The Forest for the Trees

Our Northwoods school was blessed recently with a presentation from civil rights activist Joan Trumpauer Mulholland. Joan was an integral part of many consequential civil rights demonstrations, especially from 1960-1965 when she participated in the 1962 Freedom Rides, 1963 Sit-Ins and the 1964 Freedom Summer. Joan told the story of her decision to work for civil rights when she was 10 years old and took an intrepid walk through the woods to the "other" side of town.  She continues this work today by traveling and sharing her story. While there are many amazing stories of Joan's life, I'd rather take a moment to reflect on the impact of her work.  Joan shared a phrase she uses to describe the nature of her work: "a ripple in a pond."  The metaphor speaks for itself, but let's look at the some of the ripples. A white girl from Mississippi makes black friends in 1960. Think of the questions, looks, threats from strangers, friends, family.  To mak...

To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day.  Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy.   But think about it. If you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.                                                                            - Jimmy Valvano, March 4, 1993 The passion and vivacity of Jimmy Valvano's words as he accepted the first Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award on March 4, 1993 are a call to live and love fully with each breath even against the worst of o...

There is an educational debate raging in our neck of the woods. The debate centers around the best way to assess student learning and the communication that follows.  Anyone following educational trends (yawn) knows our Northwoods school district is representative of a national debate. And like most trends in the nation, this debate presents differently depending on the cultural milieu in which it occurs. While the debate doesn't exactly arouse strong feelings in lay people, it represents a foundational principle of society important to everyone:  What does it mean to know something? How can I know that you know? At the risk of getting in over my head, it's safe to say that teachers, learners, philosophers, poets, leaders, and just about everyone has wrestled with this question in some manner or another.  And while I don't pretend to have the complete answer to such an ageless and impossible question, it seems to me that classrooms, as microcosms of society...

Once upon a time I asked questions at meetings. Over the years of teaching I had developed this silly practice in the classroom of asking students questions to challenge and clarify their thinking. Maybe it was a naive assumption, or maybe it was an inability to code switch, but I carried that practice of questioning into meetings. And I was indiscriminate. I questioned colleagues, administrators, curriculum coordinators, health insurance reps, superintendents.  I didn't really care what position a person had. It was irrelevant.  I cared about what they were telling me and, more importantly, why they were telling me this.  Unfortunately, this behavior is often interpreted as a personal attack by many people in positions of authority.   Now that my wife is an administrator, I see better and empathize more with the precarious, vulnerability inherent in positions of authority. Now I'll confess some of those questions were worded aggressively. And, to be hon...

We have been hit with the coldest weather in decades here in the Northwoods. Noses are running, fireplaces blazing and turkeys freezing in their roost.  We started the week with a perfectly timed snow storm and gusting winds, forcing school to close on Monday. We braved the sub zero temps on Tuesday (quadratics don't teach themselves, people), but when the sun went down Tuesday, the wind came up. School was preemptively cancelled for Wednesday and Thursday as well as all after school activities. Even businesses are closing. You know its bad when bars close in Wisconsin. In the last few hours it has warmed to feel like a balmy -40 F. So in the course of nine days, including the two weekends, we will have had school on two of those days with at least two days off between. While I can't downplay the importance of rest, the schedule certainly throws a wrench into planning and instructing.  But I can use that wrench to loosen my need for control and tighten my focus on the b...

In the secondary world of central Wisconsin, we're cautiously measuring one semester while we renew hopes for the next. While most people do this kind of thinking two or three weeks earlier around the calendar change, teachers live in a different time.  A new semester brings new hopes, new students and new inspirations. Part I: My esteemed colleague, Mr. Hansen, and I are embarking on another new course called Innovation and Creation.  Three years of hope is wrapped up in this course.  Not to say that we've got three years of preparation, but we've got three years of hope.  And while I understand the old proverb "You can hope in one hand and shit in the other and see which has more," my hopes here are different. They aren't some flaky and fleeting adolescent desire.  They aren't about what will happen to me or the class, not about what my administrators think or about any Educator Effectiveness evaluations. I think I can say with sincerity that my ...

Whenever I brought a new friend home as a teen to hang out and meet my family, my friend would eventually say to me, "Why is your dad so angry?" I would be puzzled by the question. After the third time I grew increasingly dismissive of it. "He isn't angry," I'd say.  "That's just the way he is." And now, as a teacher, I invited my father into my classroom to show students "the way he is." Because they won't find another person with the same passion, knowledge and experience base, integrity and faith. See, my father is a guy cut from a different cloth.  He's an old farm boy; he's a cyborg with a heart pump.  He's a pastor; he's an introvert. He's talented; he's timid. More than anything, he is intense.  He feels fully, always. And that feeling exudes from him.  It's why people listen to him when he speaks.  It's why people respond, positively or negatively, to the things he does and say...

The last time I remember my parents being in my classroom was when they dressed up as clowns in my...2nd grade? 1st Grade?...classroom. They were great. The class played a game, racing to make mummies by wrapping each other in toilet paper. We bobbed for apples. We had treats and milk.  I smiled a lot.  So did everyone else. Over thirty years later, I invited my parents to my classroom again.  They were great. I was totally confident in my parents to pull off a spontaneous invite. My father was a Presbyterian pastor for 33 years.  My mother was married to a pastor for 33 years.  I'm not sure which calling demands more resourcefulness, resilience or improvisation. When they settled into comfortable chairs in front of 40 students, they sure seemed at ease.  The students didn't know what to make of it, but that's because they're students. As soon as my mother began answering the first question, kids were hooked.  She doesn't recognize this...