Year 13: Week 11 - Time

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a nonlinear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.

- The Doctor

One of the most important teaching tools that teachers have is time.

Education in America is very much about time. Students have schedules that they follow throughout the day. There is a priority on these schedules, sometimes even over student learning. There are benefits to this when you think about how we help students learn to organize their lives, but there are drawbacks. Life isn't always about being "on time," I've experienced some of the best moments in my life have been when I've forgotten about time and prioritized being in the moment.

As a music teacher, I'm very aware that music "decorates" time. Work in music class, like the music itself, can make time feel like it's passing slower, or faster. It's always interesting to me when I start wrapping up music class, and students are surprised at how fast the class seems to go by.

Teachers are very much managers, and trying to help students understand when they need to change tasks before they become unproductive or spend longer on a task is tricky. I do want students to learn how to press "pause" on their work. However, I love it so much when students are deep in their work and don't want to stop. Sometimes I stop an activity too early or too late, and some moments, I stop it at precisely the right time. There is some science in this, but it's more art than anything else.

One of the aspects of time in education is how learning evolves over a couple of days or a week. For example, I started a song with my 5th graders last week, and it didn't go well. I was almost at the point of dropping that song from my curriculum. However, I was wisely advised not to make any decisions that day.

For most of last week, I was out with the flu, and while my students did some work on this song with the substitute, I wasn't expecting much growth. It was just a lesson or two. However, what I heard from my students was a huge improvement. While I credit the substitute teachers and the students for doing some good work while I was gone, this was a good reminder that sometimes students need time.

The process of musical learning, like other learning, has to occur over time. If you spend five hours on one day learning a song, you will sound less good than if you spread those five hours over a week. Stepping away from a piece and letting your brain process the music is essential to learning music. It's one of those seemingly magical things that's easy to forget.

The other piece of this is just trusting the students and the process. One reason I kind of freaked out last year is that this program that I'm preparing my students for is the Winter program that we haven't put on since 2019. I'm more nervous than I'm allowing myself to feel about preparing myself and my students for this performance. I've done a lot to set my students up for success. We are starting the music earlier than I have in years past. I'm keeping the arrangements simpler and prioritizing finding fun and joy in the process. Yeah, we'll be fine, but it feels like a lot.

I need to trust my students that they can do this. I need to trust myself that I know what's best, and I need to trust in the process, and most of all, I need to trust in time.

I can pass the time by worrying about the time I don't have, or I can find peace in the time that I do and the choices I make with the time that I do have.

I'll work on getting the latter.

It might take some time.

Parenthood: Week 500 - An Opportunity For Lucas

“C’mon, buddy.” 

As I carefully got into bed, my knees and hips aching, almost throbbing, Lucas ran around the room, picking up some books for me to read to him. It had been a couple of days of this flu. The headache was bad, but the muscle aches in my lower back, hips, and knees were most unexpected and made life really challenging. I’m an active parent who sits on the ground, moves around with my children, and moves around the house with them. So asking kids to bring things over to me and not feeling comfortable lifting them makes this situation even more difficult.  

My two oldest kids understand what it means when I’m sick. They’ve been sick themselves and are old enough to remember what it feels like to have some empathy for me. They don’t completely understand what this all means with my patience and my moods, but they seem to be giving me a break. When asking for help, Ethan was waiting for me to come by, and Ollie seemed to understand that I needed a couple of extra seconds to answer him or get him something.  

On the other hand, Lucas seemed to have no clue that I wasn’t feeling well. He’s about a month shy of 3-years-old and sweet as can be. So when he noticed that I was sitting down and spending more time in bed, he saw this as an opening. A large human sitting down on a couch or in bed is someone ready to read a book to him.  

I finally got myself into bed. I got a pillow propped up behind me and motioned at Lucas to come on over. He hurriedly came over, put one book on my chest, ran away, grabbed another book, and before I knew it, I had four books piled on my chest. Then, someone, Lucas, managed to get on the bed. Leading with his head, he somehow balanced a leg up on the side table and climbed in.  

Awkwardly I pulled him across my body and positioned him to the right of him. After some challenging maneuvering, Lucas was cuddling right next to me with my right arm around him. I looked down at him, and he smiled with silent satisfaction. Next, I picked up a book and read it to him.  

I was tired, and my brain was still foggy, so reading to him took far more effort than expected. My expressions weren’t great, I messed up some words and skipped some sentences, but Lucas didn’t mind. After each book was done, he got up, grabbed the next book, and then cuddled up for the next book.  

After we finished the books, I asked Lucas if he was ready to go to his crib. He pointed to his room, climbed over, and jumped off the bed. He waited for me as I slowly came out of bed, wincing at the pain in my hips. I slowly walked Lucas over to his room, holding his hand. When we got to his crib, I carefully and slowly picked him up and put him in his crib. I took a deep breath recovering from all the effort it took to lift him.  

Lucas then made a sound at me, holding his hands up. “Dude, I can’t lift you out of there. You just got in…[sigh] ok fine.” As I leaned over the crib, he gave me a tight hug around my neck, and then plopped down into his crib and cuddled up with his bellow. I laughed at myself and said, “goodnight, Lucas-bear,” blew him a kiss, and left his room for the night.

Year 13: Week 10 - How This Year Compares To 2020

It’s not like I was all chill and not stressed before the pandemic. 

As we were getting word as department chairs to get our faculty ready for a possible shutdown in early March 2020, part of me was looking forward to the week off. To my knowledge, all we were going to do was shut down for a week or two, the virus would chill out, and then we’d be back. This would give me a respite and time to catch up on work, which felt overwhelming.  

We know how that worked out… 

Then teaching during the 2020-2021 school year was understandably overwhelming. Being in person before vaccines, with students podded, teaching in homeroom classrooms instead of a music classroom, with restrictions to singing and wind instruments, was a lot. Some of what made this year feel like a lot was the great lengths we were taking to get back to “normal.” I remember putting on an outdoor concert that Spring, and working late to figure out how to make it happen.  

Then there was 2021-2022. Teaching during this year, in some ways, was harder than the year before. Yes, we had fewer restrictions due to the pandemic, but we also had a more significant disagreement and less clarity on what COVID-19 mitigations were necessary. Once only a fringe opinion, the idea of not wearing masks was embraced by reasonable professionals based on scientific research. This added a layer of tension. Also, we kept getting tripped up by students being exposed and quarantine rules, which seemed to become less clear as the year went on.  

Now, here we are, months into the 2022-2023 school year, and do things feel? CRAZY. J/K. Not really, but things aren’t simple. So returning to how easy things were before the pandemic is an illusion that has confused me until I remember that things weren’t truly a walk in the park before the pandemic. The challenges were just different.  

Some things feel much easier and like a return to home that I haven’t felt since before the pandemic. For example, my class schedule has returned to what it was before the pandemic. I’m back to teaching a curriculum that I don’t have to make up new every week, which I had to do when the pandemic first started. Yes, we still have to mask up at my school when there is exposure, which is a pain. However, it is helpful that most kids do not wear masks voluntarily, so how we communicate does feel much better.  

The challenges I’m feeling now are related to two things. First, I am trying to get back to the processes we did before the pandemic that will serve us moving forward. More importantly, the challenge now is figuring out how we have all changed, the students, the faculty, the staff, and the administration. When I look at my students and things aren’t working like I expect, how much of this is how my students have changed, or how much of this is because of how I have changed? 

The pandemic has changed us all and continues to change us. The evidence of this is clear at times, and other times the change is more ambiguous. 

We have a lot of work to do as adults to unpack all that we've been through as teachers as we figure out how to serve our students in a world no one imagined. 

We may feel done with the pandemic, but it isn't done with us. 

Parenthood: Week 499 - Saturday Morning

Still. 

Nothing was stirring, and the house was quiet. I reached out to Diana, expecting a child to be between us, but we were alone.  

I looked over at the clock, "7:15." I sat up in bed, confused. Usually, Ethan or Ollie get up early before they're ready-to-wake-clock glows green at 7 am, especially on the weekends. I closed my eyes and listened, wondering if Ollie had gone downstairs to watch some television, but it was quiet and still.  

It had been a trying week. Lucas had been homesick for part of it, and I had a colonoscopy. The ebb and flow of life with three young children didn't give us any respite to handle these challenges. 

I was about to get up when I heard the doorknob to Lucas's room start to turn. Slowly the door opened, and Lucas peaked into our room. "Hey, baby-baby, come here," I said as I waved him over. I lay down in bed as he approached. Then he plopped down his head on my bed, swung his leg on the nightstand, and rolled his body onto our bed.  

I pulled Lucas between Diana and me. I helped him get under the cover, and he laid his head on my chest. As the rhythm of our breathing aligned, the world again felt quiet and still.  

Lucas sat up a moment later with a smile on his face. This was his way of telling me he was ready to start the day. I got up, and he followed me to the bathroom. He watched me with a smile as I did my morning routine. As we stepped out of the bathroom, I heard the gentle pitter-patter of Buffy's nails. Her head peaked out of the bedroom into the hallway. As she saw us, she picked up speed and caught up to us as we started down the stairs.  

I changed Lucas's diaper and set up the water kettle so I could make some tea. Lucas walked up to me, holding a full-size bag of chips, and pushed them into my leg, insisting, "chips!" I had no idea where he found these chips, probably someone in the back of our pantry. "Buddy, you can't just eat chips for breakfast," I insisted." Then Lucas pointed at the refrigerator and said, "yu-gert."  

I took the bag of chips out of Lucas' hands and told him to sit down. He hurried over to his chair and climbed up to the table. A couple of moments later, I brought him a bowl with potato chips, strawberry yogurt, and a spoon. I started peeling off the yogurt lid, and Lucas's objective was "NO!" So I backed off and let him get the lid off. He pushed the lid towards me, and I accepted it and kissed him on his forehead.  

Heavier steps came down the stairs, and Ethan walked over to me wearily. H walked over to me with his arms up, "hug?" "Good morning, special one," I greeted him as I picked him up. Even though lifting caused a twinge of pain in my arm, suffering a tendon injury, I still held him close and felt his face bury deep into the side of my neck.  

Buffy whined softly at the back door to our backyard. I carried over Ethan with me as I let Buffy out. I gently put Ethan down, and he remembered about the Lego set he had started the night before. He rushed to his play table and returned to work on putting the pieces together.  

The slower steps of Ollie, my oldest son, approached. I hugged him as he groggily passed me to sit on the couch and turn on the television. He knew it was weekend, and that meant he could start with day with  television.  

After gathering my stuff and putting on my shoes, I looked back at my children. Ollie lay on the couch watching television, Ethan was working on Legos, Lucas was eating breakfast, and Buffy was sitting behind Lucas, watching him intently. The house felt still.

Part of me felt sad that I would spend most of the day away, but I was comforted knowing I was spending my day with a symposium for young men of color. Somehow my children understood the work I was doing was important, and I knew that someday they would be proud of me for the work I did for others boys of color just like them.

Year 13: Week 9 - Away Message

There’s a feeling when you are away from school that is odd and puts you off balance. 

I was away on the 5th-grade outdoor education trip from Wednesday until Friday last week. Then on Monday, I stayed with one of my sons, who had a cold. And on Tuesday, I was out because of a medical procedure. I was hoping to be back at school on Wednesday, but Tuesday night, it was clear I hadn’t fully recovered, so I made the call to take a sick day on Wednesday. It was clear on Wednesday that I had made the right call... 

This meant I was at school for two days this week, Thursday and Friday.  

Of course,  the work of school went on without me. I saw emails come into my inbox. At times I deliberately ignored them, and at other times I was able to take care of some of this business. And, of course, things were fine without me. Some things had to be put on hold, and some meetings had to be rescheduled, but things were fine. I got behind on some work I wanted to do, and my students, while they got some work done with the substitute teachers, were less productive than they would have been if I had been there. But they were fine.  

One of the lessons of the pandemic was that we needed to take time off to take care of ourselves and our families. Unfortunately, there were far too many times before the pandemic when I was sick and went to school to teach when I shouldn’t have. What makes me even sadder is that there were times when I didn’t take time off when I should have been home with my children when they were sick. 

As teachers, we are insecure, and one of the ways that many of us handle this insecurity is by proving we are tough by teaching in a way that is physically taxing, whether by teaching when we are sick or working long hours at school and home. But unfortunately, there are teaching situations where this isn’t a choice, but a feature of having a teaching job, which is absurd, exploitative, and ridiculous.  

It’s strange. Even though I know in my heart that it’s the right thing to do to stay home to take care of one of my children if they are sick and that it will not negatively affect my job, it feels like I’m making a sacrifice to stay home. But what am I trading away? The joy of teaching, having fewer emails to answer, and feeling more accomplished at my job? This feeling makes the job feel all about me. This probably is a good thing because it reflects that this job is fulfilling for me and isn’t just a paycheck, but it also feels out of whack with the fact that me and my family and my priority in my life.

I’m glad that I had time away from school. I did some important things taking care of my family and myself. I didn’t give anything up to make this happen. I made a choice, and I have no regrets.

I think we are better teachers when we are more balanced humans and clearly define our priorities, but it's complicated. So we try and do the best we can. It's not always easy, and it's often complicated, but it's a struggle worth having and a tension worth leaning into. 

Parenthood: Week 498 - What It Means To Be Away

Last week there was a lot going on. (Well, most of the time, it feels like there’s a lot going on). It was Halloween, I was out of town with my 5th graders on their outdoor education overnight trip, one of my children had a minor cold, and my mom was in town to visit and help out. Oh, and it was also Ethan’s birthday last week. 

We moved the 5th-grade trip earlier, which is nice. There’s a better chance the weather will not be as cold, and doing it before the election, and not on the election, is important. The 2016 election? I was on this trip the night of the election and the day after. So, yeah, that was a thing. If you want to read about what that felt like, here it is.

The timing worked well. The night before I left was Ethan’s birthday. So we had a family dinner with some cake and presents. He’s going to have a party with his friends at a later date. I was worried I'd miss his birthday for my trip. Ethan's been very excited for his birthday. He's been talking about it for month, literally.   

The first time I went on this trip was when Ollie was a little bit more than a year old it was tough being away. The good news is that Ollie was so young that he didn’t experience it in such a way that he showed that he missed me or was sad about it. I really missed him and was worried about him, but he was, of course, fine.

Now it’s different. I still miss my kids when I’m away, but it’s different. It’s less a feeling of worry and longing. Instead, I feel unsettled not being near my children. There’s a wonderful feeling at night knowing that all my children sleep peacefully and safely near me in our house every night. Everything feels right knowing we are all together. I miss that when I’m away. When I sleep, I can’t get entirely comfortable or relaxed.

My children are different now. Two of them clearly articulate that they don’t miss me or know I’m gone. My two oldest have enough of a sense of time. They can count down the days and feel how long I’m gone.   My second one Ethan, who had just turned five years old, wasn’t happy that I was gone. He showed that by being challenging when I got back, and melting down a lot. He didn’t want me to read to him and put him to bed like he usually did. He lashed out at me for the first two days I was back, which was hard to take. 

It’s hard because he has his feelings, and he doesn’t know how to express them productively or thoughtfully, so I’m made to feel like a punching bag at times. Also, I feel like there has been reversion like in years past right after his birthday. It’s because he spends so much energy and time wanting to get to his birthday so he can be older, and once the birthday hits, he worries about what it means to be older and reverts to less mature behavior.

Last night Ethan asked me to read him a bedtime story, so I got into bed with him, and he curled up next to me and listened as I read. This was his way of forgiving me for being away. Ethan tries to apologize, but he doesn’t know what it means to say, “I’m sorry.” However, at that moment in his room, as he fell asleep in my arms, I felt his forgivingness and the reassurance that we would be alright.

Year 13: Week 8 - Goals, Draft #2

I want to be honest, which means I have to admit that things are complicated. 

I value and care for this school, but my family is my priority. There are spaces where I feel valued and included and situations where I feel isolated. I feel confident in my power and position, and sometimes, I feel overwhelmed and stressed.  

There are things about this school that I’m proud of and things that bring me concern There is great satisfaction in much of the work to do, and times when a lack of gratitude makes this work feel like people take me for granted.  

And if I’m sincere, I must admit that it’s not easy to separate my work on myself from my work at this school. I must admit that sometimes negative feelings of loneliness at this school are not reflected in the incredible support many people give me at this school. And I have to admit that I don’t always know who I am and who I want to be outside and inside of this school.  

It would be easy to construct goals that appear progressive and reflective but those would feel like platitudes. So instead, I will lean into the tension, the complexities, and the truth of my work. 

I want to continue developing curricula that center DEIB in a subject that in most places does not. Foundations of my curriculum, like solfege, the recorder, band instruments, and note-reading, are reflections of a Euro-centric paradigm that permeates American music culture. While developing and pushing against this, I can't recognize and abandon these techniques and materials. For example, I’m working to de-center whiteness and masculinity in Western music while teaching tools created by white men. This is all in the goal that students will continue this work using music to strengthen their voices and self-expression.  

I am committed to centering my instruction on social and emotional learning and helping students develop better relationships with me, their classmates, and themselves. In addition, I want to be more effective at teaching music. While these things do not work against each other, as a more emotionally aware student is a more effective learner, the SEL work sometimes feels like it’s taking time away from music instruction, especially when most models of music instruction do not reflect the more progressive teaching practices l of  RULER.  

As the music department chair and DEIB co-chair, I love collaborating and being in the “room where it happens” with members of the admin team, and I struggle with the distance this work creates between the people in my department and me. I am excited about the challenging work that I can often find solutions to and frustrating problems that persist beyond my best efforts and intentions.  

I know people like me have moments when we don’t feel like we belong and are unseen by this community. In every interaction with faculty, new and veteran, I have the opportunity to empower others by making them feel more seen and valued. I will continue to create lessons and programming to make people see mirrors of themselves and the humanity in others different from themselves. I can deal with people’s thoughtless actions by allowing myself to feel these emotions, find support in others, and sometimes take action. I'll use my power to spread more positivity to others to feel the inclusive light of our mission.  

This school is a place that can be warm and inviting and can also feel cold and lonely. It is a place that is exhausting and energizing. And it's a school that is a place that has helped me better embrace facets of my personality, and at times seems not to honor parts of my identity. Among these contradictions and dissonances is me: a teacher, a department chair, a colleague, a collaborator, a leader, an ally, a manager, and to some, a friend. 

The truth is there are things that are clear and absolute.  

I am more excited about what Parker can be than frustrated at what Parker is not. I feel great gratitude for the people who have mentored me and supported me, and I am committed to making meaning of these gifts by helping others. I am here, ready to lean in, to all the complexities and challenges, for the work is good and allows me to bring meaning to others’ lives as this school has brought meaning to life.  

And that's if I'm being completely honest.