Year 7: Week 8 - The Question

“Why did so many people write down that it was a woman singing in that video?  On the videos when men were singing, people didn't write down that men were performing.”

One of the projects I do in the beginning of the year is an observation exercise.  I have my 5th graders watch four different covers of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” and make objective observations about the different versions. This connects with the theme of observation that is discussed in their homeroom and in science class.

5th graders (and many adults) jump immediately to opinions when listening to a piece of music.  After deciding whether a person likes a piece of music, people often become closed off to details. To address this and help our 5th graders think deeper about music and the world around them, we teach about objective observations.

After studying John Fogerty’s original Creedence Clearwater Revival version of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” and working as a class to make lists of objective observations, I set them off with iPads to watch four other versions of this song and list the most meaningful objective observations of these covers:

Juan Gabriel

The Drivers


Joan Jett


The Barton Hill Choir


I collected all of my students’ observations when they were done and made a word map using Wordle.net. I typed in all of my students observations for each song into this website (I modified some observations that were similar). The words that are bigger appear more times in the list of word that I inputted, which represent the most frequent observations students wrote down. Fewer students wrote down the smaller words.

Here’s the Wordle word maps for each song:

Juan Gabriel:


The Drivers


Joan Jett


Barton Hills Choir


I pointed out some of things that I saw, highlighted some of the smaller words and answered some clarification questions. Then that 5th grader raised his hand and asked that question. At first I was surprised. Even I saw how large the word “woman” was on the Joan Jett version, I didn’t think a second thought about it. To give myself a minute to think, I asked him to ask his question again, explaining that it was an important question that deserved more thought.

Looking around the room, I noticed a mixture of shock, confusion, and worry in my students' faces. My instincts when things don’t feel right in the room are to make my students feel better but this was an instant that I think the students’ discomfort was okay. Now was not a time for false platitudes.

I asked the class why they thought that they had written down “woman” so often and except for one small instances had not written “men” as an observation. Students talked about pointing out what was not the norm, how the original was sung by a guy, then one students said, “ well, because most people who are singers are guys.”

The students looked at me in silence. It was like they were hoping that I could somehow comfort them saying that the student was wrong and that woman were not underrepresented.

In response, I asked them to help me make a list of their favorite musicians.  After vigorously writing for a minute, I had about twenty names of bands and artists written on the board. I circled four names: Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Rhianna, and Adele. I explained, “These four are women, the rest of the names that you stated were men. That’s four out of twenty, that’s less than a quarter. Woman make up more than half of the world population, and the majority, by a couple students in this class are girls, but you only named four woman musicians.”

I continued, “I’m not mad at you. I’m not disappointed. Your observations and your list of musicians is a reflection of our culture. And yes, this is disappointing and this makes me sad and I see that this bothers you. We need to do something about this. This is why, I have you listen to artist like Brandi Carlile and why the last two concerts I went to featured female artists, the Dixie Chicks and Adele. I can’t explain to you right now, why our culture and why your experiences have led us to this place where woman are so underrepresented in music. It’s very complex.  But more important than knowing why, is the fact that you are asking questions.  If this makes you feel uncomfortable, that’s okay, because when this feeling leads to questions, it leads to change.

This was a difficult moment.  It would have been easier to sidestep the question, but the student took a chance and asked a great question, so he deserved me taking a chance as a teacher.

Parenthood: Week 173 - Dear Son, Why I'm Voting For Hillary, Election 2016

Dear Ollie,

The world is opening up to you every single day and you are doing a great job exploring the world, asking great questions, and we are so proud of you. There are things that I show you that you are not aware of like that beautiful dew-covered spider-web in our back yard or how to make French toast to broaden your understanding of the world, but there are some things that will have to wait.

The things that I keep from you, I hold back because your brain and your heart aren’t quite developed enough. We gave you time to learn how to walk before introducing your tricycle, and we will give you time to deepen your understanding of the human condition before talking with you about more mature subjects. We do this because as parents, it’s our job to protect you. Know that any feeling that you have that I am overprotective of you that may cause you frustration is a sign of love.

The other reason that I don’t talk to you about certain things is because I’m not ready.  For example, you’ve asked me about your skin color and talked to us about how you have different colored hair than me and your mom, but I’m not ready to tell you how these differences will make your life more joyous and more difficult.

I don’t feel ready to talk to you about this election, but I feel that it is important that I try, not for you as a 3 year-old but for some moment later in the future when you ask me how I felt during the election of 2016.

We live in a pluralistic society. This means that people can express different views and opinions. This freedom, which enriches our lives, also creates tension. Many of us are ok with people being different, while others, unsure of the decisions they make look for strength by trying to convince others that they are wrong. There is no strength to be found by telling others that they are wrong, strength comes from acknowledging our doubts, and being open to what is different.

It is very hard to know how to be accepting of America’s pluralism while also fighting for justice and freedom. Throughout American history, people in our country have exploited those who appear to be weaker. Groups of people have fought against the freedom of others to maintain comfort in traditions that oppress. Insecurity, greed, and fear continue to motivate many people to believe that they have more to lose than gain by expanding freedom and opportunity to all people.

These forces, these groups of people will always be present in American and will always be wrong. Plantation owners didn’t look at the pain of their slaves and decide to free them. Factory owners didn’t decide to value the lives of children and not allow them to work in dangerous working conditions. Industry didn’t look at the pollution in waterways and regulate their output of waste. And heterosexual Caucasian people, on their own, did not look at the love between people who didn’t have the same skin color and people of the same gender and fight to ensure that they had the legal rights to marry.

All of these freedoms that we have gained did not come from those who would exploit and those who would discriminate. The story of America is the story of individuals and small groups of people who fought and died against forces driven by the darkness in their hearts. The story of America is not done because right now in the election of 2016, these forces are still at play and individuals are fighting for freedom.

More than anything else, my votes this election are about who is truly fighting for freedom and who is trying to maintain the status quo, which needs to continue to improve.

The Republican Party is filled with compassionate, patriotic, empathetic and hard-working Americans. However, a vocal group of people (who I believe is the minority of the party), whose desire to go back to a time when minorities had less rights. Bill O’Reilly, an entertainer, which many people view as a journalist recently featured a grossly racist segment about Asian Americans. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory continues to fight a law that discriminates against people who are transgender.  And the Republican Presidential Candidate, Donald Trump, throughout his adult life and all through the election says sexist and misogynist comments about woman, objectifying them and trivializing the feelings and struggles of women in America.

I want to believe that the vast majority of Republicans do not agree with the racism, trans-phobia and sexism that these three men express through their words and their actions. The reason I “want to believe” but cannot state that I know for a fact that the vast majority of Republicans believe in the rights and freedoms for all Americans is because these three men, O’Reilly, McCrory and Trump have been raised into positions of power by other Republicans and have not been rejected by their party as a whole for the hateful, racist and hurtful comments.

The Democrat Party is also filled with compassionate, patriotic, empathetic and hard-working Americans. Democrats like many Republicans want freedom and equality for all. They have proved this through actions like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, the first bill that President Obama signed which helped ensure equal pay for woman in the workplace. The Affordable Care Act, which brought health insurance to millions of Americans, was the work of Democrats.  And this year, in response to gun violence Rep. John Lewis led sit-in on the house floor to bring attention issue of gun control.

There are flaws in the Democratic Party. While social programs, which are an expression of our humanity and empathy, are important, they need to be improved and spending associated with these programs needs to be carefully examined. The Affordable Care Act was a great first step, but the health system in our country continues to be convoluted. While the Democrats have made statements about issues related to racism and gun violence, they have been ineffective in creating policies that have significantly improved these problem. These flaws show places from improvement, which lie in effectiveness of actions, not in the hearts and intentions of Democrats.

Hillary Clinton, like President Obama represents a movement towards a more inclusive country that values its diversity.  She has a depth of experience professionally and personally that provides her with a unique perspective that we have never had before in the White House.  Clinton has continued to work to improve the lives of others, keeping in perspective her privilege while fighting for the rights of others.

This is why I’m a Democrat. I will not vote 100% for Democrats on my ballot but the majority of the people I vote for will be members of the Democratic Party.  And I will continue to proudly identify as one.

Ollie, this land was not made for you and me, but individuals have shaped this country against great resistance into a place where the majority of Americans embrace me as the son of an immigrant and you as a mixed-race child. We must keep moving in that direction because without actively fighting for diversity and inclusiveness in the American experience, we could lose the freedoms that led to your very existence.

I love you more than I can express. I didn’t think that I could ever feel more love than I felt when I first held you, but I do, because every single day you have been in my life, my love for you has grown. When I think about politics and who I vote for, I think about you and what my choices mean for your life.  Hillary Clinton's vision of America is a world not ruled by fear, but motivated by hope and this is a world I work every day to build for you.

As I'll always be with you, for this election, I’m with her.

-Dad

Year 7: Week 7 - Coming Back To Me

When I first meet most of my students, they are in third grade. While some of them have older siblings that often give me a vague idea of what they might be like (which is often not true), these kids are coming to me new. I really cherish this time in third grade getting to know these students for the first time because for the rest of the time when I teach them, this is not the case.

These kids come back to me in fifth grade. By this time, there’s usually three or four new students, but the rest are the same kids that I got to know in third grade. There are more new students that I meet in sixth grade and a few in eight. However the vast majority of kids that I teach in eighth grade, I first met five years earlier in third grade.

Over the five years, it’s really amazing to watch these kids grow up. Even the years when I don’t teach these kids in fourth and seventh grade, I see them around and I keep tabs on them. The students that inspire me in third grade, I look forward to teaching again, and the students who don’t . . . well, that’s the main thing I’m thinking about when I write this post.

Some students understand that I know them for multiple years and see a connection because of that time spent together. However most of the students when they walk in the door in fifth, sixth and eighth grade, work with me as if I was a teacher they have never met before. I’m okay with this. By the time eighth grade roles around, I have a better memory of our time together in third grade than they do. To them I’m a teacher, not a three-dimensional human being. I’m okay with that. A degree of distance between a teacher and a student is necessary.

As they come into my class, I try to conscientious to not carry baggage from years past into the door and allow all of my students to get a fresh start. But I got to be honest; it can be really tough sometimes.

A couple days ago, a student started joking around with another student in the middle of class and as I stood near him and tried to give him a subtle look to grab his attention all I could think was, “Are you kidding me? This is the exactly the same issue I dealt with last year.” I wanted to redirect him as an extension of consequences from the previous year, but I held back. It’s a new year and me reacting based more on previous year’s issues wouldn’t make sense to other students.

The thing is that almost all of my students mature, and grow as positive human beings. The ones that don’t appear to on the outside, I end up getting to know better and through this, I come to appreciate them as people even if we don’t click as a teacher and a student.

There is a similar amount of caution, I have to have with students who I previously had really positive experiences with.  Making positive assumptions, may lead me to overlook issues that need to be addressed.

It's a tricky thing teaching these kids over a period of years, but it's a lot of fun.  Even though there is tension that comes from previous years, more than anything else there's a feeling of coming home again, when I see their faces.  While it may be a new school year, it feels more like a new verse to the same song.

Parenthood: Week 172 - The Subtle Growth Of Toddlers

When Ollie was a baby, there were clear signs that he was growing up. His fist started to relax, he learned to role over and eventually he began to talk. Babyhood is full of these milestones that provide clear signs of physical and mental development.

Looking back at pictures of Ollie a year ago, the growth is not as clear as when you compare pictures from his first to second year of life and even his second to his third year of life. It’s not that there isn’t tremendous growth happening, it’s just that the signs of this growth are much more subtle.

A couple days ago, I told Ollie to read a couple books by himself and he picked out three books and sat and “read” through them for almost ten minutes. No, he can’t read yet, but he does have the maturity and patience to sit down and look through a book and get stimulation from this activity. This wasn’t happening a year ago. Ollie now wears his backpack to and from school, which he never did a year ago, and he is far more coordinated which I can see in the way he cracks open eggs and stirs.  His basketball game hasn't improved much, but he's learned how to swing a lightsaber.

Ollie has always been an inquisitive child, but he now articulates this through questions. “Are we there yet?” and “What is that?” has become common in his conversations and no, I actually do not find these questions annoying. Okay, I’m lying, I do find them annoying sometimes, but I refuse to let Ollie see this in my response. I value his questions and each one is  a challenge as I try to explain the world around him in a way that he can understand.

It has been interesting lately to see how much Ollie picks up of the world around him. The other day, I was playing an old episode of This American Life and in the beginning of the episode a mother reads a couple lines of a storybook to her son. Not realizing that Ollie was even listening, he asked for us to go back to that part, because he wanted to hear about the owl the mother was reading about. Ollie didn’t fully understand the context of what he heard, but he was able to pick something out that made sense to him and he wanted to examine it closer.

While Ollie still wants to be held, his endurance when walking has improved and the trepidation on playground equipment I noticed most of the time when we were at the park a year ago has diminished.  Ollie can run pretty fast when he wants to, and he can also make himself a lot harder to hold when he really doesn’t want to go somewhere. Even though I don’t notice him getting taller, this growth has become clear as we transitioned out of shorts and found out that many of his pants are too short.

Probably the growth I’m most proud of is Ollie’s emotional development. Yes, Ollie still has tantrums and meltdowns, but the truly catastrophic ones are less often. His is able to calm himself down faster, and he more actively advocates for what his emotional needs (e.g. more hugs, wanting to be left alone). When reading a book a couple days ago, Ollie told me that a character looked sad. And today, Ollie was talking to Diana about the different facial expressions associated with emotions, and I felt so proud of his interest and exploration of the nature of human feelings.

My little guy is growing up. While there aren’t any huge milestones like learning to walk coming up anytime soon, these small moments of growth feel just as meaningful.

The most important journeys in life aren't taken by walking but by exploring human heart.

Year 7: Week 6 - Bringing iPads Into 5th Grade Music

I remember six years ago, finding a projector on a cart and using it to show lyrics and videos in my general music room. It was so old that every single shade and light had to be turned off before you could barely make out the image. It wasn’t that my school couldn’t get the funding for technology in this room, it was that no one had asked.

The reason I started using this overhead was purely pragmatic. Handing out lyrics sheets took time and was distracting. The added bonus of showing videos gave the class more depth and another contact point, which helped students learn songs faster.

The next year, I got a really nice projector installed in the classroom as well as a document camera. This allowed me to seamlessly use this technology. Previous years, I had to wheel the cart out, and wait a couple minutes for the projector to warm-up. Now I could turn on the projector, put on the lyrics I wanted, mute the image when we were doing other work and with a press of a button, lyrics were instantly up.

During this time I also started using my school iPad, for showing videos, keeping student records, playing music and displaying lyrics and music. This device had no boot-up time and was easy to carry, which was a big bonus since I teach in two different classrooms.

These past two weeks I experimented further with technology. Each 5th grade homeroom has ten iPads (about enough for half the class). I created a folder on Google Drive and loaded it up with videos, lyrics and audio recordings of songs we were working on. I shared this folder with all of my 5th grade students.

During class time, half of the students watched videos and listened to songs along with a directed worksheets while the other half of the class were around the piano working on singing with me. Halfway through the class, student switched activities.

I had some trepidation in trying this out. First off, while our iPads are pretty well monitored, kids can still do inappropriate things on them. But students can also do inappropriate things with tambourines. If it happens, fine, we lean into it, but this isn’t a reason to not try. This is the main reasons I used Google Drive as opposed to creating a playlist on Youtube.com. Google Dive gives them a controlled amount of content. If I shared a playlist of youtube.com, suggestions would come up in the side bar that could lead student to places that at the very least would be distracting and at the worst, could be very inappropriate.

There’s always issues with the use of the apps. Google Drive has a very cumbersome way of logging out. I was very lucky to have the support of our technology department and for the first day we worked with iPads, I had one of the tech teachers in with me helping the students with the iPads. After this first class, I used them without the tech teacher and they did fine.

I wanted to use iPads so that the students could control the pace of their learning. This ended up allowing students to go deeper (e.g. student could re-watch a video they were interested in) and get more done since they weren’t waiting for others in the class to move on to the next part of the worksheet.

This set-up allowed me to work with groups of students with singing in a smaller group which was much more efficient. With only 8-10 students standing around me I could hear, diagnose, and correct singing issues much faster.

No, efficiency is not the most paramount goal of my teaching, but when it happens, paired with the ability to teach with more depth and provide students with more independence, teaching becomes more meaningful and more fun.

Parenthood: Week 171 – Midnight Visits For The Pillow?

One of the perks we explained to Ollie of having a “big boy bed” was that he could visit mommy and daddy during the nighttime. Ollie loved his crib and never learned to climb out of it. However we felt with nighttime potty training around the corner we wanted to transfer him to a twin sized bed.

When we got the bed, we explained to Ollie that he could visit mommy and daddy during the night. Ollie joyfully practiced this, telling one of us to go to our bed and close the doors. Then Ollie would pop out of his bed and come into our room and give us a hug.

At first Ollie stayed in his bed, unaware of the his new freedom. A couple night later, he started climbing into bed with us during the night. At first it was once or twice a week. He would try to cuddle with Diana and inadvertently push or kick one of us. After a couple minutes of discomfort, one of us would put him back in his bed.

As Ollie experimented with co-sleeping, which he was trying out for the first time, he started falling asleep in different beds. For some reason after putting him to bed, Ollie would leave his room, climb up into our bed and fall asleep. At some point in the night one of us would pick him up and put him in our bed. The fight to keep him in his own bed at bedtime wasn’t really productive.  As long as he fell asleep, we didn’t really care what bed he ended up in.

Whenever he fell asleep in our bed, he always was on my side of the bed. At first, I thought it was cute. Maybe it was my scent that he was after. Nope, he just wanted my pillow.  I own a Tempurpedic pillow. It’s expensive, it’s awesome and it truly does help me get a better night sleep.

Now we have a wonderful routine a couple nights a week, where Ollie climbs onto my side of the bed, pushes me off my pillow and sleeps next to me. He’s no longer interested in cuddling with me or Diana, he just rests comfortably on my pillow, shoving me into the center of the bed, pillow-less.

This usually occurs around 2:00am.

No, I am not buying Ollie a fancy pillow, though right now he is currently using a pretty nice body pillow, which seems to make him happy. Is it annoying to be woken up and shoved off my own pillow by a toddler? Yes, but I like to think that it’s not just about the pillow.

The night can be lonely. When I wake up at night disoriented, I find peace through the presence of my wife and my puppy. Maybe Ollie wakes up and he’s lonely. It brings me comfort that he can come into our room and find solace in our bed in the darkness. Sometimes, when I wake up and find Ollie sleeping next to me, I feel complete.  Maybe Ollie feels that too and is simply looking for that sense of family when he come into our bed . . . or maybe he just wants me pillow.

Year 7: Week 5 - The Drum Lesson And The Lives That Matter

The feeling was bordering on panic. Plans started to fall apart before my eyes and I had to figure out how to make things work. There was equipment that I could not find, people I had to arrange and a lesson I had to teach that I hadn't prepared. We were finishing up our instrument introductions in 6th grade and I was going to see all of the girls to give them an introductory percussion lesson. I felt I could handle it but things did not feel right.

I stood there on stage without enough drum pads and barely enough sticks when the first girls came into the auditorium. I invited her up to the stage and we got to work. We worked on the grip, arm position and the single stroke and started making things happen.

Then we were off and immediately, all of the stress and previous worries disappeared and we were having a blast. The girls were learning, I was able to really teach them what work is like in the percussion world and even with the large class; I was able to provide a lot of individual feedback.

One of the things I love about teaching beginning band instruments is that there are so many opportunities to make that light bulb light up. Standing there across form one of the girls at the end of class, teaching her different drum strokes and watching her get it, I couldn’t help feel the same accomplishment for my own work that I saw in her eyes.

***

When she started her speech, she was clearly nervous. At the end of her presentation, she was crying emotional tears as we all gave her a standing ovation. Tears started welling up in my eyes as well and when I looked back at some of my fellow teachers I could see the emotion in their eyes as well.

She was one of the primary organizers of two Black Lives Matter student protests in Chicago last year. This work required bravery, determination, self-belief and a powerful sense of justice. For her to stand in front of her peers and teachers, the entire school and share her story required her to dip back into that well take a chance to share her story with the school.

In the applause of the audience and the questions that followed, I felt a strong sense of our school’s community, and our mission. We are a school that talks about social justice, fights for diversity and inclusion and values citizenship. Her work embodied what we strive for in our school.

Students continually called her a hero. It wasn’t because she focused on doing something for herself and won a trophy. She didn’t beat any one of a sports field; She was a hero because she fought for justice, for herself and others.  This is what my school values.  This is what I value.

He presentation was one of those special moments that strengthens my belief in my school.  The soul of a school is not found in textbooks or test scores.  It's found in moments likes these.