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“The Waiting is the Hardest Part”

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Damn you, Tom Petty. For all your pot smoking, hippie living, half-open mouth singing, you were a troubadour of the first rate. And your simple words reveal a simple and profound truth: waiting can be really, really hard. I’m currently waiting on a number of things: Christmas, my wife’s full recovery from surgery three and the return to “normal” that brings, being in my classroom as a lead teacher (I’ve had a wonderful student teacher this past semester), a new puppy in the early summer, the next new-to-me album to blow my socks off, snow, another fishing trip with my brother from another mother, my eldest to choose a college and begin the next stage of his journey.  I imagine most people have similar lists. Of course, I could keep drudging up other things for which I’m waiting as I’m sure you could. But that’s not what I want to write about.  Where my head is currently is that I don’t always know what to do with the list I carry in my head and heart. Maybe its better to say, ...
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Bitterness and Blessings

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  I’m still learning how to be a happy person. One of my biggest challenges is that I sit in the shadows of my mistakes. I’d like to embrace Ted Lasso’s great advice to “be a goldfish” and forget my mistakes, but sometimes the allure of bitterness is too much for my better nature.   When I linger in negativity, I put up my defenses and point out to myself all the things that are wrong in the world, deflecting my responsibility. I have a psychic missile defense shield that intercepts any threat,  real or perceived, and eliminates it with a laser of focused psychic energy before it can reach me. Theoretically it brings me protection from outside threats. In reality, it perpetuates violence because in a position of defense, everything begins to look like a threat and must be destroyed.  Like I said, I’m still learning how to be happy. And how to communicate. A few months ago my wife began undergoing treatment for cancer and I became even more fully vested in protecting ...
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Living Lessons

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  I knew a girl in high school. I didn't know her as well as others. A good friend of mine loved her.  She lit up the room, the stage, my good friend's face. She was talented, bright, funny. She was one of a kind, but you know others like her. One night she got in the car parked in her garage, turned the key, set down a couple letters next her, pressed play and sat back. The garage door was closed.  I don't remember the rest of the story. I don't remember who found her. She had been dead for a while. I don't even remember how old she was.  But this isn't about her death.  25 years later I knew another girl. I didn't know her as well as others.  A friend of mine who doesn't do handshakes with students had a special handshake with her.  She lit up the room, the hallway, her friends' faces. She was talented, bright, funny. She was one of a kind, but you know others like her. One day she was in a car, the back seat. We think the impact killed her immedia...
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"And Justice for all"

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  Institutions are funny things, especially public institutions. Take public schools. They are supposed to stand for something, but not take a stance on anything. Say the pledge everyday but don't argue about what "and justice for all" means. School boards can be political, but the districts they govern should carry out political decisions without political motivation.  But there is an uncomfortable and untenable situation in my community on which public institutions should take a stance. In 2021 our county board voted against declaring our county “A Community for All” in response to the growing national discussion prompted by the public murder of George Floyd, citing reverse-discrimination. (Read the New York Times coverage  here .)  More recently, controversy has erupted in a local district over the alleged use of racial slurs and insensitive comments toward our Hmong population by a band teacher. The teacher was recently reinstated with what appears to be full sup...
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If I could say the right thing at the right time

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Teachers need to know when to inspire, challenge, chide or advise. I certainly don't claim to bat 1.000%, but I also try to observe and maintain the courage to say the things students need to hear. And I'm a firm believer that prompting a student to wonder what the hell I mean is a powerful move.  At the risk of sounding pretentious, I'm including a list of aphorisms. I share it not to suggest I'm clever or wise, but, as always, to encourage reflection.  Your value as a human being is not defined by a test score or a grade.  Your teachers don't have all the right answers. If they say they do, they're lying to you and themselves.  School won't save you, but it will expand you.  The research schools show you is data that correlates to what they call success. The research they don't show you often unravels that definition of success. You are the pinnacle of millions of years of evolution. Your presence is a miracle. You are surrounded by miracles. Embrace t...
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The Personal and the Political: Part IV

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  Schoolhouse in Ripon, WI. Birthplace of the Republican party. I'll be up front. Every lesson taught in a public education classroom is political. Every last blessed one. I cannot even conceive of any possible lesson that isn't planned, housed and implemented with political signification. School itself is a political institution and education has always been a political function with a political purpose, so to suggest that it should be free from political implication is equivalent to saying a professional football game should be free from competition. The very definition of oxymoron.  Let me present a few oversimplified observations:  History classes are selective narrative.  Science classes instruct the "Scientific Method", a particular and limited method of observing and describing the world as well as the descriptions it produces.  English classes and the national tests that go with them reinforce hegemonic linguistic patterns of privilege and power.  G...
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The Personal and the Political: Part III

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  My junior level history students recently watched  Duck and Cover,  a nine minute instructional film made by the Civil Defense Administration and the National Education Association in 1951. The purpose of the film is to teach students how to best protect themselves in the event of a nuclear attack.  One scene depicts a boy, maybe nine years old, in a white button down shirt and tie throwing himself under his school desk and covering the back of their head with folded hands. Another scene shows a girl in jacket and head scarf in the street asking an older gentleman for directions to the nearest bomb shelter as air raid sirens begin. Other scenes include an older boy leaping off his bike to shield himself against a curb, students playing stick ball at recess hearing the sirens and a gathering of young neighbors dispersing to their own homes under the air raid sirens. My colleagues and I play the film to teach our students about the Cold War, specifically th...
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