Parenthood: Week 316 – The Identity of Parents

Living life is about change and transitions. Physically, the body goes through great changes in youth and continues to change as people get older. Along with the growth of our body, facets of our identity change. Sometimes we resist these changes which causes internal tension, and for those who accept the evolution of our identity, it’s a journey that is both challenging and rewarding.

Some of the changes in our identity come in unexpected and seemingly “organic” ways. For example, I used to love reading comic books. One of my weekly rituals for years was that every Wednesday morning was going to the comic book store. I stopped doing this not because of anything that happened in the comic industry. There wasn’t any event, I just naturally fell out of interest with that hobby. I didn’t lose friends over shedding the identity of a comic book, life went on, and I moved on to other interests.

There are parts of our identity that are an ever-developing process like my gender identity, and racial identity. Sometimes in my life I wrestle and think about these facets of who I am and sometimes I do not. How I feel about being a man and being Asian continues to evolve and is part of a process of coming to know myself that will never end…and I’ve learned to be okay with that.

Then there are the changes in identity that are events, that are a dramatically change the way that you view yourself and the way that the society treats you. Attending and graduating Northwestern University, and marrying my wife Diana changed facets of my identity on a dime. I transitioned from a high school student to an undergraduate student to an alumnus. With Diana I went from being a boyfriend, to being a fiancé and then finally being a spouse. These are facets of my identity that have changed titles and legal definitions of me as member of society.

Parenthood combines all of these different types of identities in one. Becoming parent starts far before actually having children, as you develop a conception of yourself as child as your relationships with your own parents. That happens without deliberate thought, and it’s ongoing. For some of us the idea of being a parent is always with us. There are events that change identity in a moment around parenting. Becoming pregnant, the birth of a child, the moment when your child enters grade school, and other moments like your when child going to college. Each of these things change who we are and are impossible disentangle from other facets of our identity that are intersected in meaningful and undeniable ways.

When people become parents, to friends and family members it can feel like it’s a strange new hobby that this person can’t stop talking about. It’s more than that, for many people becoming a parent is a fundamental change in identity and an existential shift in the understanding of the meaning of one’s life.

Be patient with your friends as they develop as parents.  You don't have always listen to them talk about parenting, but you should make an effort to show care and spend time learning what this new part of their identity means in their lives.  It may be annoying at times, and you may feel left out of a conversation with a group of parents if you don't have children yourself.  But sometimes being in this type of space is the best place to learn. 

Learning about identity is learning what it means to be a human, and even if you never have children yourself, learning what it means to have children through those you love will make you a better human being. 

Year 9: Week 31 – Why Teaching DEI is Harder

Teaching music is very difficult. When you teach a group of 5th graders a song, you are teaching lyrics, notes, rhythms, what a song is about and how to perform it. The work of learning of song is different for each student and requires quick and creative differentiation. Is teaching music harder that teaching math? Not necessarily, but it does have its unique challenge. In a middle school band, a single student’s mistake can affect every other students’ performance. Teaching students about this, and how to work hard together, in unison is unlike anything else in education.
While teaching music is difficult, it doesn’t feel treacherous or personal. Talking to people about music is something that is not uncommon. While there are times when I’m talking about musical concepts, I experience flashbacks of negative experiences around music from my life, this rarely happens, and it’s not negative to the degree of trauma. If there were many of these memories, it would be unlikely that I would be a music teacher.

Teaching about diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), and social justice is much harder to teach than music. It’s not the teaching techniques that are more difficult. I actually find it more difficult to utilize and cultivate my teaching back of tricks as a music teacher more than my toolbox as a diversity practitioner. It’s the subject itself and what teaching bring up in my memory and in my heart that makes it difficult to engage in as a teacher.

Most people have no problem telling you about their favorite song, or of an early memory with music. This kind of conversation isn’t going to rock Thanksgiving dinner or make strangers feel uncomfortable. Asking people their earliest memory of being aware of their racial identity or asking people to reflect on their personal bias will make many people very uncomfortable. People are uncomfortable talking about issues related to race and social justice.  People, parents and students alike are also uncomfortable with teachers discuss about these issues in the classroom.

I’ve taught many songs that I have not performed myself. However leading activities related to DEI that you haven’t done yourself and fully unpacked? Not a good idea. Unpacking your own experience with levesl of oppression related to race is essential in discussing racism because if you aren’t aware of the complexity of your own feelings, bad things can happen.  Difficult memories that are triggered in talking and hearing about these topics you may lead you to misspeak or break down. Not being able to carefully and deliberately speak about these topics is in most people’s thinking worse than not talking about these topics at all.

The worst thing that happens in a music lesson is that my students aren’t very productive in learning a song. The worst thing that happens when I’m teaching about DEI issues is that I misspeak, offend someone, and I lose my job.

It’s taken me a great deal of time, work, and practice to feel comfortable discussing issues related to DEI in my classroom, but I’m not completely there. For example, the topic of hearing loss is not something I can talk to my students about yet.

My feelings and experience with my son, Ethan’s hearing loss is not completely processed or understood. There’s something too raw inside of me related to hearing loss to teach about. Someday I will get there, but I’m not there yet. 

I’m not giving up.

We must find a way as educators to do the work to teach about DEI and social justice in all of our classrooms because it is what our students need, and our society needs more than anything else from us as educators. If you aren’t ready as a person and as educator to do it, that’s okay. That is where you are in your journey, but you have a responsibility, and a duty to get moving through that journey.

Your students are waiting.  

Parenthood: Week 315 – Chaperone/Life Of His Own

Ollie’s spring break didn’t line up with mine this year. It rarely does. The downside is that it is harder to do family vacations, but that really isn’t that big a deal because in kindergarten-land missing school isn’t a big thing. The upside is that I get some time on my own to spend with Ethan and catch up with stuff around the house, which is more often than not means that I do taxes (ADULTHOOD!!).
This year my spring break lined up with one of Ollie’s field trips. So, with Diana’s encouragement I signed up to be a chaperone. I have been on the other side of field trips many times as a teacher, however I’ve never been a chaperone. The good news that that the teacher didn’t need me to ride the bus, I just met them there at the planetarium.

Teachers often think that teachers who teach different ages or subjects are incredible professionals who do things they could never dream of doing themselves.  Because in my career as a teacher I’ve taught kindergartens all the way through college undergrads, subjects include music, math and language arts, even though I view teachers with much admiration, I can see myself in the place of other teachers. However, watching these kindergarten teachers manage their students on a field trip? Yeah, that is something I can’t imagine doing. Once I did a non-stop bus ride all the way to Florida with a high school marching band. That only seems slightly less crazy than this field trip.

The teachers were amazing and did a great job, they were really organized. I had four kids to take care of, and even though I was a teacher and could have turned it on and gotten the entire group of kids to be quiet without too much effort, I didn’t. I let the kids do their thing. I may have been less strict than the other parents who made sure to always have their kids in eyesight. However, my kids didn’t get lost, they had a great time, and it was wonderful to see Ollie in a different situation.

Ollie knew I was around but he was really in school mode. He came up and hugged me once, but otherwise he did his thing. As I saw him interact with the other students, it really struck me that Ollie has this whole part of his life that I don’t witness.

When your child is a little one, you get this feeling that everything that they experience is in your control. Then things happen, like when they get hurt or sick, and you have to accept that you can’t control their lives and their experience. You keep trying by stacking the deck in your favor by searching for the best childcare, the best books, and the best food that you can afford. Then they go to school, and you try to not dwell on what is happening when your aren’t there because if you do you will drive yourself crazy with worry, so you learn to let go a little bit more, not because you want to, but because you have to.

I want Ollie to have wonderful experiences without me so that he can share them with me or keep them to himself as memories that will comfort him as he goes to bed at night. I know that I can’t be there for him always, so I tell him multiple times a day that I love him and that he is loved, which I hope will give him the strength to face the challenges and be open to the joys of life when he is away from me.

It was wonderful to see from a distance Ollie having fun with his friends in moments when I think he forgot that I was there. I’m sad that I miss so many of these but it does make me feel good knowing that they happen even if he doesn’t tell me about them...but I still wish we spent more of our days together. 

I hope that never changes.  

And I'm so glad Diana encouraged me to be a chaperone and I'm totally up for doing that again...just not in the near future. 

Year 9: Week 30 – Leadership

We have a problem with leadership in America, and it’s confusing our children.

The qualities that many people think of as needed by great leaders are not reflected in many leaders in our society. The disturbing and confusing part of this for our children and many of us, is that there are a lot of people who don’t seem to care. They don’t seem to care that leaders of businesses, in politics, and other organizations act amorally and use their positions only to serve their own self-interests.

How do we teacher our students to be effective leaders when one of the most powerful leaders in our country, the “President,” regularly lies, apologetically cheated on his wives, and is a racist, sexists, and misogynistic person. Leaders are supposed to demonstrate traits we want to emulate, but instead this leader explicitly preaches behavior that is dissonant with the most basic human values of goodness, like how he argues that strong leaders never apologize.

Leadership isn’t just giving about speeches or having a title. Leadership is how you wield your power in a community to positively influence other people. Sometimes that means that you talk less to allow other people to share their thoughts in a classroom discussion, and sometimes it means that you pick up a piece of trash on the ground to express value to a community.

All great leaders teach, and all great teachers lead. This greatness comes from a belief that all people have potential for growth in a certain subject area importantly as a human being. This greatness is expressed through listening deeply, showing empathy, and validating feelings. This greatness is in wielding power to as a means to give others people power.

We as teachers have to embrace our roles as leaders, demonstrate implicitly what this means and explain explicitly how we are demonstrating for them the leaders that they can be, and need to be to make the world more equitable and just.

There is a part of the teacher that makes us not want to think of ourselves as leaders. There’s something in that title that doesn’t seem to serve our students. It’s not what we signed up for. We want to spend our time teaching student, not leading. However, if we can push past this paradigm, re-conceptualize our idea as leaders, not as what we are seeing in our destructive “leaders,” but rather in the great potential we see in our students, we can have a significant and meaningful impact to our students.

We have to show our students, our communities, and ourselves the value of leadership. Educators are an essential part of the responsibility that we all have as citizens to lead. It is in this work that our children see their power in their society and identify flaws and the destruction of those who claim to be leaders.

I didn’t sign up to be an educator to teach leadership, however I feel fortunate to provide a counterpoint to the “president,” and show a better way forward to my students.

Parenthood: Week 314 – Going For Walks With Ethan

As soon as I told Buffy that it’s time for a walk, Ethan perked up. He toddled towards the door and tried to find his shoes. He found one of them of the floor near the door and tried to step into it, hoping that it will slip on even though the Velcro is still tight over the top and he is wearing his indoor slippers. As I got Buffy’s leash on, he toddled towards me holding one shoe.

“Ethan, come here,” I say gently, holding his other shoe. Ethan slowly turns around and backs up expecting that he will sit down into my lap, never once looking behind himself to make sure that I’m there. But I am there, like I have been many times before and he sits down trustingly and watches as I put on his shoes.

As I open the door, Ethan does his little happy dance, stomping quickly between his feet. It’s like he’s jumping up and down for joy, but he hasn’t quite figured that out yet, so this is as close as he can get.

“Ethan…jacket,” I say firmly. He turns around and walks over to the closet as quick as he can and grabs Ollie’s jacket. I put it on him, not noticing that it isn’t his, and he giggles noticing the sleeves are too long. I grab his jacket, which is nearby, and I slip in on and he follows me and Buffy out the door.

With the warmer weather, it has become a lot easier to take Ethan on walks with me and Buffy. When it’s 20 degrees outside the hassle of getting Ethan dressed for the cold isn’t really worth it. Often during the winter there is too much snow to use a stroller and putting Ethan in a baby carrier with full winter wear isn’t very comfortable. Even when Ethan is all bundled up, being outside when it’s that cold outside isn’t great for him, even though me and Buffy can handle it just fine…correction, even though Buffy can handle it just fine.

Just like Buffy, Ethan loves being outside. Whenever he gets the chance to go outside or sees that I’m taking Buffy out, he wants to join us. He's big enough to be ride his push tricycle which is more engaging than the stroller, and he enjoys when I let him wander around and find random little sticks in people’s yards during our walk.

Ethan’s growing awareness is wonderful. He has really demonstrated to us in the past month that he understands the world around him with more depth. Ethan gets that going outside means wearing shoes, when I turn on the bath that he knows that he will soon go into the bath, and that if he walks up to the box of cheerios and reaches inside he can get himself a snack.

With the heightened awareness comes  toddler tantrums. As Diana accurately narrates for him when she is helping him work through these moments, “this isn’t how I expected that things would work out!” Sometimes there aren’t any more blueberries and sometimes it’s simply time to go, and he doesn’t always get this, and juxtaposed with confirmation of things that he does “get” creates these moments.

This is a reminder that tantrums are sometimes a sign of growth, and that confusion, and stubbornness can be learning processes.

Ethan’s growing awareness of the world is a wonderful thing to witness. I’m looking forward to spending the summer with him reconnecting with the outdoors inspired by his enthusiasm and sense of wonder.

Year 9: Week 29 – A Classroom Without the King and the Doctor

What we would lose if all of Michael Jackson’s music and all of Theodor Geisel’s books were scrubbed from our culture and our classrooms?

There has always been people who have struggled to figure out what to do when they find out that the artist behind the art that they love are not good people. This “song” has been going on throughout the history of Western art, and recently the new “verses” have brought the debate to the fore. On one hand people want to separate the art from the artist and enjoy the art on its own merit. While others feel that the art and artists are interconnected and one can’t ignore the sins of the artist when experiencing the work of that artist.

I’m going to focus on this debate in the context of the classroom because where I’m seeing this ongoing debate played out in my world is among teachers.

To teach art in the classroom requires that educators teach about the piece of art: when it was created, where it was created, who created it, and why was it created. It is context of where that piece of art exists in history, culture and the artist’s life that brings meaning to art education. Yes, performing a piece really well without any of this cultural context is powerful, and can be transformative, but it is everything about the piece of art that bring a deeper level of personal meaning to the experience of learning the piece of art.

You cannot do a Michael Jackson song without teaching about Michael Jackson himself. Not including the controversy, and the allegations in discussions about his life with students is like teaching the World War II only from the American’s perspective. It’s inaccurate, and wrong. Elevating Geisel in our children’s eyes as an author to admire, ignoring the racism in his life is also very wrong.

People are torn because people feel they have gotten so much out Jackson’s and Geisel’s work, personally and they feel that their students have also benefitted from their inclusion in the curriculum. There’s an argument that the art is so good, and so important that we have to overlook the sins of these artists.  What is this art is not that good?

What if we spent the amount of time and energy doing moral gymnastics to justify the inclusion of Geisel’s work in the classroom on included books that had more diverse characters, taught the same reading skills, and were written by more diverse authors?

Children would learn through authors like Grace Lin that Chinese people are so much more than the racist caricature that the kid claims he saw on Mulberry Street.

We would have more inclusive classrooms across America filled with books that provide mirrors and windows of the people in our communities and beyond. The diverse authors of these books would inspire children to read and write.

Are we doomed for a cycle of reinventing our curriculum every single time we find out something bad about an artist? No, we are charged with the  responsibility to reflect, recreate, and re-imagine our curriculum constantly to make it more diverse and inclusive. That means getting rid of artists who express with their words and actions that their values are not ones that we want to elevate and have our students admire.

As much as I try to have my students admire artists for their work as artists and not elevate them into heroes, I know that simply by including a song in class, it is expressing to the students that I like this artist.  If the teacher feels that its important enough to do in class it must be good in their mindds.

This may seem like a burden, because it asks us to  make sure that what we include in our curriculum are things that we are okay with students feeling like we endorse. But it is also power that I used when when I chose on the first day of 3rd grade music this year to do an activity to a Brand Carlile song.  I showed them a picture of her with her wife and kids backstage at the Ellen Show, and you better believe I wanted to express to my students that I honor  everything that Carlile was about, and that they should too.

One teacher on a Facebook group was debating about whether to continue doing “I Believe I Could Fly” as a graduation song. If the teacher didn’t do that song they would lose a tradition, and a song that is fun to sing. But is it worth the trauma that this song might bring to people in that audience? Is it worth putting money in the pocket this guy so that you don’t have to look for a new song?

Is it worth teaching our children that morals don’t matter?

The cynics will argue that if you require artists to be good people to teach their art, then you will not have any art to teach. We are teachers. We prove cynics wrong every single day, and if we do the work, we can prove them wrong and fill our classrooms with wonderful and diverse art by artists we can all stand behind.

Parenthood: Week 313 - Sock

Diana carefully pushed the stroller across the wide six lane street. The sun warmed us as we reflected on a successful day at the aquarium. There was some stress and the crowds were a challenge towards the end of our visit, but all of us had fun.

I followed Diana up to the opposite curb and heard honking. Annoyed, I got ready to glare to the car behind me for not having the patience and decency to let a family cross the street. As I looked at the car full of people, I saw that they were not angry but smiling and urging me to look as they pointed to the crosswalk.

Sitting there in the middle of the street was Ethan’s shoe.

I glanced at the stroller and saw that Ethan in fact only had one shoe on. Ethan had taken off his shoe and thrown it out of the stroller. I groaned, smiled at the car, and waved it to go by. I crossed the street back over and picked up the shoe as I walked. Wanting to make sure that I didn’t confuse any drivers I crossed all the way over, let some cars passed and then crossed again to join my family.

Ethan really likes taking off his shoes and socks. Part of this has to do with the fact that baby socks in general do not stay on. Babies have wide feed and lack clearly defined ankles which is not conducive to keeping socks on. Feet are also a world of sensory information. When babies discover their feet and touch their feet with their hands, it helps create important connections in their brain and helps them learn to cross different parts of their body through gross motor movement. Ethan has taken this enjoyment a step further.

Most of the time, Ethan is walking around the house only wearing one sock. This morning for example, he woke up with one sock. and if you reach into our couch you will likely find a between the cushions: one sock (most likely more than one).

It’s fine most of the time.  Ethan feeling different textures of hardwood and carpet on his bare feet is important for brain development, but when we are trying to leave the house, one sock can be annoying.  Also, Ethan is growing more aware of his world, his singular sock interest has expanded into shoes, hence the shoe incident I wrote about at the top of this post.

We have all of these baby socks without pairs and many days when I dress Ethan, I just give up and put on mismatched socks. We have these wonderful slippers that we can put on that prevent him from removing his socks, but I don’t often put them on his feet. Because as annoying as Ethan’s sock-removing habit is, I kind of love it.  It's REALLY cute watching him walk around with one sock on. He’s so happy often when he is doing this and I love that his is oblivious to social norms or the fact that he only has one sock on. I am jealous of this “one sock on, no big deal, I’m still going to dance,” attitude about life.

That’s one of the interesting thing about children. Sometime the annoying things are the things that we also find the cutest and most endearing. For example, the mess of eating, the challenges of co-sleeping, the drama of bath time, can all be annoying. More than that, they are moments that in which we are witnessing growth and learning. So yes, the sock issue is annoying, but I’m kind of okay with this. Because I know some day years from now, when moving a piece of furniture, I will find one of Ethan’s missing socks. 

I will dust if off, squeeze it in my hand and smile.