30 Days Until Thirty-Years-Old

In 30 days on March 30th, I’m turning thirty-years old and I don’t feel like I’m ready.

During the past weeks I’ve mentioned my feelings about turning thirty to a couple people and most have disregarded my feeling as being a little ridiculous. So I’m going to try to explain myself. I can’t be the only person this year turning thirty who’s dealing with these feelings so I’m going to try to lay this out for you.

When I was a teenager I never yearned for independence or wanted to be an adult. There were times that I wanted more freedom but the idea of being an adult seemed impossible. The difference between adults and kids in my teenage mind was that adults just had things in life figured out. They knew how to handle finance, speeding tickets and how to fix random things. My mom has this way of understanding people that seemed unattainable. I figured there would be time for me to get there but it seemed so far away because as teenagers so much in life seemed so hard to understand.

On my twenty-first birthday I was on a plane flight coming back to college from Spring Break. I remember thinking “I’m an adult now, but I still don’t have anything in life figured out.” But I had time to figure things out.  Nine years later, I have that same feeling.  The difference is that I'm no longer new to being an adult.

Almost every person who is older than me that I respect has told me that they have no idea what they are doing in life and have yet to figure their lives out. I know that this feeling of constantly figuring life out is a good thing, it’s a sign of growth. I’m just having a hard time letting go of the illusion that at thirty, things would just feel a little bit more . . . together.

Don’t get me wrong; I have had an amazing decade. I’ve made some amazing friends and married my best friend. I live in a great place, have a dream job and a beautiful family including quite possibly the cutest dog on the planet. But for some reason, being thirty, being an adult should feel more natural.

At work I talk to other teachers and administrators who seem so much more adult than me.  They talk to me on an equal level, and I’m thinking to myself “you’ve been teaching longer than I’ve been alive, how can we be on the same level?” I feel like a little kid playing dress up. I even see people my own age on television and for some reason they seem older than me.

I know this is all perception and that I have proven through many different situations that I am in fact an adult and that I do have my life in a good place. I just can’t shake this feeling that there’s something I missed in my twenties, something I should have figured out by now.

Maybe that’s exactly what this past decade has been about: the realization that adulthood is just an illusion for the youth. Maybe we never have things “figured out,” we just learn to act like we do for the younger people in our lives so they can feel secure.

I don't really feel like I'm ready to be thirty but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.   I didn't feel ready to be twenty and look how well that worked out.

Life goes on and that really is something to celebrate. 

Here's to spending the next thirty days doing just that. 

Wrecking Ball by Bruce Springsteen

In about two weeks Bruce Springsteen is releasing his newest album Wrecking Ball. The first single “We Take Care Of Our Own” came out a couple weeks ago and I discussed the power of this song in this earlier post.  One of the fascinating things about this album is that the title track is almost three years old.  



“Wrecking Ball” was written to commemorate the closing of Giant Stadium. This song and the shows Springsteen played there served as one last hurrah for that legendary stadium. So why is a song about a football field the title track to Springsteen’s 17th studio album? Because, like with most of his songs, this song is about so much more than what it seems.

The first time I heard this song I thought it was simply a way for Bruce to see how many times he could feature the word “ball” in this song (which by my count is 45, heehee, ball). And no, I am not a 5th grader but I do teach them and some of their humor rubs off on me. Once I got over my initial fits of giggling what Bruce lays out in the first two verse is pretty much a tribute to Giant stadium.

Bruce makes references to  New Jersey, the Meadowlands and past championships. While reminiscing about these memories Bruce calls on to the imminent destruction of a wrecking ball. Maybe it’s bravado or maybe it’s something deeper.  However as he sings “hold tight to your anger, don’t’ fall to your fear,” the song becomes very different.

Something he loves, this stadium is being destroyed and only if he stays angry can he stand up to the destruction of everything he loves. In the last verse, Bruce talks about a game that is already decided while “your best hopes and desire are scattered through the wind.” Then he repeats, “hard times come, and hard times go,” over and over. The conclusion he comes to is that they will simply come again.

This stadium is our lives; everything we build up will eventually be torn down. Hard times will keep coming.  The wrecking balls in our lives are inevitable. So what do you do? Let fear overcome you? No, you’ve got to hold tight to the great memories of the past and know that after the destruction you can rebuild.

Life isn’t reliving and maintaining past triumphs. It’s about building up to new ones. By screaming, “bring on that wrecking ball,” we’re saying that we’re ready to move on.  We want that destruction to plow through our lives so that we can start again and achieve something greater than we could ever imagine.

"We Take Care Of Our Own" asks us about what it means to care for people in our lives while "Wrecking Ball" challenges us to face the trials of life with hope and strength.  I can't imagine what else Bruce has to tell us with this new album, but I can't wait to find out.

Year 2: Week 23 - What Special Education Taught Me

I just needed a job.

It was October a couple years ago and I was an unemployed teacher.  If you’re looking for a job in a school and haven’t found one by that time of the year, you need to start being creative. Going through the numerous job websites I kept seeing opening for “associate” or “assistant” teachers.  Over the summer, I didn’t bother applying for any of these positions thinking that I would find something. But I didn’t and it was September. So I applied to associate teaching job and got called in for an interview a week later.

After two short interviews, I got the job. I was now an associate teacher mainly in charge of assisting students with special needs when they were integrated into the main classroom and instructing pullout reading and math groups.

All teachers in the state of Illinois regardless of specialty are required to take a course on special education. One of the main reasons for this is the trend of “mainstreaming” students with special needs. When I went to high school I was aware there was students with special needs in the building but I never saw them. I think they even left the school through a different door. Now it’s a very different situation as students with special needs are integrated into the classroom as much as possible.

This is great for students with special needs to be socialized and included as part of a larger class room and it’s also great for students without special needs to learn and accept the diversity in different learning styles and abilities. Wow, “students without special needs” sounds really funny doesn’t it? The thing is all students have special needs.  The label "special needs," is a little silly the more you think about it.  

So here I was on my first day assistant a fourth grader with special needs. I had no idea what I was doing. My only previous experience was teaching high school band and here I was trying to help kids with organizational skills and basic math and reading.

Even though I felt like at time I was inadequate and useless as a teacher, I was there and I tried. I literally taught kids how to read. I spent fifteen minutes one time trying to explain to a student why three plus two equaled five and not seven. It was incredibly frustrating at times but it was also a lot of fun.

I did this for two years and I believe it was two of the most important years in my development as a teacher. When you teach high school band sometimes people get in their minds these ideas of teaching these lofty pieces of high art. Sometimes this focus distracts from what kids actually need to learn. When you are teaching basic skills that you don’t remember learning, it’s not about the mastery of the content but your skills as a teacher. That’s what teaching is really about.

It takes teaching skill to explain the form and playing techniques associated with a Beethoven symphony. That’s the kind of things we often focus on as teachers. However it takes a different level of skill to teach a student how to read who has language-processing issues and make seemingly insignificant, but incredibly important progress every day.

Teaching special education changed my approach to teaching from "teaching music to students," to "teaching students about music."  I don't think every teacher needs to teach special ed to get this, but every teacher needs to understand this philosophy when it comes to teaching to truly be successful.

I do miss teaching special education sometimes.  I miss the small groups, of course I miss my past students, but most of all I miss the work.  I love teaching music, but there's something about breaking down skills that come so easy to the rest of us and helping someone understand them.  I do this on a different level nowadays, but it's not the same.

I don't teach special education anymore but I'm proud to say that I did and I feel grateful to have had that opportunity to work with that group of students.

Politicians Singing

We need a talent portion for the upcoming presidential election.  Let's see what we got:

We have Santorum singing "Strangers In The Night"



Mitt Romney singing "America, The Beautiful" (which I have mad respect for):



Recently Obama sang some blues:



I'm not being sarcastic. I really like seeing candidates do musical things.  One of the things I liked about Cain was how much he loved singing.



That's cool stuff and former presidential candidate Huckabee often plays bass with guest on his show.



The guy can actually play, this isn't a joke.  Americans love music and we love seeing the people we like to elect people who enjoy the music the way we do.  Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich, show us a little about what music means to you, it could only help your campaign.

A Open Letter To Men About How to Understand Birth Control, Abortion and Woman's Issues

I will never know what it’s like to have menstrual cramps. I will never know what it’s like to give birth. I will never know what it’s like to have to go to a doctor to get a prescription to get a contraceptive. I will never know what it’s like to be reminded once a month of my womanhood and I will never know the feeling of menopause knowing that your ability to have children is going away.

I will never know what any of these things are really like because I’m a man.

In the past week the issue of birth control pills and other contraceptives as part of health care plans with religious organizations has brought about a flurry of discussion about issues related to religious freedom and woman’s reproductive health.

As with any important issue in our society, this is not a singular issue. This isn’t simply a religious freedom issue. This is a states’ rights issue, a health care issue, a political issue, and woman’s rights issue. It is all of these things but at the end of the day the one group of people who will be most effected by this are woman. All of us men will be able to go on our daily lives and be able to forget this issue while woman in our society will continue to wrestle and deal with the consequences of last week's events.

Just because you don’t belong to a group doesn’t mean that you can’t have an opinion about a issue related to a group. You can have an opinion on African-American gang violence even if you aren’t African-American. However if there’s an African-American in the room, be sensitive, because it is far more personal for people belonging to the groups you are talking about than it is for you.

You may be better informed and know more statistics but you don’t live with these issues everyday.  This may be a research topic for you, but for these people it's their lives and it's personal.  When these things get personal, feelings get involved and it becomes less a political discussion and a conversation about the lives of the people around you.

So if you’re with a group of friends and a woman’s issue comes up, or even an issue that is tangentially related to the unique experience of what it means to be a woman, shut your mouth, let the woman speak and take your cues off of them. If they say something you disagree with, think long and hard before you open your mouth, because if you quote some line you hear from a pundit, it’s not going to go well.

If you are a man who really cares about issues in our society that effect woman like abortion and birth control than sit down with the women in your life and talk to them about their feelings and experiences. Talk to your mother, your aunts, your girlfriend, your sisters and your grandmothers. Hear their stories, ask them where they stand on these issues and form your opinions from their voices.

You will be amazed at the stories you hear and it will make you rethink the way you view these issues.  They will share more than their personal stories but also stories about their friends full of struggles, pain, triumphs and tragedy.

In the past week I’ve been thinking about stories women in my life have told me.  There's one of my friends telling me how before she went on birth control she had cramps so bad she couldn’t walk.  There's my friend holding back tears as she told me about her first miscarriage.  I hear the voice of a woman raised during World War II not realizing until after her third child the connection between her sexual activity and reproduction.  I’ve realized that there are women in my life who not only have opinions on all sides of these issues but have had to live through making incredibly hard decisions about their bodies.

These aren’t easy conversations to have but as men, it’s our responsibility. We will never know what it means to be a woman but we have to try. Nothing you read in the newspaper or hear on television will help you get closer to understanding these incredibly important and controversial issues in our lives than learning about these issues from the women who are close to you.

When you argue a side of an issue that deals with women's lives, don't argue for a political party, fight for the women in your life.  As men we only truly understand what it's like to be a man which is why we must support what it means to be a woman for the people in our lives.

Year 2: Week 22 - Working On The Weekend

This weekend is the first weekend in about a month that I’m not going to do any work.

For the past couple weeks I’ve been completing my grades and comments for the semester. I turned in the last batch yesterday and I’m going to take a break for doing work for school.

Now this post is not about complaining about working on the weekend. I think it’s more than a fair trade to work on a couple weekends if it means that you get summer break. What I do want to reflect on is why teachers work on weekends and what that means to the community.

My first teaching job was a high school band position. I had limited time during the day to prepare for the classes I teach. I probably had about an hour in the day. I would get to work early and stay late to plan my lessons but it wasn’t enough. My department head actually told me outright that the only way I could keep up with my teaching was by working on the weekends.

So every Sunday morning and often on Saturdays I worked. That added onto the many Saturdays through out the year that were taken up by festivals and competitions pretty much obliterated a good percentage of my weekends during the school year. This was exhausting and even with doing work on the weekends I barely was able to keep up, which was one of reasons I eventually left that job.

One of the things I mentioned during my job interview at my current gig was that I wanted to maintain a life outside of school. Now this may seem like a dumb thing to say at an interview but the response I got really attracted me to the school. I was told that a lot of teachers put in extra hours, but a lot don’t and many have very interesting lives outside of the school which the school values.

Our school includes published writers, a internationally known professional musician, stand-up comics, a boxing coach and many other things. Because our teachers have these outside interests, it makes them more relaxed and interesting people who are better teachers.

A big reason why this happens is because we a good deal more prep time in our day than most teachers. While it’s not enough time during grading time to keep work off of the weekend it is most of the time.

The other reasons sometimes I work on the weekends is because, well, I teach what I love. “Working” consists of me singing music, writing arrangements, and researching the history of songs, which is stuff I do for fun in my free time. What do you do when your hobby becomes work? Get a new hobby? Hence, the blog. . .

I know that there are plenty of people who have jobs in which they have to work unpaid overtime on weekends. For most teachers, it’s part of the gig. Should it be?  I'm not sure.  I know at least for me, having less work to do on the weekends has made me a happier person and a better teacher.

Why Chris Brown needs to go away, why Jeremy Lin should stay and issue with the Westminster Dog Show

It's been an interesting week with some issues that I take very seriously.  What has been really cool is that I've found some articles that capture the way that I'm feeling and bring some great perspectives to the table.

First there's the issue of Chris Brown performing at the Grammy's.  I’m not okay with Chris Brown performing at the Grammys and I'm not sure why you are provides the history of the beating of his former girlfriend Rihanna and why this is still an important and relevant issue.  This blog also covers why it is unacceptable that he is so widely accepted by our culture.


Then there's the this brilliant article Why Jeremy Lin's race matters.  It's been a rough couple months to be Asian-American and the success of Lin int he NBA is a breath of fresh air.  Unfortunately his success has revealed further racism in our culture we need to deal with.

Oh, and then there's the whole thing about a Pekingese winning at the Westminster Dog show this week.  This is not a good thing.  The breed standard for this dog creates pressure on breeders to create dogs with massive health problems.  This BBC documentary talks about a former Pekingese champions health issues (about 5:50 in).