It seriously didn’t occur to me until this morning, alone in my thoughts driving to school, that I realized how rude I must have seemed.  Nearly a week ago I was sitting alone at a large table in the airport having lunch, when a gentleman was seated at the other end.  After a few minutes of both of us looking intently at our cell phones, he stopped and said something about how everyone spent so much time looking at their phones these days (obviously older, like me).  In my awkward, “you caught me by surprise by talking to me”, introverted way, I responded with, “yes, but it sure helps those of us who are introverts who don’t want to talk to anyone”.  I think I was trying to be funny, thinking quickly on my feet, but it really didn’t occur to me that what I said probably sent a different message, especially since there was no conversation after that.

I don’t know what the extroverts excuses are for always looking at a screen, but the truth is, a cell phone is a life saver for me.  I can not only surf the web, answer email, and make funny comments on social media, I can also hide from the world.  Strangers are less likely to try to engage in conversation if they see you intently reading something that’s probably earth shattering on your cell phone.

The problem with the cell phone and access to the internet is that you begin to believe you can do all of your human interaction that way.  After all, I can email, message, and tweet, with just about anyone, anytime, anywhere.  I can share thoughts and opinions and just shut things off if I don’t want to hear any replies that might hurt my feelings or make me feel bad. I can even have meetings with people virtually,  For someone like me, that is a really safe environment.  When people say nice things on social media, I can wrap myself in their words and not be embarrassed or struggle with responses.  It’s just easier to write things than say things.

But despite all the virtual human interaction I can experience through the screen, I still find myself lonely.  Nothing takes the place of human interaction, so the introverts dilemma is how do I have this alone time, either real or visual, and not be lonely.  Here are some suggestions.

First, as an introvert, I do crave to be with people, just not a lot of people and not for long stretches of time.  And I probably won’t ask you to do something with me because I’m sure you have other things to do or would rather do something with someone else.  In the last several years, I’ve worked around this by setting up “meetings” with people that end up being more social than business but if I can make it official in my head, it doesn’t feel as awkward.  Weird but it works for me.  Secondly, familiarity breeds comfort.  If I have a small group I’m used to meeting or going out with, it’s easier to do it again. Also, if I’ve asked you to do something with me or meet me somewhere that means you must be really important in my life because it takes a lot for me to ask.

Lastly, if you don’t hear from me for any length of time, it’s probably because I’m overwhelmed with things and meetings and groups of people because of all the stuff I’m doing this days.  I know, it sounds counterintuitive for an introvert to be as busy as some of us may be, but being “busy” gives us something to do and then we don’t wallow in the lonely so much.  It’s like “forced fun” as my husband likes to refer to certain social events. We just have to find that fine line between being alone and being lonely sometimes and my trusty friend the cell phone sometimes bridges that gap.

The title says it all, right?  I’m female, older, heterosexual, I teach and this gives you an idea that I teach in a relatively large system in a sparsely populated mid-western state, which may or may not be a good thing.  It immediately puts me into many different silos, and you can make many assumptions because of it.  Despite its relatively short length, it seems a bit much in terms of information, and perhaps a little too personal.  However, I didn’t create this on my own.  I was reading an article about Pete Buttigieg who is running for President and this is exactly how he is introduced in the article:

…Pete Buttigieg, the 37 year old openly gay mayor of the fourth largest city in Indiana….

We begin to make assumptions, don’t we?  37 years old?  Is he too young?  Does he have enough experience?  Openly gay.  Does that have anything to do with the qualifications he needs in order to govern or is it a political statement meant to separate once again?  The fourth largest city in Indiana.  Does the size of the city matter or can we assume that since it is only the 4th largest that he hasn’t governed anything large enough to do the job?  Based on that run-on sentence, we learn a lot, but is it really who this person is?

The description doesn’t mention anything in terms of his background, his academic qualifications or his character.  Is this person ethical, honest, a hard worker?  Is he kind, does he listen to others, and how does he make decisions?  These are the things we need to know, but it’s much easier to look at the outside and describe what we see and not take the time to look at the inside and describe what we’ve experienced.

Think about it.  Put yourself in his place like I did.  This makes you vulnerable and allows people to make assumptions about you that is anything but complete and may or may not be true.  It’s a little like our profiles on social media.  We list those things that are the obvious, but not so much that we actually allow someone to get to know us.  Again, easy and safe.

Look, I’m not making ANY kind of political statement here, and I have no idea at this point who I’m planning to vote for within any party (and I’m not sharing because it’s not anyone’s business), but I am reading as much as I can about everyone from every angle I can find and what I tend to find is either descriptions like this or something that rips the candidate apart.  Very seldom does anyone say, “so-and-so is a hard worker, not perfect – nobody is – but he/she will do their very best to earn your trust and do their very best.”  Not even the candidates themselves are willing to say anything positive.  They’re too busy ripping each other apart, to look “tough” I suppose.  It doesn’t do a whole lot for those of us who are trying to make decisions here, and honestly I’m not looking for a WWE match here or anything.  I’m just looking for a kind, honest person who will do the job to best of their ability, thinking more about others than themselves.

I suppose there is a little bit (or a lot) of ego involved here because these are people who believe they can be PRESIDENT.  They have to believe in themselves quite a bit, or have others who believe in them enough to encourage them to run.  A little bit of ego can be healthy I suppose, but when the ego gets in the way of debating in a civil way, opening up the way for yelling at and insulting each other instead of stating what they believe they can do, that’s a problem.  It’s also a problem when candidates can do nothing more than defend themselves from other candidates rather than share the things that we as voters need to know.

So, to all the future article writers out there, please do us a favor and try looking below the surface for once.  We may find something worth learning about and maybe, just maybe, find a candidate worth voting for.

 

 

Put it on your calendar – Wednesday, November 13 is “Cardigan Day”, a reminder for us, in the spirit of Fred Rogers,  to be kind.  Like much of what Mr. Rogers taught, it is a simple gesture representing something very powerful, and in our world today, KINDNESS is something sorely missing.

Kindness isn’t cool however.  People aren’t really rewarded anymore for being kind.  The ones who get the most attention are the ones with the barbed sense of humor, the ones quick with the clever insult, the ones quick to point out someone else’s flaws for all the world to see, as though they themselves have none.  When was the last time you watched a politician do or say something kind about an opponent?  My point exactly.  Could be why we never get anything accomplished anymore.

It’s certainly not cool at school.  More times than not, it’s the unkind kids who rule the school, the ones that pick out all the flaws, the ones who can push all the wrong buttons, the ones who think the world revolves around them.  Imagine what happens if we don’t work to eliminate this before they reach adulthood?  And the quiet, kind kids?  They tend to blend into the woodwork,  trying to stay out of the way of the not so kind kids, doing their kind deeds sometimes unnoticed.

So what is my job?  To recognize those kids doing the kind thing, the right thing, for the right reasons.  The unselfish kids who just want to make others feel better, who honestly care for their friends.  Unfortunately I have to admit that sometimes the kids causing the issues take up all my attention and I can miss those quiet kids, doing their jobs respectfully and responsibly.

So I’m thinking Wednesday is going to be an opportunity to have a little fun wearing a cardigan, but also a time to consider the importance of something as simple as kindness.  It’s time to make it a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

 

I recently finished another book by one of my favorite authors.  Brene Brown’s book Braving the Wilderness spoke volumes to me with incredible timing as I find myself angry – angry at myself for not having enough bravery to speak my truth to others when given the opportunity.

Notice that I said MY truth, not THE truth.  I will never claim to know all and I hang out with enough ridiculously intelligent human beings to know where I stand among them.  I learn from these people all the time.  However, this does not diminish my life experience and my  intelligence and how I use those things to come to conclusions.  And yet, I find myself intimidated by those who are more articulate and/or more forceful in how they share their opinions.  I go along when everything in my body tells me differently or I stay completely quiet because I know my opinions/ideas will open up a huge can of worms, possibly unfavorably towards me.  So I keep it inside and just have to deal with chastising myself later for being afraid yet again.

So back to the book.  I plan to read it again because it was that powerful, but what I’ve picked up this time through is that, particularly at this time in our history/political and cultural climate, it is dangerous to speak your truth.  As I’ve written before, we’ve gotten really good at separating everyone into “either/or”.  Either you are with me or against me.  You fit in this political silo or that, you agree with this issue or you don’t which in someone else’s mind either makes you right or wrong.  There is no gray allowed.  And what happens is that you are either alienated by anyone who disagrees with you on any level, or you stay quiet so that nobody really knows what you think.  It’s easier to let them assume or guess than to have someone get angrily in your face and make you feel like a child, or worse yet, something less than human because you think or believe differently than they do.

But for those who choose to stand up for what they believe, braving the judgement and hate, they walk in the wilderness.  Walking in the wilderness means losing friends, receiving hate, questioning yourself.  But it can also mean great rewards in the long run because you end up walking in the wilderness with others like you.  Those who are able to speak their truth without fear of intimidation, with freedom to think differently.  These are people who are able to debate with civility and remain friends.

How do you know if you are a part of a group that walks in the wilderness?  I believe that it means there are no “meetings after the meetings”.  There is no finding that person or small group of people who completely agree with you, knowing that none of you would ever speak up otherwise.  Personally, I’ve never been a part of the wilderness because I learned very early that speaking what you were thinking was not safe.  And despite a lot of growth as I’ve grown older, among certain very vocal people, those who have mastered the art of intellectual intimidation using righteous anger, I completely fold, later beating myself up because I too have thoughts and ideas, they just don’t agree with theirs.

So, what to do?  As Brene says, things like social media are wonderful and awful at the same time.  People use it to intimidate through words, hiding in relative safety because it’s never face to face.  Perhaps just staying from social media is an answer, but it’s fun to put positive things on to share with friends and family.  Maybe the answer is to just stop being a part of life, staying in safety with family and the few friends who love you no matter what, but there’s not much opportunity for growth there.  Safe but boring.  So, the answer is learning how to be vulnerable and speaking my truth in a respectful way, knowing that I could get slammed by someone in the process.  Hard.

The older I get, the more I feel the need to say something about things I feel strongly about.  The way we’re behaving, the way we’re treating each other, all the name calling and intimidation, (basically adult bullying) has got to stop, if not for us, for the generations to follow.  All my kids see is adults behaving like children and there are apparently no consequences great enough to stop the things these so-called “adults” are  doing and saying to each other.  So maybe it’s time for some of us to step into the wilderness.  To stop being afraid to say what we believe in, in all of it’s glorious grayness. To realize that in our vulnerability, we may inspire others to do the same.

I can’t continue to live the way I’m living.  I’m harder on myself for being this way than anyone else could ever be for speaking my mind.  I’m going to try to challenge myself, one step at a time so that eventually, I will make it into the wilderness.

 

 

 

 

I checked in my bag at curbside this morning and suddenly I felt very light.  Not light headed, just light.  Then I realized – oh shoot!  I left my back pack in the cab!  Ok, don’t allow the panic to take over.  My driver’s name was Emile and thank goodness, I had decided to have him come pick me up this morning after he had dropped me off at the hotel on Monday.  We had texted several times in between so I was able to call him.  He answered right away, I told him what was wrong and he says, “I’ll be right there Miss Judy”.  As soon as he could get back around he did, handing me the back pack with a big smile.  He saved the day and I was grateful for his kindness.

At breakfast the other morning, I went through the line, grabbed my utensils and decided to get some oatmeal. I never get oatmeal, but it sounded good.  I took my things to the table where we would be working and almost before I could sit, the kind young waiter sat a spoon on my plate, something I had missed going through the line.  No words, just a smile, and he walked away, quietly surveying the room, seeing where he could anticipate, facilitate and serve his guests.  It wasn’t rocket science, it was customer service in the kindest way.

Now, you might say cynically, that these people were just doing their jobs.  Well yes, but we’ve all seen people just “do their jobs” who didn’t feel the need to smile or be kind.  These mentioned were people who took pride in what they did, sharing small kindnesses to make someone else’s day a little bit easier.  

I’ve seen kindness everywhere.  The young man helping a woman struggling to put her suitcase in the overhead bin, The young woman who stopped a man who had dropped something important.  An older woman who helped a younger woman with a crying child.  Kindness takes a little time, a little initiative, a little caring.  It takes a person who is mindful, not staring at a device, who sees things around them and looks for ways to be of assistance.  And like most things in life, once you begin focusing on something, like kindness, you begin to see it everywhere.

It’s easy to get fixated on the negative, the awful things you read in the media and see on the news.  It’s easy to focus on all the bad that’s happening in our jobs or lives and not focus on the good.  I can’t remember where I heard this years ago, but someone said it takes 2 positives to negate a negative.  And negativity just feeds on itself.  It spreads like a virus, infecting everyone it comes into contact with.  

As a teacher, I have those times when all I focus on are the negative things my kids are doing in the classroom.  The behavior issues, the disrespect, not following directions.  So much so, that sometimes I completely miss the joy and laughter of something silly that is said or done, forgetting that these are CHILDREN and they’re in the process of learning how to be kind.  I was talking to a group of collegiate students a week or so ago about some of these behaviors and what they can do about them.  What I’ve learned over the years is that although I believe with all my heart that music is essential for every child to learn, I also believe that children can’t really learn unless they’re taught how to behave in an appropriate way, how to treat each other kindly, how to put others before themselves and what it means to have integrity and be responsible.  These things are even more essential than my subject matter.  It is these essential character traits, among others, that will get them where they need to go in life.  It will help them get through school, get and keep the job, and it will help them with relationships,  These character traits will get them through the hard times, the times when things seem unfair.  

So, as I experienced these kindnesses this week, from strangers, friends and colleagues alike, I was reminded that I need to model these things for my students and be more aware of those opportunities where I can be kind to others.  I’m convinced that despite what we’re shown through social media and the news, that there’s more good happening out there than they’re telling us.  I see it every day. It just doesn’t make for exciting news I’m afraid.  Today however, MY good news is being shared as I thank Emile for his kindness to a slightly forgetful woman named Miss Judy and I will make sure to pass it on.

I’m staying at this lovely hotel where everything is slightly over the top.  Ok, it’s REALLY over the top.  The size, the decor, the service, EVERYTHING is over the top.  Even the room service menu in its descriptions is more than you might expect.  You gotta love a place that lists bacon as a “breakfast enhancement”.  I personally believe that bacon enhances anything and everything, so when I tell someone I love them more than bacon, it really means something.  So imagine my excitement when on our breakfast buffet this morning was this lovely display of bacon for us to partake.

So yes, I took my standard three pieces of bacon – 2 is too few, 4 is too many – and took a bite, anticipating the joy it would bring me.  You need to understand that I am a bacon fanatic and have, unintentionally (maybe), eaten some bacon for every meal on certain days.  I remember my grandmother making bacon for me until I either stopped eating it or she ran out, whichever came first.  Pork fat rules.  I think you are getting the picture.  You probably wonder why you’re friends with a crazy woman now, aren’t you?  So back to the anticipation.  I’m looking forward to the fatty, greasy, salty goodness of this and I take a bite.  And this thing is as hard as a rock.

Now, my mother used to ask for her bacon to be “crisp” but this was beyond crisp.  This was hard to break.  I would say chew but there was not actual chewing involved so breaking is a better description.  So I did something I’ve never done in my 60 years of life.  I left bacon on the plate.  I can hear you gasping as you read this.  The bacon that was advertised to “enhance” was a complete breakfast disappointment.  How could someone let this happen?  How do you overcook bacon that badly without burning it?  Here I am, almost an entire day later, traumatized by the experience.

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating just a bit.  Or not.  So, are there any life lessons to be learned here?  I believe in bacon but I also believe that everything that happens in life can be a lesson.  Just not sure what those lessons are right now.  I’m still just so disappointed.

But no, seriously, I’m sure the lesson is to begin again tomorrow with anticipation.  Anticipation for a productive day with great friends and colleagues.  Anticipation for great sharing and learning.  But most importantly, great anticipation for that favorite of all breakfast enhancements, bacon.

Two weeks ago I was in NYC having just finished up a great conference.  I was in the city that literally doesn’t sleep.  A place where you go out for dinner AFTER the show @10:00 p.m. and hit the sack @midnight.  A place where on a Wednesday or Thursday night, performing venues are packed with people.  A place where all night long you hear sirens and honking outside your hotel window.  All. Night. Long.  One night I swear someone dropped a truck outside my window.  A place where the airport (one of three) is ridiculously busy and a cab or Uber ride will easily cost you $50 to get you through a parking lot that professes to be traffic. I love it.  I love the hustle and bustle, I love the subway. I love that there are things to do all the time, everywhere.  I love the amazing food, the fantastic music and the beautiful art.  It’s a wonderful place to visit, but I don’t think I could live there.

Today I’ve just finished my 2nd day of a conference in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  No flight this time.  It would take longer to get a plane from Lincoln to Chicago to Sioux Falls than it would to drive.  It took my friend all day to fly here from Ohio.  So yes, I drove to Sioux Falls.  Once past Omaha, I took I-20 straight north for a couple of hours.  The rolling hills and fields were covered in fall colors and the cloudless sky was bright blue.  They don’t call this area of the country “big sky country” without reason. In those couple of hours I encountered very little traffic, I saw very few buildings, except for in Sioux City Iowa where, for whatever reason, the highway is always under construction.  I made a stop for gas in a little bitty town(?) just across the South Dakota line, with a restroom stop where the sign on the ladies room door said something like “sorry – the lights aren’t working.  Come see us for a flashlight or use the men’s bathroom”.  I made my choice.  The rest of the trip was uneventful, arriving at a place where the pace is slower and the people aren’t in a rush to get anywhere unless it’s to greet a friend.  And sure, there’s not a Met or Guggenheim here, but there are those who are just as passionate about making music and sharing it with kids.  It’s a wonderful place to visit, but I don’t think I could live here.

Day after tomorrow I fly to Orlando for meetings.  I won’t lie to you, I’m REALLY looking forward to the warm temps and I’m excited to be visiting somewhere new.  I’m sure there will be more contrasts to the places I’ve been lately – differences in culture, geography, cuisine – but what all of these places have had in common are people who are PASSIONATE about music education for all kids.  These are MY people.  This is my community.  Whether at a busy place like the Met or in a sweet little South Dakota town, I feel comfortable with my music family.  I don’t know if it’s like that for other disciplines.  Do engineers get together and talk passionately about their “art form”?  How about doctors and lawyers?  I don’t know.  All I know is that I can go anywhere in this country, with music people of like mind and no matter where it is, it’s home. At least for a little while.

Why wouldn’t I want my students to find this for themselves?  What a wonderful thing, to be able to go anywhere and find like minded people.  People who accept you right off the bat because you understand the experience, the emotions of having been a part of making music with others.  People who will be your friends for life.  Whether it’s in the heart of Manhattan or in a pretty little town like Sioux Falls, I hope music can help you find your people.

 

 

 

For a profession that professes rigor and high expectations, you might be surprised at how little experience a teacher new to the profession brings to their first job.  Oh, I’m not blaming the collegiate community who trains these individuals.  You can only do so much with the time you have, requirements (from the state and elsewhere) and practicum experiences future teachers have and how good their cooperating teacher was.  If education was just a numbers game and all about the data, we could train teachers like an accountant.  If it was all about building community, we could train them like community planners.  If it was all about analyzing childrens’ mental and emotional well being we would train them like psychologists.  But what we do is we focus on the subject matter they want to teach and the fundamental techniques of teaching itself.  Everything else has to be absorbed when they enter the classroom, assuming the new teacher is intuitive.  For a lot of these young people, it’s either sink or swim.

I’m beginning to understand this more and more in the last several years.  Yes, we can give an aspiring teacher all the tools to do the job, but it takes that AND a person who can think on their feet, analyze situations and children in a heartbeat and know intuitively if that child is engaged and learning in our classroom, to turn teaching into an art form.   In education, we have tools and data that enhance and inform our teaching, but it’s the person, the EDUCATOR who is the lynch pin in a child’s education.

Going back to the beginning however, the question is, how do we or CAN we train a teacher to be intuitive?  Or is intuitiveness just something we have?  And if a teacher is intuitive, how do we teach them to trust that intuition?  Especially when it goes against pages of data or policies that have been put into place in our schools.  And you know, if you take intuition out of the equation, that makes things equal for every child, and that’s what we all want, right?  Or, maybe not.

Maybe intuition is dead.  Maybe we’re training our new teachers to ONLY trust the data and the policies and intuition isn’t a consideration which for me is a little scary. Trusting your intuition can sometimes take your thinking outside the box.  Intuition can force you to think differently when a child doesn’t fit within the parameters of the data you’ve been given.  Intuition lets you know that maybe the kids aren’t really getting it, despite the well scheduled assessment (by someone else), that tells you otherwise.  And intuition doesn’t let you settle.  If you’re just going through the motions of teaching, it’s easy to believe that everything is going just fine.  It’s the intuition that gives you that little feeling in the stomach that things may not be as they appear.

Maybe we don’t trust intuition because there’s not a clear right or wrong.  Everyone seems to be afraid of making mistakes these days and maybe intuition just isn’t clear enough for some people.  But I believe the more you use your intuition, the sharper it gets and the more you can trust it.  You see, you begin to collect your own data of sorts, the experience portion of teaching where you’ve seen something that works for kids that maybe the numerical data didn’t catch.  And that’s what makes a great teacher, that’s when teaching becomes the art form and THAT’S when kids learn.

As a cooperating teacher who has worked with many student teachers, one of the things I stress is for these young people to learn to trust their gut.  Does something “feel” right?  Not very scientific, right?  Goes against all the latest trends in education.  But despite all the data we collect about children, they still remain the unknown factor.  Even after nearly 30 years,  I still occasionally get surprised despite my intuitiveness  and I just file that new information in case I need it again.

The sink or swim issue is real as we see young teachers leave the profession after just a few years.  Should we be spending less time on all the stats and research or should we spend more time on finding and practicing their intuition?  My intuition tells me….

 

 

 

I just spent several days at the Met.  Yeah, that’s right, the Metropolitan Opera in New York.  I go to learn about opera in an intense 3 day professional development with the cream of the crop.  People who specialize in things I didn’t even know existed.  People who have created their own careers by following their passions.  But I digress.  I do this so that I can bring the information and activities back home to my students so that they can experience this amazing genre of music.  And yet, somehow I came out of this experience with so much more. Several jewels that I am going to try to share with you from my perspective.     

Collapsible Space.  The circle of adults, numbering about 100, stood shoulder to shoulder in the large rehearsal room, deep in the bowels of the opera house.  Worn out multi-colored tape criss-crossed the  wood floors, worn by years of rehearsals. It was the culmination of 3 days of intense professional development, a time when we laughed and cried, debated and shared, as we learned more about this genre of music.  

It was a time of fulfilling something on my bucket list, the opportunity to see Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, live on the stage of the Met.  It doesn’t get any better than that, right?  And yet I walked out disappointed, the reasons hard to express but a feeling that was shared by others at various times during the conference.  Expressed again as we stood in that wide open, vulnerable circle.

A colleague brought up his concern that Porgy and Bess was an option for his students and now after seeing it, he didn’t know how he was going to share it with them.  The opera addresses promiscuity, physical and substance abuse and murder, with the disturbing message that violence is what makes a man a man.  These are things that touch his students in real life – how was he going to let them see this opera?  Another person had shared her concerns as well, having replaced an African American gentleman who has passed away at her school.  How was this self described “quirky white woman” going to relate to her African American students?  Her fear and concern had moved her to tears.  Both of these people were reassured by our African American colleagues in the room, letting them know that their students would know how much they cared about them and that would be enough.  In the circle, an African American woman walked the width of the circle to embrace the white man who was at a loss as to what he should do to help his students.  Another African American woman shared her story of a lifetime of judgement because of her skin color. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as there were a few more hugs and some applause for everyone’s brutal honesty.  

No two people see things the same way.  That means that no matter how much we try to align ourselves with others we believe see things the same way we do, we will never think exactly the same as someone else.  There will always be differences.  However, what we CAN do is CHANGE the way we look at things, and the things we look at change.  Read that again.  Looking at something from another perspective puts an interesting spin on how you may have perceived it.  So how do we change how we look at things?  By listening to stories.  Why do stories matter and why are you and I telling them?  

Stories keep us alive.  Stories inspire us, they show us how things really are or how they could be.  When we arrived at our professional development, one of our first exercises was to share something that had happened to us in the past year.  Just a tiny short story.  One of the women who has been attending for years shared that she had earned her doctorate this year WHILE she was still working and she was now DR. Ruthie.  Ruthie’s story intrigued me because I knew she was not your traditional student.  So, later I approached her and told her I had a tacky question to ask her.  When she said go ahead, I asked how old she was.  “63, she said, and I did it in three years.  That means she started at 60.  Wait a minute – I’M 60.  This CAN be done.  I shared that I want to go back and work on mine as well and she sent me off with an encouraging “go for it!”.  Stories make a difference and show us we have the power to do the seemingly impossible.  

Art is a vehicle for reconciliation.   Honest, difficult conversation is possible.  Reconciliation is possible.  Peace is possible.  Nuff’ said.

Do whatever makes you feel alive, following little steps to amazing adventures.  Look, very seldom do we step directly into some major adventure in our lives.  What usually happens is a series of little steps that eventually leads us to our greatest adventures.  The reason I have this opportunity at the Met is the result of  little steps.  I was recommended by a friend I had met through another organization.  I was a leader in that organization because someone else asked if I would run for office.  That person asked me because he saw my work in an appointed position with that organization.  The person who appointed me was someone I asked to do a professional development session for me and he saw my passion for music education.   This process began about 15 years ago.  I am well aware that it is not what you know but who you know.  But I’ve also become keenly aware of the fact that you have to say yes to the little adventures or none of this happens.  These are the things that excite me, the things that make me feel alive, that give me purpose, that supply the jewels that I am to share with others, like you.  Go ahead.  Have adventures.  And bring back some jewels of your own.

The last three months have been an interesting step into the unknown for me.  I’ve been casually writing for a couple of years now but this was the first time I had an editor.  The opportunity to write for a peer reviewed periodical was going to be exciting and something out of my comfort zone so I jumped at the chance.  After all, I love to write and I get pretty good feedback, albeit from family and friends.  So I quickly took one of my blogs as the foundation and built upon it to send in to the editor.

The initial response to my first draft was positive. and in my naivete I thought, well, this will be easy!  Then things got serious.  Now I had to use the editing feature in Word to make comments and changes, something I only remember doing once or twice in grad school and I’m not sure I got it even then.  Then came the next edit, then the next and the next.  And all of a sudden, my story didn’t sound like me anymore.  Someone else’s words and thoughts and point of view had taken over, making me wonder who had really written this.  My initial excitement gradually turned to frustration, then anger and then a hopelessness.  Maybe I wasn’t a good writer at all.  The editor had added new paragraphs with new sources and citations I hadn’t originally included, with a philosophical slant that wasn’t mine. I didn’t recognize the new article as being me at all.

I allowed this silly thing to make me a frustrated grump, feeling like I had no choice.  After all, this person was the expert, right?  What did I know?  Then, like I tend to do, after I cry and stomp a little (I’m not proud of it), I took a deep breath and asked myself, what am I supposed to learn from this?  What do I know about myself that makes me a good writer?  What can I deal with and what do I need to stand up for in my writing?  Yes, words are important, but if they say what I wanted to say in a more “eloquent” way, and still keep the meaning, I can be ok.  And where they veered away from my original meaning, I can say no and explain why.  And that’s what I did.

Long story short, we’re getting to the end of the process and I feel ok about it.  And I’ve learned.  First, when I find an editor for my book, it will be an editor who guides but who does it in such a way that it allows my voice to be heard.   It will be my story, from my perspective and it will be unique.  Secondly, as these experiences tend to do, it made me think of  how this lesson can be applied to life and teaching.

First, how many times do we “edit” our students?  We get them as a unique person and then we spend the rest of their school careers trying to edit them into the image of what we believe successful looks like.  Edited to the point where they are no longer themselves, where they look and sound like everyone else and they aren’t sure of what they’re voice is anymore.  I’m not sure we know what to do with students who have unique stories anymore. They make us uncomfortable.

We do this to people in general.  Rather than see each person for the unique human being they are, we edit them down to fit our idea of what this person should be.  It makes it easier for us to decide if they match the edited version of ourselves, if they fit the vision we have for the world in general.  While we love stories and we’re inspired by stories, it’s too much trouble to listen to people’s stories and even more problematic to deal with the messiness of people’s stories.  So we edit them.  We limit their stories in order to pigeonhole them into the image we want.  It makes it easier to label and categorize them.  It also makes it easier to decide if we agree with them or not, if we love or hate them.

I’ve learned a lot from this exercise.  I’ve learned I will work towards not letting anyone edit my story.  I am who I am, I believe what I believe, I am open to other thoughts and change, but ultimately, my story is my story.  What is your story and is someone trying to edit that story?