Tinkerings

This past Sunday my mom, daughter #2, grandchild #1, and I hopped into the car and drove up to Nashville to see daughter #1 in a play entitled, “Secrets of a Soccer Mom.”  (Hence the asterisk after “Review” in the title.  I will admit up front that I am most than just a little biased).
“Secrets of a Soccer Mom” is a snapshot of three moms sharing an afternoon at their children’s soccer field.  Although I’ve never really seen (or even heard of) a soccer day where the mom’s form teams to play against their children, that is the premise of this story, and it is an important part of what is going on.

The play alternates beautifully between funny and touching.  There were a couple of times I was wiping a small tear out of my eye, and trying my best to do it in such a way that no one noticed.

Throughout the play, we get to see the intricate personalities of moms, wives, and women in general.  The way they are overly concerned about making sure that everyone is happy.  The way they hold want to hold back to make sure the kids win because they are convinced that is what their kids need.  The frustrations they feel for giving up their individual “lives” to be everything to everyone.  The way they feel “stuck” with no way out at times even though they love their husbands and their kids totally and completely.  The difficulty they have in getting out complete sentences because their focus is always on the kids.

In addition to personal struggles, we also catch glimpses of small triumphs along the way.  I was reminded of the movie, “The Holiday,” and Kate Winslet’s search for “gumption.”  These ladies have it, but they lose sight of it at times, or maybe forget that its ok to use it.

I thoroughly enjoyed the play.  The three stars were fabulous, and the script was terrific.  If you are in the Nashville area, check out Secrets of a Soccer Mom playing at the Looby Theater.  It will be there for a couple more weeks.  They also have a FB page where you can get more information.

I will be headed back to Nashville this Sunday for 2 days of training.  I plan to leave early enough to see it again.  It starts at 2:30.  Come on down and join me.  Then we’ll all go get coffee afterwards and you can tell me how much Brittany reminds you of me!

Being sick is absolutely  no fun.  Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is itching for a fight.  Yesterday I came down with what I can only describe as a severe head cold.  I couldn’t breathe.  My eyes were watery.  My nose alternated between clogged and runny.  And my fever came and went throughout the day.  On the advice of my principal, I got hold of a substitute teacher who had been at our school in the morning and offered her an afternoon of work so I could go lay down.

After about an hour’s nap, I felt a little better, and my nose had completely stopped running.  Instead, it felt like a concrete truck had poured a full load of high impact concrete into my sinus cavities.  It was awful.  I tried to drink liquids, but nearly died from suffocation while drinking water simply because there was no way for air to get into my nasal passages.  It was awful.

This morning, after an Allegra D and a squirt of Afrin nose spray, I am better.  I can breathe.  My fever is gone.  My eyes are still a bit hazy from it all, but overall I’m probably an 8 out of 10 on a wellness scale.

It did, however, make me think (what doesn’t, right?).

How many times are kids in our classes that should be at home.  Maybe they want to go home, but their parents can’t come get them.  Or perhaps they are over achievers and want to stay at school no matter what.  If they felt half as bad as I did, it wouldn’t be any wonder if they were not able to concentrate or do the work I set out for them.

Sometimes I forget that these are children in  my care.  I’m more than just a teacher to some of them.  I’m a role model.  A friend.  A big brother.  And sometimes I’m a parent.

Being sick yesterday and today has reminded me just how vulnerable some of my students are in this world.  I hope I can take better care of them as a result.

Even before reading Nicholas Carr’s poignant article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” in the Atlantic, I have been struck with the gnawing realization that we are slowly but surely degrading critical thinking skills through technology.  This is not the fault of schools or parents or even kids.  It is a naturally occurring phenomenon that is both insipid and insidious.

When I was a child in the 60s (born in 1958), technology was pretty limited.  We had 3 channels on the TV (sometimes 4 if you count the local UHF channel), a radio, and a record player.  Yes, those were the days when kids played outside with one another and the ear bud, if thought of at all, was a gnat that flew into your ear canal.

Kids had imaginations.  They thought.  They figured things out.

Think about it in terms of music alone.

When I was young, music was something we heard.  We had to use our minds to imagine what the band looked like.  We made up mini-movies in our heads that went with the lyrics.  Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds had a different video for each mind that hummed it.

Then came the Midnight Special and MTV.  Suddenly, we weren’t forced to make this stuff up any longer.  The band was in our living room in all their sweaty, long-haired, torn-clothes glory.  Video Killed the Radio Star didn’t just kill a star.  It killed our need to imagine a story.  And our brains got stupid.

Today, we have no need to commit facts to our brains.  Let Me Google That For You is not only a modern catch phrase, but a fantastic site to use for those too lazy to even look stuff up for themselves.  6th graders arrive at middle school with few, if any, multiplication facts committed to memory.  Why would they?  They have calculators (or WolframAlpha).  There is no need to remember important dates or historical facts.  Wikipedia stands at the ready.

Henri Nouwen, my 2nd favorite author behind Kurt Vonnegut, Jr (what a combination), wrote that all decisions are laden with life and death.  The key to successful living is to make decisions that contain more life than death.

Technology comes with life and death.  We must integrate technology into the classroom.  It is the future, and the future is now.  We cannot ignore it.  But we must also realize the death that comes with it and be prepared to combat that with every sinew of our educational beings.

We have to find a way to allow the technology to spawn creativity again (see Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk on how education is killing creativity).  It is through creativity that critical thinking is born, enhanced, and maintained.

Is Google making us stupid?  Is technology destroying critical thinking?  What do you think?  Leave me a comment.

Tomorrow is February 2nd: Groundhog Day.  It is the day when we finally learn if we will have more winter weather or if spring is about to start.  And that decision rests entirely on the shoulders of one groundhog somewhere up in Pennsylvania.

I can’t think of Groundhog Day without letting my mind wonder to the classic movie starring Bill Murray. In the movie, Murray plays a weatherman who wakes up at 6:00 AM each morning and is doomed to relive the same day over and over again until he gets it right.  It is up there in my top 20 movies of all time I suppose.

Sometimes I think about this movie when I get up on days that are not February 2nd.  The alarm goes off at the same time it did yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that.  I lay in bed and wonder how the classes of the day will go.  Will it be more of the same?  Will I just live yesterday over again?  Or will something extraordinary happen?

This is not a fair thing to do.  After all, my students are all waking up to a new day as well.  The circumstances of their lives will have an impact on whether they wake up happy or angry, peaceful or sad, hungry or full, fulfilled or longing.  Currently, I have about 135 students during the day.  That’s 135 different variables that come to bear on my day.  I am not that good at math, but I would say that gives me somewhere in the billions of chances for a unique blend of personalities and events to make this day totally unlike any other.

So why do I wake up wondering if I’m in the Groundhog Day movie?  That fault, my friends, lies totally with me.  I am either open to a new set of circumstances, or I manipulate my own fate to make my day boring and repetitive.

I have the power to create the day I want to have.  I can choose Yogi Berra’s “Deja Vu all over again,” or I can embrace “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

And so can you.

See you in the morning around the Groundhog Hole.

The other day I got this in an email from Education Week.  A digital, online magazine sent me a digital subscription request but offered me two small printed maps as a “thank you.”  You would think they would be savvy enough to do something digital to use in the classroom.  Wall maps are so last semester.  I mean, come on.  Get real.

The new semester at school has started, and so far things are looking good.  Of course, kids have only been here for 2 days.  And there’s a chance we’ll miss this Friday (or maybe even part of Thursday) due to inclement weather.  But I digress….

My schedule is much different than last semester.  In the Fall I had six back to back classes (3 7th grade classes and 3 6th grade classes) with a planning period at the very end of the day.  Those kinds of days can get really tiring in a hurry.  This semester I have 1 7th grade classes and 4 8th grade classes.  I have three classes, then lunch duty, then lunch, then planning, then 2 more classes.  So, I get a pretty long break in the middle of the day to regroup, refresh, and rethink what is happening in my room.

I would never have believed it, but this year my 8th graders are much better behaved than my 6th graders were.  I mean, I know we are only 2 days into the semester, but you can size up kids pretty quick at times.  I’m thinking my blood pressure will stay somewhere near normal most of the semester.

Of course, anytime I get to teach the Career Ed part of my classes (8th graders only), things go pretty good.  Kids are engaged.  It is always changing.  Lots of good discussions.  And I feel like I’m truly accomplishing something for nearly everyone’s education by assisting with their 4-year plans for high school.  There are few things in life more satisfying than feeling like you’ve really helped someone (whether they know you have or not).

I will keep you updated throughout the semester and let you know if this honestly is my best semester yet!

It is nearly the end of 2009.  It didn’t sneak up on us.  It came barreling at full speed since about June.  I’ve had a hard time keeping up this year.  Everything has moved at double or triple speed.  It can’t really be 10 years since we were all afraid the world would come crashing to a halt with Y2K.

It is at this time nearly all of us try to do two things.  We reflect on the past year and make resolutions for the new.  Here are some of mine (though not at all an exhaustive list for either):

Reflections

This has been the year of “the struggle.”  Some years go by smoothly.  You could almost sleep your way through it and everything would still operate at top efficiency.  Other years, it is a constant pounding of the pavement to get anything done.  It is the ‘quicksand’ Falco talked about in “The Replacements.”  One thing goes bad.  Then two.  You try harder, but a third goes bad.  Pretty soon your struggling through quicksand as nearly nothing works no matter how hard you try.  This has sort of been one of those years both in the classroom and outside of it.

It has also been a year of change.  I know, I know.  President Obama won an historic election on the promise of change.  But just to be clear, most of the time change sucks.  Oh, I suppose one thing here or another thing there doesn’t matter too much, but when everything changes all around you, life can get to be pretty dizzying.  It is hard to keep your balance because your equilibrium is thrown off.

Last, it has been a year of D(d)iscovery.  I put that word in both forms for the simple reason that it has two meanings for me.  First, I have done more with the Discovery Educator Network this year than I’ve done in all the previous years combined.  It has been a fantastic time of meeting new people, traveling to new places, and pretty much just having a blast.  It has also been a year of personal discovery for me.  I’ve had a lot of time to think about who I am and who I want to be.  Which leads to change.  Which leads to struggles.  Which leads to…well, you get the idea.

Resolutions

I hesitate to even post these ideas.  Resolutions, like most rules I suppose, are primarily made to be broken.  I hope I can keep these.

I want 2010 to be the year of getting fit…finally…with finality.  I’m overweight and under-exercised.  The charts tell me I am supposed to weight 163 pounds, but I think that is pretty much meant for bones and skin and some “innards.”  It certainly can’t include any muscle.  No, I’m shooting for 185 by the end of 2010.  However, if I can achieve a 36″ waist, I won’t care about weight.  Eating right, exercising, and regaining a sense of spirituality are the three keys to this resolution.

I want 2010 to be the year of advancement.  I want to advance my knowledge of classroom skills as well as my computer / media skills.  I also want to advance my career to a new level.  I don’t want to wait around for this to happen “to me.”  I want to actively advance myself in these areas, whatever and wherever that means.

I want 2010 to be the year of friendships.  I am, by personality, a loner.  It isn’t that I don’t like people (OK, maybe some days that would be true).  I am just very comfortable sitting at a table at Starbucks working or playing on my Macbook Pro and ignoring the world around me except for its own entertainment purposes.  I need to develop the friendships I have and create new ones as well.  I need to “get out there” and have some fun with others for a change.  I’d love to go bowling, shoot some pool, play some ping pong, take in a ballgame, or host a dinner party.  Yep, 2010 needs to be a year of friendships.  And if those friendships can help me advance and get fit, so much the better I say!

OK, that’s me.  What about you?  Leave a comment to tell the world your reflections and resolutions as we face the crossroads of 2009 and 2010.

I recently joined a group on Facebook called “I went to Lee in the 70s.”  I joined, and then I forgot about it for a few days.  Today I went back to look at the thread of conversations.  Most of the people there I simply don’t remember.  Many went and left before me (I started in 1976).  But it did bring back a lot of memories.

People were talking about going to chapel in the “old” auditorium, eating in the cafeteria, cruising the Village Mall (Yes, it was a living mall then), and more.  It made me rather nostalgic for a lot of things “Lee.”

I had a brand new 1976 Cutlass Supreme then, but I was jealous of a friend’s ‘69 convertible Cougar.  Nice!  I lived in Walker Hall (now Medlin) on the 2nd floor.  Practical jokes abounded.  Skipping classes was a norm.  Going up the mountain to Chilhouee was a necessity.

There are a lot of “bad” things I remember about Lee.  Girls were not allowed to wear slacks on campus.  We weren’t supposed to go see movies.  Chapel was required 4 times a week.  I’ve never liked community bathrooms.  You know, the normal stuff.

Then there are the things I really liked.  I loved Dr. Boone’s class on Psalms.  I believe we had our first year there together: me as a student and he as faculty.  I adored both Drs. French and was privileged to have the Mrs. Dr. French for The Bible as Literature.  I still talk about some of those lectures to this day.  I liked the fact that my Christian Ethics professor gave me an A- on a paper I wrote where I specifically chose a totally inappropriate topic on purpose.  He didn’t stay long as I recall.

I loved the fact that the friends I made in the dorm turned me on to Peter Frampton, Boston, Michael Omartian, 2nd Chapter of Acts, Fleetwood Mac and more.  Some of the best music I’ve ever heard, even to this day.

On balance, I have a lot more good memories than bad ones.  But it makes me wonder….

Ten or twenty years from now, what memories will my students today have about my class?  Our school?  Their experience?

Last night I attended our annual Lake Forest Middle School faculty Christmas party.  Typically, this event is pretty much the same from year to year.  It is always enjoyable as we get to sit and talk and eat and listen to songs and have fun.  Last night was a little different….

This year’s Christmas party was held in a barn at Black Fox Farms just south of Cleveland, TN.  It was beautifully decorated with Christmas lights everywhere and trees put up all around the building.  Rather than our usual “formal” setting, this year was a lot more laid back.  Nearly everyone was in jeans (OK, not me but I hadn’t been home from work yet).  Our food was catered from Shane’s Rib Shack.  And the blue grass band….yes, the blue grass band….played throughout most of the evening.

It was loud.  It was fun.  It was different.  And I loved it!  I can’t speak for everyone, but it was the most fun I’ve had at a faculty Christmas party.  Kim Goins did a fantastic job of coordinating the event (as she always does), and kudos go out to Kim, Jamie Ogle, and Kane Ayres for a wonderful job decorating the tables.

Did I mention that one of the blue grass band members is an 8th grade student at LFMS?  I know it is probably an oxymoron of some type, but the blue grass rocked!

Now we’re just trying to decide if we can get everyone up to Gatlinburg for next year…..

You want to know the frustration level of kids in your class?  I have a simple idea.  Got to a technology conference that makes it hard for you to use your technology.

Kids are connected in every aspect of their lives.  They are connected to the iPods, cellphones, email, social sites, and more.  They live, as one YouTube video put it, in the “nearly now.”  They live in that space just after their last tweet, plurk, and post.  They thrive there.  They use their critical thinking skills to figure out how things work without having to ask an adult (or a teacher).  They want to use these tools.

And if they can’t?

Well, let me tell you a little story.

I just went to our state technology conference.  There were a lot of great sessions (including my own! ha!).  I walked in and asked what the code was to gain access to the wifi in the convention center.  I was told I could PAY to gain access, or I could use the cyber cafe in the exhibit hall.  I was a little miffed.

I wanted to blog immediately about the sessions I was in.  I wanted to update my Twitter profile.  I wanted to connect with my Facebook friends.  I wanted to make sure my substitute teacher was ok (which she wasn’t, but I couldn’t find that out easily).  So many things I wanted to do.  But the education powers that be refused to allow it (I know, I know, cost is a major factor here.  But isn’t it always?)

Did I enjoy the conference?  Most of it.  Did I learn some things?  A couple. Did I disconnect from most of what was going on because I was so frustrated that I couldn’t the tools I came there to learn? You betcha.

And so do our kids.

I’m heading to the Mid-South Technology Conference in Memphis next week.  I can only hope things are different.