Today after school, I chose not to adult.  Today I tried teenagering.  I called my best friend, and asked “what are you doing”?  He said, I’m working, why?  And I said, “well can you stop working and meet me downstairs and we’ll go get a milkshake before dinner?”  Sure, he said and we drove to the Sonic Drive-In and sucked down our milkshakes.  Then, while we were sitting there, my friend said, I don’t feel like cooking, let’s pick up pizza on the way home so I said “Sure!” and we picked up pizza.  No fruits, no veggies, no salads.  Milkshakes and pizza.  Sure, we knew it wasn’t the healthiest choice, sure I knew I would develop some massive heartburn afterwards, but damn the consequences.  There would be no adulting tonight!

This whole trend with “adulting” right now is interesting.  It makes you wonder if somehow young people aren’t being prepared to do what are considered to be adult things, that it’s something that just “happens” at some point, and when you figure out that you did the responsible thing for once, all of a sudden you’re adulting and you feel the need to brag about it. When you have your own bills and you pay them on time, when you move out of your parent’s house, when you have a real job, you’re in the process of becoming an adult.  It’s perceived by many as something you don’t want to do but you have to do because – well – you’re an adult and that’s what adults do.

So, it seems that for our young people today, “adulting” is a matter of will, not of  developing habits.  So, if at any time they choose not to have the willpower, they can do toddlering, youthing, childing or juveniling instead. They can choose to play video games all day, stay up all night and try to function at work the next day, speak disrespectfully to others or drink irresponsibly with their buddies.  When a person chooses to do less than adulting as a single adult, they of course bear the brunt of the consequences.  However, when we have people to chose to adult by getting married and having children, and then they decide they’re tired of “adulting”, other people, especially the children, suffer the consequences.  After all, the children need to be taught the ways of adulting, but if there is no consistent adult there to do the training, we lose another generation to the false idea that when they reach a certain magic age, all of a sudden they’ll become an adult.

Then if adulting is not a matter of will, but a matter of developing habits, when should that begin?  Well, there is a progression that we know as toddlering, to childing to youthing to teenagering to young adulting.  At each stage, children need to have added responsibilities, even the very youngest and the traits we see at each stage, for instance, having a temper tantrum as a toddler must be worked through so that it doesn’t continue.  When I have 9, 10 and 11 year old students at school who still throw a toddleresque temper tantrum, I know that someone has not received the training and responsibilities needed to move from one stage to another in a healthy way.  My concern is for this child as they continue to grow older but they do not develop the maturity they need for each stage.  What kind of adult will they become?  Or will they become an adult at all?

When I read news stories where we have “adults” defecating on school property, or traveling to Europe while they leave their elementary age children at home by themselves, or trying to heat their urine in a convenient store microwave so they can pass their drug test you really begin to question the training, or lack of, when these people were growing up.  And yes, these were all stories I read just this week. This is more than just someone who doesn’t feel like mowing their lawn or washing their dishes.  This is all about “me” behavior which takes them to the toddlering level of maturity.

What these people fail to realize is that just because you can doesn’t mean you should and that is the crux of what “adulting” is all about. My students at school, as with most kids, believe that when you become an adult that you can do anything you want and nobody can boss you around anymore.  The truth is, there will always be someone you have to answer to but you’re an adult when you know how to handle that responsibly and not in a childish manner.

As a friend shared with me, he is tired of this term and I am too.  Becoming an adult is not something you do, it’s a state of being and the result of that is doing what is right – for yourself, for your family, for your community.  And while it’s okay once in a while for you to have your dessert before dinner, that kind of immature lifestyle is not healthy or a good example for our toddlers, children, youth or teenagers.  So instead of adulting, just be an adult.

The other morning as I drove into the neighborhood where my school is located, a bird decided to fly alongside my car for awhile.  I felt a little like Mary Poppins or Giselle from Enchanted, imagining the two of us singing together on this bright, sunny spring morning and I laughed out loud.  I had that same feeling today as I drove to school to help with a PTO flower sale.  Families were out working in their yards and washing their cars, listening to music, kids playing in their driveways in front of their perfect homes with the manicured grass and flower gardens.

My school fits this neighborhood perfectly, all brand new and sparkling with all the latest of everything.  It’s not perfect of course, as there are the usual issues with behaviors, crazy schedules and little daily stresses, but all in all, everything is pretty Disney-esque.  Lots of nice looking younger teachers, dressed very nicely, with beautiful smiles.  They fit the clientele very well.  Not really sure where I fit in – maybe the old evil queen or wise old wizard?

Anyway, I found myself feeling pretty lucky, not just because I get to work in this little fantasy world, but mostly because of a Facebook page I’ve joined recently called I’m a General Music Teacher.  While most of the posts are about programs and lesson plans there are also posts about difficult teaching circumstances.  Administration that doesn’t  support them, custodial staff that refuses to help them, parents who abuse them, lack of materials, teaching on a cart, sharing the gym during PE (I can’t even imagine) and more.  There are verbal abuses going on that are beyond my comprehension with teachers sharing issues with physical ailments brought on by the stress.

I survived something similar where the administrator was a bully and the kids and parents were abusive.  I quit after a year and considered leaving teaching.  But now I’m living in wonderland, a place where most parents are involved, support their kids, and are complimentary of my work, a place where kids have just about anything they want in a beautiful little neighborhood.  A place where I have a room large enough to land a plane in, as my husband says, with all of the equipment and curriculum resources I need and a budget large enough to add even more things for my kids to use.  A place where I can drive to or from school and have kids shout my name and wave as I go by.

I wonder about all of those teachers who are teaching in less than idyllic circumstances, with students who aren’t fortunate enough to live in that perfect little neighborhood, who perhaps don’t have parents who support them, who struggle not only academically but physically and emotionally as well.  And while I only have a few students I have to be concerned with in terms of major behavioral issues, I think about those teachers who deal with major issues in a majority of their classrooms. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t survive in some of those schools and I think about how I admire those teachers who are stronger than I am, who are more patient or persistent than I am.

I find myself grateful for an administration who supports what I do and trusts me to be the professional I am.  I am grateful for an excellent staff of custodians who bend over backwards to help me, even to point of anticipating what I might need ahead of time.  I am grateful to colleagues who share their time with me and I always hope they feel I’m as flexible as they are.  I have a supervisor and a principal who support me in my work with our national music education organization and supply me with needed professional days.  And on top of it all, unlike some of my colleagues in other states, I get paid pretty well for what I do because I work in a district who cares about and respects their teachers. What more could I ask for?  I’m a lucky girl.

I have kids who, for the most part, seem to enjoy my class and leave me great little notes, pictures and occasional gifts in appreciation. Like May Day baskets.  Seriously, I’ve never gotten May Day baskets in any other place I’ve taught.  Are there bad days?  Well of course – anytime time there’s a full moon, right before a major storm and a holiday the place is nuts.  I mean things like Pajama Day can be rough.  But I find myself stopping this weekend to think about how lucky I am and maybe I need to remember that more often.  I mean, who wouldn’t love to live like Mary Poppins in a Disney-esque world?

I’m confessing.  This morning, in the drive-thru of McDonalds, I was convicted.  Sitting in my car in an unusually long line moving very slowly I thought, you know, if I were working there, I bet I could fix this.  It’s a simple issue of creative management and trouble shooting.  I worked at McDonalds once so yes, I could definitely fix this.  I wasn’t angry – maybe because I wasn’t in a hurry – so I just cheerfully looked at Facebook on my phone until it was time to move again.

When I reached the first window, I could see there was an issue of some kind as she took my card, politely did her job but kept stepping slightly around the corner looking at something.  When I arrived at the second window, where there was a “We’re Hiring!” sign,  I could see the problem.  A very flustered man with many drinks and bags was trying to figure out what went with what.  He asked a co-worker where the smoothie was, which was sitting right there on the counter, before checking my bag and handing them to me.  His face showed the confusion and stress, as if he were expecting people to be angry with him when they drove up.  It took me back to when my kids were very little and we went through a similar drive-thru experience, and the little voice of my middle son piped up and said “first day on the job!”.  Remembering that, I smiled and thanked him for my breakfast and left.  But as I left, I felt that conviction.  Was I wanting to fix something or was I wanting to help someone?

I’m a fixer.  I want to fix things and situations and people.  I’ve always been that way.  I remember being a kid and when something would go wrong or break, it was a challenge to fix it and it made me feel good about myself.  My goal is to make things right or better.  But why?  Is it because I really want to help someone or is it because I want recognition for fixing something?  Like this morning, after thinking about it, I didn’t really want to help them, I wanted to show them how it’s done.  Pretty egotistical, huh?  Like I have all the answers.  And quite frankly, sometimes I DO have the answers, but if the help is given from an “all about me” standpoint and not from a place of caring, is it right?  Hence, the conviction.

However, it’s just hard sitting there and watching people make things harder than they need to be. It’s hard watching a marching band rehearsal and not get down on the field to fix a path for someone that would fix the form. (Sorry Doug – I have issues). It’s hard to watch someone in a bad relationship and not want to fix it. Or interfere, if that’s what you want to call it.  It’s hard when you’ve invested so much of your life into something important to you and you watch someone else step in and turn everything upside down or neglect it and you just want to ask, why did you do that?  I had it fixed! As a teacher, I see a child who is struggling and I think, if I could just take that child home, I could fix that.  I don’t think I’m being unrealistic about this kind of thing, I know things take time, persistence and consistency, so when I’m certain that I can fix something, I understand the reality.  But again, does that certainty come from a place of ego or from experience?  Maybe a combination of both.

One of the things I love to do is work with a student teacher, but again, that need to fix things sometimes gets in the way. The student teaching experience should be a time where they can experiment and discover, and sometimes that comes through failure.  So here I am, sitting at my desk, watching and thinking, “I could fix that”, and I could.  But how is that young teacher going to learn if I insist on stepping in all the time and doing it my way?  Okay, I do step in once in a while, but I AM responsible for the class.  Instead of stepping in, I try to make mental lists of things and we talk later. This way, I have physically removed myself from any “fixing” that needs to be done and it allows someone else to do the fixing.  And it’s so hard.  But I think I turn out better student teachers because of it.

Maybe there are worse things in the world than the need to fix things the way I think they should be fixed.  Maybe I need to stop and really make sure I know what’s going on before I assume something even needs to be fixed. Maybe if I make sure that my heart is in the right place before I volunteer or step in to fix something it won’t be so bad.  It won’t change overnight, and I’m sure I’ll still have those days when I’ll think, “if they would just let me be in charge I could fix that!”.  But in the meantime, I’ll remember my conviction this morning and maybe someday learn to let it go.  Unless it really needs to be fixed : )

The final concert of the year if over and I’m sitting on my favorite chaise again, in almost complete silence for the first time today.  I don’t know if non-musicians ever think about this, but sometimes as a musician, I crave silence.  It’s why a lot of times, I don’t play music in my car to and from school because it gives my brain a rest.  From the minute I hit the school door, sometimes until I hit the sack at night, I am inundated with all kinds of sound, musical and otherwise.  And even in the silence, the music never really stops because I’m constantly audiating.

Audiating is a fancy word for hearing music in your head.  You know, like that song you get stuck in your head and it won’t go away?  Only with me, I may have multiple things going on.  For a while I’m hearing my choir sing something, then it goes to a tune my 2nd graders are doing, which may jump right into some pop tune with the same chord progression which turns into some commercial tune.  Every waking moment, music is constantly going on in my brain.  It tend to focus on what I’m working on at the time, but sometimes a tune pops in my head because of something someone says which reminds me of lyrics to a song.  Sometimes it just the same four bar phrase, over and over and over….

I used to really annoy my own kids when they were young because sometimes the stuff I heard in my head would leak out and I would be humming without realizing I was humming.  Until one of the kids would say with some disdain, “mom, you’re humming again”.  Somehow it always seemed to happen when I was shopping at the grocery store.  I was always singing when they were younger too and invariably, one of them would say, “mom, do you have to sing?  That’s embarrassing!”, to which I would reply, “this is what I do for a living so you might as well get used to it”.

Of course, hearing stuff in my head can be very useful.  If someone can’t remember the words to a song, all I have to do it audiate it and I can get the words for them. I tend to remember exact pitches so I don’t always need a piano or a recording to find the correct pitch for my kids to begin a song.  In fact, I work with them to audiate the song so that they too can hear the pitch without me.  You would be surprised how well they do with this.  Sometimes I just don’t trust my kids enough.

Well, like I said, the final concert of the year is finished and I am ready to crash.  Now, if I could just get that choir song with the percussion accompaniment out of my head….

See if this makes sense to you.  You get to your sports practice before school every week for four months.  You practice all the fundamentals of that sport and put those fundamentals together to create something that a crowd would be impressed with.  And then, for the one game you have scheduled after all this practice, you go tell the coach that you can’t be there because you have a music program, one of many music programs you’re going to have over the next couple of months but the music teacher has said you have to be there or you won’t get to participate in any of those other music programs. You’re only option is that you’ll have to miss the only game you have scheduled after all that work.

Of course that makes no sense.  No coach in their right mind would allow a child who is part of their team to practice for months and let them get away with not performing with the team for their one game.  And yet, this is what “music coaches” have to deal with year after year when it comes to students involved in their ensembles who also play organized sports.

Some people say, well it’s just important for the child to have the experience of singing with others.  Okay, let’s use that analogy with sports.  Let’s say I have a football team and right before a game, my star receiver says he can’t be there.  Well, that should be okay, right?  After all, there are a lot of people on a team – they won’t miss just one person, right?  A choir, after all, isn’t a team, so what’s one person missing?  Well usually for me, there are several of my students playing on the same team, so that may be 10% of my choir.  What if 10% of a team just decided they had something more important to do?  It would never happen because somewhere, somehow, someone has decided that extracurricular sports are more important than music.  Despite the fact that music has been identified as an academic subject by law.  Not an activity.

And yet, it shouldn’t be a matter of importance.  It should be adults who can work with a student and their family and compromise.  I have been fortunate to work with dance instructors, theater directors and coaches who have been willing to work out schedules to allow the child to do as much of both as possible.  I have parents who are willing to dress their child in their soccer uniform, have them sing in a play and zip them off to the game as soon as they’re finished, or bring them directly from a ballet dress rehearsal in full makeup to be at a performance on time.  It is not always easy, but it is possible if adults are willing to not take the easy way out and work on the all important compromise.

In this world, there are athletes involved in music and musicians involved in sports and they are able to balance these two worlds because, quite frankly, they have a lot in common.  We all teach kids how to collaborate and cooperate with each other.  We teach them that in working as a team, we create something bigger than ourselves.  In a lot of cases, things like sports and music keep kids in school.  I’ve never really understood the animosity that seems to arise when it comes to sharing time.  After all, it’s just another way to teach kids how to balance priorities in a healthy way.  We know that this is going to be an important life skill as they grow older as they begin to juggle school, careers, family, and leisure time and what better way to teach them than by allowing them to watch adults who are willing and able to help them juggle now.

But in the meantime, some of these students, who have worked so hard on the fundamentals of music, memorizing lyrics, rhythms and harmonies, balancing parts, matching pitches, will perhaps be throwing softball pitches and balancing soccer balls instead.  All practice and no game.  Just doesn’t make any sense to me.

Bwahahaha.  Yes, soon they will be mine again!!  This may or may not be a good thing for my students who have had fun working with my wonderful student teacher this semester.  Like most young teachers, being firm can be a challenge, especially when some little puppy dog eyes look their way asking for just one more chance to make things better, despite the fact that they’ve already had many chances.  I don’t fall for that much anymore.

The break has been nice, allowing me to teach at a different level.  It’s a challenge to look at how someone is teaching and help them make adjustments without changing them in the process.  While there are techniques that are universal to teaching, so much of it is really relational, and well, you can’t teach genuine caring.   The kids are having a difficult time saying goodbye this week because they’ve come to love her.  And as kids tend to do, they’re trying to figure out a way for her to stay, and then they realize (or she reminds them) that if she kept teaching there that I wouldn’t have a job!  So I’m thinking it’s about time to make them mine again.

So, beginning next Monday, I have them back for 14 days and I find myself excited about that.  Not the kind of excited like when you have a bad student teacher and you can’t wait to get your kids back so you can fix them.  No, the cool thing about having a great student teacher is that you have to search yourself, ask “why” of yourself, and be able to back up what you say, and all of this helps me to be a better teacher.  So many times as veteran teachers we just go with what we’ve always done, but when someone asks you why you do it, it’s a great test to see if you’re in a rut or if what you’re doing is still relevant.

And while it has been wonderful to be able to keep up with all the paperwork, surveys, emailing, programs, parent letters, weekly music newsletters and whatever else came across my desk, sitting in front of the computer all day is not exactly what I got into teaching for.  So just the prospect of doing lesson plans, as nerdy as it sounds, is kind of exciting.  And as for classroom management, let’s see if I can put my money where my mouth is.  I’ve been instructing my student teacher in classroom management techniques, now let’s see if I’m as consistent as I think I am.  I’m seeing all of this as a challenge with myself, and well, I’m a pretty competitive person.

So, look out kids, Mrs. Bush is gonna be back and hopefully better than ever.  Despite my advanced age (158), I will show you that I’ve still got game and I’m ready to play.  Bwahahahahahaha….

 

The man said to me “and here’s your tropical paradise” as he handed me my mango pineapple smoothie.  It needed a little umbrella perhaps, but on a crazy windy day in Nebraska, this was probably as close as I was going to get to an actual tropical paradise.  He handed it to me with a great big smile and wished me a good day, much like the gentlemen who took my card, took a minute, smiled, looked at me and commented, it’s a great day, isn’t it?  It was a very simple but wonderful way to start my day in my little yellow bug with my little yellow smoothie, and all it took was a smile and a pleasant greeting from some very nice McDonald’s employees.

Now, McDonald’s is certainly not the food mecca of the world, but they do train their employees to be kind and courteous for the most part, much like any food service organization.  But these guys took the time to make eye contact and seemed genuine in their greetings and it made me feel good.  As I drove away I thought, what a great way to start my morning!  How hard is it for us to do the same and why is it so hard to teach this to children?

I arrived at school, still feeling pretty good and used that extra energy to get some things finished before the kids arrived for choir.  We always start with a pleasant greeting to each other and we get to work, and again, I’m feeling pretty good until the rudeness starts.  And the disrespect.  And the unkind words to each other.  And within minutes the sunshine that had been brought into my life by two very kind people had been overshadowed by the negativity that was my choir.  My kids blamed it on being a Monday, on being tired, or because someone was in their spot or any other number of things, but even my usually cheerful kids were brought down by the bad attitudes.

My attitude changed as well.  I looked at the kids and thought, okay, if this is any indication of how the day is going to go, we’re in trouble.  Whether it was the full moon coming or the storms on the horizon, something had these kids going more than usual.  I often wonder if some of this is brought on because I’m expecting it to be crazy.  Am I also putting out some negativity that just allows it to continue?

I think this is one of the reasons teaching is just so stressful.  The students come in with expectations they may have about what they want to do or how they may behave and some of them are surprised by the different expectations at school.  When I have a child curled up on the floor crying because they want just “one more chance” because they don’t want an earned consequence for their actions, this shows me that somewhere along the line, someone has said something like, “okay, you get one more chance” and then the child gets several more chances.  When you have the expectation that a child will look at you while you teach and their entire life is spent looking down at a screen, there’s a difference in expectations.  When you have a child that hits first and thinks later, and then they expect you to understand that the other person made them do it, there’s a difference of expectations.  When you have a child who is allowed to stand up on seats and yell in a restaurant and you expect them to sit and eat their lunch at school, there is a difference of expectations.

The difference in classroom behaviors today as compared to, let’s say even 20 years ago, was that behavioral expectations for children were more universal.  What was expected at school was an extension of what was expected in most homes.  A lot of those expectations in homes have changed drastically with children running some households because parents are either too busy or too overwhelmed to do something about it.  Sometimes parents lack the parenting skills to help set boundaries for their children and don’t know how to guide them to treat people and things with respect, to use kind words and deeds.  Maybe they didn’t have an example to follow or maybe it’s just the culture as a whole, where everything is about “me” and my wants and not about anyone else.

Unfortunately this type of behavior, attitude, lack of boundaries and differences in expectations make things especially difficult in the classroom.  The child who gets whatever they want at home and who doesn’t at school honestly doesn’t understand why.  The child who is not given the responsibility of picking up after themselves at home is not going to understand why they have to at school.  The child who is allowed to say whatever he or she wants at home is not going to understand the insistence upon respectful words at school.  So, maybe it’s not a matter of training the children, but offering to work with parents so that as adults, we can all be on the same page and stop confusing the kids.

And in the meantime I’ll probably make my morning stop for a little bit of tropical paradise and maybe be more of a sunshine yellow for my class tomorrow.

 

I’m not sure really where the whole hummingbird thing came about.  I remember referring to my maternal grandmother as Hummingbird Grandma and when Doug and I were newly married, we referred to ourselves at Bushman and Hummingbird.  Strange, I know.  We also had matching shirts that said “Super Cute”, but that’s another story. Anyway, I’ve always had a thing for hummingbirds.  And according to an author I like, my personality can be described as a Hummingbird as I flit from one idea to another.  My problem is, if I actually acted upon each of the ideas I flit upon, what in the world would my life look like and what would people think?

I ask this because I had an epiphany this morning about the next project I want to try.  I’m not going to go into detail here because I want to talk to a few people first, but when it popped in my head, I got that wonderful sense of excited butterflies in my stomach.  See, hummingbirds and butterflies.  it’s a great combination.   The problem is, then I begin the, “how practical is this?  How much money would it cost?”  Yada, yada, yada.  Fear of the unknown eventually creeps in and while the idea might be nice, maybe life changing, maybe there are better ways to spend my time and money, even though the thought still gets me excited.

I currently have another project, one not quite so major as the one mentioned previously, and that is to create a “she space” in the apartment, just for me.  After 34 years of living with all males, I just want some frilly, colorful, girly space just for me that they won’t want any part of.  A place for my books, my turntable, flowers and my tea set, a place to read and write without interruption.  I have the vision in my head of exactly what I want and have actually researched and window shopped for the things I want.  And it’s not that I can’t afford what I want.  It’s just that as soon as I find something I really like,  I find something else I really like, and then I can’t make up my mind because I know once I select it, I’m going to be stuck with it for a while, for practical reasons, of course.  A ridiculously annoying first world problem.

Many times in my life I have made the decision not to get or do something that was screaming at me and later, when I would go back or change my mind, the opportunity or item was gone and I would regret it.  Some things I could definitely live with.  After all, an item is just a material possession.  But an opportunity is something else.  I’ve worked really hard the last several years to go for things when the “hummingbird” instinct hits and have been fortunate to pursue several of those.  But I still struggle with thinking others might see me as pushy or thinking I’m “all that”.  And it’s not like that at all.  It’s just the prospect of trying something new gets me excited.

And then there’s worry about people making fun of me for trying something they perceive as silly.  I don’t know why this bothers me, other than I can remember being told many times growing up that what I wanted to do wasn’t practical or wasn’t very smart.  I was also told many times there was something wrong with me because I was always changing my mind, whether is was my major in college, or how I rearranged my room or how long I dated someone.  When something or somewhere doesn’t feel right, I tend to get out of it as soon as I can but it caused some to call me a quitter or a failure.  I don’t think I am either of those, but when I find myself searching for something different or changing my mind about something, I hear those words in my head.

So, speaking of silly, here’s a silly dilemma.  I have been coloring my hair for about 30 years, give or take a year or two.  I started going grey very early and going grey in your 20’s wasn’t nearly as trendsetting as it is now.   I’m now at an age where it’s not just grey, it’s white and I continue to color it because I don’t want to be perceived as “old”.  I may be “older“, but I don’t feel “old” and I don’t want to look like it if I don’t have to.  However, lately I’ve thinking of doing something fairly drastic, like going trendy with the grey.  And then the next day I change my mind because I’m afraid.  It’s just hair after all.  Silly, but part of the daily thoughts of a hummingbird personality.

There are many times I wish I had just one passion I could pursue, but there are just so many things to do and experience in this life that I can’t settle on just one.  For some, they may think of me as a “jack of all trades, master of none”, but I’ve found that I can always find a connection or use for the experiences I’ve had.  That’s what I’m hoping as I’m thinking of this new opportunity that has popped into my head.  My hope is that my years of experience doing many different things will pay off and connect me to what I want to try next.  And if not, I’ve learned something new I suppose.  It’s just so hard being a hummingbird!

My husband and I are at that awkward stage of the year.  That time of year when he is finished teaching and I’m not.  Okay, maybe more awkward for me than for him, and he drags me into his world before I’m really ready.  You see, we begin the school year together, but he finishes almost a month before I do which just leaves me counting the days.

Summer mode for us has meant many different things over the years.  One summer many years ago it was watching Magnum PI reruns until 2:00 in the morning and sleeping in.  Some summers it was spending time on the road going to drum corps shows.  It’s a time to catch up on movies we didn’t have time to see during the year, time to sit on the balcony with a glass of wine,  and look at the stars.  Time to take the convertible out to get ice cream before midnight, sit outside and listen to jazz and go to wineries.  There’s less routine, more spontaneity and time for us to talk.

Not that summer mode isn’t occasionally interrupted by reality.  There is still professional development to teach and attend, camps to teach, and various meetings, but most days are ours.  But this year is going to be a little different because we have a new person in our lives.

He’s nine years old, his soon to be mom and dad are moving down the street from us and he’s already informed me that he will be visiting often to swim in the pool.  I’m assuming that also means staying for lunch on occasion and doing some other fun things together.  He informed me today that he’s thinking of calling us G-ma and G-pa, which is fine with me.  He’ll be officially adopted in June and we’ll be first time grandparents.  So, summer mode is already beginning to look a little different.

Today, while I took some of my students to see the opera, G-pa took him to his soccer games, to the library and to lunch.  We haven’t had a whole lot of time to get used to the idea yet, and it’s different than starting with an infant, getting to know and love this child who only came into our lives a little less than a year ago.  Things are already beginning to look differently for the summer.

So 19 days and then I can officially be on summer mode as well.  I’m sure there will still be late night runs for ice cream and evenings at wineries again.  And I’m looking forward to whatever new adventures are in store for us as we begin a new chapter in our lives.

 

Yesterday, a second grader asked, Mrs. Bush, what is the purpose of school?  I gave him an answer he obviously didn’t want to hear, so next he asked, “what if all I want to do is play video games and eat doughnuts?”  I responded, with a polite smile, “well, you’ll live in your parent’s basement for the rest of your life”, to which he responded, “that’s okay.”  A funny story perhaps, but as I kept thinking about it, I’m not sure if the answer I gave him is really what’s happening in schools these days.

My philosophy of what school is (or should be) is a place where children should learn to love learning.  It should be a place to gain fundamental knowledge in a large variety of subjects to give the child the opportunity to be a well rounded human being and to help them discover their passion.  This includes soft skills like kindness, respect, responsibility, etc. When a student graduates from high school, they should have the tools to choose the direction they want to take as an adult who contributes to his or her family, community and society as a whole.  Lofty?  Maybe.  But for me, the ideal of what a great education should be. Most other educators I know got into teaching for the same types of reasons.  It’s an opportunity to change a child’s life for the better, and therefore, society as a whole.

But let’s really look at this from another point of view.  As I’ve been working with my student teacher, one of the thing we’ve talked about is choosing the activities that match your goal.  For instance, what is it you want students to know and be able to do, then what kinds of activities and assessments do you do and administer to enable them to learn and demonstrate that they have learned?  It should be so obvious that if someone just walking in should observe you, they would know what goal you were working towards.  So, if I walked into a classroom or school today, would I actually see my philosophy of education at work?

Well, I would see kids rushed around and thrust immediately into academics, even Kindergarten, with a  prescribed number of minutes to learn and work on certain subjects, particularly reading and math.  There’s a lot of talk about things students “have to” do and not a lot of what they “get to” do.  Very few people learn to love things they “have” to do.  Students are rushed through bathroom and water breaks, transitions during and between classes, lunch and short recesses.  Teachers always insisting that they sit still, stay quiet, take the next test.  And are the tests really for the students?  Well, a lot of data is collected on how well they do on tests, but they seem to be used more to compare with schools and districts around the state/country and not just a measure of how an individual student is progressing.  It’s used as an accountability measure for teachers, schools and districts, with major consequences if seemingly arbitrary, sometimes ridiculous goals are not met.

So much time is spent on required academics that teaching soft skills at the very best is taught in tandem with the academics, or the very worst, not taught in a meaningful way to students.  Those skills that somehow people think kids just eventually “get” don’t just happen if they’re not taught with as much seriousness as the academics.  We talk kids to death about safety, respect and responsibility but we never really spend the time required to do these things well. So many times kids don’t even grasp the concepts, can’t really define them and certainly can’t show examples of them.  I believe these concepts can be really abstract for them, especially if we have adults in their lives who do everything but bubble wrap the kids to keep them safe, so they never experience the consequences of not being safe.  Responsibility needs to be in the form of age appropriate tasks that not only teach them how to take care of themselves but others as well.  Wiping up tables after lunch, sweeping up their mess under the tables, picking up paper towels from the bathroom floor and cleaning up around the school are tangible ways to help teach them about serving the larger community responsibly and to create pride in their environment.

Respect is also a pretty abstract concept, so having simple concrete expectations of saying good morning, yes ma’am or no sir, please, thank you and may I, are all ways to initiate kids into the world of respect.  These must be insisted upon until they are habit.  As kids grow older, more abstract concepts can be added, but we must begin with concrete, habit forming behaviors if we want to have the kind of learning environment where they will begin to love it.  Otherwise, the concept of “school” cannot function as it should.  Please don’t misunderstand.  I do not want to raise little robots and I don’t believe we should make them do this out of fear.  But there is nothing wrong with teaching kids a concrete, functional, expectation of how we deal with and treat others.  After all, we can see on a daily basis where NOT teaching this has gotten us.

So, in looking back on my conversation with this laid back young man, I really lied.  Right now, schools are in the hands of people who have no business deciding what is best for children.  Right now we have schools/districts/states who are more concerned with keeping up with the Jones and bragging rights in the newspaper than bragging on individual progress or diversity in the classroom.  Right now we care more about getting a certain number of  minutes in for a few subjects instead of whether or not the child has a well rounded education.  We care more about shoving information into little brains to succeed on tests than taking time out of the academics to teach kids to be good human beings.  It’s not hard, it’s just a matter of priorities.  As an educator, one who believes in that philosophy I shared in the beginning, could someone walk into my classroom or my school and know what my philosophy was, just by observing what was happening with my students?  Is the purpose of school what we want it to be or is it a lie?  These are hard questions and the process to change it will be even more difficult.  It’s up to those of us who care about these kids to do something about it.  Are we up to the challenge?