What my summer has meant to me

Early in June, summer meant that I would get to catch up on all those projects that I didn't get to do during the school year: knitting that baby blanket (or four), reading the novels that sat idle on my bedside table, making candles, cooking every recipe in my Indian cookbook, writing and producing my first CD of folk ballads, re-landscaping my patio, discovering a new element, mediating world peace.

What did I really do this summer? Well, I caught up with "All My Children", took up golf, discovered indie-hipster music, texted, played some online Scrabble, and set aside time in each day to sit and stare out the window. And here's the thing, I had a remarkable summer.

In all the shoulda, coulda, woulda's that we clog our lives with, there is never the freedom to sit and be and enjoy the moment. A couple things happened this summer to bring me all to willingly into a place where I can sit and be, guilt-free. This is called "rejuventation" and it is a necessary part of life.

So what happened?

• I started reading lots of books and articles and poems which encouraged me to be present in each moment. It was interesting how it was sort of coming together, this idea of being mindful of each moment. This is the moment to embrace, and I want to be engaged in it.
• Some dear friends went through some big changes. In particular, my friend Amy decided to make a career shift into the wild and unpredictable world of self-employment. As I was pretty stable and rather idle this summer, I felt that I could encourage her to take the big leap. Shoot, I wasn't bungee jumping off the bridge, so why not sit back and help my friend take that big leap? But I learned something really valuable about faith in talking to her; first, if you are swinging from trapeze to trapeze, then you have to let go of the first bar before you can catch the second. That is the scary part. But the reward of letting go of the first bar isn't the bar you are swinging to, the reward is faith, trust, and the relief that you made it safely. The bar is just the means. My faith in God increases not when He blesses me, but because He is blessing me.
  
• My aunt was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Big sigh. My Aunt Marti is 60 years old and is fresh and passionate about life. This diagnosis has come with a lot of tears, a lot of searching and a lot of processing. As I have talked to her, as I have played scrabble with her and longed to be in New York just to hang out with her, I have learned even more so that this moment is the one. We can't worry or be anxious about the future, especially when we don't know what the future will bring. Being present means being in this moment.

I hope that I am ready for the next school year. There are always "shoulda, coulda, wouldas" there too. But I know that what has been going through my mind this summer has prepared me for whatever moments come up this next school year. My job is just to show up for them.

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on" --Robert Frost

Spring Cleaning

Now that school is out (YAY!) I have had a chance to clean out my house. I am not a messy person by any means, but sometimes when something lands in a place it isn't supposed to be, it stays there until I decide to move it to the right place. And moving something to the right place often involves cleaning out the right place so it can fit there. Kind of a chain reaction. It doesn't help that I watched a marathon of "Hoarders" on A&E the other day. If you find yourself facing a mountain of chores, errands and projects, watch some "Hoarders" and suddenly that honey-do list looks paltry and you should go sit yourself by a pool with an umbrella drink, cause you are doing ALL right.

No, I don't have a hoarding problem. I do have a great number of Dansko shoes and Clinique samples, but what I really seem to collect is sentimental stuff. Postcards from my best friend in the third grade, wedding invitations from 10 years ago, articles on do-it-yourself pedicures, pictures of boys I used to lurk on, dried corsages from school dances. All these things were in shoe boxes in my closet. I started going through them one night after a particularly energetic closet clean out and I realized that I really didn't remember my associations with some of the things. That scared me a little because 15 years ago I kept the crumpled foil chocolate wrapper for a reason. Some of the stuff I was glad to find; an 18 page letter written by my best friend while she was in Germany, birthday cards that were particularly funny, my Duran Duran pin. Good stuff. But some of those things are just so unnecessary now. I pared down my closet because I want to be able to share it with someone someday. And I pared down my memory boxes because I am ready to make new memories.

My life feels like it is in stasis sometimes. I gear up for big challenges and once I succeed (or fail... very seldom) then I sit myself down with a beer and celebrate my achievement. It feels good to be through the challenge, and I am not one to actively seek out new challenges. So, consequently, I wait for challenge to come to me. But I have realized this year that I have to go after the things I want. I want to share my house with a husband, but I have to go out there and face the challenges, not of finding him, but dealing with the emotional baggage that surfaces when I am "out there". That is the scary part. And maybe my spring cleaning has given me a little respite from some of that stuff. I have saved an awful lot of crap that has nothing to do with who I am becoming, and everything to do with who I was. So goodbye to saved artifacts of a life gone by, hello to space to make new memories.

Should we fear or love our teachers?

As a teacher, am I more concerned with being feared or loved? And by loved, I don't mean LOOVED, I mean respected and open. Should I be putting the fear of my terrible wrath into them to "get it done, and do it right", or should I allow them some grace? I tend more toward the grace side of things. I really think my students, ALL my students, are hilarious, sharp, gifted, talented and sweet. I like them. I like going into class and seeing what new epiphanies and ideas they will have. To me, "winging it" means opening the class up to them and letting them take the lead. And yet I wonder, am I being too hippy-dippy? Too easy? Maybe at the beginning of the year I should rise up like an ancient dragon-lady and pour forth laser-beam glances and vicious sneers. Maybe I should set more of a strict tone in my classroom, reminding my students who is in charge and just exactly how things will get done.

Call me Cuckoo Mc Crazyton, call me Mary Poppins-ranka, but I think students shouldn't be afraid of me. I don't think students learn better if they live in fear of my judgment upon them. I know it is really tempting to be all-knowing and all-powerful, but in the end, where does it get me? I am not all-knowing or all-powerful, so why should I keep my students at a distance from this finite amount of knowledge? What am I afraid of? If I cultivate an atmosphere of respect, openness, and humor tossed in with some good boundaries, then my students won't be afraid to come seek me out for help. My door is always open, and my lunches and free moments are taken up with students who have good questions. I am happy to answer questions, and no question is too silly to be asked. My favorite teaching moments are when I meet with the student who wants to write a better intro, or the student who wants help dissecting a poem.

I want to be loved. Not LOOOOVED, but I want my students to know that I am an advocate for their learning, not a hindrance to their education.

Suckers!!

This is the first year I have taught seniors, and they are a nutty, if hysterical bunch of loons. My last block class on Friday decided to play a "prank" on me by simultaneously popping suckers into their mouths. I have an anti-sucker policy in my classroom. I call them "germsicles" and in a season of scary, uber viruses, I think licking suckers is akin to licking someone's used kleenex. My seniors started trading suckers with each other in this afternoon of prankery. I just sat and laughed. They were slightly disappointed that I didn't run screaming from the room, but it takes a little more to get that response. In truth, it was a highlight of my week. The bottom line is that my students listen to me, and they HEAR me. Their joke is proof-positive that they are engaged in my classroom environment.

After reading the New York Times magazine article about building better teachers, and today's Denver Post article on a similar topic, I see education reforms on the horizon, and I am freakin terrified. In the last 20 years, too many education reforms have come and gone without lasting change. In a sense, we look at education reforms in the same way we look at widget-producing. The students become the measures of education's success, but the standards for success are not clearly defined.

In my mind, there are three simple things that could happen tomorrow that would change the face of education reform. Ready??

1. Administration walk-throughs and more interaction with teachers, classrooms and students. If administrators walked through the building, stopped in classrooms informally, and got to know at least 50 students by name who didn't have prior arrest records, then that visibility would become a powerful tool.
2. Becoming "proactive" instead of "reactive". If you govern a school by constantly REacting to problems, then the burn-out occurs more swiftly. Disseminate information liberally. There is no power in hoarding information that impacts the school as a whole. Keep the faculty and staff informed and fewer problems will occur. Tell people what they are doing right before you launch into what they are doing wrong. And delegate, often. As I like to say, if your hair is constantly on fire, build a fireproof helmet.
3. Making your classroom an engaging, creative, (dare I say it) FUN place to be. Whoever said that you shouldn't smile until Thanksgiving was joking. I set clear boundaries in my classroom, and I demand high standards. But I am a benevolent dictator. I listen when students aren't clicking with a particular assignment, reading or task. If I change the lesson or due date or expectations based on valid student input, then the students know I HEAR them. And hearing what your students have to say gives them ownership, which immediately changes the classroom environment. Also, you should joke with them. Never laugh AT them, but laugh with them. If they can laugh in class and if you don't take yourself too seriously, then your classroom is not only a place where THEY want to be, it is a place where YOU want to be. And students are happier and more engaged if YOU want to be in your own classroom. Period.

Education reform should be simple and doable in any classroom from here to Hawaii. It should meet the needs of students, teachers, admins, coaches, secretaries and custodians. I wonder if we, as a nation, could handle that kind of simplicity.

Let my love open the door....

Valentine's Day has come and gone again, and one of my students wondered if we have one day of love, do we have 364 days of hate. It should be the other way around, right? We should love people every day, give them flowers, eat lots of chocolate, feel loved and treasured... every day. Having the one day just seems to highlight the worst perceptions of love; that those who don't have this certain kind are left out, and heart-broken.

I love that Pete Townsend song, "Let My Love Open the Door". I love the idea of love having healing powers, especially when the heart has been broken by love. I don't know that my heart has been irreparably broken by love. Maybe that is a bad thing, like if my emotional heart were competing in a marathon of love, I'd be stumbling along with a side-cramp. But I am in the game again, I started online dating (oxymorons, anyone?) and this last weekend I had a flurry of responses to my online profile. My online profile says as much about me as my 401k. Vague, ambivalent answers to prescribed questions that will magically help me land a man. I wouldn't say that I am cynical, just multi-faceted. I like meeting people face to face. But in our culture, even that has become a Fear Factor event. But as my friend Eric reminded me the other day, if you wanna catch a fish, you have to put your bait in the water. So now here I am, fishing (for lack of a better analogy) for love. And I suppose that the hope (hopenness) that I have this year will allow me to answer love's knock at the door, and let him in.

When people keep repeating
That you'll never fall in love
When everybody keeps retreating
But you can't seem to get enough
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
To your heart

Happy Valentine's Day <3