who I am to go to a job where I can’t let facets of my authentic self come out. I don’t expect a job to be place where I can be my full and authentic self. We play certain roles and must change ourselves for different situations professionally, which is fine. I don’t have any issue with that. But, there’s a difference between being professional and having to be inauthentic.  

So I stopped thinking, and I just did, and we got to work. Teacher Tang is energetic, encouraging, weird, kooky, and enthusiastic. He loves dancing, grooves to whatever music is playing, and is afraid to show that he is confused, impressed, and proud of his students. As I write this, I am none of those things in the quiet of the night, but those pieces are inside me.  

I’m not sure who I am, but I know I want to spend as much of my life being as authentic as possible. Teaching can bring me closer to this goal because I genuinely love teaching children and helping teachers be better educators. If that love is real and I let people see it, I am being more real and honest with myself. This is something I need for myself and I look out the year ahead.          

Parenthood: Week 490 - The First Week Of School

The start of the school year means a lot of different things to parents and their children, especially in the past couple of years of this pandemic. 

It's complicated.  

The start of a school year is a fresh start. If things didn't feel right or didn't end poorly in the previous school year, now is a chance to make things better. But, on the other hand, if something was great in the last year of school, there's fear that it might not feel that good again. Add into all this the fact that the beginning of the school year for the past couple of years has been filled with the anxiety of not knowing what the school year was going to be like to the pandemic has made it hard as a parent to know how to feel.  

I think about my children and how different their experiences of starting school have been. Ollie was chill about returning to school, but he started reacting to the newness and anxiety of it all toward the end of the week. Ethan, my second child, was pretty good once school started. However, the week before school started, he was a mess and expressed his fears and anxiety by being difficult and cranky. Lucas, our little one, got into the week okay, and I bet the second week will probably be harder as he slowly gets into the groove.  

I think about my hopes for my children this school year. I want them to learn stuff, but more than anything else, I want them to continue to grow as curious learners. I want school to be where they feel excited to learn and explore and feel the support of teachers and peers as they engage in work that they find meaningful.  

We try to understand what school is like for our children, but it's really hard. school has changed a lot since our childhood. Our lens as adults often fails to see and feel our children's experiences, but we do the best we can with the seemingly little information we get about what our children do in school.  

Going from having your child be a baby when you know what they are doing and experiencing the vast majority of the time to having your child be away from you for most of the day is a transition that all parents go through but is challenging to process. I don't know what they are doing for a good amount of the day, and I wonder. Part of me wishes I could be with them more, but I also know that it is good for them to have a life away from me and their own experiences.  

Part of how I process the start of the school year for my children is mixed up with the fact that I'm a starting school too. One of the ways that I process the school year is by not making a big deal out of it. This is a way that I deal with my anxiety and the fact that the start of school is, in fact, a big deal to me after all these years. Maybe I should lean into how momentous the start of the school year is for my children and myself.  

My first day with students is tomorrow. I'm not nervous, but I am excited. I want a chance to start fresh, and I've got some good stuff from last year. So maybe I'll remind my students of this: you can start fresh this year and take the good part of last year along with you. You can and should have both.

Year 13: Week 0 - Out Of The Frying Pan

And just like that, we were back. This week we started. It was the week of teacher meetings leading up to the first week of school next week.

This week felt like opening the front door, seeing rays of sunshine, but unsure if it would rain. You could decide to stay indoors, go outside with a raincoat just in case, or go outside, head held high, and focus on the sun's warmth instead of fearing the rain. I chose the latter.  

I've been through a lot in the past couple of years as a teacher during this ongoing pandemic. August has been a time of great stress and anxiety these past couple of years. Going back in person in the fall of 2020 was led up by a summer of unknowns. How would we do school? Would we be in-person the whole year? What would school be like?

August of 2021 didn't feel a lot better. Things were better. Many of us were vaccinated, and things felt like we were returning to normal. However, the summer wasn't as "normal" as we thought, and the fall of 2021 was somehow more complex than the fall of 2020. We knew that things would be bad in the fall of 2020. In the fall of 2021, we hoped things would be better, but they weren't. Masks had to go back on, and concerts had to cancel. Hope for a more typical school dashed in 2021 was more challenging than not having hope at any assembles of "normal" in 2020.

Coming to school, it almost didn't seem real. Most people weren't wearing masks, and the uneasy stress I had experienced in the air for the past two falls was gone. Instead, it felt like we were doing business without the pandemic being at the forefront of our concerns. Of course, people mentioned it and had questions about mitigations, but for the most part, anxiety about the pandemic did not take over people's concerns and energy.

This was a full week. I got a lot done, which felt very satisfying, but I didn't get all I needed to get done to be ready for next week. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun meeting and working with people new to our school, and it was nice connecting with colleagues I have worked with throughout the years.

Some things were new that I had to deal with and some things that carried over from last spring that needed work. I felt annoyed at some things that came up. I had to dig deep to find more patience, and I was almost overwhelmed, but I could refocus. I felt excited to return to work, sad to be away from my family, concerned about all I had to do, and proud of what I had accomplished. 

There was time to laugh, time to connect, and time to empathize.

In the next couple of months, there will be joy, and there will be frustration. There will be challenges, unforeseen, and unexpected moments of kindness and grace. The pandemic isn't done with us, but that doesn't mean we have to let it take us down. I'd rather hope for more and be disappointed than expect the worse. There's too much potential and good to fight for to just be anything but optimistic. 

Being a teacher means believing that tomorrow can be better than today. 

I didn't make it this far, through some of the most challenging years of teaching in my life and the history of American education, to give up. 

I'm still here. 

I am in better shape mentally and physically last year. I have the power to impact my students and colleagues positively, and I have the privilege to work with wonderful, taltended, and inspiring children.

Here we go. Out of the frying pan...

 

Parenthood: Week 489 - The First Day Of School 2022

We were doing pretty well on time. 

I got the kids seated on the front set to take first day of school pictures and got them in the car with time to spare.   

The drop-off lane was not going up for the first two days of school, so we had to park, which I knew would be an issue. However, we got pretty lucky and got to the school early enough that I managed to get a spot on the street not too far from the school.  

I got Ethan and Lucas in the double stroller. Only Lucas really needed a stroller, but I figured that having Ethan and Lucas contained in the stroller would be helpful. Ethan is old enough not to need the stroller, but he likes it, and I was willing to do anything I could this morning to keep things positive and smooth. Also, we had back-to-school supplies to carry, and the stroller helped with that.  

We got in line to enter the building; before I knew it, it was time. I got Ethan out of the stroller, helped him put his backpack on, and handed Ollie his bag of school supplies. Then, I asked, "Ethan, do you want Ollie to help you walk in?" Ethan nodded silently in response with a concerned look on his face.  

Ollie struggling to balance his bag of supplies, took Ethan's hand, and they walked up the steps to the door to the school. While Ollie looked up to the door, Ethan looked down at his feet to navigate the steps. Then he looked up at Ollie and, seeing Ollie's focus, turned his eyes to the door. Together they walked into the school and never looked back.  

I was so proud of Ollie for helping his brother and having a great attitude on the first day, and I was so proud of Ethan for being brave and trusting in his brother and his school.  

I pushed Lucas around to another side of the school to the playground entrance. His first day would be some time in the playground and some time in his classroom. As a guardian, I was supposed to hang out, just in case Lucas needed me.  

I got Lucas out of the stroller, and he motioned insistently at his backpack. I helped him put it on, and he stood there silently. His teacher, the same teacher he had last year, gave him a warm greeting on the playground. As she did that, I was down at his level, and I told him I would be around just in case he needed me.  

Lucas looked at me with sad eyes and walked toward me, leaned his head on my shoulder, and I pulled him close into a hug. I felt his arms go around my neck, and he felt so small at that moment. We separated, and as his teacher motioned toward him, he walked towards her slowly and never looked back.  

Lucas saw me at the playground, but he never walked toward me. Instead, he played a little bit, refusing to take off his backpack, and went inside with his class. Lucas moved slowly, but he did what was asked of him and was brave and strong.  

At the end of Lucas' time, I greeted him, and he walked toward me. I saw that he was tired and helped him take off his backpack.  

"How are you doing special one?" I asked him.

 

"Snack?" Lucas asked.  

"Sure, buddy." 

I gave him a bag of crackers, and he happily ate them while walking around in a circle and smiling in the sunlight.  

It was a good first day.

To Cook - Part 6: Rice

I've never been good with the "what's your favorite…" questions. 

I don't gravitate towards singular things being my favorite. I've learned that I need to fake an answer sometimes because it's expected that we have a "favorite." If I want to be authentic, I'm honest that I don't feel for favorites in my life. I never have. If I don't want to deal with that confused look, I just answer so we can move along.  

If someone asks me who my favorite rock/pop artist is, I'll usually be Brandi Carlile, but I feel weird because Springsteen, Elton John, The Four Tops, The Spinners, and so many other artists I hold close to my heart.  

What is my favorite food to cook and eat?  

I love eating sushi and fried chicken, but I don't cook either of those things. I like cooking pasta sauce and salmon, but those are not my favorite foods to eat. It's interesting because when I think about this question, unlike most questions about favorites, there is a single answer that comes to mind: rice. 

Let's start with the magic and wonder of cooking rice. This video by Adam Liaw lays out how to cook rice the best way. 

 

There are two ways to cook rice, the rice cooker, and the stovetop method. I prefer doing it the stovetop way. However, there's nothing against using a rice cooker. Millions of Asian people worldwide use rice cookers for cooking steamed rice. Whichever method you choose, cooking rice starts with washing off the excess starch. I love doing this. 

I remember the sound of the water falling out of the rice pot as my dad washed the rice, reaching in as a young child feeling the rice between my fingers, and seeing the water transform from cloudy to clear. Cleaning rice is like holding a baby. You need to do it with care, but there also needs to be some strength and purpose as you work. The sound of the water, the feeling of the rice, the water is becoming clear. It hits almost all of the senses. 

Putting the rice in a rice cooker, walking away, and having the house filled with the smell of rice is all good. I prefer the stovetop. Why? Because it's magical. You don't have to use exact measurements, and the rice tells you what it needs. There's no measuring cup to determine how much water you put in the rice. Instead, you use the joint method, one of the most ubiquitous but seemingly magical Chinese secrets. As you let the evaporate, you see little holes and geysers form, which tell it's time to turn down the heat and cover the pot. Turn it down to low for thirteen minutes, and then five minutes with the heat off, fluff the rice gently, cover for another minute, and then you have the most perfect food.  

I throw in a pinch of salt for seasoning, a tablespoon of coconut oil to lighten up the flavor of the rice, and a splash of vinegar to make the rice more fluffy. Sometimes I put in different kinds of seasoning like garlic powder or other types of fat like sesame oil. However, I don't want to add anything that will mask the flavor of the rice.  

Cooking rice on the stove takes a careful eye, so you know when to turn it down to cover it, and it asks you to let go as it steams when it's covered. I love how cooking rice this way is not about precise measurements or times but about feelings, instincts, and experience.  

Well-cooked steamed rice is magical. It's light but has body. It's sticky but is defined, and it has a beautiful flavor but also can take on and enhance other flavors.  

Rice connects us to people worldwide as it is the most eaten food on the planet.  

A bowl of steamed rice is the ultimate comfort food, and the process of cooking rice well reminds me of home, who I am, and where I come from.

Parenthood: Week 488 - The Magnificence

I couldn’t place the melody. 

It came to mind as I was cooking breakfast a couple of days ago. It was slow and lilting, simple and calm. The melody had gentle arpeggios and sounds almost dreamlike in my memory. Later, as I was saying goodnight to Ethan, I looked over and saw the elephant light, and then I realized that the melody was from that light.  

This elephant is a sound and light machine. It can play white noise or some simple melodies. All of the melodies were typical lullaby songs except for one that was an original song someone created for this machine. This was the melody that came to mind and was the one that I played when Ollie and I would journey into space.  

Looking back, life seems simpler than when Ollie was a toddler. It was a time when Ollie was an only child, and he had settled into a rhythm of sleep and life routine. I’m sure things didn’t feel significantly easier during that time. However, even if it’s not a complete and accurate recollection, it’s okay to let “rose-colored glasses” bring us warmth and joy at times.  

Sometimes in the afternoon or the evening after bath time, Ollie and I would go on a journey into space. First, I would turn off the room lights and turn on the elephant. Light, and stars would project out of the back of the elephant sound machine. The light behind the stars would cycle through colors giving a gentle feeling of motion. Then I would turn on that song, and we’d go on our journey into space.  

Ollie and I would be in bed together, and I would pull the covers over our heads. I can still hear the sound of Ollie’s laughter as I counted down to take off and shook his little body in his arms as I made explosion sounds and simulated lift-off. I asked Ollie where he wanted to go, and he usually said he wanted to go to the Saturn, and then we would be off.  

Carefully I would pull down the covers and peak out. Ollie would peak mimic me, pulling down the covers carefully. Then I said, “wow, we are in space,” and Ollie would reply, “Woah...” The shapes that the star machine didn’t give a lot of variety. There was a star shape, a Saturn shape, and a moon shape, but this didn’t deter me. I pointed to different shapes on the ceiling and pretended they were the other planets. We would lay in bed together gazing at the stars as they slowly changed color. For a moment, it really felt like we were together alone, floating in space, gazing at the magnificence of the galaxy.  

“Ready to go back to earth?” I asked Ollie.  

Ollie would nod back and then duck under the covers, and I would join him. Then I would simulate our journey back to earth, and we would find ourselves back in his bed.  

There are times that I look at Ollie, and it’s hard to comprehend he is that same toddler I would go on outer space adventures in his bed. But then I see him smile, and I see it all, the baby in my arms, the toddler going to space, and the child I am proud to call my son.  

“There is so much magnificence…”

To Cook - Part 5: Cooking For Children

I wish I could say that cooking for my children was a wonderful, meaningful experience that always brings me joy and great meaning. But I can't.

Along with keeping your children clean and warm, providing food for your children is an animalistic instinct. Most parents care deeply about feeding their children well and want to provide the best food possible for their children. Also, for people like myself, cooking and food are culture and tradition. The problem is that children are not always willing and interested recipients of the food we cook. This can be disheartening, frustrating, and annoying.  

I've cooked meals for my children that they have a track record of liking that they decide on that night they don't like for some reason. So they don't eat much and end up eating cereal hours later. This rejection doesn't feel good, and while we are teaching our children to be polite and appreciative about food even if they don't like it, it's tough to deal with.  

I remember cooking for Ollie when he was a baby. I'd steam him pears and make him rice porridge. I'd cook him scrambled eggs in butter and toast points as he learned to pick up food and feed himself. As he entered toddlerhood, Ollie seemed to eat anything. I was so proud as he ate mouthfuls of salmon, chicken, and almost anything I put in front of him. I thought I was the master parent, and those parents who talked about their children only eating dino-nuggets didn't teach their children how to appreciate food. Before I knew it, Ollie pushed away much of the food he used to eat and entered dino-nugget land.  

Sometimes I cook for my children a meal that comes from my heritage and my soul, like Taiwanese beef noodle soups. The dinner table is quiet as my boys slurp up noodles, and I feel proud of my heritage and my family. They are eating a dish my mom taught me how to make and connect them to their ancestors and their culture.  

Sometimes I cook with my children, which can be a lot of fun, and other times it can be annoying. My children are good helpers in the kitchen, but when we don't have time to mess around and people are hungry, children in the kitchen is not a good idea.  

Sometimes I feel like I'm giving up and throwing whatever I know they will and eating like instant ramen over taking a chance and cooking something more wholesome that they may not enjoy. And sometimes I cook a different meal for my children than I do for myself because I don't want to eat what I cook that I know they will enjoy, but I will not.    

This is the reality of cooking for your children. There are wonderful moments, but there's a lot of frustration. And I am proud of my children. They eat many different foods and embrace many foods from their culture. 

I'm not giving up. I'm always going to cook for my kids. Cooking is my love language, even if it's something as simple as making toast or a bowl of cereal. However, I do feel a need to be realistic and not portray cooking for children as some magical, wonderful thing because it's not always that way, and that's okay.  

It's okay for parenting to be frustrating, and it's okay for cooking not to be fun. It's fine. I don't love every moment of parenting, and I don't love everything about cooking, and there are moments when I don't love cooking for my children. However, I do love parenting, I do love cooking, and I do love cooking for my children.  

My children will know that their father tried to make good food and teach them about their culture and other culture through food. I am proud of that fact, and I'm proud to cook for my children.