This day is finally winding down.  I’ve been awake since 3:40 a.m. CT and am now ready to crash at 10:30 p.m. ET. That would be the time zone, not the alien.  Anyway, that should clue you in as to how tired I am.  There’s nothing like flying to wear you out and at the same time, provide you with all kinds of entertainment.

I’ve had the opportunity to travel quite a bit lately and have this whole TSA thing down to an art form, especially if I happen to get TSA Precheck.  Unless of course I’m flying out of Lincoln.  You see, there is a kind of frantic dance that occurs going through airports and airport security.  You can always tell the newbies from the more experienced passengers.  But in my lovely town of Lincoln, where the airport has only four gates, things are well, shall we say, a little more laid back.

Knowing I don’t need very much time to go through security there, I did push it just a little bit this morning, so I was a little concerned about being late.  I didn’t need to be.  I dash up to my spot in line – there’s only two people ahead of me – and I overhear the ticket person saying, “so how is your son doing?  I haven’t seen him for awhile.” He and his customer are having a lovely conversation about her son and taking their good old time.  Don’t they know this is an airport?  Don’t they understand they are supposed to be cold and dismissive in their interactions with travelers?

As he finishes with her, he calmly takes care of the next lady and then it’s my turn.  Only this time, he’s a little distracted.  Several other people have come into the line behind me and there is only one other person there at 5:00 a.m. to help him and he’s not only the ticket counter person, he’s the person who takes your ticket upstairs at the gate.  He finished with me fairly quickly, I go upstairs and do the security thing.  The only perk of TSA Precheck here is I get to keep my shoes on. The TSA person congratulated me on doing a great job getting everything ready (I felt so validated) and did it with a smile on his face.  When the little buzzer went off as I went through the metal detector, the lady said it was probably just a little glitch and to go back and try again.  I apparently did a better job walking the second time and was sent off with another smile.  So disarming when all I’m expecting is robotic efficiency and demeaning directives.  To top it all off, when I went to board the plane the same ticket guy smiled and said, “hi again!” like we were old friends now.

Then on to Atlanta where I had just enough time to grab a real live southern biscuit before boarding for New York.   Warm and soft with just enough butter melted on the top with some spicy sausage inside.  Heaven.  Not like the hockey pucks I get at home.  Oh, and speaking of heaven, did I tell you that I didn’t have to sit by anyone on either flight?  The travel gods were certainly with me today!  Then it was on to LaGuardia, where I’ve since learned that the landings are ALL that fast and bumpy because the runways are short.  That’s right, the pilot is slamming on the breaks so we don’t skid off the runway.  Other than that, everything else went like clockwork, a cab was hailed and shared with a couple of colleagues I ran into at the airport,  we arrived at the hotel without a scratch, checked into the hotel and on to Central Park for a walk.

All of this to get together with some familiar faces and some new faces at a place that is a Mecca for singers, the Metropolitan Opera. The familiar hallways several floors under street level, the rehearsal space, the red carpet, the golden gates, all familiar and still awe inspiring, just because of where they are.  I enter with excitement and some trepidation because I know we’ll be asked to do something that will stretch us a bit, but that’s what learning is, right?  I’m greeted by the wonderful woman who is facilitating the week and she calls me by name.  How wonderful to be recognized by someone you admire.  Last year she suggested a read a book about introverts and said it would change my life.  It did.  I’m hoping to change others now as well.  It’s not just music we learn about at this conference.

So now, I finish the day to  the sounds of rain, thunder, sirens and car horns.  After all, this is the city that never sleeps, right?  Somehow I don’t think I’m going to have any trouble sleeping tonight, despite the noise.  Tomorrow will bring more new adventures and I want to really experience every one of them.  Just another day in the life.

Tomorrow I leave my relatively peaceful existence in Lincoln to fly to the crazy bustling island of Manhattan where I will once again be taken completely out of my comfort zone at the Metropolitan Opera.  I think this is my fifth year to participate in this adventure (but who’s counting?) and I look forward to seeing familiar faces in now familiar surroundings.

Would I live there?  I wouldn’t mind living within an hour or so of it. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t afford to live there but it is such an exciting place to visit. Besides the training I receive, I will be entertained by some of the greatest voices in the world, both at the Met and on Broadway.  What could be better?  Every time I walk up the steps to the Lincoln Center, I grin all over myself, seeing the fountain and the familiar arches of the opera house itself.  Who am I to be so lucky?

So, you know why I have this opportunity?  Someone asked and I said yes.  It was that simple.  But how many times has someone asked me to go on some adventure, small or large and my fear persuaded me to say no instead?  How many amazing experiences have I missed because of fear?  I use the excuse that “I like what I like”, but the truth is I like what I know.  It’s so much easier that way isn’t it?

But the thing that persuaded me, besides just the opportunity to go to New York was the opportunity to study with some of the greatest people in the business and well, I’m all about learning.  And just when I think, it can’t get any better, it does.  So what do I do with this experience?  I come home to my little town of Lincoln and share it with my students.  I describe the sights and sounds, the pictures and what I learned.  I do my best to get them excited about a genre that no child thinks they can get excited about and by some miracle they usually do get excited.

I’ve learned that opera tells stories of people; their trials and tribulations, grief and joy, anger and peace.  It brings stories to life that are still relevant today, even though the music and text may have been written generations ago in another culture, another time and another language.  All it takes is time to share the story with others and they too feel the connection.

So very early tomorrow, I hop a flight to the great island of Manhattan, to learn more stories to share.  Smoke on your pipe and put that in!

 

 

 

I admit it, I can sometimes get hangry.  Like this morning for instance as we were driving all over town to find a breakfast restaurant that didn’t have a line going out the door waiting for a table.  Sure, we didn’t leave as early as we should have, but I’m pretty sure everyone in Lincoln was looking for good old breakfast comfort food to deal with the grey, rainy conditions.

After several tries, we finally stopped looking and decided to just deal with the line.  Everyone in this particular line was waiting patiently while the young man scrambling around the room was doing everything he could do to clean tables and get people in them as fast as he could.  And then arrived the hangry old lady.

“We need to get in to put in our names”.  Nobody is putting in names – we’re just waiting our turn.  “But they always take names.  Don’t they always take names?”  Her voice swelled to the height of her teased white bouffant.  “I’m just going to make him take names”.  As she pushed her way through the rest of us, who by this time had gotten very quiet, just to watch the show, she grabbed the young man’s attention and again said “can you please take everyone’s name so we can be seated?”  Never mind that he had been seating people at a pretty steady pace since we had entered the restaurant.

The young man, who was looking pretty frazzled, respectfully picked up an empty order pad and began asking names and numbers in everyone’s party through us and then stopped to keep doing other things.  “Well, he WAS taking names and then he stopped” she said in her shrill voice.  At this point, my husband broke the silence and said, “so, like I was saying…” at which point everyone smiled.

The interesting thing was that despite the fact that he had begun writing names and numbers, he did not change his approach to seating groups.  It was first come, first served, which seemed to go unnoticed by the older lady wanting his to write things down.  As long as he was writing things down, she was ok.

After we were seated, which didn’t take very long, I looked at my husband and said, if I EVER act that way in public, you have my permission to smack me.  Not that he would actually do that, but he got my point.  The problem is, I’m beginning to behave and say things just like that little old lady.  Not out loud to people other than my husband, but that’s just a matter of time isn’t it.  How long will it be before I’m yelling and gesturing at people who don’t use their turn signals or tailgate me?  How long before I begin looking at kids and saying things like, are you serious?  Oh, ok, maybe I’m already doing that.  But as I watched the other people in the line look at her, or away from her, I thought, I don’t want people to think of me in that way.  I’m sure she’s a lovely woman and probably has grandkids who love her.  She’s just gone over the deep end where she really doesn’t care what she says or when she says it.

This is something I think about as I creep ever closer to 30 years of teaching experience.  At this point, when I think I’ve seen just about everything, something else comes down the educational pike and I find myself thinking, and sometimes out loud, are you serious?  I get concerned that I get stuck in that old lady mode where anything new is bad and “that’s the way we used to do it and we liked it!” is the way it should be.  I understand change is good, but when so many times I see the baby being thrown out with the bath water, I want to say whoa, wait a minute.  Not everything old has to be thrown out just because you want to incorporate something new.  It’s a lot like music in church.  Just because there is new music to sing doesn’t mean you can’t sing something with a melody once in a while.  Just sayin’.

My fear is that in my head I’m this hip, forward thinking, young grandma (relatively speaking) and the truth will be that I’m that grumpy, hangry old lady.  Hopefully I’ll have people who care about me enough to tell me if they see this starting or pray for me if it already has.

My commute to school lately has included a new friend and that short ride allows us to talk and get to know each other better.  She has shared stories of her childhood in Sudan, her travels to the United States as a refugee and her life raising two children in a country not her own.  She has sung happy birthday to me in Arabic and somehow the tune was so much more beautiful in another language.  But of all the stories she has shared, the story of her education has inspired the most reflection.

Her education began with 1st grade when her uncle requested that she attend school with his daughter, her cousin.  These children walked two hours to school and two hours home every day, to the point where the decision was made for them to board for a year.  It was unusual for a girl to go to school and in her family, she was the only one to go.  She shared with me that in her country, teachers were treated as prophets because they gave knowledge to others.  People in her village would come to her, even as a young child for help in reading instructions for medications, reading and writing letters.  Education was a privilege, not a right, and those who taught were respected and those who attended were grateful.

It led to a natural comparison to public education in this country where education is considered a right and not a privilege.  Historically, it hasn’t always been this way.  A white male with money was the typical student and it took years to include women and African Americans, even more years before they would be educated together.  Mainstreaming began our adventure of including students with special needs in our classrooms. And while it is far from perfect, public education is now the expectation for all children in this country.

I wonder, however, if we have begun to take public education for granted?  After all, something that was such a privilege back in the day can now be experienced by the very least of us.  It allows everyone to experience education which in turn gives everyone just enough information about the art of education to be dangerous, much like an armchair quarterback.  It’s easy to find problems and complain about things when you only see it from the outside and unfortunately a lot of those people are suggesting alternatives like charter schools, places that are more about the bottom line than actually educating children.

Maybe the problem is with schools themselves, where we are trying to be all things for all people.  We claim to be able to educate everyone, but the truth is that we don’t always have the resources to do this as well as we should and the will power of a few overworked, passionate teachers can’t always take the place of those resources, as much as they try.  We try to please every parent in terms of how we treat their children, easy on those children whose parents insist on kid gloves and harder on those children whose parents insist on more rigor.  And while teachers have high expectations for their students, sometimes the unrealistic expectations of those in control in terms of curriculum, the speed at which it is taught and tested, create stress for teachers and students alike.  Despite all that teachers are trying to do to keep up, to increase their own education, to keep up with all the documentation for accountability, to learn just enough about the catch word/phrase/trauma du jour, is it all really for looks?  Can we really do what we claim we can do?

I think about students who complain that they have to get out of bed so early to get to school and then I think about my friend who was willing to walk two hours to go.  I think about students who disrespect and throw around inappropriate language towards their teachers and fellow classmates, then I think of how teachers are treated as prophets in other countries.  Have we taken education for granted because it’s for everyone?  Imagine a football game where not everyone can go.  That ticket becomes much more valuable when not everyone can have it.  Unfortunately for public education, everyone has a ticket every day and it’s just not that big a deal anymore.  It’s something we have to legislate in terms of attendance because some people aren’t willing to go to the trouble to get their kids to school and other kids hate it so much they can’t wait to drop out.

The answer?  I don’t know.  Maybe as an education community, if we said we don’t have the resources to do everything and stopped taking all kids, communities and legislators would begin to listen and help provide what we need. Seriously, how much further can teachers be stretched?  I don’t know.  All I know is that I found myself wondering what it would be like to be so respected for what I do for kids.  It won’t happen during my career, but maybe one day, public education won’t be taken for granted anymore.

Attending an outdoor sporting event can be an interesting experience.  From juggling your food on your lap sitting amongst 90,000 people, hoping the person who leaps up next to you doesn’t kick over your drink sitting on the ground, to whatever weather conditions might arise to restroom facilities, it can be quite the challenge.  For me as a woman, the biggest challenge in the restroom is usually the line.  The bathrooms, while lacking in aesthetic appeal, have all that is necessary for privacy to do your thing.  However, I’ve been informed that for the men, things a just a little bit different.

It recently came to my attention that in the men’s restrooms at the stadium, the men use something akin to a trough to urinate in.  While this may initially seem to be TMI, what this really says, is that we expect men to deal with standing at a trough, in all their glory, next to other men who are all using the bathroom.  The idea that this is an acceptable way to do something so private in such a public way is ridiculous.  Just think, some engineer designed it this way – this is not just some Jerry-rigged idea – all in the name of practicality.  Or so my husband says.  And from what my husband has also shared with me, somehow men’s public restrooms are always filthy, and somehow this is ok. So our expectation as a culture for men is to behave and be treated  like animals I suppose.

I love men.  Masculine men who are smart, strong, protective, and caring.  Men who get excited about sports and cars, brats and beer.  This is not man bashing by any means of the imagination.  I would say it’s more culture bashing.  Our society seems to think that it’s ok for men to have to deal with things that are dirty, ugly or just plain unsanitary.  We talk about man caves and see commercials about men watching TV in garages on used couches.  I don’t suppose that men would love to sit in comfortable leather recliner in a beautiful room with delicious food and drink, would they?

But no, in our current culture, our expectation is that really masculine men settle for much less.  Real men are uncouth and drive large loud vehicles, they are very open with bodily function sounds and smells and scratch in inappropriate places.  They tell crude jokes and talk inappropriately about women with the good old boys.  Then we say boys will be boys because we as a culture have not only created this attitude but we perpetuate it.  We have done a disservice to men in general because we set low expectations for them.

It starts with the bathroom.  We know that people behave in a way they are expected or allowed to behave.  I see it in the classroom every day.  If we treat people in the way they should be treated, then they will behave differently.  What if men had more privacy in the bathroom?  What if sports venues and bars were nicely appointed and/or served great healthy food?  What if instead of a man cave it was a man castle?  We talk about men needing to treat women better, but they don’t even know how to treat themselves.  Maybe it’s time to teach them with some higher expectations – and better bathrooms.

We all have agendas.  Most of us in the professional world live by agendas.  Siri tells me that an agenda is a list of items to be discussed at a formal meeting or a plan of things to be done or problems to be addressed.  Speaking on a more individual level, it can be the intentions or motives of a particular person or group.

My agenda yesterday was to go to school and check in with my sub, then get myself to Indianapolis.  My agenda was pretty clear cut and well planned until I got THE TEXT.  “Your flight has been delayed…”  Does the airline not know that I have an AGENDA?!?  As I’m beginning to stress over a truly first world problem, I decide to ask for help – not get angry or make it all about ME, (although truthfully, it was), but calmly ask for help.  The woman on the other end of the line was most helpful and was able to get me on a new agenda which then caused me to adjust the rest of my agenda for the day.  Fortunately, I ran into friends as I arrived who were able to get me caught up on my original agenda for the day and bring my world back into balance.

And that’s it, isn’t it?  We all move day by day from agenda to agenda, some created by us, others for us, all recorded with great care in our phones or plan books or day planners, only to be deleted, moved or scratched out when our agendas are interrupted.  And what if my agenda isn’t detailed enough and I forget important little details in the execution of said agenda?  There’s a fine line between too much and too little.  And who is the agenda for?  Just me?  Me and a someone or a group of someones?  Just some new things for me to consider as I become a person who takes others agendas and turns around and creates agendas for other people.

Those trickle down or grassroots agendas are multi-layered, having started up or down  the food chain, passing through other agendas to me and then on from there. Is the agenda just informational or does it require us to take action?  Does the agenda help propel thoughts and actions or is it just to hear myself talk.  It’s an important question because I have sat through agendas that were put in place just because someone required a certain amount of my time to be spent on some kind of agenda, just to say we did it.  How much of my life have I wasted sitting through those agendas?

My personal agenda changes depending on what’s going on.  Usually it’s just to make it through whatever it is that I’m doing without making too many mistakes or looking like a fool.  It can range from the mundane, like my Saturday morning cleaning agenda (which went completely out the window this particular weekend), to the sublime where I feel maybe something I did or said made a difference somehow.  Those are the ones I aim for, because as I get older, I realize that I don’t have as much time to make a difference, so that time becomes precious and agendas become more strategic.

While the idea of being free from agendas sometimes sounds like a wonderful dream, I realize that I actually like an agenda or to do list – something that tells me I have things to do, places to go and people to see.  So my long term agenda is to always question my motives when creating agendas, especially if I hope to make a difference for others.  Now, time to work on my agenda for tomorrow.

If you ask most teachers why they go in to school when they’re sick, they’ll tell you that it’s easier to go in sick than to make sub plans. Sub plans are those things that teachers create in the hopes that kids will never notice that there is a completely different human being in front of them because the sub is doing everything the teacher would normally do.  I hate to break it to them but….

So yes, tonight I finished my sub plans for the one day that I will be gone.  I started them two days ago so that I would have time to really think them through.  First, they have to follow my ELO’s (essential learning outcomes).  Then I need to make sure they have access to my online curriculum WITHOUT giving them my school name and password.  Then I need to find things in the curriculum that my sub can follow with limited time for preparation.  After all, it may have taken me 3 days to create them but my poor sub will have maybe a couple of hours to go over it, if they’re lucky.

I have to include where things are, which students may need extra help, duty and lunch schedules.  Which just reminded me that I forgot to add my morning duty to my plans.  Anyway, there are things that I just do during the day that I don’t even think about and I have to create these plans as though I’ve never been in the room before.  It’s difficult.

I can’t think of another professional who has to prepare for a substitute like teachers do.  Could you imagine an engineer writing out his work plans for the guy who’s going to step in and do his work tomorrow?  Obviously, this guys work can wait until he gets back.  However, our work or clientele comes in the form of 5-11 year olds and it’s difficult to say, oh, sorry, you’ll just have to do without me for a day.

For me, this one was not so bad because it was planned.  I have some other professional obligations that require me to be gone on occasion so at least I have time to create these plans.  It’s when a teacher suddenly becomes ill that it’s a problem.  The temperature is the big thing, although I have been known to take Tylenol to keep the fever down just to make it through school.  Flu is a definite stay home kind of thing, but your basic cold – nah, we just suck it up and go in, out bookbags filled with tissues, antihistamines and cough syrup, as we spend the day washing our hands with every sneeze,

Before I began teaching music full time, I was a substitute teacher, K-12 whatever they needed.  One day I was subbing for elementary P.E. and the next I was doing high school French or biochemistry.  If a teacher left good sub plans, I could teach just about anything.  But if the plans were bad, the day was torture.  I learned a lot from those days, mainly that great sub plans were essential if you wanted someone to come back when you needed them!  Probably why I tend to spend so much time doing my sub plans now.

Even if your sub plans are great and you’ve remembered everything to hopefully make it a great day, despite the fact that you are gone, the one element you have to consider are the students.  It’s an unwritten rule that the minute a class sees that their teacher is gone, the students are going to try getting away with anything and everything.  As a sub, I was known as the Queen of Demerits.  I’m pretty sure I gave out more in those two years than I have since.  It was necessary to survive.  Unfortunately you can’t always be the nice guy when you’re a sub, usually because the students won’t let you.  Come to think of it, I can’t always be the nice guy now.  Hmmm….

Anyway the sub plans are finished and now I can focus on the trip ahead, which also needs planning, much like the lesson plans.  However, this one is for adults, so maybe the behavior won’t be too bad…. : )

Back in the day, I used to hear people say they had a meeting and wonder what it must feel like.  After all, meetings are for important people to get together and discuss important things, to make changes, to delegate responsibilities, to make dreams a reality.  The only meetings I ever had to go to were staff meetings and for me, as a specialist, I feel as though I have given up months of my life sitting through meetings that had no bearing on what I was teaching.  Sure, there’s always a little thing here or there I can apply, but not always.

Now in my old age, I not only go to meetings but I call and run meetings.  Which sometimes means I have committee meetings related to those other meetings.  This month I will have attended 11 separate meetings, some weekly, some bi-weekly, some monthly, some bi-annually.  They will be in person and virtually, with a table full of people or a room full depending on the meeting.  So, after having attended literally hundreds of different meetings, I have come to some conclusions.

In person is best.  The reason people meet is to have dialogue and share ideas.  It is so important during these meetings that we’re able to see and read each others body language.  Not everything is said through our words.  Especially in an organization where personnel changes frequently and there is always someone new, it it important to see if someone wants to share something but may be hesitant.  It’s important to read emotions, to see if people are comfortable or uncomfortable so that honesty can be encouraged in what is said.  I hate meetings where everything discussed is rubber stamped.  People are chosen or elected to organizations because they have the experience and/or expertise to contribute to the discussion and it’s important for the leader to open up those pathways, even if it’s not what everyone wants to hear.

Virtual meetings where you only hear the person talking are a waste, mainly because you lose all of the things mentioned above.  It’s too easy, as a participant, to become sidetracked or have side conversations and this means nothing meaningful gets accomplished.  As a teacher, there is nothing more maddening than sitting and listening in a meeting for several hours at a time.  We would never do that to our students, so why do we do that to each other?  It’s not the least bit constructive.

Setting up a great meeting is like setting up a great lesson plan.  When I first began running meetings, I was all uptight about making it all “official”, down to a cheat sheet for Robert’s Rules (which I detest).  Then I realized that a meeting was all about organizing the agenda in such a way that the people involved stay engaged, just like my class.  Some of what we do should be routine, so that we know what to expect, but there there should also be opportunities to respond, opportunity to work in small groups, opportunities for questions and open discussion.  A good teacher will know when to change directions, tweak to make room for a teachable moment, and a good meeting facilitator does the same thing.  The key is flexibility within the agenda, just like you would have in your lesson plan.

Over the years, the hardest part of a meeting for me has been that person who wants to take up all the air space or continually finds problems rather than present solutions.  Encouraging those people to find things to engage in that uses their strengths can go a long way in creating a positive environment. Suggesting that a person write what it is that they feel strongly about, perhaps in an article or blog can be a great way to encourage them in a positive way.  Or asking that negative Nancy what they would suggest to fix a problem, address an issue and putting them in charge, lets them know that you care about what they have to say and that you need their help to fix that thing they’re passionate about.

This leads to my last point.  Meetings that focus on relationships and people are more constructive.  People who serve want to make a difference and it’s important for those in charge to get to know those people so they can focus on their unique strengths to get things accomplished.  It’s important to find out where their strengths and passions lie to gather people around a cause or project.  People who are passionate, who feel listened to and whose time is respected will do just about anything.  Everyone wants to be recognized and appreciated for who they are and a good leader can do this by just getting to know them better.  Sure there are things to get done and it’s work, but a person who is given encouragement, responsibility and is thanked in a sincere way will feel a sense of accomplishment doing those things for others whether it’s their team, school or other organization.

Truth be told, I love a good meeting as it allows me to hear new ideas, enlightens me, and inspires me AND I get to know people in a different way.  So, here’s to another week and more meetings.

 

 

 

 

As far as I’m concerned, the original Star Wars (episodes 4,5 and 6) is the great movie series of all time.  Full of action, romance, good guys and bad guys, they are stories I’ve never grown tired of.  That is why when the last couple of installments came back with my three favorite characters, I was curious as to how they would be portrayed.  How would they address the aging process in terms of the story line?  I mean, every action hero eventually becomes too old for a blaster fight, right?

The movies did not disappoint but as I tend to do with everything, I began to analyze the personalities and compare them to their younger selves and wondered how we could learn from these characters in terms of our own aging.  Sure, it’s a little out there but I’ve always said we can learn something from anything.

Luke, the young man who is impatient to grow up and have adventures, ends up becoming a recluse, hiding from mistakes he felt he made in the past.  Things he can’t forgive himself for.  He was fortunate to have some success as a young man, I mean, helping to overthrow the Empire is no small feat.  But perhaps ego got the best of him as he felt he could train others to do as he did.  When he experienced failure, rather than learn from it and work to make it better, he gave up and disappeared.  His life was over.  His mistakes were unforgivable.  And so he spent his last years living through his mistakes over and over again, until the very end when someone challenged him to help someone he loved.  A death bed effort, so to speak.  It got me to wondering about all those people out there who retire and feel like that’s the end.  They sit in their recliners and rocking chairs, pulling away from the world until there is no one left.  What a waste.

Han is all about himself, Full of bravado, he is the ultimate mercenary until he develops relationships with others whose cause touches something in him.  So much of his personality is doing whatever he has to do to survive and he creates tactics like talking himself out of things to do it.  He’s not about to let anyone know he has feelings for something or someone.  As he grows older, after losing his son, he leaves his relationships behind and returns to what he knows; the seemingly uncaring, fast talking mercenary.  The key here is going back to what he is comfortable with.  No more adventures, no more relationships where he might get hurt.  So many of us as we get older tend to do this.  Same places, same routines, sticking to the familiar.  Feeling too old to have any more adventures or try something new.

And then there is Leia.  Always looking to do whatever she can to save others, fighting against evil.   Even as she grows older, she continues her crusade, despite the hardships of losing her son, husband and brother.  She sees a purpose higher than herself, opportunities to make things better for others.  We marvel at these types of people.  How are they this strong?  How do they face such dire situations and still maintain focus?  How do they continue learning and looking forward instead of back?  Like Luke, she’s done her duty – she could hide away and never look.  She’s faced more than anyone should be able to handle and she could return to an easy life.  After all, she’s a princess.

As I get ready to celebrate my last year in my 50’s, I look at these characteristics and wonder where I am.  I tend to want to stick with the familiar and occasionally want to become a hermit when things are just too much.  I so want to be like Leia as I see things in the world that I want a hand in making better.  And yet so many times I let my past or my fear keep me from doing those things.

The average life span for women in the U.S. is @79 years.  That gives me 20 years, more or less, to either get something done or give up.  What will it be?  Luke, Leia or Han?

 

The ground was completely soaked from days of rain and on this particular day, it was drizzling enough that the playground equipment was wet, making this a “sidewalk day”.  The kids knew it was a sidewalk day and there was an assumption on the my part that when we said “sidewalk” it meant, well, sidewalk.  Apparently not.  I spent the next 10 minutes of my life saying, stay on the sidewalk, stay on the concrete.  Sidewalk, sidewalk, sidewalk, sidewalk. All the while, kids are looking at me like I’m speaking another language and doing whatever they want.  They have me in terms of numbers and noise and my apparently ineffectual efforts at having them do the right thing go for naught.  One little girl actually looked at me and asked, “what do you mean?”.

That’s the way classes seem anymore as well.  I found myself today saying over and over, TAPS please.  (Total and peaceful silence) when I couldn’t get everyone’s attention.  I would like to think I have this classroom management thing down to a science but instead of getting easier, it seems to be more difficult because quite frankly, I don’t think the kids care what adults say to them or ask them to do.  There have always been those few kids in a class who feel that way, but handling one or two is cake compared to 2/3 of a class.

Just like anything else, the pendulum swings both ways when it comes to disciplining students or giving students consequences.  When I was kid, way back in the dark ages, I went to a school in the Deep South where the principal walked the halls during classes carrying a paddle.  If a teacher sent a student to sit out in the hallway, the principal would pop his head in, ask the teacher a question and the next thing you knew, you heard whack, whack, whack on that kid’s behind.  That was motivation for most of us to never cross our teacher.

While I would never advocate for corporal punishment, it seems the pendulum has swung WAY over to the other side.  No longer allowed to even use the words “punishment” or “discipline”, the kids know that any “consequences” we dole out are pretty painless.  Oh sure, there are those kids where all it takes is “the look” to straighten them out, but chronic offenders have told me that the only choices we have as teachers don’t mean anything.  Unlike the corporal punishment which meant “pain”, sometimes the kids are getting exactly what they want when I send them to go to another room or call the office to come get them.  They know exactly what words to say (because they’re scripted) to get back to the classroom or wherever it is they want to go.

As teachers, we’re instructed to give children not what they deserve but what they need.  We’re to give them grace.  In the Christian faith, grace is unmerited favor which means, we deserve death, but have been given life instead.  Life that still includes the good and bad, mistakes and consequences.  Life does not stop just because we’ve been given grace. Grace does not mean everything becomes pleasant – we’re still responsible for our words and actions and consequences, to be meaningful, should be related to the infraction.  However, in our current system, everyone receives the same basic consequence.  And then we wonder why students are exhibiting the same inappropriate behaviors for years.  It’s like telling a student not to touch something hot and every time they try, we give them a treat.  Doing something or creating appropriate consequences that help them understand that this behavior is destructive is the way to get them to begin thinking and acting differently.

I’m pretty sure the pendulum won’t be swinging back anytime soon which means it won’t happen in my professional lifetime.  However, for the sake of the children and the future of our society, my hope is that it will.  Hopefully we’ll learn that grace means more than giving kids what they need.  It means we love them enough to give them grace with consequences when needed.