Lessons from 2016

Generally, I’m a pretty reflective guy. This usually means I spend some time in the final days of each year looking back at what happened and what I’ve done, and seeing if there’s anything I can learn that might help me with the year to come. I’ve discovered one good way to do this is to review my Facebook posts, looking for patterns and seeing if anything noteworthy stands out. Here are a few of the things I’ve found out after surviving 2016. 

January 3: School starts back up tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to keeping up with my email inbox, or waking up early on cold and dark mornings, or deciphering nonsensical spreadsheets, or attending meetings on mornings when I have other things I need to do, or second-guessing half of the decisions I make, or feeling completely used up at the end of far too many days. But I am looking forward to seeing my students and my friends again.

LESSON: I refuse to fall back on the insufferable and empty educational cliché of “doing it for the kids,” but, in all honesty, the only parts of my job that have any real meaning for me anymore are the parts that directly involve my students. 

January 16: Just want to point out that it's the 16th, the temperature is going to be below zero for the next 70 or so hours, and I haven't complained about it being January even once.

January 17: Maybe I'll just leave it all behind, move to Hawaii, and start a nice little papaya farm.

LESSON: Eventually the worst parts of winter, and January specifically because it’s such an awful creature, are going to get to me.

February 2: Read aloud is one of my favorite parts of the school day. I make it a point to choose books that I'm confident will capture the imagination of my students. I'm lucky to have a class that so readily and completely engages with the books I read to them. Today we finished a childhood favorite of mine, "A Wrinkle in Time," and tomorrow we'll be stepping into new territory as I begin reading one of my own manuscripts in class...for the first time ever. I've always felt to do so would be too self-serving, but the kids want to see if I've got any game after hearing so much about my writer life. So tomorrow while they sit down after Phy. Ed. to eat their snacks, we'll be starting Chapter 1 of the most recent revision of "The Ghost of Lake Emily." I fully expect the whole thing to feel weird.

February 11: Lake Emily read aloud, Day 7: I've basically lost storytelling perspective. If I could get away with it, I'd keep a notepad in my lap to make a list of all the things I discover while I'm reading that I want/need to fix.

LESSON: Even when essentially performing my writing, I can’t separate myself from it enough to appreciate what I’ve accomplished without still finding things that could be better. 

February 21: I'm working on conference notes right now, and I just came up with a line that both makes me proud and a little sick of myself. Instead of calling out a girl for being bossy when working in groups, I said she "frequently tries to assert herself in noncooperative ways.”

February 22: During the drive to school this morning I heard "Back in Black" on the radio. On the way home just now I heard "Hell's Bells." In between I had a 12-hour day that included parent-teacher conferences. If this doesn't all mean something, it feels like it should.

LESSON: Parent conferences, and particularly the extra long days that accompany them, are not my favorite time of the year. However I’ll admit that they’re still more useful and productive than some other parts of my job.

April 11: I wish it was possible for all of the uncertainty and anxiety about the next school year to disappear, and that whatever changes happen would leave people feeling energized and optimistic.

May 20: A field trip to a world-class science museum is a day worth being dead tired at the end of it.

LESSON: In the world of public education, there’s a bad kind of worn out and a great kind of worn out. 

July 10: I just saw 2016 will have a leap second added to it to keep atomic clocks set correctly. Which is great, because if there's ever been a year when everything has gone so well for the world that we'd want it to be longer, it'd be this one.

LESSON: 2016 was barely half over and already it was sticking its neck out to be recognized as a historic crapfest.

September 7: While driving to school the past two mornings, I've approached the intersection where I need to turn and thought, "What if I didn't turn, and just kept going straight east instead, with no destination in mind? Would that be a better decision? What adventures would await?”

LESSON: The road not traveled doesn’t always get to be explored once you’ve committed yourself to a certain path. But that doesn’t mean you can’t wonder about it. Maybe someday it will lead somewhere.

October 21: Here’s a glimpse into how deep the rabbit hole can get while revising a manuscript: "I used this unusually descriptive word on page 52. Can I use it again on page 110, or do I need to find a different one to keep it from standing out and distracting the reader?”

LESSON: Writing, and especially revising, is a lot like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle with the lights off. 

October 26: I realized today that, in the educational setting, it's much more common to see inspirational quotes from coaches and athletes than from artists. I'm pretty sure I don't agree with the statement that makes about priorities.

LESSON: I’m seriously tired of being immersed in a culture that worships athletes as role models and treats coaches as wise philosophers, when artists are looked upon as divergent freaks who fell back on different interests because they couldn’t throw a ball far or skate fast enough.

November 9: Have you ever wondered what would have happened if Voldemort and the Death Eaters won the Battle of Hogwarts, and the dementors had been turned loose to freely roam the countryside?

LESSON: Okay, look: I didn’t vote for our incoming president. I acknowledge that a lot of people did, either because they thought he would do a great job or was simply the lesser of two available evils. If, four years from now, the state of the union is a thriving utopia, I’ll be the first to happily admit I was wrong to underestimate him and will feel both relief and respect for all he's accomplished. But those of you who voted differently, whatever your reasons might have been, I hope you'll be ready to own that decision if things don't work out.

November 14: Really, Facebook? Are you just putting the question in a blank text box as a prompt for me to share some happy anecdote from my day, or do you really want to know what's on my mind? I'm thinking about how an hour ago I took my students outside for dismissal, and even though he hasn't been at school for over a year I felt absolutely alone because there will never be any kind of circumstance when my friend and his always-present Minnesota Gophers sweatshirt will be out there with me again. And now I'm thinking about how great it will be if I can manage to sleep tonight.

LESSON: I’m tired of death, and the games my accumulating residual grief plays with my state of mind. I’m really tired of it.

November 17: Somehow my glasses managed to slip from my face and land in the sink while I was brushing my teeth. I can only hope this isn't foreshadowing for the rest of my day.

LESSON: This seems more like a fitting analogy for the entire year.

December 3: I did my Christmas decorating today. It took eight minutes.

LESSON: Sometimes it’s best to save yourself the trouble of going through the motions when the only reason you would be doing something is to go through the motions. 

December 21: Tonight will make the 5th viewing of "Love, Actually" in the past two weeks. Clearly something is going on here I haven't figured out yet.

LESSON: Five viewings eventually became seven; when everything around us becomes too much, we all need safe places and happy moments for retreat.

Here’s hoping 2017 will provide us all with a few. 

Surviving 2016: Favorite Songs

It’s fair to say that in most respects 2016 will go down in history as a dumpster fire train wreck of a year. The reasons why have been well-documented, from the cultural dissonance following surreal turns of political events to far too many deaths leaving behind gaping holes in our culture, and, in many cases, our personal lives.

As I get wrapped up in my own reflections about this ridiculous year finally nearing an end, I want to try and look for the bright spots. There sure aren’t many, but maybe highlighting a few will help start the coming year with some degree of optimism. To start off, I’m listing my ten favorite new songs of 2016. These are all songs that, to the best of my knowledge, were first released this year, and for different reasons became important enough to me to leave existential marks.

Usually my top 10 lists include the preface “in no particular order,” but not this time. I think we’re going to have an actual countdown here. I’ll try to spare you from any long-winded descriptions of why these songs made it onto my list. Click on the titles below if you'd like to follow links to these songs, then judge for yourself. 

10) “Helicopters” by Sixx A.M.
This makes the list more for timing than anything else. It’s about losing someone. I came to know it in the days following the death of a longtime friend, while I was trying find my way through the emotional aftermath. Not that I've figured it all out yet, but I'm getting there.

9) “Hard Love” by Needtobreathe
A standout from a new album by one of my favorite discovered bands from the past five or so years. A good summer driving song.

8) “Empty” by Garbage
I’d been waiting for new music from this band for years, and their 2016 release did not disappoint. I’ve realized a lot of songs that I like tend to juxtapose bright pop-rock music with darker lyrics. This is an example of that.

7) “Chosen” by Dream Theater
A power ballad from one of my current favorite musical acts that would have made any band in the 80s or 90s into proud millionaires.

6) “Sleep on the Floor” by The Lumineers
Another type of favorite song I have is one with great storytelling in the lyrics, like this.

5) “Forever Now” by Green Day
Their new album, Revolution Radio, was one of the strongest of the year. This one, coming in at just under seven minutes and broken into shorter movements, was a solid way to close off both the album and this crap year.

4) “Our New World” by Dream Theater
The only unabashedly optimistic song on this list. The album it comes from was a rock opera, and this song comes in at the end of the story after the conflict has been resolved and the characters have reasons to look forward to the future. I certainly feel some of that same anticipation, but after this past year I wish I could feel more.

3) “So We Can Stay Alive” by Garbage
A hard rock song with a thick electronic pulse and easily the greatest bass guitar solo of the year.

2) “It’s Just Us Now” by Sleigh Bells
By far the most polarizing song on this list. I would expect when people hear it for the first time they’d be able to decide by the end of the first minute if they love or hate it. I think it’s one of the coolest things I’ve heard in years.

1) “Bored to Death” by Blink-182
It’s unusual for me to connect with a radio hit, but this one really did the trick. Again, bright pop-rock with darker lyrics, but engaging harmony, a heroic sing-along bridge, and great playing. This deserved to be the hit it was. It resonated with me so much that when I found the title being used as graffiti, I had to snap a photo.

If that doesn’t appropriately cap off 2016, I don’t know what can.

Just December

I think I’ll be taking a pass on the Christmas season this year. 

Notice I didn’t say I’d be taking a pass on Christmas. I’ll still go to church. I’ll still buy presents for my family and a few select close friends. I’ll still send out a handful of cards, even though that tradition has gradually gotten away from me over the past decade or so. 

I’m not entirely sure why I’m so disinterested this year in particular. Granted, this past autumn has not been the happiest of times for me, which is to say nothing of how goodwill in general has been in short supply during such a culturally divisive time. I’ve gotten through worse times before though, and survived them without intentionally deciding to let the season go on its merry way without me. 

Something about this year just feels like it isn’t worth the hassle, or the clean up, or whatever. I’m not putting up my tree, and most of my other holiday decorations are staying boxed up as well. I put the usual set of lights up around my front door a few weeks ago, but I’ve only thought to even plug them in once or twice. I’m not filling my house or my car with Christmas music, either from my own library or the local radio station that switches over to all Christmas music for the season. I’m not planning on attending any parties or events (not that there’s a long list to pass on), and I’m uninterested in being a part of any kind of Secret Santa-type gift exchange at work. I have a short list of favorite Christmas movies I usually make a point to watch each year, but I haven’t even looked them up on the schedule to make sure I catch them, and I know I’ve already missed a few. Going out of my way to watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas” might end up being my only intentional nod to the holiday season this year.

Christmas hasn’t been a big event holiday with my family for years. Depending on my sister’s work schedule (because hospitals don’t close for anything), it’s entirely possible our family will plan our get-together time on Christmas Eve or Dec. 26th instead, or for only a few hours in the afternoon or evening on Dec. 25. We do the same thing with birthdays, to be honest — as long as we make the time to celebrate or acknowledge whatever event is bringing us together, it’s not as important to us what date the calendar says. Because of this, it’s not impossible to think I could end up spending most, or all, of my Christmas Day home alone napping my way in and out of a Netflix binge or settled in with a good book. I’d be completely fine with that. 

If you or your family have any big magical holiday plans you’re looking forward to, I wish you all the best with those. I genuinely hope everything about the season you’re looking forward to lives up to your anticipation and maybe even surpasses it. Enjoy the parties, the baking, the lights, the movies, the music, the magic, and the continuation of any family or personal traditions you hold dear or are just beginning to make a part of your lives. 

I’ll be fine thinking about the next few weeks as just being December, with a family day or two worked in there. 

Mr. Martin's Final Lesson

I’ve wanted to write this post for several days now, but it’s been a struggle trying to figure out how to begin or exactly what I needed to say. It starts with this, I suppose: My friend Wendell, someone I had known and taught with for decades, has died.

He retired a couple of years ago. I didn't see him very often after that; sometimes lives veer off in different directions. We’d be in touch occasionally to catch up, but it was never anything like it had been when we were in the same building every day. I know I’ll carry residual guilt about that for awhile, and I hope someday I’ll find a way to reconcile it. But I was privileged enough to visit with him in his final days, and he knew I was there. I’ll always be grateful for that. 

Even though the news of his passing wasn’t unexpected in the end, actually knowing he was gone still affected me. More than one of my evenings in the following days was spent at home with all the lights off, listening to blaring and pounding music to block out my capacity to think. I bounced back and forth between binge-watching TV shows or getting lost in any number of books so I could mentally be somewhere else. I examined my own life in the cold spotlight of proximate mortality, second-guessing the decisions and indecisions that have led me to the life I’ve made and the person I am, for better or worse, and usually finding ways to feed the worse. I was early to bed, trying to escape having to think or feel, and then early to rise, to avoid lying in bed and overthinking myself into a downward spiral before the day even began. 

But I knew all of this was wrong. Even as I grieved for my friend in such self-indulgent ways, I could hear the concern that would be in his voice if he were here telling me not to beat myself up this way. I knew it wasn’t how he’d want to be remembered, so I had to fight it off. I needed better ways to serve his memory.

I think a step in that process is letting people know about him. I could list hundreds of vivid memories I shared with him, both at school and away from it, things that would provide telling examples of the man he was for those who didn’t know him and would reinforce the idea of him for those who did.

*When my sister was sick and dying, Wendell and his wife Ruth invited me to dinner at their home on a Friday night, saying they’d rather see me having a home-cooked meal with them instead of going home to start my weekend alone and staring at the walls. I brought a movie to watch and brought my dog Spencer to play with their dog Penny while we ate and talked and decompressed. This evolved into our regular Friday night routine for over a year and a half. In my time of greatest need, this simple gesture provided the exact respite I craved.

*We had once kept a running joke going for years when we told dozens of students that I lived in the basement of his house. We sold it so convincingly it would not surprise me if, to this very day, there were still former students out there unsure of the truth. 

*When he made the difficult decision to take a year of medical leave, I gathered as many people as I could to help pack up his classroom since he couldn’t do it himself. More than a dozen volunteers came together and boxed up everything he had, which I kept in storage in my garage for a year until he was ready to reclaim it and return to school. Being able to earn clearance from his doctors to go back to teaching after that year off was the main thing that motivated him to get better. In the end he reached that goal. 

*When a student gave me a pair of Timberwolves tickets for Christmas one year, I brought him to the game.

*He was a Harry Potter fanatic, having read and listened to all of the books several times over, to say nothing of seeing the movies. When my oldest nephew and I twice waited in line at the bookstore to buy the last two books in the series, Wendell and Ruth were right there in line with us. 

My experiences with him barely scratch the surface of all that made up the rest of his life: His time spent in the Navy working on submarines. His love for fishing. The truly amazing number of skip days he took when he was in high school. The fact that he could make one hell of a homemade cheesecake. How he was more concerned about Ruth than himself when he knew his time was running short. 

To any of his students who might read this someday: You were everything to him. You were never just data points buried in standardized test results, or alphabetized names listed on any number of blindingly redundant spreadsheets. You were his life’s work. You were the reason he spent so much time building the science fair into such an event. He gave so many of you nicknames to show some humorous affection because he wanted you to feel included. He voluntarily stayed after school to help so many of you individually because he wanted to see you succeed, and he wanted you to know he believed you could. He went to so many of your games and recitals and events to demonstrate how important you were.

When I’m left wondering what would he do in this situation, if our roles were reversed and I had been the one to die too early, the answer always comes easily: He would own his loss, accept how things were and let it become a part of his life, then make peace with it and continue his work, likely with a renewed sense of purpose. He’d feel his sadness, share it when appropriate, but would never complain. Because regardless of any issues or problems he had that would have given him just cause to complain, he never did. He was unfailingly positive.

Even though he was able to end his career on his terms, something which was immeasurably important to him, he would still be teaching in a perfect world. This thing, this job, this career that meant so much to him, was something I had the chance to do today, and will have the chance to do again when the weekend is over. As frustrating as so many things about the job are, and believe me when I say that is absolutely not a short list, I need to look for how I can carry on the importance he saw, and find ways to fill the holes his absence leaves behind. 

If I learned anything from the time my life intersected with Wendell Martin’s, it would be how much simple kindness can matter, and the difference it can make in the lives of people to know they have someone who values who they are. 

What Happens November 9th

The school where I teach has been an Election Day polling place for as long as I've been there. I even voted there one year. It always makes for an unusual day, filling the building with a different kind of energy that the students absolutely notice. Since the security measures of the last few years have changed the climate of our school, voters only had the front entrance to use. They were directed through the cafeteria and into the gym, sometimes having to queue up in the hallway before they're allowed to go forward. I never saw a huge line waiting, but I did have other things occupying my time during the hours of the school day. My guess is it's probably busy over there right now.

We have a lot of voters who wouldn't have any other reason to enter an elementary school coming through on Election Day, but we also see a lot of familiar faces. Some parents will come in during the day, and even some older parents from the past who occasionally greet the teachers like old friends if they have a chance to talk. Some former students still living in the area will as well, which is always interesting: I can see these almost-familiar millennials recognizing me when they walk by, even if I don't always know who they are right away.

The thing that strikes me each year is that no matter how contentious the election had been in the rallies, or on the news, or in the debates, or even on social media, everyone behaves when they show up to vote. I suspect that might have something to do with being back in an elementary school as a lot of people reflexively remember there are rules to follow, but it goes beyond that. I've always seen the same thing at any polling place I've been to, and I've gotten bounced around to several of them over the past two decades. I know that isn't the case everywhere, but it generally seems to be the rule that people show up to vote and are able to set aside or restrain their differences long enough to participate. 

My great hope is that at the end of this election, which has been the most openly combative in recent memory, everyone will be able to keep that sense of polite community. 

 

New Life, New World

I’d like to tell you about something that's happened in my classroom during the past two weeks.

It started with the news I’d be getting a new student. Actually it was two new students, since my teaching partner was getting one as well. A pair of brothers, with a younger sister in a primary class. When teachers learn we're getting new students, we always try to learn as much about them as we can. Are they a boy or a girl? Are they coming from within the school district? Are they coming from out of state? Do they have any special needs? Does the family have a different home language than English? What kind of ability do they have? Do we have any standardized test scores to review before they arrive?

Everything I needed to know this time I found out in just a few sentences: The family is originally from a country in the middle east. They’ve been living in a different country in the middle east for three years, and the kids haven’t had much as far as consistent schooling. They’ve been in America for less than a month and don’t have any English.

This is the kind of scouting report that makes a teacher think, “All right, here we go. Time to roll out the ‘A’ game.”

The kids in class knew enough about the situation ahead of time to be ready for his arrival, and were legitimately excited to meet him. One boy talked about how a new kid had joined his class at his old school, and the class had all worked together to help him learn words in English. Our new student didn’t come to class right away on the first day, since the family first met with building administration, an Arabic interpreter I’ve worked with a few times, and our exceptionally hard-working ESL teacher. Luckily for us each homeroom already had one Arabic-speaking student we could rely on for quick translations, but we all began communicating in simple words and hand motions. The other students were friendly and welcoming, guiding this new boy through the routines of the day the best they could. 

During dismissal, the two brothers quickly found each other as the bus lines started for the office. We made sure we knew which bus to get them on. One of my other boys, who rode the same bus, told me he’d seen their family moving in and knew which stop was theirs. When people tried to escort the boys onto the bus, they opened up in obvious panic, scanning the crowd for their little sister, refusing to get on until she was with them. I went to the front door and waited. She was easy to spot, dressed in the same slightly formal way as her brothers, looking for them with the same panicked expression, and holding hands with her teacher. I crouched down by her, clearly said the names of her bothers, and had her follow me to join them. The boys surrounded her when they saw her, and the three of them got on the bus holding each other. It occurred to me then they had probably been living for three years with a near constant fear of being separated if they didn’t keep close watch of each other. I choked up a little as their bus left, quietly reminding myself that even if I couldn’t teach them everything the same way I was teaching the rest of the class, I could at least be a part of their day when they would feel happy, comfortable, and fed. They would be able to work and play with other kids, they could learn the boundaries they were probably craving, and they could feel safe.

As the days continued, our new fourth grader made some extraordinary leaps in his language acquisition, going from asking other students a pre-coached “What’s your name?” to picking up school-specific vocabulary and useful expressive phrases. He learned how to do things and where to go by observantly emulating his classmates. I went from being someone he would walk up to and stare at with unspoken questions to “Teacher.” As he found that comfort level and made new friends, he turned out to be a little spitfire. During the afternoon of our fall party, he laughed and screamed and played games and danced. The last kids to be dismissed in my room sometimes crawl under the desks and call them forts while they wait for the bell. When he crawled under with them and accidentally farted, the other kids started laughing and he laughed right along with them. 

We kept teaching him with hand motions paired with words the best we could. If he got too excited and had to be corrected, I used simple language with my motions and tone of voice: “No running in here.” “Don’t pinch. That’s wrong.” “Good job!” He picked up on these cues and would nod his understanding, then would stop doing whatever it was as temporarily as any other nine-year-old would. 

We had a math test yesterday that took some kids close to two hours. He didn’t take it. He looked at a picture book for awhile, then I gave him some colored pencils and paper: “You can draw.” He smiled and picked up the pencils, then came up with these two masterpieces: A truck and a happy warrior defending the American flag, and a group of friends in a swimming pool with the American flag hanging overhead.

Based on his pictures, I'd say he thinks America is already pretty great the way it is. 

Today during dismissal, he stood by the door waiting for the bell. Out of nowhere he began quietly singing to himself, some song in Arabic. He looked up, saw me listening, and smiled.

I thought of how much his life had changed in only a month and smiled back, feeling a little privileged that I had the chance to help him transition into a whole new life. 

Twelve Good Things

Occasionally I get to have discussions with my class that step outside of the curriculum. Yesterday we talked about how easy it is to fixate on life's frustrations, and how doing that can negatively affect your mood. I offered an example from my own life of something frustrating me these days, and talked about some of the other things going on that could help me "change my channel" into something more positive. 

We all have our share of frustrations and perplexities to deal with on any given day. Having the most contentious presidential election in modern history dominating the media doesn't help. But that doesn't mean we have to let these problems define every aspect of our lives. 

I've done a few posts before when I've listed ten good things I have going on in life, mostly as a reminder to myself how helpful it can be to acknowledge and appreciate the positives. After our talk in class yesterday, I think it's a good idea for another such list. I don't know if ten will get the job done though, so I'm going to push a little further and come up with twelve:

1. The weather of mid-October. It's sunny and windy with the temperatures staying fairly consistently in the range of the 50s and 60s, which makes this the time of year I can get away with wearing both shorts and sweatshirts, often at the same time. Welcome to my personal meteorological Goldilocks Zone. 

2. This week only has four teaching days. Next week only has two. I've got some time to TV binge coming up. 

3. On one of those days off next week, I'm taking Nephew #2 on a tour of where I went to college. I don't necessarily expect, or even hope, he'll choose that school -- I want him to find the school that will help him find his own best path -- but this will give me the chance to visit my old campus during the time of year I tend to romanticize the most when I think about my college days. 

4. The new albums from Green Day and Alter Bridge are amazing. I've been waiting for them to be released for a long time, and they were both worth the wait. 

5. I have two classes this year that I like very much. One of them is even the smallest class size I've worked with in my twenty-five years. 

6. I'm going to have the dogs visiting me for a couple of weeks coming up soon.

7. There's a big birthday party for my mother and my aunt this weekend. It will largely be a family event. I don't get to see my aunts and uncles and cousins very often during the school year, so I'm looking forward to it. 

8. I've read the first few pages of Bruce Springsteen's new autobiography and I'm looking forward to finishing my current book so I can start it. It reads with the voice I expected it would, and I can't wait to be immersed in that.

9. Seth Meyers is absolutely killing it with his political coverage these days. He is unquestionably the rightful heir to Jon Stewart's vacated late night political humor throne.

10. I had a doctor's appointment last month. It went well.

11. Parent-teacher conferences for the fall are over at our school. Mine went well, and offered some good insights into my students. The worst part of conferences are the long days and the extra work that goes into preparing for them, so I'm glad all of that is over with. 

12. As we get closer to winter and the days grow shorter, I'm not having the blazing sun in my eyes every morning on the drive to school. 

As I thought my way through this list, I realized I could probably come up with just as many negative points that are bothering me, in different degrees. I'm not going to think about that, though. Today I'm just moving forward and thinking about the positives.

Let's see how it works. 

Tending to the Existential Wounds

When I first started thinking about what direction to go with this post, it occurred to me that my sister Erin's death has now happened so long ago that none of my current students have ever shared time on Earth with her, by at least two years. Even though she's been gone that long now, there are still those two big bookend dates marking her birth and death when our family will put aside time to remember her. Of course those days aren't the only times we ever think of her or miss her; I don't think any of us ever get through a day without her crossing our minds at least a few times.

It shouldn't be a surprise that music is one of the emotional triggers that brings me back to her. I had a long collection of songs I relied on while she was sick and following her death, which I've come to associate so heavily with that time that I can't separate them from what I was feeling and going through back then. These weren't just prototypically inspirational songs that could be adopted by anyone (although there were a few like that). These were meaningful songs that served as my companions during that time, the ones I still can't hear without experiencing emotional surges. They're the songs that fill my head with visuals from life, helping me reconstruct memories with a degree of sensory detail I probably wouldn't be able to recall without their help. 

Here are ten notable ones from that list, and why they mattered so much.

In Loving Memory - Alter Bridge
"And now I come home and it's not the same / Feels empty and alone / I can't believe you're gone."
Mark Tremonti, the band's ridiculously talented guitarist, wrote this powerful song after the death of his mother. I think I can safely speak for my sister Jenny when I say that neither us can listen to more than a minute of this song without having the tears start burning into our eyes. 

The Rising - Bruce Springsteen
"Sky of blackness and sorrow / Sky of love, sky of tears / Sky of glory and sadness / Sky of mercy, sky of fear / Sky of memory and shadow / Your burning wind fills my arms tonight / Sky of longing and emptiness / Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life."
If I remember the timeline correctly, Bruce's "The Rising" album, marking his reunion with the legendary E Street Band, was released the summer just before we found out Erin was sick. I was going to see him in concert with some friends weeks after her surgery, silently pleading on the trip down to St. Paul that the show would provide me with some respite from the stress dominating my life, and also offer a generous share of the emotional guidance I had come to expect from his music. He didn't disappoint.

Bartender - Dave Matthews Band
"If I go before I'm old / Oh, brother of mine / please don't forget me if I go."
In a song that I've always interpreted as contemplating mortality, the strongest connection I have to it has always been in that opening line.

The Spirit Carries On - Dream Theater
"Move on, be brave / Don't weep at my grave / Because I am no longer here / But please never let your memory of me disappear."
Taken in context, this song is the emotional culmination of a journey traveled by a character in a landmark concept album. Taken as an independent song, it's practically a hymn. I made sure this came on in the car as I drove my parents home from Erin's funeral.

Jesus of Suburbia - Green Day
"To live, and not to breathe / Is to die in tragedy."
Green Day's "American Idiot" album was released only weeks before Erin's death. I was listening to it nearly nonstop, both because it's a great album and because the anger and frustration that permeates so much of it -- this song in particular -- amplified the fear and depression and hatred for the world I was feeling at that time. On the surface that probably doesn't seem like such a good thing, and in a lot of ways it wasn't. But it also was a great catharsis. 

A Long Day's Life - Kevin Gilbert
"Oh no, I'm lost and all alone / Battered and broken and scarred to the bone / Oh love, you've never been a friend / But if you're still listening I'm here at the end / of a long day's life."
It bothers me that the album this song comes from, "The Shaming of the True," is so obscure that most of the world will never get the chance to know what an incredible work of art it is. This was one of the songs fighting for space in my head throughout our family trip to San Diego, when we brought Erin to see the ocean one final time. (Little known fact: The real-life events that inspired the seemingly unreal climax of "Following Infinity" took place on that trip.)

Don't Give Up - Peter Gabriel
"Rest your head, you worry too much / It's gonna be all right / When times get tough, you can fall back on us / Don't give up."
This song has a great back and forth between a depressed and discouraged Peter Gabriel beating himself down, and another singer (Kate Bush on the studio version, Paula Cole on the live one) pointing out how much love and support there was around him, if he would only bother to acknowledge and accept it. I tried to use this song to encourage Erin when she first learned she was sick. I didn't see how much it applied to me just as much until years later.  

Solitary Soul - Spock's Beard
"Got a lot of breezes left to blow / Where I'm going I don't know / Got a lot of heartache I don't show / What it's like, you'll never know / To be the solitary soul." Listening to this song was like a tuning fork for my sadness. Again, it's part of a concept album and sung by characters telling a story, but I related to the themes far too well. All the time I spent putting up walls to keep people at a distance during this part of life, this song would show what it sounded like inside of that. It's also worth mentioning that during the second to the last night of Erin's life, Jenny and I sat up all night watching over her so our mother could get some sleep. We looked through a guidebook provided by the church to choose which readings should be used at her funeral. We chose the first one because it was about sheep and Erin liked sheep, and we chose the second because Charlie Young had read it at Mrs. Landingham's funeral on "The West Wing." The only other clear memory I have of that night, other than being the last time in my life I was alone with my two sisters, was listening to this song on my iPod and feeling it at the core of my being.

Stranger in Your Soul - Transatlantic
"There, walking into walls, piercing through the pain / Here we are, reaching through the rain / I almost caught a glimpse, brighter than the sky / A child grown, a stranger coming home." It's just too hard to quantify the importance of this song. Whenever I think about existential healing, I think of "Stranger in Your Soul" as where the idea originated, at least for me. It's a song with several parts to it (it's length shows up in iTunes as exactly thirty minutes) that goes through so many melodies and themes it's really more accurate to call it a composition instead of a song. While so many of the songs on this list were about dragging emotions like sadness or anger to the surface so they could be confronted, this one was purely about healing.

Running to Stand Still - U2
"You gotta cry without weeping / Talk without speaking / Scream without raising your voice."
This song has always been more about the overall tone than the specific meaning for me. If you've never heard it and you're curious what the musical expression of watching someone you love have to suffer would sound like, find it online and give it a listen. 

My memory of Erin is still so strong that my mind will often trick me into thinking about her as an active presence in my life, much in the way I have so many friends and family who live long distances away and I only get to see or talk to infrequently. But then I'll remember that in the cases of those people I still have the option and opportunity to catch up with them, and that isn't the case with her. That realization comes back with the same sinking feeling it always has, even this many years later. But not with the same gravity it once did. 

Even if she isn't here anymore though, she still is an active presence for me. As long as I hang on to my idea of her and have clarifying memory triggers like the songs I've listed above, she'll stay that way.

A Sad Resolution

I was attending St. Cloud State University in 1989. St. Cloud is a city with a population somewhere between sixty and seventy thousand, close to the center point of Minnesota. During that autumn, St. Cloud made national news when an eleven-year-old boy named Jacob Wetterling, who lived in a small town on the rural outskirts of the city, was riding bikes with his best friend and younger brother. On their way home, they encountered a masked man who pointed a gun at them and told them to throw their bikes in the ditch. Jacob’s brother and friend were told to run away or they’d be shot. Jacob was abducted, and a nightmarish, generation-defining mystery began. 

I’ve rarely seen populations so profoundly changed as St. Cloud was in the weeks and months that followed, including our mostly insulated university community. Jacob’s favorite song, something performed by a children’s artist who never would have otherwise received mainstream radio airplay, was in heavy rotation on local stations. The front and back end signs of city buses rotated between displaying their routes and the thematic refrain “Jacob’s Hope.” Enormous billboards showing his most recent school picture along with tip line telephone numbers were all over town. It was a conversational topic in dorm lobbies, church services, coffee houses, and classrooms. I had one professor tell our class about conversations she’d had as her young daughter came home from school each day with so many questions.

Along with many university students mobilizing to volunteer in any way they could, several fund raisers were conducted. I bought an armband, really just a narrow strip of yellow felt, to show my support, and kept it tied to a handle on my college backpack until graduation. After college I kept it tied to the overhead projector in my classroom until that piece of school technology was rendered obsolete, then pinned it to the bulletin board behind my desk for several years to follow. I wanted it there to remind me about the awesome responsibilities I was taking on by becoming a teacher, and how important it was I was serious about them. 

During those first disorienting weeks after the kidnapping, I was working at an after-school program run by the Boys and Girls Club. We gave the kids snacks, programmed a variety of games and activities for them, encouraged them with incidental bits of character education, and gave them a safe and happy place to be until their parents could pick them up.

I was there with those kids watching as the much of the innocence in their lives was replaced with uncertainty. Many of the youngest ones in the program, down to Kindergarten, could tell something bad had happened but didn’t really understand what it meant. I clearly remember one little girl, a second grader, coming up to me with a paper fortune teller she had made, asking me to play. After I chose my favorite number and favorite color, she revealed not only my answer but all of the others as well. Written on one small flap, along with such fortunes as “You will get a puppy” and “Your birthday is tomorrow,” was “Thay will find Jacob.” I was taken aback to think someone who was so young she still couldn’t reliably spell words only four letters long had all of this tragedy as a part of her life. 

The abduction hit the older kids harder, since they were all within a year or two of being the same age as Jacob. Some of them even knew him from youth league sports. One of these kids was a girl who had been having some problems in her neighborhood with a man following her while out walking. Since our program was housed at an elementary school and she attended a nearby middle school, her parents were now afraid to let her walk between the two buildings unsupervised. They expressed their concern, and I was assigned to walk to the middle school each afternoon to escort her, and a handful of others, back to the program. Such was the climate in town, where twelve-year-old kids didn’t feel safe walking from one school to another only five blocks away in the middle of the day. 

Being about halfway through my education program at this point, and acutely aware of the impact a missing child had on so many, this was not a responsibility I took lightly. On my first walk over to pick her up, I calmly decided that in the unlikely event anything did ever happen, I would put myself between the kids and any threats we might encounter. It seemed like the only reasonable choice I had.

Eventually her problem went away, but even though Jacob’s abduction faded out of daily immediate attention, it was always a presence. In the twenty-seven years following, stories about false leads or human interest reminders would occasionally come up in local news. Photos would be released showing computer simulations of what Jacob would look like five years older, then ten, then fifteen. Jacob’s mother became the face of child safety advocacy in our state, and refused to stop hoping she would see her son again someday.

The news broke early this morning that a person of interest being held by police on different charges recently led investigators to human remains identified as Jacob’s. When I first read that, one of the first thoughts I had was back to that little girl’s fortune teller. It took nearly three decades, but she was right: They, or thay, found Jacob. But not with a resolution that anyone ever wanted to see. 

Twenty-Five Years of Back to School

On the second day I ever walked into my school (the first being days before, for my job interview) I was shown the way to my classroom by the secretary and the custodian. As soon as I saw the pencil sharpener attached to the wall and realized it was MY pencil sharpener, it all became real. In the time it took for that to sink in, I’d been left alone with my desks, my student reading books, my teacher’s manuals, and not much more direction than that about how to begin. Fortunately I was minutes away from being welcomed by the other teachers on my grade level team, all of whom I would come to rely on heavily in many different ways.

It doesn’t seem so long ago when those first unofficial warm-up days of the year at our school were wrapped up in tradition. We used to see several kids from the neighborhood orbiting the school on their bikes as soon as teachers showing up to unload their cars became a familiar sight. Class lists used to be taped in the windows beside the front door, and as soon as the word got out they’d been posted dozens of parents would stop by to see which classes their children were in, usually standing out on the front sidewalk and catching up with each other for a time afterward. They’d politely greet the teachers as we excused our way through the crowd while moving in; often there would be plenty of kids more than willing to help carry in a box or two if it meant they'd get a quick peek at whatever changes had happened inside the school over the summer. Some teachers would come in for short bursts of time to get head starts on the work needed to open the year, sometimes for a day here or there even two weeks early. Some of us had running jokes with the secretary about who was pestering her the earliest about getting a look at our class lists. They were good times, and they helped build a warm anticipation about starting back. 

Predictably enough, times have changed since my first year. I saw a lot of relatives at a wedding not long ago, and more than once I was asked how I felt about summer coming to an end and the school year starting soon. My stock response had been, “I’m not dreading it.” Sadly, even if that was as positive of an honest response as I was able to come up with, it still felt like a win.

Now if I want to go in to get a head start on my classroom, I need to wait for a letter or an email from the principal letting me know what days are available, if any, since so many construction projects and summer programs limit the amount of time the custodial staff has to complete their summer work. This year we were given three mornings, which was more than we’ve had in a long time. Instead of relying on manuals and my own creativity to guide the lessons I teach, I have district created materials to follow that have been specifically written to directly address the state education standards the students will be assessed on in the spring, along with spreadsheets listing all of the materials that have been assigned to my classroom (and if they aren’t in my classroom, it usually takes at least a day or two of email chains and legwork to track everything down). If I want an early look at my class lists I can look them up on the district online data hub, but there still aren’t any guarantees. I’ve seen changes happen to my student rosters four times in the past two weeks, and I know better than to consider them final until mid-September. The students find out which classes they’re in from postcards their families receive in late summer, since data privacy prohibits class lists being posted publicly. 

If feels to me that the tradition and mystery and anticipation we used to have at the opening of the year has been replaced by something more mechanical. So much of those first weeks is devoted to learning the academic abilities of the students that it could be argued we see them as data variables before we have time to really learn who they are as people. Other parts of their lives are discovered more gradually now, and speaking as someone who has averaged about eighty students a year since 2005, sometimes it takes intentional effort to do that. You can’t let those relationships evolve on their own since you won’t get the time.

Are these changes unavoidable products of our times, or just our best responses to potential worst-case scenarios? I suppose there’s no clear answer to that. I firmly believe that everyone who works in education today is doing all they can in the effort of living up to the credo/platitude of “what’s best for kids.” The tricky part comes when we have varying interpretations of what “best” should mean. 

For me, what’s best has always been to create a classroom environment where everyone feels comfortable, safe, and believes they can be successful. Some years I’ve done that better than others. As I officially start back to work tomorrow, my goal will be to help my students be successful in whatever way that would be defined for them. I want to take advantage of the available data that will inform my instruction, and I want the students to be excited about what we do so they engage themselves in their learning. I want them to benefit from the structure of 21st century education and feel happy about doing it. 

I want to find a balance between the way things are now and what they used to be. 

On the Verge of Year Twenty-Five

The school year we just finished on the front end of summer was a landmark for me. I’ve referenced this before, but just to remind you: When that school year ended, I had just finished my twenty-fourth year of teaching within weeks of turning forty-eight, which meant I’d spent half of my life as a teacher, and all in the same school. There was a wee bit of controversy over this since the school district tried to reward me for twenty-five years of service last year. Since I would like to think their math and/or record-keeping isn’t that tragically off, I’m assuming they included the year I spent working as a substitute teacher. I won't get into my reasons for not counting that year, but I promise they’re legitimate. I will say that one of my reasons is because twenty-five years of doing something is a landmark number in our society, and I’ve been looking forward to reaching that. I don’t expect parties or parades or any special or even perfunctory recognition, but reaching such a benchmark feels like an accomplishment, and I wanted to earn it in real terms instead of using some asterisk of a shortcut.

Now that I'm about to start that landmark twenty-fifth year, I see a natural opportunity for reflecting on a lot of things. How many students have I worked with in that time? How many of them would say I had any lasting influence in their lives? How many wouldn’t even remember my name anymore? How many did I completely fail? 

How many people have I worked with over the years, either as teachers who were on grade level teams with me, or shared students with me in some capacity, or just happened to be members of the same staff at the same time? Did they get anything out of our time together, or did they walk away from whatever degree of collaboration we had glad to be rid of me? 

How many of my clever little ideas or plans wound up having the kind of impact on my teaching I hoped they would? How many of them ended up with me doing far more work than was necessary without achieving any noticeable results? 

How have the experiences and encounters related to education I’ve had over this quarter century made me into the teacher, and the person, I’m about to be for two new classes in a matter of weeks?

There are issues and topics orbiting education right now that I have strong opinions about. What experiences led to my forming those opinions? Why do I think A, B, and C are so wonderful while I have such abject hatred for D and E? What did I learn from those formative experiences, or what should I have learned, but was too obtuse or stubborn to appreciate at the time?

You can see there are a lot of questions rattling around here.

I’ve had the idea in the back of my mind for a long time that someday I’d write a book that would show teaching as it really is — warts, scars, tear stains and all. I’ve even had incidental conversations with my agent about it. (You didn’t really think I’d make it through a post without mentioning her, did you? And by the way, wouldn’t it be some kind of serendipitous poetry if I finally had a book deal come together in the midst of this landmark twenty-fifth year? Cross your fingers….) 

I keep going back and forth on whether that book would be some variety of memoir, or if it would be better to mold all of those experiences into the kind of fictional story that would be much too close to the truth for people outside of the profession to accept as believable. All I know for sure is either one of those would probably involve a LOT of name changes. 

I can’t say I’m actively excited about going back to school, but I’m optimistic, and that’s no small thing at this point in the summer. There were a lot of things about last year that left several people in our school eager to put it behind us, but our building-wide Etch-a-Sketch has been given a significant shaking in the past few months, and as a result I feel the upcoming year has a lot of promise. Plus I’m choosing to look at it that way, which I think will make a difference. 

As I think about all of this, it feels like Year #25 could be the perfect chance to sort out all of these ideas and reflections. Maybe I’ll work through things thoroughly enough to pin down a book idea, or maybe not. But I think the whole exercise could bring some good clarity to my teaching. So as the school year rolls out, I’m planning to write monthly blog posts specifically reflecting back on my career in education, and seeing how it relates to where I am now. I’m not going to blow the doors off any controversial subjects, but hopefully I’ll stumble across some reflections interesting enough to write about. 

For now though, I still have two weeks left of summer. Or thirteen and a half days, to be precise. So excuse me while I go find a way to enjoy the rest of my time off....

Pointless Observations: The Rio 2016 Edition

I love watching the Olympics. Summer or winter, doesn't matter. It's the only time I will actually go out of my way to watch sports. To clarify, my problem with sports has little to do with the athletes or the activities themselves. I can admire the intelligence, artistry, and physical control the athletes put into the their respective disciplines, to say nothing of the dedication that had to go into their achieving the level of mastery they've reached. Sports fans, though? I think most professional sports largely exist to give people shared discussion points for meaningless small talk, so they can interact in a way that sidesteps ever having to engage in thoughtful conversation.

But the Olympics are different. They're global and international. They're more about sport and nationalism and individual achievement. So many of the athletes participating have little reasonable chance to ever medal, but the opportunity to just be there is a reward itself, and enough of a reward to be the realization of a lifelong dream. When it comes to the Olympics, I will totally drink up the Kool-Aid.

I didn't see the opening ceremony last night because of a rare night out. I did record it though, and watched it this morning (except for the 45 total minutes of commercial breaks I skipped). Here's my take: 

*Bob Costas is overdoing it with the flowery language from the first sentence out of his mouth. I'll give him credit, though -- Costas is really good at taking the facts he's researched and making them sound like stuff he just knows.

*I can't be the only person who saw the name of the stadium and at first misread it as Macarena.

*Oh boy, here we go. Matt Lauer, Meredith Viera, and Hoda Kotb seem to be in charge of the Cliff's Notes and Wikipedia entries for tonight. This commentary is going to be all about how entertaining they find each other. I hope they have the occasional presence of mind to just shut up and let the audience enjoy the stagecraft and spectacle of the production without all the Mattsplaining.

*Michael Phelps is interviewed by some NBC talking head before the ceremony begins: "How does it feel to be chosen to carry the flag?" she asks. I have to think it's taking him great effort not to say something like, "Um, were you listening four minutes ago when your network called me the most decorated Olympian ever? Who ELSE would they choose?"

*We get what seems like a short film at first, but it's only introducing the NBC personalities who will be "reporting" throughout the games. This whole thing has the same self-serving ugliness as any of the weekly recurring WCCO personality features, for those of you living in the Cities. I tell ya, every time Chris Shaffer works song title puns into his forecast, a small part of my will to live breaks off, withers, and fades to nothing. IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU, REPORTERS. 

*The ceremony finally begins thirty-five minutes into coverage with another short film. The bird's eye perspective they're using makes all of these sports look like iPad games.

*I don't remember: Which city first came up with the idea of using a projection screen on the floor during the opening ceremony? Because everyone else since has totally ripped them off. 

*This guy playing the national anthem is totally lip syncing, but there are few things in music as beautiful as latin guitar, so I'll allow it.

*A parade of dancers said to be actual descendants of indigenous people just ran right past the camera wearing costumes that exposed most of each of their butts. Every nine-year-old in America just launched into a breathless three-minute laughing fit.

*Now their focusing on immigration. I get that this is a performance, and at least they're acknowledging this as a part of their history, but I think it's a little questionable to dismiss slavery as costumed dance.

*The people jumping around on the projection screen showing the buildings of a growing metropolis as they rise is a pretty cool effect.

*Giselle. Man, does she have a lot of hair. What's she hiding up there? And because she's a famous model, all she has to do is walk across the stadium in a dress made of recycled space blankets?

*They're making a point of saying how the richest elements of Brazilian culture have come from the poorest neighborhoods, and showing this with hip-hop dance and bright colors straight out of the 90s. It's like a Fresh Prince rerun. The floor is now rotating through some kaleidoscopic polygonal structure that looks like an advanced level of Qbert. Either Hoda or Meredith says she wants to get up and dance. IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU! Eminent Sociologist Matt Lauer explains how the music has an edge to it now, representing the conflict in Brazilian culture. Ugh....

*Start the party! Woo-hoo! Instead of focusing on the hundreds of costumed leftovers from children's television taking over the floor, they keep cutting back to Giselle rocking out, and they cut to her at least eight times. The camera is never away from Giselle for more than eleven seconds each time. I'm not even kidding -- when I noticed how often they were showing all of that hair flying around, I rewound this section and timed it. 

*I applaud the inclusion of a section about climate change, but this information is an elementary school level presentation, which is going to make it all too easy for the climate deniers to dismiss. To their credit though, they enlisted Judi Dench, the British voice-over gravitas equivalent to Morgan Freeman, to help with the narration.

*The parade of nations begins. In most cases, the flag bearers are the only ones who get any backstory anecdote to go with the trivial facts mentioned about their countries.

*Two hours in and the word Zika is finally mentioned.

*Matt is happy golf is back in the Olympics. Hoda's parents are from Egypt. "Is that my cousin?" Ha ha ha IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU.

*Where else, other than the Olympics or summer camp, are you going to hear the phrase "badminton rivalry?"

*Someone representing the Marshall Islands hails from New Hope, Minnesota. She has two Olympic goals: perform at a new personal best and meet Usain Bolt. This is what I love about the Olympics -- people competing to do the best they can regardless of accomplishment, and beyond that looking to take in the experience.

*Oman's flag bearer looks like he could be Freddie Mercury's cousin.

*As I watch this, I think back to watching the hot dog eating contest on Independence day, and now I'm second guessing if ESPN really should have called competitive eaters athletes.

*The Serbian flag bearer, whatever her name was, is officially my first Olympic crush.

*The Tonga flag bearer. Okay. I saw a lot of tweets about this guy during the intermission at the play last night, and I don't know what his sport is, but he is ripped. I can only guess that baby oil must be one of Tonga's primary exports. Or that guy has a sponsorship with Big Baby Oil. Or he's going to have one in a couple of weeks. 

*The refugee team enters to a standing ovation. I can only imagine what being on an Olympic team at all must mean to those people. 

*With the parade over, some official come out to blah blah blah like the Price-Waterhouse people at the Academy awards. This guy is parking a giant black hole in the middle of the ceremony, as the tepid applause he's receiving indicates. 

*The Olympic flag is brought in. I look at the athletes chosen for that honor and think of all they've accomplished, the work they had to do to get there, and the lives they'd led before their Olympics and since. So much human story. 

*The samba party Matt Lauer has been physically unable to shut up about finally starts. People dressed in an entire Crayola box of dance costumes comes out, plus there's one little kid on a platform who absolutely thinks everyone in the stadium is staring at him the whole time. The Olympic cauldron is finally lit, then elevated into position. As it settles, something looking like a 3D steampunk sculpture opens up to highlight it. It is super cool.

Finally, because I know you're wondering, here are the commercial break announcment stats for the night:

Still to come: 4 times
Up next: Once
Stick around: Once
Right after this: 8 stinkin' times
We have much more ahead: Once
Continues to unfold: Once
When we come back: Once
Much more to come: Once

Let the games begin. 

The Spoiler-Free "Stranger Things" Binge

I’ve done several “kind-of” television binges over the past few years. For me, this involves watching somewhere between two and four episodes of a show per day until I’ve finished the season or the series. I typically save this behavior for when I’m on a break from school and have time to waste, because the hardest thing for me about ever doing a real binge of intentionally watching one episode right after another would be eating up so much time. I usually can only go a few hours at most before I start giving into the feeling that there has to be more important things for me to be doing other than just slowly wearing out my recliner. Today, however, was an exception.

I’ve been hearing and reading a lot about the excitement surrounding a new show on Netflix called "Stranger Things." I purposefully avoided learning what it was about, other than how it was billed as a type of throwback series similar to some of mildly-to-somewhat scary childhood adventure movies that those of us who came of age in the 1980s loved so dearly, like "The Goonies," "Poltergeist," "Ghostbusters," "Back to the Future," "E.T." or even "Big Trouble in Little China" — stories that put ordinary people (often kids our age) into fantastical situations. I decided if "Stranger Things" measured up to even half of the hype it was getting, it would be worth a day of television watching. Luckily there were only 8 episodes, and each of them came in at just under an hour. That added up to way more TV than I would ever accidentally watch in a 24-hour period, but it seemed manageable. 

When I woke up this morning knowing I planned on devoting the better part of a day to watching TV, I actually felt a little trepidation about it. In fact, even though I was up way too early for a Saturday, I started the day by finishing off a book I was reading, working through a chapter of revisions, and doing some house-cleaning, all so I hopefully wouldn’t feel like I had more important things to do. I gotta say, it worked like a charm. Even though I worked in breaks between most episodes, I pretty much watched the entire series straight through. 

I won’t spoil anything about it because I think it’s best to go into it knowing as little as possible, but I will say the tone was reminiscent of some of the movies I listed above, and it captured the time period in which it was set (the early 1980s) very well. Happily the whole show was also structured like a book, so each episode picked up right where the one before it had left off. In a lot of ways it was more like a seven hour movie than a series, or even like not so much listening to an audio book, but watching a video book. For me that’s usually a characteristic of a good show.

I can remember a handful of times from high school when I would get home from seeing one of those classic '80s adventures in a theater, and I’d still be pumped with creative fuel that needed burning off. Too often though, because there were some big high school dry spells when I wasn’t writing much, I never had the outlet I needed, and I’d end up lying in bed with my head too spun up for me to ever fall asleep. Today I got to take advantage of that same buzz, and hurried into the office to do some revision work after the episodes that left me with something in mind I thought I could use. 

If you haven’t seen "Stranger Things" yet and think you’d enjoy an adventure thriller focusing on kids (and some adults who seem to know less about what’s going on than the kids do), you should give this show a try. 

Maybe you won’t have the time to watch it straight through, but I think you’ll probably wish you could. 

Reaching for the Growth Mindset

One of the books I’ve read this summer is Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. The ideas it discussed were fascinating. Here’s what it looks like, if you’re curious:

I first encountered the idea of mindset, at least as presented in this book, less than a year ago, at a day-long district meeting (those of you who know me in the real world know that such meetings are typically my kryptonite). Much of the afternoon on this day focused on the ideas of growth mindset and fixed mindset in the context of teaching. In a nutshell, a growth mindset is a belief that some degree of learning and progress can be made as long as the learner is willing, and hopefully eager, to put in the work required. A fixed mindset is a belief reinforcing the idea that a person’s abilities or intellect are more of a constant, and little to no significant growth is possible because of that. I’m oversimplifying this, but that covers the idea. 

For example, imagine a student who has been scoring 25% on spelling tests for years. They don’t see any reason to study because they’re sure all the studying in the world isn’t going to change fact that they’re a bad speller. That would be the fixed mindset. A similar student with a growth mindset would consider why they were failing, think about what needed to be done differently, and follow through on a plan that would help them be more successful. Maybe they wouldn’t become a spelling bee champ overnight, if ever, but they likely would see results following the effort they put in while working toward that goal. 

A lot of this rang true with me, and reinforced a belief I’ve held about teaching for decades: Effort and attitude are far greater indicators of student success than intelligence and ability. In fact, I included that on my list of twenty-four things I’d learned from teaching just months ago. (Click here to see that list.)

When my school had our own shorter inservice on the same topic this past spring, it got me thinking about how I could take advantage of these ideas in my instruction. The presenter gave us the name of the book mentioned above as a starting point. I bought a copy for myself and one for my teaching partner, since she was also interested in seeing what could be done. I kept a highlighter nearby as I read, collecting the passages I thought could be useful and making a list of the ideas I was thinking up along the way.

However, as I thought more about these ideas, it felt like a hollow exercise if I wasn’t going to examine my own mindsets, both in terms of my instruction and in my personal life. What successes could I claim that had benefitted from my approaching those areas with a growth mindset? And what about my failings, those areas I don’t want anyone to poke at because I’ve already poked them raw myself? If I’m being honest, how many of those things resulted from my determining success was beyond my reach? (And isn’t it already an indication of a fixed mindset if I refer to those things as “my failings?”)

To protect myself from having to admit too many uncomfortable truths online, and to keep from coming across as a raging braggart, I’m going to discuss only one example of how each of these mindsets has somehow figured into my life. 

FIXED MINDSET

It’s no secret I’m not a fan of the philosophy behind “data-driven instruction.” In fact, I think that phrase has been reduced to a lazy buzzword label representing nearly everything wrong with 21st century education. Data-guided? Data-informed? Sure. Fine. Data has a purpose. Data DRIVEN? No. Just no. That’s too much. I have a hard time reconciling the amount of professional time, effort, and discussion that goes into quantifying the intelligence, ability, and potential of the students I work with. I’ll still fall into step with the idea if I’m expected to as a part of my job, but I’m not putting much more enthusiasm into it than I would any other hoop I’m required to jump through. 

All of this goes a long way in explaining why I hate spreadsheets so much. 

Spreadsheets are the bane of my professional existence. The tidal wave of collected data that rolls through each school year demands organization, and spreadsheets are the most logical way to sort results according to student. Now, I know a little bit about how spreadsheets work, really just enough to create the necessary cross-references. But there are just so many features and formats and formulas involved that I never bothered to learn anything more than the bare minimum needed to get the job done. All of these features, which I’m sure give tiny endorphin rushes to people with a better understanding of how spreadsheets work than me, seem like an overwhelming amount of detail to master. 

Could I get better at spreadsheets? I’m sure I could. I’m reasonably tech savvy, and I already know a little bit about them so it’s not like I’d be starting from Square One. If I made it a personal goal to become an absolute spreadsheet jockey by the end of the coming school year, I’m sure I could do it. But it’s not important to me to develop that kind of fluency, so I’m not motivated to put in the necessary work. My mindset is fixed. If effort and attitude are greater indicators of success than intelligence and ability, then whether or not I COULD learn how to use spreadsheets won’t matter much if my effort and attitude aren’t there. 

GROWTH MINDSET

It’s also no secret that writing is a big part of my life, and it really has been since childhood. But that doesn’t mean it’s never been frustrating.

For years upon years, everything about my writing was a hobby with a dream that seemed impossibly out of reach. I’d write stories I was proud of and shared them with a small number of trusted and encouraging people, who were never very critical. I tried sending a few manuscripts to publishers before deciding the odds were insurmountable, then put the stories I was quietly proud of back on a shelf to collect dust. I would read other books and marvel at the voices of authors writing at levels I was certain I’d never be able to achieve. Absolutely a fixed mindset in action here.

But all along I kept doing the work, and slowly I was getting better. Which brings us to a topic that has become so recurring here on the blog that I probably should create a label for it — agent love. 

I got to a point where my writing was being taken seriously enough to earn some literary agent requests, and one offer. When Following Infinity convinced my agent, Carrie, to represent me and my work, it was validation on a level I never expected to see. Everything about the week we were putting together our agreement was rainbows and Skittles, and I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. Then she sent me my first round of professional revision notes.

I was stunned, thinking, “But…I thought she LIKED my manuscript…why does she want me to get rid of this character, and that whole chapter, and add all of these things, and take out this section I love so much?” And so on. I was expecting she’d want a few tweaks here and there, but she was looking for changes far more substantial. Of course she also identified the things about it that she loved and wasn’t shy about telling me, which helped, but I was still facing a lot more work than I had expected. It didn’t occur to me until well afterward that her agreeing to represent me had as much to do with the potential she thought I had as it did with what she had already read.

After I got over the initial surprise of how far I still had to go, I told myself, “Well, okay. This is how it works in the big leagues. So suck it up, get to work, and show why you belong here.” After a few intense months of planning and revising, I had a new version for her, which she reviewed and responded to with a “Wow.” And then she sent more notes, because there were still ways to make it even better. That’s been our pattern for the past two years as we’ve set the groundwork over two separate manuscripts: She’ll review what I’ve done and give me things to work on (and usually she’s frustratingly dead-on with her notes), then I’ll take her suggestions and either meet, or sometimes even surpass, what she was hoping for. All of this back and forth work is about taking away every possible reason potential editors might consider passing on the work once its submitted. Going through all of that has pushed me into not only becoming a better writer, but also believing in myself as a writer more than I did before. Now when I submit something to her, I want to get notes back as soon as I can, because I crave that challenge. I want to see what I can learn, and build on, and do better than I did before. Working with her has pushed me into a growth mindset.

I feel like reflecting on these aspects of my life has given me a good strategy for starting the school year. I know each student I work with will come with their own combination of growth and fixed mindsets. If I can identify how they’re approaching new learning, I’ll know if they’re in a place more like me hating spreadsheets, or if they’re anxious to dive in and find out what they can still learn, like I am with writing. 

Once I know that, I’ll have a better idea of how to modify my instruction and support them more effectively. Then I'll figure out what comes next, and give them opportunities to focus less on their intelligence and ability, and more on their effort and attitude.