Year 6: Week 20 – R-E-S-P-E-C-T

When I was growing up, I remember the word “respect” being thrown around a lot at school. From elementary to high school there were signs and talks about respecting yourself, respecting other and respecting the school. If someone misbehaved, it was “disrespectful.”

I didn’t have any idea what respect actually meant when I was growing up and to be perfectly honest, I don’t think I could give you a very good definition right now. Okay google what do you got?

Respect: noun: a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievement.

Verb: admire, avoid harming or interfering with.

What? I’m suppose to have respect for my teachers as a kid. That means I should feel deep admiration for them, and myself and my school. I liked my teachers, and I admired some of them, but that’s not something you choose to do, that’s something you earn from people.

Now the verb definition makes sense. I should as a student avoid harming other students, the school or myself. That’s good advice but why not be more direct and tell kids to admire each other more and not hurt each other? This is something my 3rd graders and my 8th graders can actually understand and put into action.

It feels like this idea of “respect” has been elevated in the context of schools into this a value, a philosophy on life. This is why I never really used the word respect in teaching or in conversations with students. It just seemed too ambiguous.

At my current school we don’t really talk about respect to students all that often. It’s just not a term that I hear in classrooms. Once in a while teachers will talk about expressions of disrespect, like interrupting someone giving a presentation, but we don’t have posters in the hallways and classrooms touting respect as a central idea of the our school.

There are things that my students do that other would probably find disrespectful. My middle school students aren’t great with saying please or thank you or curbing their attitude when they talk to me. Some of my third graders do not immediately snap to a submissive look of regret on their face when I am reprimanding them. My students talk back and sometimes they play jokes on me. For others this may seem like disrespect but for me it’s allowing students to have a voice and to relax into being themselves.

There’s a level of surface respect that doesn’t necessarily reflect real admiration and then there’s people who don’t seem respectful on the surface but have a genuine level of respect that is expressed in more meaningful ways.

The most important level of respect, going with the admiration definition, is the respect they have for themselves not me as their teacher. If being respectful to me helps them get there, than great, but at the end of the day if my students have little respect for me but have learned to truly respect themselves, then I’ve been a successful teacher in my book.

Parenthood: Week 137 - Buffy & Ollie

Buffy was not happy.

She ate her dinner, she got a good walk and we let her out in the back yard to survey her territory but she was still not settled. Buffy paced around the house, whining and looking up at us. I gave her a treat to chew on and while this distracted her, after a couple minutes she returned to pacing around the house.

Ollie wasn’t home.

Grandma had taken Ollie out for the evening and Buffy was worried about Ollie. Buffy was used to being away from Ollie but usually when this was the case, me and/or Diana were also out of the house. This didn’t make sense to Buffy.

When Buffy saw through the window that Ollie and grandma were walking up the driveway she slid out the screen door as I stepped out and ran right up to Ollie. Buffy had only once before went out of front door without a leash and knew to not run out without a leash on.

Once Ollie was inside, Buffy settled down, found a spot in the rug and observed as we got Ollie ready for bed.

Earlier this week, I was sitting in my office, which is two doors down from Ollie’s room. Diana was putting Ollie to bed and they were talking and giggling as they often do as Diana rocks Ollie. I heard Buffy’s faint whine coming from Ollie's room. I got up, opened the door and Buffy ran out, wanting to go downstairs and eat her dinner.

As soon as Buffy left the room, Ollie melted down. He wanted Buffy to stay in his room with him and he didn’t understand why Buffy had left. Ollie is at the age that he needs to learn to respect Buffy’s needs. We weren’t going to force Buffy to stay in his room against his will, especially if she was hungry. Diana and I tried to explain that Buffy would be back but it didn’t help, Ollie continued to cry and wail in sadness.

I gave Buffy a couple minutes to finish her dinner and then I carried her up to Ollie’s room. Only then did Ollie quiet down as I sat down on the footrest of his rocking chair with Buffy in my lap and he reached over and petted Buffy. Ollie reached toward Buffy’s paws, which Buffy did not like, so we redirected Ollie’s hands to Buffy’s mane. He pet Buffy, said goodnight and Buffy and Ollie went to bed.

There are times when Ollie really wants to interact with Buffy. Earlier today he found a picture of a puppy and kept shoving it in Buffy’s face trying to show it to her (Buffy wasn’t very interested). And there are times when Buffy brings a tug toy to Ollie and he isn’t interested in playing with her. Sometimes Ollie chases Buffy around wanting to give her a hug and other times Buffy will carefully sit next to Ollie while he’s watching television and watch him attentively.

Then there are times when they don’t seem to care about each and barely acknowledge each other’s existence, but then there are moments when they express care for each other in emotional and dramatic ways.

There is something special between Ollie and Buffy.  It's unique, heartwarming, surprising while sometimes it causes drama, it's always touching.  Moments when they miss each other are reminders of what it means to be a family and how lucky we are to have each other.

Year 6: Week 19 - Am I Good Enough To Teach Ollie?

It’s a lot of pressure when you really think about.

I’ve had hundreds of parents trust me to take care of their kids. Without their supervision, I talk to them teach them about music and life.  I put them in stressful situations, I challenge them to think and I give them orders.

These kids are the most precious thing in their parents’ lives. Each one of my students started as a hope, a dream, and became a child. These children were rocked to sleep, cried over in times of confusion and prayed for in times of fear.

While what we do carries weight because of the trust parents put into us, there’s the responsibility we have to our students’ themselves to be more than a person who hands out worksheets and quizzes and corrects them.

I think about my own son at toddler school.  Part of me wants him to have 100% of his teachers’ attention all of the time. But I am also very aware as a teacher that this is not possible and there are times when because of the nature of teaching a group of students, sometimes individual student’s needs are not met immediately. This kind of drives me crazy to think about Ollie needing something but having to wait because a teacher needs to handle something with another kid. And I know he’s fine waiting for a minute and he has great teachers.  The educator’s part of my brain knows that it’s important that he learns how to operate in a group setting but the primal part of my brain wants him to be prioritized.

This line of thinking begs the question: If Ollie had a teacher who was teaching like I was, would I be satisfied with his classroom experience?

That question is. . . AHH. . . my head and heart can barely handle thinking about this that way. This is a whole new level of being a reflective practitioner (if you don’t know what I’m referring to check out this post).  Part of me thinks that that I'm only a good teacher and not a great teacher and Ollie deserves better than me.  This line of thought makes me feel guilty for not being a better teacher for other people's children.

Looking back at this past week, there were moments I was proud of my work and some moments when I could have given more and I didn’t. Honestly as a teacher I’m okay with that. We do the best we can and we can’t give our kids our 100% all of the time. We work within the circumstances that we are given (e.g. class size, instructional minutes). Do my students deserve more out of me?

And that's why this gig is so tough.  You can always do better.  There's always more work to be done and in order to maintain sanity, at some point you need to say "good enough," and move on.  This isn't giving up, it's doing the best that you can, finding that essential balance that gives you time to be yourself outside of teaching.

Rey

Parenthood: Week 136 – The Worst Part of Winter

Toddlers are not easy to get out of the door.

If they aren’t throwing a tantrum about not wanting to get out of the house, they are probably taking off their shoes (which you just put on), or getting interested in a toy which you can’t logically take with you, which will probably lead to a tantrum.

When it’s autumn you need to put shoes and a jacket on your kid, grab the diaper bag (which you hope you previously double-checked for extra diapers), then get dressed yourself with shoes and a jacket.

This process is challenging, but it’s not impossible. Ollie is pretty good at putting on his jacket himself and he tries to put on his shoes, which keeps him engaged for a couple minutes.

While in the autumn, this process is challenging, in the winter, it’s . . . um. . . . sigh. Well, let me explain. I’m not talking about the, “Waah! It’s forty-five degrees outside and I have to wear a jacket”-winter. I’m not even talking about the, “Groan! It’s thirty degrees outside and snowing and now I have to wear boots”-winter. I’m talking about the “[insert explicative here] It’s four degrees outside and with the wind-chill, it’s so cold that I can feel my eyeballs freezing”-winter.

You would think that if it’s this cold, any human being with any level of reason would want to bundle up as much as possible with a jacket, hats, gloves and whatever one could possible find to provide warmth.

The problem is that toddler logic doesn’t always extend two minutes in the future. When you tell a toddler that is currently inside and warm that they will be going outside when it’s really cold, that doesn’t necessarily register as requiring that they get dressed for the cold before you go outside.

If you toddler agrees to allow you to actually get them ready for the cold, that’s only half the battle. The hat is usually pretty easy to manage and if that doesn’t work, there’s always the hood. With toddlers, we aren’t talking about gloves, but rather mittens. Last year Ollie’s mittens didn’t even have thumbs and now that they do, the process of getting said thumbs into the right part of the mitten is almost as much fun as trying to help Ollie get his legs in the right legs of his pants without the entertainment of watching him almost lose his balance and fall over.

As an adult, when I put on a jacket, hat and gloves and sit in a cold car, I know that once the car warms up and I get to a stop light I can take off my jacket. While Ollie can take off his gloves and his hat, he can’t really take off his jacket in the car seat. To help with this, if it’s under thirty degrees I will run out and warm up the car for him (my car is parked outside). This way if he refuses to wear his hat and gloves (which is more often than not), Ollie will not freeze as the car warms-up.

I don't really a positive turn around for this post.  Does the effort of getting Ollie dressed for the winter make the destination that much more special?  No, not really.  It's too cold outside.  The windchill is -15 degrees right now.  That ain't right.  If last year is any indication, there is hope.  Eventually Ollie put on his gloves and hat voluntarily.

Too bad it was 60 degrees outside and April when he hit this milestone.

Year 6: Week 18 - A Lesson On David Bowie

This week I taught my kids about David Bowie.  Here's the lecture I have my 8th graders.  If you are interested on my thoughts on "Space Oddity" check out this post.

I want you to think about these facts:

In America:
24% of teachers are men
8.4% of marriages interracial
5.6% of people are Asian-American
2% of teachers are Asian-American

And 1.6% of men on earth are 5”4’

In almost every aspect of who I am, I am not in the majority. The things that make me an individual, the things about myself that I’m most proud of, set me apart from most other people in our country. It has taken me most of my life to embrace the things that make me an individual.

What make you special, what makes you an individual will often set you apart from other people.  In this way, being yourself can be a very lonely but it's one of the most important things you do in your life.

When people think of David Bowie, they think of his music, his acting and his art but most of all people think of a person who was brave enough to be different, to be the person he wanted to be regardless of what other people said.

Even though interracial marriage was legal for decades, when David Bowie married Iman, it was still a big deal to have a public figure be involved in an interracial marriage. As a young boy seeing pictures of them together, it opened up my mind to the possibility that marriage could be between people of difference races. No one told me that I couldn’t marry someone outside of my race but this didn’t really seem like a possibility until I saw the beautiful images of David Bowie and Iman as a couple.



Bowie’s music was imaginative, ground-breaking and beautiful. He use of harmony and his chord progressions were fascinating and challenging. Bowie’s lyrics were haunting, profound, and insightful. He never settled as an artist, and worlds he created with his music are unique and unforgettable.

I look around this room and I see guys wearing clothing with bright colors, shoes with neon accents. There are girls with interesting trim on their glasses and some really cool designs on some shirts. Once upon a time, men didn’t have as many options with the color clothing they wore. Girls were limited as well in their fashion choices. When people like David Bowie were brave enough to push those barriers, dress in crazy ways that sometimes made people question whether he was a man or a woman, it set our culture down a path that allowed the rest of us to be a little weird and embrace the expression of individuality as beauty.

Being an individual can be lonely and when someone has the bravery to an individual in front of the entire world, it makes the loneliness not feel so bad. David Bowie did that for millions of people and he did that for me.

This is “Space Oddity,” his most famous song. He’s tells a great story and it’s a got a beautiful chord progression and melody.  The instruments and Bowie's voice create an amazing journey that and matter how many times I experience this song, it always makes me feel less alone in the world.

Butterfly