I have to believe that an elementary school is a very unique workplace setting. I hate falling back on the cliché of saying “we’re all a family” because I think it’s both lazy and untrue, but I do feel the people who work together in an elementary school are closely intertwined by our greater sense of collective purpose and the personal ownership we bring to what we do.
Two years ago there was a seismic shift in my school district when several schools were closed. The aftershocks of the domino effect that followed as hundreds of district staff were reassigned is still being felt today, and this spring those aftershocks have been all too noticeable in my building. It’s funny in a way: Even though every spring brings a few staffing changes as plans come together for the approaching school year, it seems like people are always surprised when they occur, even if they know changes are inevitable. (I openly admit to being one of these people.) And don’t read this wrong -- I’m not of the opinion that change is a bad thing. Change is just how life happens. Sometimes the changes that come along turn out to be vast improvements over what had been before, but sometimes they aren’t. Different people bring different attributes and principles into the relationships and experiences that form, and it’s not uncommon for dynamics to emerge that nobody could have predicted. Even though that’s simply human nature, it always fascinates me to see it happen.
But when you look at the degree of change that’s happening this year, it’s very different. I honestly cannot think of any other time I’ve seen at my school that has brought the same kind of upheaval as we’re seeing now. There are some major retirements, some jobs being cut for a wide variety of reasons, and some people deciding to move on to other opportunities. The confluence of all of these shifts coming to light over a period of weeks really seems to be leaving people feeling pretty discombobulated. I’ll credit that description to a friend of mine, but ‘discombobulated’ is one of my favorite words so it’s likely I would have used it anyway. It’s certainly an apt description of what’s been going on.
All of this business was highlighted over the weekend at a retirement party several of us ‘veterans’ attended. Seeing the group that collected for the well-wishing was, for me, kind of an event. Here was this reunion of people representing a given moment in time, the characters who populated my daily life so completely and not that long ago, coming back together after being scattered in so many directions. I looked around the room at all who were there and was struck by the realization that after this school year closes, there will only be a handful of people left at my school who have been there longer than I have. Seriously. Out of a staff of about eighty or so people, there will be fewer than ten who have been around longer than me. And out of those that remain, there will probably be a few more moving on to new things sooner than later.
Thinking about what the next few years will be like with this newest iteration of our school’s staff, I find myself looking at it from many different view points at once. For one, I’m a little concerned about what will be different when some of the consistency to which I’ve grown accustomed is removed from the equation. I’m also very appreciative for some of the changes that have already happened and how they’ve brought new energies and perspectives to our staff. But I’m also a little hesitant to think of how high up the seniority ladder I’m climbing and that I might be turning into one of the experienced veterans people are going to look at for leadership in the same way I’ve looked to so many other people for guidance for so, so long. I find myself pretty comfortable with the character definition that Leo McGarry assigned to Josh Lyman back on “The West Wing” when he told Josh, “You don’t want to be ‘The Guy.’ You want to be the guy that ‘The Guy’ relies on.” Yep. That’s me.
But then I think of what our staff is right now. It can’t even be divided as easily as The People Who’ve Been There Longer and The Newer People anymore, because many of us have had two years to figure out where our places are in this new group, and who our people are inside of it. And even if I find the prospect of so much change a little bit daunting, I also see it as an opportunity. Because, if I can echo back to an earlier point, even though a lot of our staff is still in a ‘getting to know each other’ phase, we really are driven by a strong sense of common purpose and an increasing urgency about that purpose. So even if I feel slight personal trepidation about some of the changes taking place and what could possibly happen in their wake, I’m also feeling a lot of optimism. Not because the future is going to be some breezy ride around the lake -- because this is education and that simply doesn’t happen -- but because the people who are moving on have laid the groundwork for the people coming in to take over and move forward to bigger and better things. And regardless of the obstacles we encounter, I believe that’s the direction we’re heading.
Just don’t expect me to dance around with a silly hat on during a team-building activity and smile about it... because we all know THAT ain’t gonna happen....
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
When a Band Isn't Really a Band
Back in 1986 there was a day I tore the plastic from my new copy of Journey's album "Raised on Radio," then put the record on and pulled out the album sleeve to start learning all of the important details: What the lyrics were, who wrote which songs together, etc. I got a huge shock when I saw the obligatory band photo of three guys: the singer, the guitar player, and the keyboardist. What the...
I was taken aback. What happened to the bass player, or the drummer? Did they quit? Were they fired? There was no Internet for me to scour, so I had no idea and didn't learn for a long time what had happened. The credits had some side musicians I'd never heard of before playing drums and bass, and not even the same guys for each song. I was at a loss. I correctly took this as the beginning of the end for one of my high school favorite bands.
I've got a pretty tight definition for a band. You need a singer, a guitarist, a bass player, and a drummer. Simple as that. The singer can also play bass or guitar, or in rare cases drum, but usually you're talking about four people when you think "band," or at least when I do. If you throw keyboards into the mix, it's a common variation to have five people, and if the singer in a 5-piece is able to also play an instrument, all the better for the musical layering. Then you've got some bands out there with two guitarists, or three, or two keyboards, or a sax, or a percussionist, or some other less common instrument, and all of that can be for the better. But to be a BAND, you need the basics. Any professional rock band that doesn't have those four anchors locked down is cheating, just like Journey did. And in the end, they paid the price.
Bon Jovi is kind of pulling this too, where they claim to be a four piece band without a bass player as a member, even if they've had the same guy playing bass on their albums and live shows for close to 20 years. They've just never made him an official member. Genesis? They recorded everything on their own, but they needed more people to tour. Rush? Now there's a band. Only three guys, playing everything, and in concert sometimes they're each playing eighteen or nineteen instruments at a time. Trios can be the exception.
Why am I all fired up about this? Today I downloaded the new album by Train, "California 37." After one play through, I mostly like it, but I have some big problems with it too, not the least of which is that Train is no longer a band.
One thing I've always loved about Train is how they work some moments of clever word play into their lyrics, and there's a lot of that here. There's a good amount of unabashed romanticism, which, believe it or not, can really work for me when it's done well. There are several catchy songs that will be good car songs for the summer, without a doubt. But this isn't an album put together by a band. It's full-on corporate product. I enjoy it, but I don't think I'm ever going to love it.
"Hey Soul Sister" came out of nowhere a few years ago, and I loved it -- I loved seeing this huge resurgence for a band I liked that was on the verge of fading away. But it also scared me a little, because it was almost a novelty song, which is never a good thing for a band looking for staying power. The rest of the album, "Save Me, San Francisco" was one of my favorites for a long time; I have a LOT of personal history with Train tied to my sisters, and you only have to look as far as clicking here for some of that proof.
Here's my problem with this: "Hey Soul Sister" was a huge pop hit, so guess what there are a lot of on this new album? Yes - songs engineered to someday be potential huge pop hits. Normally this wouldn't bother me. I won't begrudge musicians I like to do something I enjoy hearing them do if it will give them continued success and allow me to enjoy more music from them. But this album isn't really from them. Train has pulled a huge Journey here -- the band, once made up of six guys, is now down to three: the singer, the drummer, and the guitar player. No bass, no keys, and a bus load of "additional musicians" showing up in the liner notes. Time was Train was a band that could handle playing all of their own music because they had enough people to do it. And to make matters worse? Outside songwriters. Hired guns brought in to help craft the potential pop hits. When a band doesn't write or play all of it's own music... this crosses a line for me. Train is no longer a band -- it's a corporation.
I'll still learn the album, and play it, and I'll probably enjoy it a great deal someday. They just aren't making it easy.
I was taken aback. What happened to the bass player, or the drummer? Did they quit? Were they fired? There was no Internet for me to scour, so I had no idea and didn't learn for a long time what had happened. The credits had some side musicians I'd never heard of before playing drums and bass, and not even the same guys for each song. I was at a loss. I correctly took this as the beginning of the end for one of my high school favorite bands.
I've got a pretty tight definition for a band. You need a singer, a guitarist, a bass player, and a drummer. Simple as that. The singer can also play bass or guitar, or in rare cases drum, but usually you're talking about four people when you think "band," or at least when I do. If you throw keyboards into the mix, it's a common variation to have five people, and if the singer in a 5-piece is able to also play an instrument, all the better for the musical layering. Then you've got some bands out there with two guitarists, or three, or two keyboards, or a sax, or a percussionist, or some other less common instrument, and all of that can be for the better. But to be a BAND, you need the basics. Any professional rock band that doesn't have those four anchors locked down is cheating, just like Journey did. And in the end, they paid the price.
Bon Jovi is kind of pulling this too, where they claim to be a four piece band without a bass player as a member, even if they've had the same guy playing bass on their albums and live shows for close to 20 years. They've just never made him an official member. Genesis? They recorded everything on their own, but they needed more people to tour. Rush? Now there's a band. Only three guys, playing everything, and in concert sometimes they're each playing eighteen or nineteen instruments at a time. Trios can be the exception.
Why am I all fired up about this? Today I downloaded the new album by Train, "California 37." After one play through, I mostly like it, but I have some big problems with it too, not the least of which is that Train is no longer a band.
One thing I've always loved about Train is how they work some moments of clever word play into their lyrics, and there's a lot of that here. There's a good amount of unabashed romanticism, which, believe it or not, can really work for me when it's done well. There are several catchy songs that will be good car songs for the summer, without a doubt. But this isn't an album put together by a band. It's full-on corporate product. I enjoy it, but I don't think I'm ever going to love it.
"Hey Soul Sister" came out of nowhere a few years ago, and I loved it -- I loved seeing this huge resurgence for a band I liked that was on the verge of fading away. But it also scared me a little, because it was almost a novelty song, which is never a good thing for a band looking for staying power. The rest of the album, "Save Me, San Francisco" was one of my favorites for a long time; I have a LOT of personal history with Train tied to my sisters, and you only have to look as far as clicking here for some of that proof.
Here's my problem with this: "Hey Soul Sister" was a huge pop hit, so guess what there are a lot of on this new album? Yes - songs engineered to someday be potential huge pop hits. Normally this wouldn't bother me. I won't begrudge musicians I like to do something I enjoy hearing them do if it will give them continued success and allow me to enjoy more music from them. But this album isn't really from them. Train has pulled a huge Journey here -- the band, once made up of six guys, is now down to three: the singer, the drummer, and the guitar player. No bass, no keys, and a bus load of "additional musicians" showing up in the liner notes. Time was Train was a band that could handle playing all of their own music because they had enough people to do it. And to make matters worse? Outside songwriters. Hired guns brought in to help craft the potential pop hits. When a band doesn't write or play all of it's own music... this crosses a line for me. Train is no longer a band -- it's a corporation.
I'll still learn the album, and play it, and I'll probably enjoy it a great deal someday. They just aren't making it easy.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
The Homestretch (?)
Big milestone in the development of the manuscript today. I switched out my black ink cartridge and hit print, marking the completion of the second revision of this version and the beginning of the third. This go-round will be quite a bit different, and I'm kind of nervous about it. While I've done all of my editing on the actual document so far, reading from a hard copy really makes me look at it differently. I have specific things I'm looking for that will have me rereading each chapter, one by one, seven or eight times with painstaking attention. I anticipate it taking a good amount of time to get through. Once I'm done, all that will be left will be finishing the query, and that job is no ride around the lake itself.
I'm also a little nervous about getting this close to what I've always told myself would be the end of the writing. The plan, back at the beginning of the school year, was to spend the fall prewriting, then drafting the manuscript for NaNoWriMo 2011, then knocking through a couple of revision passes, researching agents that might be good fits for the eventual pitch, putting together a force-of-nature query letter, and doing one last check of everything to make sure the manuscript stands as perfect as I can make it. There will be ups and downs in this last push; some days I'll feel buzzed about how much I like it and dejected about how much I don't. I've had several beta readers finish the book and get back to me with their opinions, and the responses have been overwhelmingly positive so far. In fact, if I can find an agent who likes it half as much as my most recent reader LOVED it, the whole thing will be a lock for me. And there's still a copy or two floating around out there, so maybe as more people read it along the way it will bolster me up.
But this last stage will be pretty lonely and full of self-doubt. It's a lot more fun to play with the optimism of trying to sell the book when you're still writing it and watching it become something. It's another thing altogether to reach the point where you feel like you're done and the goal is met, and then put your story out into the world and discover if your best is good enough or not.
I'm thinking back to a song I heard on the iPod this weekend while driving around, particularly one line from it: "No one gets to their heaven without a fight." I see this as a good metaphor for the effort that serves as background for that ridiculous platitude of how anyone can make their dreams come true if they just work hard enough. It might be a counterproductive thing for me to think as a teacher, but I've never believed that. Sometimes dreams don't come true, and they just never will, no matter what the dreamers do about it.
But that doesn't mean I'm going to roll over and give up, either. If it takes a fight to do this, I'm ready to bring one.
I'm also a little nervous about getting this close to what I've always told myself would be the end of the writing. The plan, back at the beginning of the school year, was to spend the fall prewriting, then drafting the manuscript for NaNoWriMo 2011, then knocking through a couple of revision passes, researching agents that might be good fits for the eventual pitch, putting together a force-of-nature query letter, and doing one last check of everything to make sure the manuscript stands as perfect as I can make it. There will be ups and downs in this last push; some days I'll feel buzzed about how much I like it and dejected about how much I don't. I've had several beta readers finish the book and get back to me with their opinions, and the responses have been overwhelmingly positive so far. In fact, if I can find an agent who likes it half as much as my most recent reader LOVED it, the whole thing will be a lock for me. And there's still a copy or two floating around out there, so maybe as more people read it along the way it will bolster me up.
But this last stage will be pretty lonely and full of self-doubt. It's a lot more fun to play with the optimism of trying to sell the book when you're still writing it and watching it become something. It's another thing altogether to reach the point where you feel like you're done and the goal is met, and then put your story out into the world and discover if your best is good enough or not.
I'm thinking back to a song I heard on the iPod this weekend while driving around, particularly one line from it: "No one gets to their heaven without a fight." I see this as a good metaphor for the effort that serves as background for that ridiculous platitude of how anyone can make their dreams come true if they just work hard enough. It might be a counterproductive thing for me to think as a teacher, but I've never believed that. Sometimes dreams don't come true, and they just never will, no matter what the dreamers do about it.
But that doesn't mean I'm going to roll over and give up, either. If it takes a fight to do this, I'm ready to bring one.
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