The airport is absolutely the best place to people watch.  Myriads of combinations, genders, ethnicities, personal styles, personalities and anything else you can think of can be seen in the time spent waiting on your next plane.  Yesterday was no exception as I focused on a particular group, what some might label as the “traditional” nuclear family – mom, dad, older son, younger daughter.  The perfect set up, if you’re living in the 1950’s perhaps, but this particular nuclear family was anything but perfect.

The older son called everyone’s attention to this family, and I mean everyone.  It was hard to estimate his age, as he was a large child, but his behavior was much younger than his size.  Chanting at the top of his lungs as he bounced up and down, “AIRPLANE, AIRPLANE, AIRRRRRPLAAAAAANE!!!” over and over again, it definitely caught our attention.  Cute at first, but we soon came to see that this was not just a one time event.  Because the kids were young enough to board a bit early, they were waiting at the gate,  not understanding apparently that the “A” people got to board first.  When they were stopped from going in, the yelling and whining began.  “I WANT TO GET ON THE AIRPLANE!  WHY CAN’T WE GET ON THE AIRPLANE?”  DADA, WHY CAN’T WE GET ON THE AIRPLANE?”.  Over and over again.  You could see the wheels spinning in people’s minds as they thought, I want to make sure I don’t sit next to THAT family.  Finally they were allowed to board and you  literally heard a sigh of relief from the other passengers, but that wouldn’t last long.

I found myself chuckling as I watched and listened to this.  Imagine having a roomful of these kids to teach?  Two are cake, right?  Well, I’m on summer mode and they weren’t my problem.  I boarded the plane, not even thinking about where they might be, and looked for an empty window seat.  It wasn’t until a mother and daughter sat beside me that I realized what I had done, as the mother asked the the daughter “why did you pick seats next to THAT family?”  Oh well, this might be entertaining.

The family chose to sit father/son in front and mother/daughter behind.  Mom and dad both had devices and headphones.  Other than the occasional “shhhh”, the parents did not speak to their kids.  The kids on the other hand did everything they could to get everyone’s attention.  The little boy had a toy airplane with him which he pretended to fly loudly enough that it could have BEEN a real plane.  The little girl had a little box of fruit loops and some kind of iPad that she didn’t ever really use, although she constantly tried to get mom’s attention while mom did nothing but scroll on her phone.  My previous amusement began to turn to pity for these kids as I observed them throughout the hour and a half long flight.

The little girl would unlatch and latch the tray table and then would spend time slamming the tray table against the back of the seat her brother was sitting in.  Neither parent said a word as they stayed glued to their screens.  The little girl kicked the tray table which continued after they were brought their drinks and snacks so the little girl spilled mom’s drink all over the tray.  Mom cleaned it up when the flight attendant brought napkins, but never addressed it with the child and handed dad the trash when she was finished to get back to her phone.  At one point, the little boy just yelled loudly out of nowhere, causing everyone to jump, and sister followed right after that.  A little bit of “shhh” again, but then back to the phones.  The lady next to me looked at me and just said, “unbelievable”.

At one point, when the plane slowed down on our approach and began to descend, the little girl noticed and it scared her.  She thought we were falling.  In fear she tried to get Mama’s attention, with “Mama, we’re falling!!” several times, but “Mama” never acknowledged her and continued to scroll on her phone with the headphones on.  When the plane landed, the little boy cheered and yelled, again at the top of his lungs “WE’RE IN CHICAGO!!!”.  At that point, everyone chuckled because, well that was funny.

It was what happened next that really made me sad.  As we were waiting for the doors to open to get off the plane, the little boy unbuckled his seat belt and tried to talk to his dad.  “DADA, CAN WE GET OFF NOW?  DADA LOOK AT ME.  DADA, MAY I SIT ON YOUR LAP?  DADA, DADA!!”.  The dad ignored him and at one point, gently pushed the child away because he was blocking what he was looking at on his phone.  My heart broke.  This was not a bad child.  This was horrendous parenting, at least for the hour and a half I had to observe them.  The the child changed and suddenly said “I HATE YOU DADA!  I WANT TO HIT YOU DADA!”.  The dad, for whatever reason, actually smiled a bit as he pushed the child away, maybe out of embarrassment because as of course, the boy yelled it for all the world to hear.

The point of this story is that all adults, not just parents, need to get off of their damn devices when there are children around who need us.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen some adult walking across a street or parking lot or on an escalator, looking at their device while a small child is walking behind them.  It’s negligent.  It’s dangerous.  It’s going to ruin our next generation as they grow up without so many things, too numerous to mention in an already long blog entry.  And don’t just hand them a device to shut them up.  It’s too easy – I know.  Spend time engaging in conversation, explaining things to them, showing them things, reading to them, sharing new adventures together. These kids are our future, we need to prepare them for it.

This morning I sat in a room full of friends, old and new, looked around in a panic and asked myself, why am I here?  All of the old tapes popped in my head saying things like, you’re not good enough, not educated enough, not literate enough to be with these people and have anything meaningful to say.  It’s that whole Imposter’s Syndrome for sure – they’re going to find out that I really don’t have a clue as to what I’m doing.

That’s the thing about hanging out with these great people – they can challenge you to do and be more than you could have ever imagined, and yet if I allow them, they can intimidate the heck out of you.  Understand that they’re not the ones making me feel that way, I am.  However, there’s one perspective to music education that most of them don’t have, and that’s my perspective as an elementary general music teacher.

While I’m still making my way around financial reports, policy making and the like, I know exactly what it feels like to be at what can be considered at the bottom of the totem pole in music education.  My kids don’t win trophies or superior ratings at contests or get scholarships to universities.  Shoot, some of them still have difficulty getting out complete sentences without starting over several times.  My day is filled with introducing and reviewing content, singing, dancing, playing instruments and learning vocabulary, tying shoes, giving hugs, wiping tears and sending kids to the bathroom.  The nitty gritty every day teaching that sometimes makes you feel like a glorified babysitter.  The unappreciated, you’re just here so I can have a plan time, the grades in music aren’t important teacher who only wants to bring the joy of music into children’s lives so that they may become better, kinder, more thoughtful, wholly educated people.

Many of us work in isolation, in an assembly line world where every 50 minutes another class of children walks in and you might get to see another adult for 30 seconds or so.  Truthfully, many of us kind of like this as it gives us some autonomy.  Within parameters, I can teach what I want, when I want, how I want.  If my kids are catching on faster, I can go on, and if they need more time, I can give them more time.  But none of this lends itself to studying financial reports and helping to creating policy papers.  And sometimes my almost colloquial use of classroom stories and language feels out of place among those with terminal degrees teaching graduate students.  But it’s my perspective.

It’s the perspective of thousands of elementary general music teachers across the country, the teachers who are providing the foundation for students to understand, create and enjoy music.  We can be the reason they either love or hate music for the rest of their lives. It’s a huge responsibility.  Our perspective is important and needs to be heard.

So, as I calmed myself, I realized that I do have something to contribute to the conversation.  I can be the voice of the public school music teacher, the one to remind those who have gone on to higher education or administration that we are to think of and serve the membership and their students.  It should be the first thing we ask ourselves when we consider those financial reports and policies.  How will this help those teachers in the trenches and their students?

I should clarify that I work with a marvelous group of educators who are passionate about quality music education and believe it should be for all students.  However, once in a while, when we get caught up in word smithing or formatting, we need to stop and remind ourselves of that bottom line and maybe look at things again from my perspective.

“Flying sucks anymore”.  A young man who exited the same flight I did this afternoon was expressing his frustration to a friend as he walked through the terminal.  “Everything is so slow!”.  Okay, I get it.  I was pulling into the parking garage at the airport, right on schedule when the text came saying that my flight had been delayed three hours.  What are you going to do, right?  I had no connecting flight and I wasn’t about to drive the hour home and hour back in that time, so I just hung out and had lunch at the airport and watched the Goodyear blimp land and take off while I ate.  Pretty cool.

I have to disagree with this young man however. Just think about it.  I can fly from Omaha to Washington D.C. in 2 1/2 hours.  In less time than it would take for me to teach three classes on any given day, I can get to another time zone and 1,000 miles away.  It’s really pretty amazing.  My dad, who was career Air Force, would marvel at the fact that planes could fly at all.  He would talk about how heavy they were and how much power it took for them to even take off.  So, unless you know how to beam yourself up somewhere, flying is pretty much the best way to go.

I’ll tell you what sucks however.  I decided to take a taxi to the hotel from the airport.  I’ve been spoiled by the friend I usually travel with who gets Uber for us, but I don’t have the app – yet.  Today was probably the push I needed to get the app for sure.  The gentleman at the airport was very good at getting a cab for me and then this man got out of the cab, obviously with what was left of lunch all over his shirt, who grunted at me while he put my suitcase in the trunk and walked back to the driver’s seat.  The smell of cigarette smoke wafted out from the interior of the cab so I opted to leave the window down a bit for the ride to the hotel.  No conversation as the driver tried to get as close as he could to the bumpers of every vehicle he came in contact with so I kept my eyes on my cell phone and, quite frankly, said a quick prayer.  We arrived safely at the hotel, where he grunted some more, so I paid him and exited the smoky interior as fast as I could.  Yep, pretty sure I’m going to Uber next time.

Yes, it will be a story of trains, planes and automobiles this week as I’m looking forward to taking the metro into D.C. to have an opportunity to speak to my senators and representatives about how every child in this country deserves music as part of their well rounded education.  Now, I know that there are a lot of other things on their plates this time around, and maybe allocating funds to make sure kids get what they need educationally isn’t at the top of the list, but this is what I’m here for.  You see, it’s totally worth the time, the smoke, and all the different modes of transportation to make sure that kids get what they need. I love this week at the National Assembly with music education leaders from across the country, all of like mind, all wanting to make a difference for kids, helping them to spread their wings and take flight through music.

 

 

 

I am alone.  I have a movie of my choice on the TV, I ate what I wanted for dinner and my Diet Coke is sitting beside me on the table.  Life is good.  The volume is the volume I want, the temp on the thermostat is what I want, the lighting is what I want.  I love my family more than anything, but with family there is necessary and important  compromise.  Alone means no compromise, at least temporarily.

When my husband and I were first married, it was the first time I had lived anywhere besides my parent’s house.  I never lived on my own. That meant that I never slept in the house alone – ever.  After I got married, while it didn’t happen all the time, there were times when I had to stay home alone, and I was SO not prepared.  I heard every little tiny sound, imagined movement in every shadow, couldn’t sleep without a light on – it was miserable.  Even when the boys came along, I felt responsible so I had to pretend I wasn’t afraid, but I was.  My home, a place where I should be experiencing my greatest peace was anything but.

I’m not sure where that fear came from and looking at it now it seems really unreasonable, but it was there and I hated being alone because of it.  Then something happened, quite unplanned, but probably one of the best things that could have happened to me.  I began to travel to conferences and meetings by myself and with that meant staying in hotels alone out of necessity.  At first it was quite the transition.  Which lights could I leave on and have just enough light but not too much?  Were all of the doors closed and locked if possible?  And over the years, I have finally gotten to that point where I can be alone and be okay with it.  That might not seem like big deal to some but for me that meant independence without fear.

I talk with young women today and, because of my personal experience, I’m always amazed and slightly jealous of their independence at such an young age.  They have their own apartments, cars, finances, none of which I had until I was married.  It was a different time I suppose, or maybe I came from an old fashioned family who insisted that I stay with them until I had a husband to go to.  Independence was certainly not encouraged, especially for me as a girl.  They were very open with the idea that boys and girls should be treated differently in terms of how late we could be out and who we could be with, full of warnings about what could happen to girls and what kind of reputation they could have if the didn’t follow the rules of safety.  At the time it made me angry because it wasn’t fair, but what it really did was set me up to believe that I couldn’t do things on my own without someone to take care of me.

Tomorrow I leave on a plane to go to National Assembly, the first time I haven’t traveled with at least one or two of my cohorts.  All alone.  Again, for some this is not a big deal, but for me it’s just another step in my independence, just another thing I know I can do successfully on my own.  While happening late in my life, at least it has happened and I’m grateful.  So here’s to a week of adventure in D.C. filled with lots of learning and decisions I can make on my own.  Because I can be alone.

 

 

 

In the next few days I have two trips, one big, one small.  Then I have less than a day in between and there is a great fear that I will forget something, hence, THE LIST.

I don’t know how you can be a teacher unless you make lists.  How else can you keep track of all the stuff you need to get done?  I actually run several lists at a time for different things and then compare those lists when needed.  I know it sounds a bit OCD, and when I was younger and didn’t have so many plates in the air, I didn’t need to do this as much.  Things have changed.

Yellow pads are the answer for me, except then I get too many yellow pads going at once and can’t always remember which yellow pad contains which list.  I mean, I can’t have my school equipment order list on the same pad as my list of travel dates, right?  Then I started using the Notes app on my phone, except now I have so many things I forget I have them, which kind of defeats the purpose.  Siri would be great as a reminder, except I don’t want my phone dinging every five minutes.  Now I keep files on my desktop, labeled clearly and separated so hopefully I can find what I need more quickly.

You know, this technology thing has really multiplied the number of lists I need and is making life more difficult.  I now have a list of user names and passwords for everything under the sun.  Things I apparently can’t live without but that I was just fine without thirty years ago.  Even when my kids were younger and I was crazy busy, I remember making grocery lists and school supply lists, but that was about it.

I have lists of contacts for people I very seldom contact, and I rely on that silly list so much that I don’t even know my own children’s cell numbers.  I don’t have to.  The list takes care of it all.  Again, I have some strange woman’s voice on my phone who follows my directions (most of the time) who dials it for me.  Pretty soon we’ll all be a bunch of blobs sitting on couches telling Siri or Alexa or some other woman to do everything for us.  By the way, why are there no men doing everything for us?  Obviously I need to make a note on my list to contact Amazon about this.

So anyway, back to the lists.  Our lives have gotten so busy and events/assignments so frequent that I have to make lists to make sure I don’t double book and that I give myself enough time to do whatever tasks that may be a part of each item.  And yes, the tasks associated with the list are also – on the list.  I told you, there are many layers to my lists.  I have to, because there are so many details associated with each thing I have to do.  I also keep this schedule on multiple calendars so that I (hopefully) don’t forget something.  When did life become so ridiculous?  Oh yeah, every time I say “yes” to something….

Last night, as my husband drifted into blissful slumber, I tossed and turned writing lists in my head.  Very difficult since I have neither yellow pad nor computer in my head to write it all down. So now, in the interest of keeping my sanity, I’m going to work on my list to get me through the next few days so I don’t forget something.  And if I do happen to forget something, despite the lists, there’s always Walmart….

 

For days now I’ve been reading about the needs of children, those children who, for no fault of their own have been thrust into a strange country by adults whose intentions may be good or bad, depending on who or what media outlet you listen to.  Children who are scared and confused, looking for a parent or any adult they can trust and lean upon.  I’m looking at a country who is enraged about the treatment of these children, equating it to taking children from African American slaves and children taken from parents and put into gas chambers in Nazi Germany.

I see a country that seems to be called to action, with citizens making phone calls and writing emails to representatives and the White House, writing impassioned posts on social media, calling everyone’s attention to the plight.  All done from the comfort of their own homes, their own lives remaining the same as always.  Everyone is motivated emotionally, which is wonderful – this has obviously hit a nerve with Americans in one way or another.  However, like so many other things, we will be known by our fruit.  What are we actually doing to help this cause we so desperately believe in, protecting these and other children?

I have another question.  Where are these people when it comes to caring about the craziness that so many children in this country deal with everyday?  Children who are homeless, hungry,  and without the basic necessities of life.  Children of alcoholics, drug addicts and prison inmates, children who are emotionally, physically and sexually abused.  Children in need of loving, caring foster families.  Children who need mentors, big brothers and sisters willing to spend time with them and do what they can to make their lives better.

I am ashamed to say that although I care about all of these children, I tend to do the bare minimum in terms of getting out there and helping.  Oh sure, I give money to various organizations that help children, but I have not ever approached those organizations and asked what else I can do to help make a difference.  But there are just so many needs out there, I think I just get overwhelmed and don’t know what to do.  I get busy doing my own thing and insulate myself from the reality that is these children’s lives. Is there a way that I can use my words to influence others to think about stepping out of their comfort zones to help children in ways they’ve never done before?  Can my words make me accountable to the point that I too look into ways of really getting my hands dirty, so to speak, and work one on one with a child or with a group of children outside of school?

Sure, I care about the kids I work with at school, and for those kids I know are struggling, I do my best to not only be their teacher but a parent/grandparent figure, someone they can come to when they need to talk, a word of encouragement or a hug.  I’m learning also, especially in our current culture, that it’s important to teach my kids to think about and give to others, but what kind of example am I to them?

Where are we going to be as a country if we don’t work as communities to help these children who are struggling to become successful, well adjusted adults?  I am fortunate to be surrounded by kind, caring and generous people every day of my life and I know some of them are doing things to help others that I myself am not doing.  Imagine the difference we could make in this country if our motivation was love and kindness and we actually DID something.  The results would be breathtaking and live changing.

I can’t be at the border right now to see first hand what is happening to these children  and quite frankly, the news is so unreliable, so skewed by a political or philosophical points of view that I don’t trust any news coverage anymore and that is frustrating.  Words are so often taken out of context and video can be edited, so it’s difficult to find truth anymore.  So while I can’t be there, I can still be a proponent of children’s rights and be a force right here in my own backyard.  I can be a voice for kids on the board that I serve on whenever we focus more on policies and ideology than we do people.  I think this event has been a wake-up call to me personally to get off my butt and put my feet where my mouth is.  Still overwhelmed by the needs but willing to find a way to make a difference.

 

The invisible diagonal line equally separates the personalities of two similar and yet two very different people.  On the one side, gray and brown dominate, with technology galore and a small pirate flag emerging from his fish head cup of writing utensils, on the other, bright colors, cushy seating, very little technology with many books and photographs.  A shared space occupied by two distinct personalities and somehow it works.

Of course, if she had her way, the entire office would be bright and cushy cozy, a pretty chair replacing the brown leather rolling chair at the desk and a pretty wood desk replacing the industrial metal.  Not quite sure what his way would be as he doesn’t really seem to care about the aesthetics of this particular room.  However, in the office, there has to be compromise, allowing two people to be themselves in one space which in turn, allows them to work in a way that makes them comfortable.

Relationship is all about compromise, whether it’s within a marriage, at work, at school, at church, in government.  It’s about give and take, not always getting my way, and looking for those things in common that we can agree on.  Unless a person works and lives in a vacuum, in order for life to happen, things can’t be about them all the time without impacting someone else.

Laws and policies are mandated by imperfect people in hopes of creating a more perfect society.  They’re usually created when someone does something that others perceive as threatening that imagined utopia.  I know this because as a member of a state organization, this happened frequently, whenever someone did something that seemed unfair to everyone, a new policy was created.  We ended up with so many policies that we couldn’t keep track of them, many of them outdated and useless, but policies nonetheless.

Unfortunately, when there is a policy or law in place, the person at the top is responsible for carrying through with them.  There were several times during my tenure as president of my organization that I had no room for compromise because it was my duty to follow board directed policies, the argument being that if I had chosen to go against policy, it would set a precedent and chaos would ensue.  Laws and policies, created out of fear, anger, or simply controlling the envisioned outcomes, usually with the best of intentions, often just make it easier to not have to make individual decisions.

We make the argument that people are people, and to be fair, we need to have laws that are common to all.  However, just like my home office, where there are only two people, who are similar and yet different, sweeping policies, however convenient for the enforcer, can hurt the individual they were created to protect.  And that’s the kicker, isn’t it?  We THINK we’re protecting individuals when we create these policies, but what we’re actually doing is lumping people into groups, making it easier not to think of individuals as people but more like things.

Putting individuals into groups and labeling them by race, culture, gender, age, ability level, education, political party, religion, socio-economic status – the list goes on – just makes it easier not to look at them as individuals.  But no one fits neatly into these artificially created silos and that’s where the problems begin.  Someone who looks at the individuals within these silos will react very differently than a person who looks only at the silo.  And yet we continue to label others in order to try to make sense of things, to try to help certain groups who are struggling within those different silos. It’s a noble cause, but is it misguided?  Just like creating laws and polices that don’t take the individual into account, haven’t we created these labeled groups that do the same?

Even as head of a board, one entity, I tried to make those on the board feel like I was treating them as individuals, learning their strengths, learning their likes and dislikes, watching body language and making sure I was recognizing when they wanted to say something and when something was making them uncomfortable.  I hope they felt that way.  After all, how can you build relationships to bring about change and compromise if people don’t get to know each other?  Sometimes I roll my eyes when I’m a part of a group that does some kind of “team building” exercise, but anything that allows us to learn more about each other as individuals is a good thing, leading to honest communication and when needed, compromise.

I certainly don’t have any answers to all of the world’s problems here, but I have hope in the people I know and meet who have others’ best interests at heart, who are kind, who look at the individual, not at their labels, who have worked on the art of compromise.  I believe there are more of us than there are of those who struggle with flexibility and compromise.  It’s just up to us now to be the change we want to see in the world.

As a kid, winning wasn’t really a big deal.  In fact, depending on who I might be playing a game with, I would lose on purpose if I thought the other person might get angry.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t win, it’s that I knew if I did and enjoyed it, it might end badly.  So I got really good at “losing”.  It wasn’t until I got to high school and had the opportunity to win with a group of people that I really understood what it felt like to be a winner.

Pretty sure it was one of those crazy things where all of the right people gathered together at the right time.  High School band.  In the three years I was a part of that competitive marching band, we lost once and it was devastating.  When I say win, I mean 1st place at every competition.  When I say lose, we came in 2nd.  Most people would be thrilled with 2nd, but when you understand what it feels like to work really hard and earn the win, placing 2nd means you didn’t work hard enough, that somehow you let things slip.  It didn’t happen again.

It took that “loss” to renew our work ethic because it’s easy to get complacent when you never lose.  It’s easy to just assume you’ll always be a winner, no matter how little you work.  Once you’ve reached the “top”, you think you’ll stay there if you just maintain what you’re doing.  The problem is, other people who have not experienced winning want your spot.

It’s that way in every area of our lives.  Those people who say that not everything should be a competition don’t understand that life itself is a competition.  Your very survival can depend on it.  In the animal kingdom, this is an every day occurrence of course – life and death.  Winning or losing.

Winning isn’t necessarily about talent, although it plays a part, it’s mainly about work ethic and not sitting on your laurels.  This is not something we’re teaching our kids about right now.  They see major sports or music celebrities and assume that it’s all about talent, ignoring the work that went into where they are.  Anyone can luck into something once in a while, as seen during March Madness, for instance, but it takes work to sustain a pattern of success and improvement.  Our kids don’t see things like professional musicians still taking lessons or athletes training daily or teachers taking more professional development or parents taking parenting classes.  All they see is the final outcome and their lack of experience causes them to assume these professionals just do it naturally, without working.  I see it in things as simple as me telling my students stories about famous “dead guys” and they ask, how do you know this stuff?  And I have to tell them that I work to find the information and read.  I don’t just “know” it.

The enemy of winning is impatience and laziness.  Immediate self gratification has become a huge impediment to teaching work ethic.  Getting to that place where you finally feel you are winning takes time.  A LOT of time.  Research says it takes 10,000 hours to perfect your craft, whatever the may be.  Practicing something 2 hours a day for 13 years is about the equivalent.  Time and patience are important.  What are we doing to help our kids understand that not everything good comes immediately?  And when did  “work” become a bad word?  We create things at school like “home fun” instead of “homework” because kids will be more apt to do it if they think it’s “fun”.  This is silly – THEY know it’s work, even if we rename it and because we’ve not taught them how to work smart or that work is a necessary part of life or that there is satisfaction in work well done, they fight it.  It’s the reason I fought housework for most of my life – I hadn’t learned to find satisfaction in it until fairly recently.  When we wrap our kids up in “bubble wrap” so that they don’t have to experience hardship and loss, when we give everyone a trophy, when we reward kids for doing what is expected rather than for going above and beyond, we are doing them a disservice in life and they will never have the opportunity to really appreciate life to its fullest.

I have worked hard the last several years of my teaching career to teach my students that losing is okay, that’s it’s a process of learning, of trial and error.  Teaching them that it’s alright to feel frustrated and angry but to use that energy to work harder next time is so important.  To just wallow in that frustration and give up because it is too hard will never allow them to feel the excitement of achieving or winning.  And until they experience the “win”, they will want to continue that wallowing.  It’s human nature.  So experiencing that loss is essential because without it there is no appreciation for the winning.

In my own life, I have experienced losing in terms of relationships, jobs, raising my children, my education and so much more.  Each of those losses have helped me appreciate more and more in my life and spur me on to work even harder because I know there are so many more “wins” out there in life to experience.

As a kid, winning wasn’t really a big deal.  In fact, depending on who I might be playing a game with, I would lose on purpose if I thought the other person might get angry.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t win, it’s that I knew if I did and enjoyed it, it might end badly.  So I got really good at “losing”.  It wasn’t until I got to high school and had the opportunity to win with a group of people that I really understood what it felt like to be a winner.

Pretty sure it was one of those crazy things where all of the right people gathered together at the right time.  High School band.  In the three years I was a part of that competitive marching band, we lost once and it was devastating.  When I say win, I mean 1st place at every competition.  When I say lose, we came in 2nd.  Most people would be thrilled with 2nd, but when you understand what it feels like to work really hard and earn the win, placing 2nd means you didn’t work hard enough, that somehow you let things slip.  It didn’t happen again.

It took that “loss” to renew our work ethic because it’s easy to get complacent when you never lose.  It’s easy to just assume you’ll always be a winner, no matter how little you work.  Once you’ve reached the “top”, you think you’ll stay there if you just maintain what you’re doing.  The problem is, other people who have not experienced winning want your spot.

It’s that way in every area of our lives.  Those people who say that not everything should be a competition don’t understand that life itself is a competition.  Your very survival can depend on it.  In the animal kingdom, this is an every day occurrence of course – life and death.  Winning or losing.

Winning isn’t necessarily about talent, although it plays a part, it’s mainly about work ethic and not sitting on your laurels.  This is not something we’re teaching our kids about right now.  They see major sports or music celebrities and assume that it’s all about talent, ignoring the work that went into where they are.  Anyone can luck into something once in a while, as seen during March Madness, for instance, but it takes work to sustain a pattern of success and improvement.  Our kids don’t see things like professional musicians still taking lessons or athletes training daily or teachers taking more professional development or parents taking parenting classes.  All they see is the final outcome and their lack of experience causes them to assume these professionals just do it naturally, without working.  I see it in things as simple as me telling my students stories about famous “dead guys” and they ask, how do you know this stuff?  And I have to tell them that I work to find the information and read.  I don’t just “know” it.

The enemy of winning is impatience and laziness.  Immediate self gratification has become a huge impediment to teaching work ethic.  Getting to that place where you finally feel you are winning takes time.  A LOT of time.  Research says it takes 10,000 hours to perfect your craft, whatever the may be.  Practicing something 2 hours a day for 13 years is about the equivalent.  Time and patience are important.  What are we doing to help our kids understand that not everything good comes immediately?  And when did  “work” become a bad word?  We create things at school like “home fun” instead of “homework” because kids will be more apt to do it if they think it’s “fun”.  This is silly – THEY know it’s work, even if we rename it and because we’ve not taught them how to work smart or that work is a necessary part of life or that there is satisfaction in work well done, they fight it.  It’s the reason I fought housework for most of my life – I hadn’t learned to find satisfaction in it until fairly recently.  When we wrap our kids up in “bubble wrap” so that they don’t have to experience hardship and loss, when we give everyone a trophy, when we reward kids for doing what is expected rather than for going above and beyond, we are doing them a disservice in life and they will never have the opportunity to really appreciate life to its fullest.

I have worked hard the last several years of my teaching career to teach my students that losing is okay, that’s it’s a process of learning, of trial and error.  Teaching them that it’s alright to feel frustrated and angry but to use that energy to work harder next time is so important.  To just wallow in that frustration and give up because it is too hard will never allow them to feel the excitement of achieving or winning.  And until they experience the “win”, they will want to continue that wallowing.  It’s human nature.  So experiencing that loss is essential because without it there is no appreciation for the winning.

In my own life, I have experienced losing in terms of relationships, jobs, raising my children, my education and so much more.  Each of those losses have helped me appreciate more and more in my life and spur me on to work even harder because I know there are so many more “wins” out there in life to experience.

Searching on line for a place to stay on our little mini vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota, we came across this darling little tiny house only 5 miles away from Mt. Rushmore.  The pictures were perfect, just enough room for the three of us, providing us everything we needed.  Not fancy,  just cute and cozy.  Having been intrigued by the concept of tiny houses for years, now was our chance to check one out for real.

As we drove up to the house, our excitement grew – such a cute little house with a cute little porch!  It was brand new, so it still had that new wood smell to it.  We opened the door and stepped in to what we just knew would be our cozy little fairy land for the next few days.  Then we tried to get our stuff upstairs to the loft.

Everything is condensed and shrunk down in a tiny house.  The stairs, conveniently located next to the front door had to be entered sideways, just enough room for a person, but not necessarily enough room for a person AND their stuff.  Oh, and the steps were different heights, not the same distance between to fit better in the space, so stepping down was sometimes a bit of a surprise until we got used to it.  Creativity came into play in trying to figure out the best way to get up and down.  We eventually figured out it was better to almost crawl on all fours to get up and to go down sideways against the wall until you got to the bottom where you needed to go backward and step sideways off of the steps into the entryway, or bathroom, depending on how long your step was.  And I had never considered what it might be like to navigate the stairs at 3:00 a.m. when I need to get up and use the restroom while half asleep.  Let’s just say I was awake by the time I crawled back.

Upstairs, there was one place where we could actually stand up, but the rest of the time we had to stoop.   In the pictures, it looked like the bed was a king size, very wide with a nice headboard with two quaint little wood stump side tables.  Well, pictures can be deceiving. The bed was NOT king sized, but rather a double on its side, so that meant someone was right up against the wall and/or the other was falling off the edge of the bed.  Thank goodness the floor wasn’t very far!  Did I mention there was no storage?  Oops.  The cute little bed we thought was a twin that we had seen in the upstairs pics with the “king” bed was, you guessed it – a toddler bed.  So no, David’s 5’9″ frame was not going to fit there, although he did have a good laugh trying it out.

So it was downstairs to the futon  for him where he could take two steps to the kitchen if need be.  The little banquette reminded me of my seats at Husker football games – not large enough for actual adult behinds.  The three of us could fit on the futon to watch TV which worked fine, as we’re a close family.  The “chandelier” hanging in the middle of the room was ok for us because we’re short, but if you are 6′ tall, forget it. Again, no storage so our stuff was everywhere, making what little space we had even smaller.

Ah, but the best part of the tiny house was the bathroom.  It was very nice with all the necessities, just on a smaller scale.  The tiny shelf ran right below the regular (and only) outlet in the room where my hairdryer plug almost fit flat.  It worked.  The cute little floor rug was great when the door was open, but had to be moved if you actually wanted to get in and use the bathroom, so it was pushed into a corner.  The adorable little sink was so shallow that if you had any stream of water running it splashed out on you and everything else.  The toilet reminded of those Kindergarten toilets at school.  Ok, maybe not that small, but you get my drift.  And the shower.  Now I know what Katniss felt like going up in the tube to fight the Hunger Games.

So would I do this again?  We did have fun laughing at all the silly features of the house and maybe with some more square feet (this was 300) and a better floor plan which my son kept saying he could do, I would do it again.  In the meantime, I think I’ll stick to hotels and my king size beds and leave the tiny house to tinier people.