Year 13: Week 24 - Why I Love Hiring

"I love this work."

This was the first thing that came to mind when I was recently asked why I wanted to be on a hiring committee. Working on hiring has been some of the most rewarding and challenging work I'veI've done at this school. Also, this work feels powerfully tied to DEIB work, which is central to my approach to education and life.

Seeing someone find success at my school that I picked out of an initial resume sift and supported throughout the hiring process is a beautiful feeling. Of course, I never remind people I helped hire that I did this work for them because their success is theirs. However, I feel particularly warm and pride in the success of these people at my school because of my work during their concerts, hearing studnets' laughter from great learning in their classes, and hearing parents talk about how much they like these teachers.

In many ways, my hiring success is my most incredible legacy at this school.

The challenge of hiring is real and ever-evolving. There is a feeling of pressure and anxiety that comes with every hire. You want to get it right. Mediocre people are difficult to fire in any workplace setting, as are people who are just awful. Over the years, I'veI's come to worry less and less that hiring committees that I'm on will not "get it right." The vast majority of committees I've been on have hired great people. I enter my hiring work this spring with great confidence, born out of a depth of experience, that my team will hire the "right" person.

One crucial thing that I've learned is that the person you hire is the "right" person is very much what you do with this person once they are hired. A "perfect candidate" can end up leaving a company if the onboarding isn't done well and the community doesn't rally around this person and measure their success in the success of this new hire. Also, a candidate that some people may have reservations about can raise these concerns with support, empathy, and care. Getting an effective new person in your community is only partially accomplished by a good "hire" a good amount of the work is done after that process is completed.

Over the past decade, I've been involved with hiring at my school. The process has changed dramatically, and I've learned that hiring can often be fraught with bias, including racism and sexism. After going through multiple trainings on hiring, I've realized bias within myself (e.g., showing a preference for who went to the same school I did) and recognizing bias in others. I have also learned about many hiring practices that can be inequitable. For example, sometimes people look down on people who have resumes that show a gap in work. The reality is that this practice can often be sexist as often women have to take time off from work to have children or care for a loved one.

I've been challenged to move past the language of "a good fit," which can sometimes be coded language for prejudicial judgments, and understand why not sharing interview questions with candidates isn'tisn't inclusive of diverse thinkers. Also, I've had my judgment called out and forced with each hiring to reconsider how I view candidates, my school, and myself.

One of the reasons I enjoy being part of hiring is because of the responsibility this work brings me; it also brings me the power to make my school more diverse and inclusive. I have earned my place at the hiring table with hard work. The resumes I have to look through feel daunting. But, I'm excited about the work, the conversations, and bringing someone new into my school community.

Healthy school communities bring new people into their buildings. Hiring is a feature, not a flaw. With the right person, we are challenged to grow and be better for our students and ourselves.

Parenthood: Week 513 - The Things They Won't Remember

Why do things with your children that they will not remember? 

Most of what you do with your child in the early years of their life they will not remember. At best, people take impressions, smells, thoughts, and feelings before 3 years old, if that. It's not until five years old that memories that children will carry with them their entire lives will form and stay with them. Three years is a lot of time, and a lot of life people need to remember. 

Children will not remember that first birthday party, early discoveries, and the carefully planned magical vacation. Because life can be so hard with little ones, it's easy to get discouraged. It takes so much sometimes with a child to do things, to go out and take them places, and the reality that they will not remember the experiences you are trying to set up for them only adds the level of exacerbation that comes with doing so much for the little one in your life.

Scientifically, we know that in many ways, the critical years in development occur before the age of three. This is where most language acquisition occurs. It's a crucial time in emotional development, and along with the early teenage years is the most dramatic physical change that humans go through. Creating a stimulating, diverse, and emotionally fulfilling early life pays off in almost every aspect of life as children grow up. No, they will not remember the hugs, the loving words, and the late nights helping your child sleep, but they will be a happier and healthier adult because of all you did for them.

The other reason we do this for our children is in ways they will not remember and may never know because this is what it means to be a parent. There are three levels of care that we give to others. The first requires thanks and recognition to feel validated. The second level asks that we witness the person experiencing what we did for them but do not need credit. And the last group is where we do something for another where we do not ask for thanks or need to witness our work's results.

Parenthood asks us to live in the second and third levels of doing for others. It asks us to search inside for the motivation to do for our children, day after day and year after year, and not give up, no matter how little they know about what we do or how hard it is. This is, in essence, what it truly means to love.

As parents, we can let the lack of gratitude and recognition lead to bitterness. This feeling compounded can lead to strain in relationships that can last a lifetime. If we as parents spend our lives looking for something back from our children, we will forever be searching because there is nothing our children can do to pay back for what parents do.

We have to learn to do for our children as much for them as for ourselves. At the end of the day, there is a feeling of knowing that you did right by your children and did everything you could to care for them. That smile, a laugh, a hug, a moment with your child, however fleeting, happened because of what you did for your children. This needs to be enough.

It is so hard to be enough because so much of parenthood feels like what we cannot do. After all, the responsibility of parenting is so much, and for so many, the timing and circumstance of parenthood are not an active choice. However, this is our regret, our choices, and our lives. This is work we need to process and come to terms with. It cannot be on our children to bring validation to our lives; we need to get it to ourselves.

Our partners can't make us happy, our jobs can't make us happen, and our children can't make us happy. They will forget so much of the struggles, the pain, and the work of parenting. They will forget joyous vacations and magical moments. But these beautiful experiences will create something deep within that lets them know they are loved. 

All that we give as parents without expectations, regret, and bitterness is how we come to know true happiness. In doing for others, we find ourselves and the true nature of being a human being, unselfish, present, seeing the best of the world in our actions, and knowing love as much from the love we give as the love we receive.

Year 13: Week 23 - Back To Beginning Band

Last week, my 6th-grade and 7th-grade band had their first performance. This was a big deal. Any first band performance is an event. Students start learning instruments at the beginning of the school year, making sounds that only a band teacher can tolerate. Then after only a couple of short months, they are making music. It’s a miraculous process that happens year after year worldwide, or at least it did. 

But these perfromances felt different.

The pandemic put a hold on band programs. When schools shut down in March 2020, bands went remote like all other school programs. Remote learning had different effects on different academic subjects, but it was devastating to concert bands. The primary way to learn how to play in a band is to play in a band in person; nothing online could replace this.

When the fall of 2020 came, many schools were remote. Some of these schools didn’t offer band, and ones that did had teachers struggling to begin instruments remotely. This was very difficult, and while some teachers found success, the progress in remote learning on the band was a shadow of what in-person instruction would be like.

Then there were the schools like my school that were in-person but did not allow band as part of COVID-19 mitigations. This meant that the 6th graders that year didn’t have a band. Then in the fall of 2021, 7th graders were allowed to start a band, but 6th graders weren’t. And finally, this year, we had a band for all middle school students, meaning we had a beginning 6th-grade and a beginning 7th-grade band.

Starting two beginning bands this year has been exciting, but it’s also been challenging. Not surprisingly, less 7th graders wanted to try something new and different and be in a band more than 6th graders. The fact that the band was perceived as dangerous during the early parts of the pandemic cast a shadow in some people’s minds about band instruments which hurt enthusiasm.

We have had a lot of success, and it’s really important that they can perform for the community, however people in the community really needs to watch two beginning band performances. So I planned two daytime afternoon presentations, one for the 6th-grade band and one for the 7th-grade band. I invited our elementary school classes for each presentation, had a couple of classes come, and then band student families were invited.

Each band played a couple of pieces together, and I also was able to feature students playing solos and doing small ensemble work. This was an excellent way to differentiate and give students the opportunity to perform differently.

Like so many things coming out of the pandemic, these presentations felt like doing something for the first time, even though I had done these performances before the pandemic. There was a feeling of uncertainty. Maybe something changed because of the pandemic; perhaps something broke that we couldn’t fix. However, things went great and proved that music persists, and there are some things the pandemic could not take away from us.

Parenthood: Week 512 - Expert on Vaca?

After taking my children on trips for the better part of the last decade, I've come to some conclusions. First, no matter how well-prepared I am, vacations are challenging. Second, while taking children on trips can be a pain, they have always been worth it. And finally, I am really good at taking kids on vacation. 

It's tough to take kids on trips. Every time we prepared for vacation, we were barely ready. Prepping the house includes cleaning out the refrigeration, cleaning the house, and doing dishes. We did make a couple of trips with Buffy and Ollie when Ollie was a baby, but now that Buffy is older and we have more kids, we don't take Buffy on trips with us. Because of this, we must prepare Buffy to stay with someone else, which takes work.

Then there is packing. It's not a big deal to pack for myself, but packing for the kids is a lot. We have to consider their needs as they don't think through packing themselves. Ollie, our oldest, can do some packing himself but, like Lucas, who is three, cannot comprehend packing or physically do it.

If all we had to pack for our children were clothing, it would still be a lot of work, but there is so much more. We have to pack diapers, wipes, snacks, coloring books, medicine, Aquaphor, toiletries, water bottles, books, and a stroller, among other things. Then there is the technology. Ollie has his Nintendo Switch, and we have two iPads for my other sons. There is work in this prep making sure whatever games or videos they want to play or watch are downloaded and ready to go and that everything is charged. Also, we have to pack headphones.

Packing snacks are essential. Food is a primary way of keeping kids in good moods when traveling—often, when things aren't going well, it's because kids are hungry. However, getting the proper selection of snacks is tricky, and having enough is important, as they take up a lot of space.

Preparing to travel means that almost all of the time, my wife and I stay up late the night before we travel. Getting four or five hours of sleep the night before taking a plane flight is common for us, which compounds the difficulty and anxiety of traveling.

Many little things make traveling with children difficult, and over the years, I've figured out how to manage these things, but that doesn't make it easy. For example, let's take car seats. After traveling with a car seat once, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle of carrying one to the airport, checking it, and carrying it around the airport after. So now we just rent car seats when we rent cars. Yes, this is easier, but getting a car seat in front of the rental car company and installing it is still a process that takes a lot of time.

This is what the experience of traveling with children gets you: the more you do it, the more you learn, and while things are easier, it's never easy. The most significant change over the years has been expectations setting. Things will go wrong when you travel with children. You will need to remember something, and there will be issues. Accepting this as a feature helps you see the tough moments, not as failures, and see the good and the joy of getting away with the little ones.

Year 13: Week 22 - Legacy

"What do you want to be your legacy?" 

I was stunned and speechless when my colleague asked me this question. I wasn't surprised that she could quiet me, but the question made me think about myself in a way I wasn't prepared.

At this school, I am rarely asked something that I don't have a quick response. My brain loves the conversations at my school and the challenges of discourse in my role as a teacher and a school leader. However, things are different when I'm with this colleague.

She is one of the few people at this school who can see through my armor and the facade I put up in different spaces and situations at this school. People ask me, "how are you?" Most of the time, I say, "I'm fine," and the exchange is over. But, when she asks me how I'm doing, regardless of my answer, she can see the truth, my complicated feelings, and the thoughts behind my eyes.

We were in her office working through some administrative issues, and she asked me about my legacy as we worked things out. I was unsure how to answer this question because no one had ever asked me to think about my legacy at this school. This is a question I hadn't asked myself.

I'm like the anti-Hamiton. Legacy is rarely on my mind. While I think about the future, I'm just not a person who thinks about what I leave behind or what people will think about me when I'm gone. I move into and through my work as an educator not focused on myself but focused on others. Over the years, I've learned how to allow myself to focus on my joy and interest in my work, which has been rewarding. However, I continue not to think about the long-lasting effects on my school and my world. I guess I see meaning in what I do now, and I don't look for what I may leave behind to bring meaning to my life.

What hit me when she asked me about my legacy is that whether I like it or not, I am creating a legacy in all my choices for others and myself. I should think about my legacy and control it. This can be and should be part of what I consider and think about because it can bring meaning and purpose to my actions.

After thinking about her question for a couple of days, I still don't have to know what I want my legacy to be. I do know some things: I want parts of my work to continue. 

I want people to think of me and smile, and I want the spirit of my work to be passed down. I want people not to need me. I say that because the people of my school who have meant the most to me as a teacher do not linger like ghosts. I feel their strength and inspiration more than their lack of presence. 

Most of all, I want people I have worked through to move with more strength because of what I did for them and feel motivated and inspired by what I did for them to do for others.

Parenthood: Week 511 - One Night

Diana got tickets without a lot of notice. It was a production of Matilda, the musical, done at Northwestern University. She got tickets the day before, and I didn't think much about it, but part of me didn't feel up for it. I had been working through a cold and had a lot of stuff to do at work. However, this performance was only a 5-10 minute drive away, and it was an affordable price. 

Ollie liked ˆ when Diana read it to him a couple of years ago, and Diana was currently reading this book to Ethan, so going to this show was a great idea. Matilda was one of my favorite books as a child. I was fascinated by the child abuse in Matilda's home and at school and how children persevered, reacted, and overcame these challenges.

Initially, we planned to take Ollie and Ethan, but then Ethan irrationally resisted coming with us, and we decided not to fight it. So Ethan stayed home with Lucas and grandma, and we took Olie to the show.

We got to show up late, it was cold, and we were in the very last row of the auditorium. However, once the show started, Ollie was transfixed. He sat up straight for the entirety of the first half, his head looking out at the stage. When intermission came, Diana suggested that we go home. Ollie said he wanted to stay, so she took a car service back home while Ollie and I stayed.

Maybe it was because I was tired, or the show dragged, but I fell asleep for a chunk of the show's second half. Ollie didn't. 

The show was two hours and forty-five minutes, and he sat up straight and paid attention the entire time. I was amazed and so proud of Ollie. Proud that he had the maturity to attend a musical for so long and proud that he, like myself, appreciated musical theater. I told him this as we went home on the dark winter night.

We got home late, and the two younger brothers were asleep. I looked at the block, and it was 10:40. Ollie got to bed, and I started winding down myself. Then Lucas threw up. Over the next two hours, we went through a cycle. Lucas would throw up, Diana would change him and comfort him, and I would change and clean his bedding. Finally, Lucas would settle down, get tired, and almost fall asleep, Diana would put him back in his bed, and then he would throw up again.

This happened three or four times. I'm not sure. All I know is that we went through every extra sheet in our house and pillows. At some point, I took a pillow off Ollie's bed (he has two) to give to Lucas because we didn't have any other clean ones.

By the time Lucas settled in for the night, it was 12:45. I had scrubbed through sheets and clothes, Diana had comforted Lucas through the night, and we were finally done.

One night was full of some beautiful things and some challenging things.

Then the following day, we got up and did it again. I knew there were challenges ahead and possibly some wonderful moments, but it would be a unique day full of ups and downs, as every day is as a parent.

Year 13: Week 21 - Calm & Peace

I was borderline. 

I got a cold from my youngest son earlier in the week. I took a day off when it first hit me. I’m glad I did. My symptoms weren’t debilitating, but they were significant. I was better the next day, so I did go to school.

I was feeling a lot better, but I was tired, and I didn’t have much of a speaking voice. I considered doing a less active lesson with my 3rd graders that day. They have independent work they can do, which I don’t have to teach as actively.

Part of growing as a teacher is how I create more space for my students to explore independently. More traditional music teaching has the teacher actively leading the students for the entire class. On the other hand, more progressive and innovative teaching has the students do more projects. In the early parts of the pandemic, this teaching became necessary as we weren’t allowed to have students sing or play instruments. I found that aspects of this type of instruction and curriculum were rewarding for the students and me.

As my 3rd graders came into my classroom, they were so excited about music, and I figured I’d lean in and do more active teaching. I figured I could always pull back and switch gears if I wasn’t feeling it.

So I taught a recorder lesson. It was only our second or third week on the recorder, and it was going well. Teaching the recorder is tricky. It can be a lot of fun, but the classroom management piece of it is really hard. Students want to explore the instrument, which is great; however, they can’t effectively do this when other students are playing because it can be really hard to hear themselves. So students will try to play in quieter moments, like during instruction, which leads to me constantly feeling like I’m playing “whack-a-mole,” telling students to stop playing.

I haven’t been mean in the last few classes, but I’ve been very direct and quick about giving students feedback so they understand how to work when doing a recorder lesson. At times this may have come off as a little harsh, but I did remind my students that I was doing that to help them by being very clear about my expectations.

I didn’t have that energy today, but I decided to go for it. I passed out the recorders, I gave them some reminders, and we got to work. I sat back in my chair and looked at them playing, and then I put my hand up, they stopped playing, and we got to work. All I felt I could be was calm. I smiled softly at them while we worked; they matched my mood and energy. I was surprised at how well things worked with me being so chill. For some reason, I expected them to need me to be louder and more energetic, but they were fine. So I did the same thing for the following two classes and had a great morning teaching.

Sometimes things click with a group of children. It’s not always clear why, but when it does, teaching is a lot of fun. Being more calm invites students to do the same, think carefully, and create a moment with me where we can all learn in peace.