As the class was coming to an end, the young teacher at the front of the room pulled up a slide on the screen with a picture of an egg.  She reminded her students of a question she asked them to take home and ask their family members, a question I’m sure we have all been asked at one point or another; which came first, the chicken or the egg?  

An enthusiastic hand shot into the air. “Teacher!  I saw this TV program and they talked about how everything came from plankton that fell from the sky!”  The teacher acknowledged the answer without blinking an eye as she looked at another excited face.  “Carlos, what is your thought”.  Just a serious as he could be, Carlos shares that a robot chicken laid the egg, and that egg grew an egg.  

“The egg came from a goose!”  “God made the Universe and the Universe created the egg”.  “My grandma told me that God made chickens and chickens made the eggs”.  Each time, the teacher thanked the child and said that was a really interesting idea.  How does this connect to music?  Well, it turned into a lesson on quarter and eighth notes, but in the meantime, this teacher had the class in the palm of her hand.

I was afraid that I was going to miss teaching, and a part of me does, but this is like being a music teacher grandmother.  I get to walk in, enjoy the students and the great teaching, and walk away.  I still get to experience the magic of children excited about learning.  Nothing is too fantastic, nothing off limits.  

Another class this past week was playing a game where the kid who was “it” was allowed to choose the next child who would be “it”.  Again, several enthusiastic hands waved frantically in the air in front of me and I watched one little girl look into the eyes of her friend and say quietly, “pick me and I’ll be your friend forever!” Apparently that wasn’t enough, as another child was chosen to be “it” and a boy in the back said out loud, “she’s going to be traumatized now”.  You can’t make this stuff up.  It’s the part I really miss about teaching, the part that can’t be assessed.  It’s where you get to see their little personalities up close and personal and have the opportunity to laugh with them, never AT them, of course. 

Maybe part of my job this year is to remind my colleagues that in the middle of this craziness that there is joy in just watching and listening to kids be kids, to revel in the silliness of childhood.  Yes, we need to teach and children need to learn, but we also need to remind each other that they’re just children.  There’s enough craziness in the world and kids are feeling it, having to grow up a little faster than they should, feeling fearful and uncertain.  Why not model how exciting it is to learn something new, or how fun it is to get to the end of a good book?  Why not take time and laugh with the kids when something funny happens.  A good teacher knows when and how to end the silliness quickly and get back to work, but that moment of laughter helps build relationships with students.  In a crazy year like this, maybe we just need to take some time to be more like children and discuss the tough questions like “which came first”. 

The newest guilty pleasure at our house is the Great British Baking Show. Sure we had heard people talking about it, but really? A baking show? But here we were, scrolling through Netflix and we thought, what the heck? We were hooked.

We were immediately taken by the creativity, marveling at how someone could take something as simple as bread or cake and make it beautiful. However, after a while it wasn’t just the creative baking that kept me watching. It was watching friendships develop and how, rather than people going for the jugular, they cheered each others successes and consoled each other through failures. I couldn’t help but think about how a competitive show of the same type would become cut throat in our current culture. After all, the title of every competitive cooking show on Food Network usually ends with “Wars”.

I watched as these perfectionists competed civilly with each other and challenged themselves, taking blame for their own failures, and working to learn more and work harder the next time. Never do they blame someone else, make excuses in even the worst conditions or speak harsh words to someone else. The show draws you in with a simple premise and hooks you with humor and a lot of sheer grit and determination. You find yourself rooting for everyone. There are no good guys or bad guys, they are just regular, everyday human beings working to be the best they can be at something they feel passionate about.

Which leads me to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The tiny, lace collar wearing, woman who followed her passion to be the best she could be. While I will never have the opportunity to know her to judge her character first hand, many quotes attributed to her have caused me to take notice.

“My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.”

“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you. ” 

“Dissents speak to a future age. It’s not simply to say, ‘My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.’ But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow.”

While what she did was beyond admirable, it was HOW she did it that speaks to me. She was a lady who spoke her mind but in a thoughtful, intellectual way. In the process of sharing her thoughts, she developed a following of people, not by pushing her opinion or ideals on others, or by telling others they were wrong or stupid, but by getting people excited about she was excited about. It was all about the possibilities, about how great the future could be.

I don’t know about you, but for me it’s the finger pointing, the name calling, the labeling, the not wanting to listen to all stories without judgement that is tearing us apart as families and as communities. I don’t know that I’ve found a quote from RBG that said “you have to believe what I believe or you’re an idiot”. I’m not saying she didn’t think it or that there weren’t people who tested her – I didn’t know her personally – but I can’t imagine that she would have people from all walks of life following her if she hadn’t had a hook that pulled us all in, a hook that made us think of a future filled with possibilities for everyone. A hook that encouraged people to be the best they could be and not condemn them for not fitting the ideal. A place where we could try and fail, pick ourselves up and try again. Consider Ghandi. He didn’t say “be the change I wish to see in the world” he said “be the change YOU wish to see in the world”. He gives us the opportunity to change ourselves without telling us we have to be like him.

Which leads me back to my baking show. We can all bake bread. But it doesn’t have to look or taste alike to be beautiful and delicious. I’ve learned that I need to work more to let people be who they are and help them find positive ways to make change, making friends, consoling when needed and cheering each other on.

This past Saturday I hosted a Master Class Zoom meeting featuring a couple of my good friends. The group was small which allowed some nice dialogue, and the topic jumped to self care for teachers. This is where one of my former practicum students, who is now a colleague quoted me from another professional development we had had before school started – set boundaries for yourself because the work will still be there tomorrow.

Participating in the dialogue were my boss and my husband, both of whom hesitated, looked at me (which is difficult through zoom) and began laughing. Yeah, ok, so I have problems setting boundaries. So sure, yesterday I began working while eating breakfast at 8:00, worked through lunch, had a zoom meeting, drove to the board office to help with a tenure class, drove home to a lovely dinner prepared by my husband and proceeded to work until 10:00 p.m. This is not unusual for me. Setting those boundaries sounds great in theory and for other people when you’re teaching a session on self help, but so very difficult to do.

I believe there a lot of professionals out there who keep the same kind of hours. During a time when I should be preparing for retirement (which some days is sounding better and better), I’m busier than ever and wishing I had more time to do the other things I want to do. I can’t finish the day until I FEEL finished, everything is ready to go the next day, I’ve concluded the projects I set out to finish that day or have a plan for them tomorrow, and I’ve answered every email I’ve received. This becomes a problem when someone sends me an email at 10:00 p.m. because I feel like I have to answer it to finish the day. This is obviously NOT the right kind of boundary I’m telling others to set for themselves.

This is the same advice I’m giving to my wonderful, experienced Type A teachers who are trying to do what they’ve always done, only now in an impossible situation. Now is NOT the time to try to do seven activities for your class focusing on two essential learning outcomes because you have to get through what you expect your kids to know and be able to do during a 5 day rotation. Focus on what is most important, go deep with it, and make it something they’ll use for years to come. Set boundaries for yourself and your students so that you both won’t be overwhelmed. See how good I am at advising others to take care of themselves? Kind of one of those “do as I say, not do as I do”, right?

Imagine if I used my own advice for my own life? Imagine if I set those boundaries, did what I could do to the best of my ability and then shut down. I’m sure at first it would drive me crazy, but surely I would get used to it. What if I found what was really important in life, dug deeply into it and made it something special for years to come. In the future, nobody is going to remember the spreadsheets or contracts I created or the emails I answered, right? Except for the people who expected me to create those spreadsheets and contracts and responses to their emails. It’s hard to contemplate the future with boundaries when there are so many demands on me today.

So what to do? I’ve been thinking about my former student and how he is seriously considering my advice and apparently I’m not. Will people take me seriously if I’m not following my own advice? Maybe it’s time to put the money where my mouth is. Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe next week….

They say things can change in the blink of an eye.  Life can turn on a dime and 2020 has been the prime example of crazy things happening to everyone without any notice.  This happened this past week as one night I went to bed and nothing was wrong and the next morning I woke up and the right side of my face wouldn’t move like it was supposed to.  There was literally no blinking.

Who would have thought not being able to blink would be so weird.  It didn’t hit home until Doug started to laugh because it looked like I was winking at him all the time.  I can’t feel that the right isn’t blinking so there’s this idea of what I THINK I look like and what I actually look like.  What happens however, is that the eye begins to dry out and burn so I have to spend time with a mask over my eyes to hold the lid down and give it a rest, put in a lovely greasy ointment to prevent infection (which means I can’t see anything for a while) and remember to put lubricating eye drops in periodically during the day.

While this is a little annoying, what is as annoying is eating, my favorite pastime.  I admit it. I love to eat but I eat too fast – I blame teaching for that.  I tend to inhale my food and not really taste it.  However, with the right side not moving like it should, eating and speaking are a whole new adventure.  I have discovered that straws are my new best friend, although I do have to maneuver it around to make it work.  Forks are good because I can aim where I put food in my mouth, but spoons are right out.  Too much slurping.  Things like sandwiches and burgers have proved difficult as I can’t feel my lips and have bitten them with the food.  They just don’t move the same.  Salads here we come!

As you can imagine, talking and smiling are also interesting.  Saying the letters “P” and “B” are the hardest.  The fact that this is called Bell’s Palsy and I can’t say it without effort is just the most ironic.  The smile looks like a smirk and it feels weird.  So between the winking and the smirking, I’m sure I just look strange and I’m really self conscious.  Zooming should be really interesting.  The great thing about all this is that it should be temporary.  The CT scan came back telling us everything is fine, so now I just have to be patient.

A few days ago, I was questioning a lot of things, having a heart to heart with God.  I was completely stressed, not sure where to go or what to do or what my future should look like.  Some things are going really great but others feel like a disaster. I’ve been around long enough that I know to ask “what am I supposed to be learning from this?”.  And then this happens.  Sitting in front of a computer for 12 hours a day is not going to happen and now I HAVE to ask for help which is definitely not something I do well.  Now I don’t have a choice.  Maybe this is what I’m supposed to learn?

Maybe the fact that I’m going to have to take time eat slowly and taste my food will help as well?  Maybe the indigestion will subside a little.  Maybe it was to make me see a doctor for the first time in a couple of years and get stuff checked out.  Stuff that NEEDED to be checked out.  I had been avoiding.  Sometimes it takes something that’s out of your control to force your hand.  Maybe that’s what I was supposed to learn.  A temporary inconvenience to change some bad habits because I have no choice.  It could work.

It’s not going to be easy and I’m not that great a human that I won’t fuss and complain as I work through it.  You should all pray for Doug at this point. But if I pay attention to what life is trying to tell me, this could be a great learning/growing/healing experience.  And if all works out, soon I hope, maybe something as simple as blinking could be a great blessing again.

I grew up in the age of the rotary phone. Our TV had a dial and no remote.  No microwave, games were placed with game pieces and spinners.  Who needed a car when you could get anywhere on your 10-speed bike. You looked up information using a card catalog to find a book or look in the encyclopedia.  Paper and pencil ruled.  None of this required buttons.

I remember when buttons came along.  Touch tone on your phone, remotes, food cooked at the touch of a button.  Pong.  A world of information at the touch of your finger.  How cool, right?  Like something out of the Jetsons.  Without the flying car.  Speaking of cars, my husband’s new car starts with the touch of a button.  Not a key – a button. But we’ve been lied been to.  Buttons may make things seem easier but they unleash a a flood of busy-ness  that takes over our minds and lives.   Even if you want them to.

Technology is a part of everything we are and do.  I wake up to an alarm on my phone and then read about what happened overnight on that same phone.  I pop the bacon in the microwave for breakfast, pushing the buttons for the number of seconds I need, I drive my car to work and work on a computer.  I am able to zoom and talk face to face with people anytime, anywhere in the country.  I click on a button, the screen opens and it truly is the Jetsons.  The problem is that the ease of the button gives us an excuse to say “hey, let’s zoom” to the point where we’re zooming all day long.  Our eyes are literally popping out of our heads, bloodshot eyes screaming at the idea of contacts ever again.

Despite the fact that I have to work with technology every day, it is the bane of my existence.  I don’t get how it works, the language of technology seems to change every day and I don’t understand.  And I don’t want to get it.  I’m not intrigued by all the latest and greatest, in fact it scares me.  I’ve been told you can’t make a mistake, that I can just take it back a step but it doesn’t matter. It’s the one area of my life that makes me feel stupid and completely inept.  The problem is that it’s impossible to do anything in my jobs anymore without it.  And I don’t get it.  The buttons that are supposed to make things easier just complicate things for me.  As I think of poor teachers who are having to deal with teaching remotely while also teaching in person, I begin to panic for them.  It’s one of the reasons I’m so grateful not to be teaching this year.

I think because I am a relatively smart person, people assume I get this tech thing.  (Except the ones who really know me). So they speak to me in this tech language and in an effort to keep up the facade, I listen, say ok and then try to figure it out.  Sometimes I luck out and despite the fact that it took me 10 times as long as anyone else to figure it out, I do.  And if I remember how to do it again later, good for me, but most of the time it takes me multiple times to figure out how to do it again.  It’s frustrating and infuriating.  It pushes all my buttons, which is ironic because it’s all about buttons isn’t it?  See, even pushing someone’s buttons has a negative connotation.

I lost it last night with someone over technology.  I didn’t even know where to start. I literally stared at a screen for 45 minutes not having a clue as to what I was reading and what I should do.  This person was asking me to do my job and I didn’t know where to start.  All the tapes in my head began to play.  I was stupid, I was a failure and people were finding out just how big a failure I was. I sobbed. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help, I didn’t know how and worse yet, I couldn’t even speak the language. The whole imposter syndrome kicked into gear and my greatest fear, the idea that someone was going to figure out that I didn’t really have any idea of what I was doing took over my whole being.  The flight instinct, something that seems so illogical for the circumstances was overwhelming.  I was done and ready to quit.  I was embarrassed for so many reasons, but the greatest one was allowing someone to see me so out of control over something as simple as a button.  A button that everyone else seems to understand but I just don’t get.  Oh, and when my husband finally convinced me to ask someone for help, that person figured out what I had struggled with within minutes.  Grateful, but chagrined yet again.

Chances are I was really tired and overwhelmed by a myriad of things before this ever started, but there’s no doubt that the technology request sent me over the edge. My hope is that there are others out there like me.  Others who are tired of the sigh you hear when you ask someone to help you with the same thing they’ve helped you with before.  Others who see and hear the condescending tone in someone’s body language or voice because you can’t figure out how to turn something on, much less how it works.  Sure, technology is fast if you get it.  It feels like it takes a lifetime if you don’t.

So, what to do?  I need to learn to ask for help and deal with it or delegate.  There are people in the world who live to push buttons.  I’m just not one of them.  I’m more than willing to trade in the buttons for paper and pencil any time.

 

 

A mere five months ago, I abruptly ended my teaching career, not of my own doing, but due to a pandemic nobody saw coming.  At least I didn’t.  Anyway, the result was that parents, with the help of teachers, assisted in the teaching of their own children.  The result of THAT, was I kept hearing things like, “teachers have the hardest job in the world!”, “teachers should make a million dollars a year!”, I’ll give teachers all the supplies they need when we go back”, and “teachers are heroes”.  I remember thinking, maybe this is the turning point for teachers.  Maybe now our society will appreciate the importance of educating children and those who do the educating. My how things have changed.

Before I begin, let me state that I’m not siding with any particular political party nor claiming any knowledge in the field of medicine.  Neither are an area of expertise and it’s not where I want to focus my words. In the last few weeks, educators have been vilified from all directions.  If we want to get back to school to help kids, we obviously don’t care about their health and safety and if  we don’t want to go to school because we care about their health and safety, we obviously don’t care about kids and their education.  It’s a lose lose situation.  And just as it has always been,  teachers are getting judged and blamed for decisions made by others.  We have no say.  We’ve never had a say.  But as long as we were able to spend our days educating and loving kids, most of us were ok with it.

Forgive me if I sound a bit cynical and more than a bit disappointed. I and so many of my colleagues have spent decades of our lives loving and educating other people’s children.  Sometimes at the expense of our own families.  Despite the fact that we are experts in our field, educated, experienced and passionate about what we do, we are not treated like any other professional.  Nobody presumes to walk into another professionals work space and tell them how things should be done.  But we’ve talked about this before and honestly, despite the frustration, I could deal with that.  But not the political blame game that’s going on now.  Teachers have become pawns in political warfare, fueled by a pandemic that nobody has control over, ridiculed by people on both sides of the aisle with no consideration as to what teachers think or how they feel.  I believe it’s that very lack of control people feel about everything right now fuels this.  It’s like someone who has been abused now abusing someone weaker than themselves so that they feel they have some power.

What some fail to remember is that teachers are people.  They have families with children.  They have feelings.  They have health issues.  They’re human – just like you.  The problem was that five months ago, we weren’t heroes.  We were just people with a chosen profession, who got up every morning to do what we love and are trained to do.  That also means, that just because this country needs a scapegoat, we’re not zeros.  We’re the same people we were before, being asked to do a sometimes impossible job, teaching in class and remotely with several devices at the same time, sometimes provided for us, sometimes not, sometimes dragging our teaching supplies on a cart, wearing masks, tying shoes, putting on bandaids, and attempting to enunciate carefully enough so that children can understand what we’re trying to teach.  Those who have the energy to do this (or who have no other choice) are working to smile underneath the mask because teachers understand that children are feeling unsure and afraid and it’s their job as the adult in the room to make them feel safe and cared for AND provide them with the best education possible.  Maybe that’s what makes them heroes.

Most real heroes I know are humble.  They would never consider themselves to be heroes.  They’re just doing their job to the best of their ability.  They’re not looking for accolades, but as human beings they might be looking for a little support, a pat on the back.  A quiet thank you.

Thank you teachers.

 

 

 

 

Looking back, I’m not even sure how we got there.  We had chosen a chalet in Gatlinburg TN as the place for our honeymoon, maybe through a brochure, a relatively easy drive from Lexington, KY and since we had been on band trips on school buses to the area, we both just naturally assumed we would “find” it.  We didn’t foresee the construction that would send us in the opposite direction we should go, taking us around the other side of Smokey Mountain National park.  In 1980 there was no check in to the house with a code.  No, we had to bother the poor lady for the key at her house around 11:00 p.m.  At the end of this four day honeymoon, we drove home with enough money to buy a Frosty and the next day Doug left for a week to teach a band camp. This was the beginning of our married lives and a perfect snapshot of what our life was to become.

Those who know us now see a couple who have worked and fought and cried and prayed our way through major life events, life decisions, loneliness, jobs and everything in between. Two twenty year old kids who decided they couldn’t wait one more year to marry so one of us could graduate, who cried in the car when summer came and we would be 80 miles apart, who called each other on the phone for hours (when long distance actually cost something, and wrote letters every day.  Surely two twenty year olds who felt that way would live happily ever after, right?  The problem is that life gets in the way.  Perhaps happily ever after looks a little different than the fairy tale.

We’ve seen friends over the decades who have divorced after a few years and those who have divorced after decades.  We’ve silently helped one partner move out and we’ve sat with friends who were struggling in their marriages.  Sometimes we commiserated in that struggle.  As Doug put his whole being into the thing he loved most – his work – sometimes I questioned staying.  I was lonely, I was trying to raise three boys, working full time and it felt like too much.  There was never enough money, enough time, enough energy.  At the same time he was working and struggling with aspects of that job he loved so much and we weren’t talking.  Twenty years ago, halfway through our marriage, it was a disaster in the making.

Sometimes things happen that turn your world upside down and you have to make a choice.  I can’t speak for others, but I’m pretty sure God steps in when you need Him and boy, did we.  Our 700+ mile move with three school age kids made no logical sense but it  came at a time when we completely agreed that this was the right move.  Much like that honeymoon, we weren’t really sure where we were going, we showed up with very little money and we kicked right into work. As the years flew by, the boys grew, and our hard work began to pay off, we figured out the money issues and our jobs became more fulfilling.  It wasn’t overnight, but we developed a deep appreciation for each other, learned to speak without holding everything in for long periods of time, and remembered why those two 20 year old kids couldn’t wait to be married.

Marriage is hard, even when you’re blessed enough to marry your soul mate.  As we continue to deal with this pandemic, our grand plans of traveling overseas for our 40th disappeared.  So, to celebrate today, we took a little day trip a couple of hours west to sit in a little winery in the middle of nowhere.  We sat at a little table, tasting wines and having lunch, embracing the silence of the rolling hills, watching the birds and laughing at some people belching VERY loudly over their wine.  We’ve grown up, but not THAT much.  We’re grateful that we’re finally able to reap the fruits of our labor and experience them together.

I know that this isn’t the way it happens for everyone but I’m only sharing one story – our story.  And our story, like yours, is still being told as we continue to learn how to listen, love and learn.