Year 6: Week 9 – Getting Better

Sometimes it’s important to take a step back and enjoy what’s going right.

I was trained at college to be a “reflective practitioner.” After every sample lesson we taught and after every conducting experience we were assigned to write a reflection. At a certain point felt like I was writing reflections on reflections. While this was annoying at times, I’m grateful for this work because it has hard wired into me to be reflective with every single thing I do as a teacher.

The only downside with this approach is that sometimes this mentality ends up putting you a mind space where, ever after great successes instead of enjoying the moment, you instead spend time being self-critical.

So let’s take stock of what’s been going on. In the past two weeks, two majors project have come to a close: the acquisition of a new instruments and a performance that I helped bring to my school. I’ve made great strides in two other major projects.

While those things are awesome, what I’ve realized this week is that my kids are really doing well. Yes, my 8th graders are still, well, acting like 8th graders, but musically they are further along than any other 8th grade group I’ve taught. Even though there are bumps in the road, as a group they are really started to get “it.”

My 6th graders are slowly making their way from making sounds on their instrument that only a band teacher could love to produce real quality musical sounds. Their enthusiasm throughout this whole process is really inspiring. Most adults would not last through the process of learning an instrument with the same level of grit and determination that my 6th graders are showing.

My 5th graders are responding well to me giving them feedback after every activity we do in class. I write a 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 as an assessment of their ability to work through the activity as a class. There’s no reward for a class with all 5’s but they are seeing concrete feedback, which helps them see what they are doing well and what we need to work on.

Then there are my 3rd graders. They are so excited to perform “Simple Gifts” at the upcoming Thanksgiving presentation. Sometimes the amount of energy it takes to reel them in is exhausting, but they are really into what we are doing. Yes, we have a lot of work to do when it comes to performing as a choir, but it’s clear that they all want to do the work and get better.

Yes, things are still crazy, but things are going really well. The work I’m doing is challenging because I continue to reflect on my practice as a teacher. But it’s good work, and as stressful as things get, the one constant is that I have great kids who inspire me every day.

Buffy's Halloween Costume

Parenthood: Week 124 – Option C

“Ollie, do you want to wear your penguin pajamas or your stripey pajamas?” 

“Ollie wear pajamas with cars!”

Choice is an important part of developing independence in our son. From before Ollie could really make choices about his clothing I would let him choose between two shirts. At first, I would simply interpret which shirt his eye would go to first as the expression of his opinion, but now that he’s older, he is much more verbal about what he wants.

For those of you with toddlers you may think that the term “verbal” is a euphemism for “dictator-like” and yes, this is the case a lot of the time. Life for toddlers can be very confusing. They understand so much more about their life and their environment every day, but their verbal skills don’t always equip them to interact with the world in a way they would like.

Toddlers don’t have the capacity to understand choices made for them everyday. So they can get a little bossy. You would too if someone was making hundreds of choices for you in your life and you didn’t understand the reasons why.

I believe toddlers like all humans are innately good. I also believe that interacting with the world in a polite and productive way is not innate. Without proper guidance and instruction, toddlers again like all humans can act really rude and annoying running contrary to their innate goodness.

One of our primary jobs as parents is to help our toddlers express themselves in appropriate ways. I believe, (through anecdotal experiences and no research), that kids learn how to polite when they are given the chance to express these opinions.

A toddler is going to express his or her own opinion no matter what you do, so instead of steering way from providing a choice that may lead to a meltdown, lean into giving your kids more choices about things less consequential, to help them feel more control over their lives and get important praise for being polite.

What does this look like? There’s a fair amount of me giving Ollie two choices between something and him choosing an unstated third option. More often than not, I just go for the third option. If Ollie doesn’t want to get into the car, asking him which car he wants to ride in, “mommy’s or daddy’s” will provide a little sense of self-determination that gets him going.

Something new (and amazing) that we’ve started using this week is giving Ollie choice as a way to defuse coming tantrums and combat stubbornness. Example: Ollie insists on Diana reading him a book. It’s my turn to read to him, so Diana leaves the room. Ollie starts melting down, then I quickly give Ollie the choice between too books. He thinks about it, chooses one and settles in my lap. Another example: Ollie was getting upset because Ollie wanted to watch more television, Diana then offered Ollie the choice between two snacks, and he immediately moved his attention to the snacks and settled down.

Choice is a powerful thing. Most adults would rather choose a situation where they have more choices than stick with a situation they feel powerless. Ollie had no power to make that television turn back on, so he picked the path that gave him back some power in a productive way.

If a student is struggling with math, you don't lean away as a teacher and put less attention on math.  You lean in and do more math work.  Toddlers struggle with making choices and expressing their opinions in a productive way and in order to help our kids through this we need to lean in and provide more productive opportunities for choice, not less.

I'm not advocating letting your child completely run his or her own life, but see what kind of power you can give to your kids while maintaining very necessary controls over your child's life.  This may mean that you let your toddler pick their own clothing and wears a horribly mismatched outfit a couple days a week.  Ignore the clashing colors and focus on your child's expression.  That smile and sense of pride is more beautiful than the most perfectly coordinated outfit.

Year 6: Week 8 - Ghosts Of Kids Who Quit

I see them in the hallways. They say “hello” to me in the lunchroom. Like a ghost whose spirit is not at rest, when I least expect it, I’m reminded that while I’m through with them as their teacher, the memory of how I taught them is not through with me.

These are the students who put their hope in me, embraced the experience of learning an instrument and then later said no. These are my band students who quit.

Like other teachers, music teachers put their heart and soul into what they do. It is such a difficult thing to teach students how to play instruments. We see so much growth, so quickly. We teach for the present but we also try to prepare students for a future in music. So when they quit, it can be hard not to take it personally.

I still remember how horrible I felt when my first two students quit on me. It was during the first month of teaching high school band. This school was enormous and I was given the two lower 10-12 grade bands (there were a total of five 10-12 grade bands). Two seniors approached my department chair with a class drop slip and after they cleared it with him, I was informed that these two kids were quitting band.

I was completely caught off guard and I know that I was doing the best I could with a difficult job but I really wish that I could have done better for these two guys. Maybe it didn’t have as much to do with me as I thought at the time, but I’ll never really know and that’s what is so difficult about kids quitting.

Sometimes you know the reasons and sometimes you don’t. Even when you think you know, it doesn’t stop your brain from thinking about what you could have done better. Over time, you learn to let these thoughts go. The longer I teach the more easily I get over it but there’s a sting, a feeling of failure that lessens in intensity but never leave you when you see that kid in the hallway or think about them.

The amazing thing is that all of the band students who quit are really warm and nice to me after they leave. The ones who aren’t and give me a little attitude are clearly looking for me to affirm that I still value them, which I do. These students compliment their ex-band mates after performance, they share with me good memories they remember from band and sometimes they even tell me how they regret quitting and much they miss band.

Not all ghost are bad, and sometimes in life all you need to do to find the positive is to look outside of yourself. Yes, they quit band, but that one fact only defines your memory of that student and how you feel about them as much as you allow it too.

Yoda

Parenthood: Week 123 – Sick Day

There’s this moment in a classic Daredevil comic book when he approaches a stone slab with Elektra’s dead body (his girlfriend) laying on it and through a mystical force of will, he tries to bring her back to life. Daredevil passes out and when he awakes her body is gone. Later in the book, we see Elektra standing on a mountaintop standing strong. While it is later revealed that a character named Stone is the one who resurrected Elektra, it is told that Daredevil purified her soul.

Any parent who has cradled their sick child understands what Daredevil was trying to do. When your child is sick you would do anything to make them feel better. You would take your kids’ sickness on yourself, go on midnight drive to the drug store and even sit in a bathroom with the shower blasting at its highest temperature at 2am in the hope that it would loosen a cough.

Like most toddlers Ollie has had his share of sicknesses. Part of this is from the fact that last year he was in daycare and this year is in toddler school. Anyone who says that being in these situations allows kids to get sick and have stronger immunities later in life has no idea what they are talking about. There is no benefit to kids getting sick from daycare. That whole “immunities” reasoning is just false rationalization.

If all you had to deal with was your child just being sick, it would be tremendous amount of stress but in our society, there’s the issue of taking time off of work or finding childcare, which adds layers of work stress on top of what is already a challenging and emotionally draining situation. Once you get that piece settled the real work begins.

When a child is sick at a young age, it is of some comfort to know that they will not have long-term memories of being sick. The bad thing about kids being sick at such a young age is that you can’t explain to them that they will get better soon. Ollie has a sense that Tylenol will make him feel better but he’s only beginning to understand that he will better in the future.

There’s a feeling of powerless when your child is sick. You can take your kid to the doctor (deciding when to do this is a trial all by itself). Even when you do, often it’s just a virus that needs to work itself out so you are left there holding your child whose sad eyes fill you with a mixture of guilt, desperation, and anxiety.

It’s easy to forget in these moments that all of these feelings that give you that hollow, lonesome feeling deep inside is an expression of love. To feel so much for someone else, to be want to give part of your own life energy to make someone feel better truly is love.

Parenthood makes you feel this mixture of emotions so deeply that you feel alive and it is this experience that brings life meaning.

Year 6: Week 7 – My First Asian Teacher

I still remember when I realized that for the first time I was going to have an Asian-American teacher.

It was a week or two before the start of 7th grade (might have been 6th). I received my class scheduled in the mail. This little index card sized print out listed our classes, our locker number and combination and our teachers’ names. Next to the title “language arts” was the name “Naganawa.”

I was really surprised. I never had a teacher in all of my years in school up to that point that I identified as a racial minority. I asked my mom about this and she confirmed that I was going to have a teacher who was Asian-American and this realization changed my assumptions about life.

I grew up on Mercer Island, a suburb of Seattle and there were always other students of color in my classroom, especially other Asian-American students. I was aware of this and I remember conversations from my elementary school years like “are you Chinese? I’m Japanese. Let’s play and be friends.”  My family was Taiwanese, there were other Asian families that we spent time with and my teachers at school appeared to be Caucasian. That was the way things were and I never imagined that anything would or could be different.

Walking into school that first day, I was nervous about many things but I was excited about meeting Mrs. Naganawa. On that first day, she took attendance verbally and went around the room saying everyone’s name and making eye contact. When she said my name and smiled at me, it didn’t feel like a stranger saying “hello” for the first time. Because we were both Asian, I immediately felt a connection. She understood what it was like to be Asian and in that way she understood what it was like to be me.

Over the year she made us write weekly “Reading Responses.” This was a two-page, typed reading journal. She wanted us to think about books that we were reading and reflect. They papers have to be book reports, and we could go on tangents if we wanted.

At first I wrote the way I was taught. I had topic sentences and supporting body sentences. I got good grades on these assignments and slowly I started writing in a freer journal style. To my surprise, Mrs. Naganawa was enthusiastic about this because she valued how I was more freely expressing my thoughts through writing. It was this support that over time made me in love with writing. And it is this love of writing that I’ve returned to through the years as one of the most important parts of my life.

Would I have learned to love writing the way I do if Mrs. Naganawa wasn’t an Asian-American. I’m not sure but I know that her race helped me feel more comfortable which led me me to take more chances with my writing.  More importantly having an Asian-American teacher broke me out of my world view and expand my idea of what I could accomplish as an Asian-American.

Thanks Mrs. Naganawa for showing me that an Asian-American could be a teacher and opening up a world of possibility that has led me follow in your footsteps.  What your example meant to me motivates me every day as a teacher.