Becoming a Hard@$$

July 11, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I was 29 years old when I did my student teaching. The first day I was with my new mentor, he asked me at lunch if I’d been paying attention as I sat in his classroom while he talked through whatever that day’s topic happened to be. I said I had. “Great,” he told me. “How ‘bout you take over after lunch?”

I seem to have stumbled through well enough, and at the end of the day he asked me the same basic things he’d ask me every day I was with him.

What do you think went well?

Anything you would do differently next time?

Did you notice ________________ ? {Usually a disengaged student or other issue.}

How do you think you might handle/fix/address __________________? {Some difficulty specific to that day’s topic or skill.}

It was intimidating as hell. Made me all kinds of uncomfortable. I got used to it, however, and it forced me to be a bit more intentional about my planning and – more importantly – my reflections. In retrospect, I’m thankful for his approach (well, not the taking over the first day… but the rest of it) and I still frame my discussions with baby teachers in the much the same terms. For that matter, I periodically run through the same basic questions with myself.

In recent years, I’ve had a nagging realization which I’ve shamefully tried to ignore. An adjustment which needs to be made in my classroom. Something that should help many of my kids. It would probably do wonders for my stress levels as well, once established and… comfortable.

Assuming it ever became comfortable.

And yet I don’t seem to be doing it. Not yet. It’s unforgiveable.

I need to become a hard-ass. Or… hard-er, at least.

Not in terms of attitude. That’s just not me. I can be firm from time to time (and in brief bursts), but I’ll never be the drill sergeant, the no-excuses, stand-up-straight-when-you’re-giving-me-another-dumb-answer type. I’m not universally against a little harshness – not when it comes with consistency and fairness and a genuine commitment to the long-term success and happiness of kids. But that’s not me. Not by any stretch.

My relationships with my kids are fairly casual. I don’t mean they’re boundary-free – I’m not going to their parties or talking to them about my ex-wife. But my preferred tone is relaxed and low-judgement, and my classroom management fairly loose. Sometimes that means wrestling to keep things on track, and accepting that not every kid makes great choices about how far to color outside the lines, but that’s a trade-off I can live with.

It’s not tone, or discipline, or even the proverbial “bar” of high academic expectations in which I fear I’ve failed my young wards. It’s more basic than that.

I think I need to stick to due dates. Late policies. Expectations, especially when it comes to having one’s proverbial manure together. Insisting they keep and maintain a clue or two, if you will.

I’ve written about this before – more proof I know better and have failed to adequately act – but I keep hoping it will magically become unnecessary. I’ve instead kept doing the same basic thing and hoping for a different outcome each semester – and we all know what that’s called.

I have some pretty reasonable policies regarding late work – if I followed them. They’re not particularly draconian. Anything skill-based can be attempted multiple times, and in some circumstances students can “earn” retakes of quizzes or whatever. There are enough grades throughout the year that a rough week or two isn’t enough to do lasting harm. Even poor test-takers should be fine if they take care of everything else.

I’m all about the mercy and the understanding and the making exceptions and compromising and stuff. That is, I fear, the problem.

Giving a child extra time on an assignment because life is complicated is supposed to help them. There’s no other reason to do it.

We’ve all been in the workshops or faculty meetings where some earnest administrator or guest speaker is pushing for a ‘no zeroes’ policy or ‘standards-based education’, both of which have some interesting foundations but too easily end up meaning ‘just pass the little turds whether they do anything or not so we can move on’. Because we’re putting so much energy into hiding our eye-rolling and resisting the urge to scream, it’s easy to miss the possibility that they MIGHT have a point. If the work we assign is useful, the reasoning goes, it’s better that kids do it eventually. If it’s not essential for them to at least give it a shot, why are we assigning it? Zeroes just let them off the hook.

In other words, it’s better for the student if they can still do the work – especially when their lives are genuinely complicated and they’re still learning how to play secondary school.

And yet…

In recent years, it no longer seems that I’m offering them a rope when I allow due dates to evolve. It’s more like I’m pouring an unending supply of brightly colored spheres into their personal ball pit of hopelessness – and someone’s peed on the safety foam. Instead of helping them get back on track, every act of supposed grace seems to mire them further in the past, adding endless obstacles to their academic escape room.

Teenagers, as you may have noticed, are not always great with calculated decisions and sustained pedagogical commitment. Even the ‘good’ ones tend to oscillate between over-achievement (or at least grade-obsessiveness) and stretches of complete inability to muster two tiny little damns about the Swahili Coast and what it reflected about change and continuity in Indian Ocean Trade.

I mean, seriously – how can you NOT perk up and shine for THAT? Those crazy Portuguese – AMIRIGHT?!?

Students are going to mess up. They’re going to get behind – which, in a history class, changes everything. If there’s going to be collaboration, or meaningful discussions, or if we’re going to go truly wild with some tasty primary sources or thesis-writing, there has to be SOME expectation that everyone is on the same proverbial (or literal) page, content-wise. Otherwise, they might as well all stay home and take the class online, dispelling the illusion that we’re a “class” and not just a bunch of people sharing classroom space here and there.

But the whole idea of “catching up” is problematic in and of itself. The student who was for whatever reason unwilling or unable to keep up last week isn’t usually primed to do double the reading, double the analysis, or even double the grunt-work this week. The increasingly common result is that they put off whatever they’re supposed to be doing NOW in order to scramble through stuff from last week – or the week before, or the one before that. The quality isn’t high because they’re rushing, even assuming they’re not just copying from their friends, who by that time have their assignments graded and returned.

Even in class, I’ll see students disengaged from what we’re doing today because they’re trying to plug a hole from two weeks ago. That means the pattern can’t help but continue because in a few weeks they’ll be pleading for some sort of make-up version of the stuff they WERE here for, but not ENGAGED in. And my heart will hurt for them, and I’ll be stupid and consider some sort of compromise, because I want them to make it.

There’s a good argument to be made for building personal responsibility and school skills and life skills as well via the relatively benign experience of actual deadlines and cutoffs; I haven’t even really wrestled with that aspect yet. Kannimayketup Swamp has pretty much dominated my concerns – probably because of all the damned irony involved.

There are ways to partially control for much of this, of course. Teachers develop all sorts of policies to circumvent student shenanigans or foolishness. Most require a diligence I don’t naturally manifest, and many involve detailed record-keeping and personal organization.

But one of the most effective might also be one of the simplest. I think I need to say “no” more often. No, you can’t turn that in late. Sorry. Sucks to be you.

Maybe I won’t add that last part. But there’s a freedom to knowing that it’s too late – a painful freedom, perhaps, but a freedom nonetheless. It’s like closing off some of the side roads so that the only path forward is through THIS HERE RIGHT NOW.

Of course there will be alternatives in some cases – ways to “earn” that opportunity. There will be special circumstances to which I’ll likely adjust. Maybe a few situations in which it just doesn’t seem right to—

And it starts all over again.

I’m not sure where I’ll land on this come August, but I do know that I’m not letting it completely slide another school year. Hard lines and organized expectations are NOT my strongest gifts, but I can do it if I genuinely believe it’s best for my kids.

And I think I do.

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Retaining Baby Teachers (A Tale of Ms. Hope)

June 29, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Teacher retention is a… challenge – ‘challenge’ here meaning ‘nightmare-of-impossibility-dear-god-what-are-we-going-to-do?!?’

If you’re a classroom teacher, many of the real problems (as is so often the case) are out of your direct control. The inane legislation. The crappy pay. The constant degradation from the ruling classes. Helicopter Parents. Entrenched poverty. Betsy DeVos. It can seem insurmountable.

Maybe it is.

But there are some things we can be aware of which might help us hang on to our baby teachers this coming year – some mindsets we could all stand to practice more regularly, even when interacting with our more experienced colleagues.

Don’t worry – I’m not a particularly touchy-feely-positive guy, even with newbies. Nor am I interested in forced sunshine and faux rainbows intended to ‘change the climate’ of a building. I do, however, care about the people teaching next door to me, and down the hall, and across the commons. I do, for reasons I can’t always explain, care about the kids we share throughout the day. It’s in that spirit that I offer the following humble observations and thoughts.

Let’s imagine a new baby teacher in your department this year. We’ll call her “Ms. Hope.”

You can spot the newness of Ms. Hope all the way across the faculty meeting. She’s adorable in a quirky-nervous way, well-intentioned and innocent despite her determination not to look it. She probably has a tasteful tattoo – a dragonfly on her shoulder or a Bible verse in Zulu underneath her many bracelets. She’s wearing a pencil skirt and her best upscale blouse in an attempt to balance stylishness and authority.

In her bag you see the spine of a Marzano book, an insulated water bottle, and what looks like a Blu-Ray of Freedom Writers. Had you met her in the parking lot, you’d discover she’s driving a sensible little Ford Focus and that she’d stopped at Starbucks for an extra-skim frozen go-gurt cappuccino cinnamon power-boost mocha grande with kale and fat-free whipped cream – her go-to drink in times of stress.

Ms. Hope may be inexperienced, but she’s sharp and determined and she means business. On Day One, when most of her veteran colleagues are droning through their syllabus and class expectations, she’s distributing a ‘Learning Styles Assessment’ or some sort of ‘Getting To Know One Another’ activity. And already, things are veering badly from what she’d envisioned in her planning.

“Can I write in transparent neon pink?”
“Is this a test? Is it for a grade? Will there be a lot of tests in here?”
“My mom says I’m not allowed to fill out paperwork without her approval because you’re trying to immunize me into believing the earth isn’t flat.”
“Is this Biology? I think I’m supposed to be in Biology.”
“¿Que esta pasando? ¿Qué se supone que debo hacer con esto?”

She’s quickly discovering that students are hard-wired to do everything in their power to convince us that they’re both helpless and complete idiots – even though they’re not. They think they want us to give up and go easy on them, but they really don’t – not in their core. It’s just that they’re not overly self-aware at this age. This clusterfoolery is all impulse and instinct on their part.

Ms. Hope’s first day doesn’t go well. Still, she’s back on Day Two eager to try again.

“OK, class – let’s get out that Learning Styles Assessment from yesterday and see if we can—”

“Were we supposed to bring that back?”
“My mom wants to know why we don’t have a syllabus and if the principal knows you’re using liberal psychology on us. She said not to trust liberal transgender socialist psychology.”
“My counselor never called me in about needing Biology this hour. Can I go ask to see her again?”
“¿Estás seguro de que tengo un estilo de aprendizaje? Miss? Miss?”

And on it goes.

Let’s fast-forward a few weeks, during which she puts on a brave face and tries a few different things in her efforts to get some positive momentum going. She stays late and cancels most of her social life as she wrestles through lesson plans and writing detailed feedback on mediocre student work. She genuinely wants to do well, and she’s not particularly bad for a newbie, all things considered. She’s even getting to know and love some of her kids individually, despite her difficulties managing them collectively.

You start to think maybe she’s gonna make it, until… THE DAY.

It’s not quite Fall Break. Ms. Hope rolls in a bit later than usual, in torn jeans and a college t-shirt with a cappuccino stain on the front. Her hair is pulled back in an uncharacteristic ponytail and she’s not wearing any makeup. She avoids your gaze and at first appears hungover until you realize it’s more likely that she spent the morning sobbing uncontrollably until she absolutely had to leave for work.

You wonder if you should have stepped up before now. Maybe you’ll ask if there’s anything–

That’s when Mrs. Mulligan wanders over and tut-tuts at the fresh meat she’s been eyeing, waiting for her moment.

It’s here.

“Oh, Honey… now, now. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
“I know they tell you all these things in teacher school about personal learning journeys and flipping off the classroom and changing the world, and that’s all fine – in theory, I suppose. But Sweets, those folks haven’t been in front of a classroom in a LOOOOOONG time. These kids aren’t like the kids in them books. This is real school.”

None of her claims are wrong, exactly – not entirely, at least – but she’s begun luring poor Ms. Hope into a damnable swamp of cynicism and shattered ideals. Her words are sympathetic on the surface, but what she’s really saying is that Ms. Hope needs to

lower

her

expectations

and

dial

back

her

ideals.

Forsake

her primary purpose –

at least mostly.

Mrs. Mulligan offers her a crossword puzzle (with a word bank) to keep the kids busy the rest of the day and promises to bring her entire stash of VHS tapes tomorrow – a year’s worth of documentaries and mini-series recorded from network TV all the way back to the 70s.

Folks, if we do this to our baby teachers – of if we stand aside and let it happen – I assure you, on the day our scantrons are finally run through that Great Grading Machine in the Sky, we will go to a very special level of Teacher Hell.

What could you have done instead?

Let’s rewind the tape to before Mrs. Mulligan stepped in. Before the torn jeans and stained t-shirt.

Let’s instead envision you dropping by briefly a couple of times a week to check in on your new colleague. She may or may not be entirely honest or open at first; no one wants to start a new job by looking incompetent. But you’re all about the open-ended questions and you smoothly rise to the occasion…

“What was that thing you were doing in class today? It looked interesting.”

Should she express frustration or confess failure, you resist the urge to simply tell her what you’d do instead. Suave like a beast, you take another approach:

“So, what was your primary goal? What were you hoping would happen?”

It’s especially important that this sounds as open-ended as it’s intended to be. No matter what the answer, you will of course maintain your best deeply-reflective-but-never-judgmental face. Give Ms. Hope some room to try stuff – that’s how greatness happens.

Eventually.

“What went well?”

As teachers, it’s natural to fixate on the handful of kids being difficult, or tuning out, or otherwise throwing off the plan. They matter, but how often are 25 students playing along, mostly cooperating, maybe even learning, while 3 or 4 shape our entire perception of the day?

“I wonder if there’s a better way to set that up so that more of them understand…”
“What do you think might make it more effective with those two classes you mentioned?”

Or even just…

“What have you tried?”

It’s possible Ms. Hope’s first lesson was too ambitious. Maybe she simply lacked the experience to pull it off. Some of her other strategies might work eventually, or she’ll stumble across new ideas to try.

What she should never feel is alone. Helpless. Stupid. Like she’s failed at the most important thing she’s tried so far.

I’m not against venting our frustrations to one another. Be real with one another and get it out. But if that’s the defining element of our peer interaction, we’re doing it wrong. Way, way wrong.

No one else is going to prop us up. A few administrators try, and are appreciated, but they’re not in our world – not exactly. There are well-intentioned parents who’ll say something kind from time to time. But by and large we’re on our own. Ms. Hope and her ilk are anathema to entrenched political authority, to principalities and powers and wickedness in high places – not because of her politics (we have no idea how she votes, nor do we care), but because she tries to teach children. Because she loves them all in spite of themselves. Because she believes in them even when no one else does, including themselves.

And she’s 23. Or 31. Or 56.

Let’s give her some backup. Let’s make it a point to be honest, to be real, to speak our minds behind closed doors, but to always always ALWAYS follow that up with “What COULD we try? What CAN we do? What IS worth rolling in tomorrow for?”

And perhaps, within a few short seasons, she’ll wander in your room one day and do the same for you.

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“Tank Man”

May 16, 2018June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

Some of you remember this guy. This moment.

It was June 1989. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had been in power for forty years, following decades of civil war against the Kuomintang (KMT), or Nationalist Party. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was declared in 1949 with Mao Zedong as its unquestioned first-among-equals; he ran the nation in ways both brutal and strange.

The KMT, led by Mao’s nemesis Chiang Kai-Shek, retreated to Taiwan, where they established Alt-China, or China Classic, and remained (in the eyes of the west) the officially recognized government until 1971. Despite being virulently anti-Communist, the KMT weren’t exactly “good guys” in this tale. Taiwan was under martial law for nearly forty years, led by a government in perpetual paranoia over potential spies or Commie sympathizers. In 1971, the United Nations finally said “screw it” and gave their seat to the PRC.

Within a few short years, China Major – the big, red part we all know and love today – went from a “Cultural Revolution” in which anyone insufficiently excited about Chairman Mao’s “Little Red Book” was assaulted, humiliated, or simply made to vanish, to welcoming President Nixon and celebrating the “thawing” of relations with the west. For the next few decades the U.S. and China took turns pretending to care about basic human rights, while China purchased a bunch of America’s debt – eventually rendering the whole “shared values” thing moot because neither could afford for the other to fall no matter what else they did.

China craved economic growth and global legitimacy, seeking the ideal mix of market forces and “Chinese Socialism.” They loosened their grip on the little people, hoping they’d behave on their own if they knew what was good for them. China even wrote itself a new constitution, adopted in 1982. It’s super-socialist, to be sure, but also rather ambitious in terms of protecting personal liberties.

In 1989 a popular politician by the name of Hu Yaobang died (he was 73 and had a heart attack – nothing nefarious). Hu was rebellious and relatively progressive, popular with idealists and college students – the Bernie Sanders of his day. Students and others took to the streets to mourn his passing and to speak out against those still alive and in power – and then against corruption, and against the party’s mistreatment of Hu while he was alive, and whatever else came to mind along the way.

That was late April.

The protests ebbed and flowed, and government response was inconsistent. Sometimes they cracked down and other times seemed open to discussions. Protestors were unpredictable as well. It’s complicated enough to be clear what you’re against; far trickier to consistently project what you’re for. There were hunger strikes, rallies, some violence, and lots of yelling.

Always with the yelling, those protestors.

By June 4th, the government had had enough. After several strong editorials warning the masses to wrap it up and get on with their carefully managed lives, troops were sent in to disperse the crowds. They rounded up some, but other times simply fired into the crowds. This wasn’t a situation where tensions built and someone’s moment of panic sparked a massacre; this was methodical military action carried out according to the wishes of their superiors.

Tanks then rolled into Tiananmen Square. Protestors who refused to move or who simply couldn’t get out of the way were rolled over – several reports say multiple times, so their remains could be literally hosed into the sewers rather than taken away and buried. Clearly China was sending a message about just how seriously all of this new “freedom” was to be taken – and they were willing to sacrifice their own citizens and a certain amount of reputation in the eyes of the world in order to do it.

The official death toll was 200 – 300. The Red Cross estimated 2,700. Recent memos between British and U.S. officials suggest an alarmingly specific 10,454 – dead at the hands of their own government.

China did its best to implement damage control with the international press. Reporters tell stories of their equipment being seized, their hotel rooms trashed, and their well-being threatened over the words and images they were determined to send back to their respective outlets. But It turns out that pesky liberal media can be quite heroic sometimes, no matter what flavor of corrupt, arrogant power is trying to shut them down this time.

That is why – against all odds – we have this footage from June 5th:

Who is he?

We don’t really know, although there are theories and conflicting reports. He may have been a 19-year old student named Wang Weilin, or he may not have been. He was definitely pulled away – but were they government agents, or sympathetic protestors trying to protect him? He may have been imprisoned, tortured, or killed, or he may have simply faded into obscurity and gone on with his life. We’ll probably never know.

Here’s what we do know. He had absolutely no reason to think those tanks were going to stop.

They hadn’t, the day before. As he stood there defiantly he could hear the gunshots and screams of other protestors paying for their defiance. It’s not clear where he came from or how he ended up alone in Tiananmen Square, facing off with destruction, but 20 years after “Tank Man” became an international symbol of… something, this photograph, taken from a different location several minutes before its more famous counterpart, was unearthed:

He’d decided.

He’d seen them coming, and he’d decided.

It looks like he was on his way back from the grocery store or something, doesn’t it? One of the 20th century’s most iconic rebels seems to be wielding… fresh citrus and minty dental floss!

I’m particularly impressed that he had the gumption to climb up on the tank and – it seems – yell down to the men inside it.

I’m probably projecting a bit – idealizing the event – but the more I watch it, the more convinced I am that he was refusing to limit the interaction to human vs. machine. I think he’s up there insisting that inside the machine are other men. Other Chinese. Other citizens. Other humans. I think he’s demanding they own up to their role, that they confront him, or answer to him, on behalf of the people.

Like I said, projecting.

He didn’t stop the tanks. We can’t reasonably connect his actions to the saving of any lives. At best, he slowed down one segment of a long, complex series of horrors for about five minutes.

Nothing changed in China’s policies, tactics, or narrative. The Tiananmen Square Massacre is scrubbed from all internet searches and prohibited in all texts. If “Tank Man” lived past his asymmetrical showdown, it’s supremely unlikely he had any idea that his actions had been viewed or discussed by anyone not there that day. Even if he’s alive and well today somewhere in China, odds are he has no idea that he’s an iconic photograph or world history talking point.

Whatever his fate, he leaves us with a rather disquieting question…

Did it matter?

Did his efforts accomplish anything? Was his defiance worth the risk? Did he have the slightest impact, that day or the years to come? Did he alter or improve his society, his government, or his world?

Sure, he’s in the history books, but so is Chester Arthur (in the appendix, at least). So are entire paragraphs explaining the distinctions between feudalism and manorialism. So are Anastasia’s sisters. I love history, but I doubt my world changed one way or the other because Olga Romanova showed up for picture day.

So… did “Tank Man” matter?

I’ve never stood in front of a tank, or willingly put myself in any danger more substantial than voicing my opinion of an outfit my wife was trying on. I’d never be “Tank Man.” Simply put, I lack the courage.

He makes my challenges seem so silly and small. He makes my struggles seem so… safe.

We teach. We listen. We blog. We share. We love and we sacrifice, we rework and retry. We stand here with our little bags and our inflated gumption and we demand that the bad things stop. We insist that humanity come out, own up, and take over, knowing that it usually doesn’t. We often lose. We often fail. And when we do stumble into a win, there’s no one snapping contraband photos.

Like “Tank Man,” I’m not sure we’re changing anything. It’s very unlikely anyone’s even watching – or that if they are, that they understand what we’re trying to do, or why it matters.

Unlike “Tank Man,” the odds that I’ll be crushed by a military vehicle for my efforts are very, very slim. I may wonder if my state retirement is being properly invested, but while Indiana doesn’t love public education any more than Oklahoma does, they’re not out to end my life and torture my family to drive the point home.

So that’s a plus.

Still, I keep wondering – the soldiers in those tanks, the politicians making those decisions, the protestors lingering near the square, or the millions who’ve stared at that picture since… were they in some way changed by his wild, desperate efforts? Is there any way he could have imagined, or that any of us can know, whether any of what we’re doing so much as nudges the world in the direction we so desperately need it to go?

The whole thought process can be rather crippling.

And yet, it seems I’m still talking about “Tank Man” thirty years later. He makes me want to risk more and care harder.

So… I suppose I have my answer.

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Teacher Tired

May 7, 2018June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I’m tired.

Not depressed tired. Not complaining tired. Not even angry tired – not this time. Just… tired.

Teacher tired.

Meghan Loyd used this term a while back, and – like Meghan – it’s captivated me ever since. It’s just so true.

This isn’t one of those “our job is harder than anyone else’s” posts. I don’t know if it is. I used to be wiped coming home after a day in retail, managing a small music store, but it was different – more of a “I-hate-my-life-and-resent-everyone-who-walks-in-and-that’s-probably-not-a-good-career-sign” tired. I used to reach near-zombie states when I was in an ambitious local band back in the day, but that was a sweatier “thank-god-Whataburger-is-open-at-3-a.m.-but-I’ll-suffer-for-this-in-the-morning” type of exhaustion.

I’m not interested in trying to one-up anyone else’s tired. I lack the interest or the energy. But I would like to look for a moment at this particular flavor of semi-somnambulation – “teacher tired.”

Some of it’s physical. Despite what popular blogs and edu-books tell you, we still spend an enormous amount of time each day on our feet, moving, speaking, listening, observing, gauging, considering, adjudicating, and otherwise trying to juggle-inspire-drag-trick-cajole a barrel of disparate children into learning – often against their deepest wills and wants. There are very few lesson plans so clever that once wound up and let go, they pretty much run the room themselves the rest of the day. So yeah – we’re tired at the end of the day.

Some of it’s mental. No matter how well you know your pedagogy or content, your mind pulls a half-dozen directions throughout the day as you try to keep track of what you’re saying or what’s being said, what you’re doing or what’s being done, who looks engaged and who doesn’t, what seems to be working and what doesn’t, and whether or not you’ve already made that joke or if that was the other three times today.

There are constant interruptions, perpetual paperwork, and endless bureaucratic requirements you’re expected to manage before, after, and during each class without losing whatever flow you’ve managed to establish with your kids. And the questions – you just never know what kids are going to ask, or why. You don’t want to shoot down some odd-but-sincere inquiry due to your own impatience or paranoia, but neither do you want to cater to inattentiveness or intentional distraction. Are they suddenly curious about this tangential issue, or are they just being squirrels? Should you nurture their individualized learning urges, or are they screwing with you and snickering in their dark, twisted souls?

So yeah – it’s a taxing gig even on the best days.

Not that you let it show. Whatever else you are during the school day, you are – for better or worse – one of their primary models for what an educated adult with some sense of personal and professional responsibility looks and sounds like. It’s not about being “fake”; it’s about maintaining the dynamics, expectations, and positive energy required to keep school moving along and more-or-less on track.

I dunno, maybe some of you need only unleash a single dose of “the learning” on your eager wards, then hiply sit on your desk offering pithy insights and witty redirection as they sprout and thrive intellectually and interpersonally. Most of us, however, are running some version of a hybrid engine – drawing on our personal reserves to supplement the student energy which we’re pretty sure should be doing most of the work but… their batteries must be in backwards, or something.

I myself find it particularly difficult to stare every day at so much ability, so much – pardon the cliché – potential, knowing many of them can’t or won’t see it. Some will, eventually, but others will never use it or value what they could be.

It’s draining to watch kids in whom you are deeply invested kick and drag and protest and resist even when you KNOW they could spend half-as-much energy just playing along. Yes, the system is flawed. Yes, the structure is limiting. Of course, the inane and the mandated infect it all. But there’s still beauty and truth and meaning and function in so much of it – OH THE POSSIBILITIES!!! They just can’t (or won’t) see it, and you can’t make them. It’s exhausting. Ask any of us.

I don’t think teachers are martyrs by any stretch, but it’s an emotional sacrifice to remain politically and socially vigilant, rebuking principalities and powers and determined ignorance in high places. Yes, we chose this – a profession built on willful delusion and deep convictions, standing awkwardly against whatever rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem this time around. We insist on believing that all kids have value, and can learn, and that they’re not all the same. We refuse to reduce them to “meat widgets” whose only function in this life is to serve their corporate overlords. (And before someone asks, of course we want them to be employed and make themselves useful; we just don’t believe that’s our sole source of meaning and purpose in this fallen world.)

Turns out being a bunch of godless, un-American heretics is tiring. And I’ve avoided the hardest part.

I have no interest in compiling tales of woe and suffering on behalf of my students. Besides, they’re not my stories to tell. They belong to those who live them, and press through them, and who are one way or the other shaped by the sheer volume of darkness some of them deal with before puberty. IT’S JUST SO WRONG.

We can talk about “snowflakes” and say “back in my day” and post memes about 18-year-olds fighting in Vietnam, and that’s all fine – like I said before, I’m not interested in “winning” this one. But I’m not all that convinced our generation turned out nearly as polished and durable as we like to suggest, given the state of things at the moment. Maybe being thrown in that pool, hit with that belt, and shot at in that swamp didn’t make us tough and self-reliant so much as, say… callous a-holes and opioid addicts addicted to porn and reality TV. But damn those weaklings for not wanting to follow in our footsteps, right?

I have too many students who are expected to excel at everything they do, and who do everything. It’s unsustainable because they hate all of it and resent the people who make them keep doing it. I refuse to doubt parental good intentions, but if I had the power to do so, I’d beg them to CHILL THE %#*& OUT. Tell your kids you love them and they’re doing a good job and you’re proud of them, and you know they’re not going to end up like they did – or like their older brother – or like their dad who left way back when, or whatever. You can nudge them towards excellence later, Mom – you’re losing them and they’re losing it and more pushing won’t fix it.

I have too many kids in the middle of custody disputes, or living with friends of their Aunt because they couldn’t all sleep in the car any more, or whose parents are alcoholics, or who are in counseling for things they don’t want to deal with, or who refuse to go to counseling to begin with. Girls who’ve been booted from their social circle or left by the boy they trusted enough to do things for and who lack the support system to cope with the emotional fallout. Half of my boys are baby giraffes trying to emulate their favorite YouTube channel all day and the other half think they’re Danny Zuko in Grease. Somewhere inside of that, though, they’re freaking out a little because neither is working.

I have kids wrestling with depression – something I’d long ago accepted was a very real thing, but which I simply could not appreciate until watching it so closely this year. I’ve had to call child services to report abuse while trying to maintain the trust of students who fear I’ve just made their lives worse instead of better (and who may not be wrong). I have kids who handle their own poverty rather casually, leaving me unsure whether it’s a front or whether they’ve simply had to step up and “be the adult” in their situation. Many who work, many more responsible for siblings, far too many who have no reasonable options for at least the next two or three years, and I have to focus on “yeah but once you graduate…!”

Sometimes it’s self-imposed pressure to get into the right college and find the right career, whatever that means at 15. Sometimes it’s fear of parents finding out about a single quiz grade, even if their class average remains stellar. Some are just whiney and entitled, but that’s harder than you’d think to untangle from fear, or desperation, or something else I can’t quite put my finger on. Some of my kids I don’t understand at all, even this late in the year – so that’s unforgiveable.

We love them all – sometimes naturally, sometimes by force of will. You try to leave it at the door when you leave – boundaries and self-care and all that. The gig does have its upsides – those moments they “get it” are nice, as are those few times you feel like something you’ve said or done has helped a young person find some sort of direction or hope. Also, I get to learn and talk about history for a living. I love my job – most of us do.

But I’m tired. I suspect you are, too. We might as well own it.

I’m going for coffee. Want one?

The Problem With Linear Reality (You Can’t Go Back)

April 29, 2018June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’… into the future.
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’… into the future.

One of the sobering things about edu-bloggery – or social media in general – is how hard it can be to keep up when your tangible, so-called “real” world gets crazy. Far more humbling, though, is that when you DO fall away for a time (slowly, and then all at once), the entire apparatus and most of those involved keep right on going just fine.

Which is rude.

It would be ridiculous, of course, to expect any less. And despite my substantial ego, that’s not actually the difficult part. You see, I miss it. The writing and the editing, the labor and the self-loathing. I miss the reworking, the doubting, the publishing, and the connecting.

There were times I’d knock out several posts a week and discover that thousands of you were reading and sharing them. Other times I’d labor for days over such pith and profundity that I doubted there were words or emotions left in the universe for others to use… and manage a good three or four dozen views. Sometimes the most amazing conversations would start in the comments; other times it was that same bit of misspelled spam from some college essay writing service in Russia.

The numbers weren’t really the point, though. It was the process. The struggle. The recurring leap.

It helped me reflect, and to clarify thoughts and emotions. It brought me into contact with some of the most AMAZING people. It forced growth, and – if I’m being honest – it far too often left me snickering endlessly over some clever phrase or another which I’d somehow managed to wring out.

And then real life asserted itself.

I took a new position this school year, in a state far, far away, teaching something I’ve not actually taught before. I love our new home, and the area, and my co-workers, and my kids. I’m glad we made the move – especially given the new lows to which the Oklahoma Legislature is attempting to sink.

That being said, this year has completely kicked my ass. It’s mocked me and broken me and shamed me and frustrated me, leaving me without cab fare and not calling for weeks at a time. I scribbled about this previously, but in retrospect, I think I dialed back the intensity a bit in an effort to maintain my own little ‘growth mindset.’ And while I don’t mind ranting, I prefer to provide you, my Eleven Faithful Followers, with the sort of witty, contrary-but-inspirational Blue magic you and I have both come to adore.

Now that the annual reboot looms, however, I confess that the learning curve of a new subject was much more intense than I anticipated. My pedagogy and strategies and years of experience seemed suddenly seemed rather… shallow – perhaps even fraudulent – like I’d been skating by on audacity and circumstance and confusing it for talent. Above all, my inability to more quickly figure out my kids and adjust to what they REALLY needed and where they were was simply…

Well, it was unforgiveable.

“Don’t beat yourself up, Blue – you did the best you could. You probably made more of a positive difference than you realized some days.”

Yeah, I probably did. But that doesn’t make it OK. They needed more. They needed better. I absolutely must go back and redo this year – to fix some of it, and try better things.

But that’s the problem with linear reality – we can only learn forward. We can only change in one direction, and even those efforts are based on limited, often flawed perceptions and information.

There are those who insist that if they COULD go back and change anything about their lives, they wouldn’t do it – because those experiences are what made them who they are today.

Pshaw.

Nonsense.

Hockey of the horse.

I’d go back in a heartbeat, several times if necessary, and I’d change so very many things, over and over until I figured out what might work – how much more I could accomplish; how much less damage I could do.

But no.

Time is marching on. And time… is still marching on.
You’re older than you’ve ever been, and now you’re even older. And now you’re even older. And now you’re even older. And now you’re older still.

It’s the time of year that kids start coming to me for “make-up work,” wanting to know what they can still turn in. Whatever my past failings, I do sometimes learn, and two decades have taught me that it’s generally pointless to give students a pile of old assignments to complete NOW – out of context, and in bulk. That’s not really how learning works.

“Here’s that Quarter Pounder with no pickle you asked for three weeks ago” isn’t exactly a life skill, but then again neither is “sorry you fail there’s no hope for you now guess you shoulda done it when you had the chance cackle cackle.” One alternative I’ve come to like, depending on the student and the surrounding circumstances, is to suggest that rather than get bogged down in what they should have been doing two weeks ago, they focus this sudden burst of concern into THIS week’s work, THIS week’s discussions, THIS week’s activities. Give me one good week (sometimes two), at least 80% of your energy each day, mostly keeping up with whatever we’re doing now, and if that happens, well…

Maybe one or two of those old zeroes can go away. Maybe the next quiz can count double – as itself, and in place of that last quiz you bombed. That sort of thing.

It shouldn’t be easy, of course. Straying from the course comes at a cost, especially when it’s a result of willfully poor choices. But it should be possible – at least in most situations. I mean, I don’t know how your gig works, but I don’t get paid any extra for assuring kids in March that they’re mathematically doomed and they should appreciate what a valuable long-term life lesson this is as they come to class for no possible reason the rest of the year.

In case you’re worried, I don’t think we do them any favors when we go to the other extreme and shield them completely from their own irresponsibility, either. It’s an imperfect balance, and there’s no “rule” to it that fits all situations or all types of kids.

Nothing we do is that simple. Ever. Which is exhausting.

You failed – you sunk like Jonah to the whale. Big mouths follow behind you; still small voice swallowed up by you
You failed – you picked the right time to fail – got your past behind you; got your future in front of you
You can’t go back. You can’t go back. You can’t go back.
You can go on…

I have several students who are starting to nail down college plans – where to go, whether or not to swim for this school or keep doing drama at that university. Even those with several good options struggle, partly because they’re starting to realize a rather painful lesson of semi-adulthood:

For ever choice you make, every path to which you commit, there are multiple other options you aren’t taking. You can sometimes change, but for the most part, you’ll never really know for sure what those other paths would look like – you can’t save the game and replay this level later using a different strategy. It’s forward… always.

Nor are there always “right” and “wrong” choices. Sometimes all of your options are bad, but you must nevertheless commit one way or the other. Sometimes a half-dozen different roads look fine, but you can only take one at a time and at best see through the grass darkly what lies along each.

We just have to learn to be OK with this, and to make the best call we can, then WALK BOLDLY AND WITHOUT LOOKING BACK (unless it’s to learn a bit from what’s back there without getting mired down, of course).

Sometimes you screw up. Sometimes you just don’t know better. And sometimes you do the wrong thing even when you knew it was a bad idea. Whatever the reason, the options are all forward. In that sense, they’re all in one basic direction.

So it’s almost summer. Some things will change dramatically soon, others will just keep plodding along. Maybe it was a good year for you; maybe you can’t wait for this one to end. Maybe you did amazing things, or maybe you just can’t believe how few things actually worked out the way you’d hoped. Could be it’s time for a change – but is it a change of paths, or of attitudes and mindsets along your path? Do you need to take a deeper look at your own stuff, or cut yourself a little more slack and realize you’re working miracles with what you’ve been given?

Hell, maybe it’s all of the above, and more, all tangled up at once. It happens.

But forward we go, my beloveds. Forward.