I’m always kidding with colleagues about things I have to do at school that my methods classes never prepared me for.  Some things are funny, like dealing with my kids doing things that nobody could ever predict, because, well – they’re kids.  Some things don’t need a college degree, like wiping tables and sweeping floors during lunch duty.  Some include parental experience like tying shoes, putting on band-aids, giving hugs and wiping tears.  As a teacher, I get that there are other duties as assigned because I’m dealing with kids.  It comes with the territory.  However there are things creeping into my teaching that I was never prepared for and should never be prepared  for.

It starts simply of course.  Years ago it was first aid training, then you had to sign off on knowing how to deal with bodily fluids.  Well, okay, I’ve seen just about every bodily fluid possible in my classroom, so that makes sense.  It was partially due to not having a health professional in every building every day.  Thankfully the buildings in my current district do. Then a few years ago after a rash of teen suicides we had to take suicide training.  The latest is trauma training, dealing with kids who have experienced trauma in their lives. So now we are dealing with things that usually counselors and social workers deal with.  However, districts can’t afford enough of them anymore, so it gets piled on the teachers who are supposed to be  substitute mental health “experts”.

Then there are the drills.  Look, I grew up in the 70’s and I can remember what seemed like ten or more bomb scares at my middle school in Kentucky.  I remember them specifically because we all had to stand outside in whatever weather and wait until the police went through the building.  All while looking longingly at my house across the street from school.  And as a teacher, I understand the necessity of fire and tornado drills to keep children as safe as possible.

But now there are code red drills.  Okay fine, we clarify the procedures, we have an expert come out and talk to us, we have people come out and look at our rooms and help choose the safest place to be.  They provide us with little magnet cards to place in our doors that we can pull out to automatically lock the door, knowing full well that if someone really wanted to get in the room, it would be a matter of breaking the glass and reaching in to open the door.  But I can live with this so far and hope the odds are ever in my favor.  However, I now hear the suggestion that we arm teachers and I say ENOUGH!!!

I am not anti-gun.  My dad was career military and my son served for twelve years.  My father-in-law has been an avid hunter his entire life and my husband and his family have all hunted and fished.  This is not just for sport as what they shoot, they eat or give away.  I can deal with this.  The military and police need guns.  I get it.  I haven’t gotten used to but accept the fact that when I go to D.C. that there are snipers on top of the Capital and military with automatic rifles surrounding the building.  I accept the fact that when I go to an airport in New York that there are armed national guardsmen at the doors.  We unfortunately live in a society that requires that kind of protection and I am grateful.  But when we start talking guns at school, I say ENOUGH!

I can just see it now.  As part of your teacher preparation in college, you’ll be expected to go to gun safety training and target practice.  You’ll use it as part of your team building exercises at the beginning of the school year with the winning team receiving a little plastic trophy.  You’ll spend time in staff meetings debating on where these teachers should be in the building and where they should keep their weapon so that it’s close but not somewhere a student could get at it.  And who is going to pay for these weapons?  Nobody (except kind parents and me) buy Kleenex for our rooms NOW, what makes anyone think someone is going to dish out the money to provide weapons?  It will come out of the little yearly budget most teachers get to purchase supplies for their classrooms.  Let’s be honest, most schools don’t have enough teachers, counselors, social workers and basic supplies, so how much less will we have if someone mandates that teachers carry weapons?

I did not get into teaching to become a mental health specialist or an armed guard.  Look, I’ll do my dead level best to protect the children I have in my room, no bad pun intended, with whatever I can get my hands on but I will not carry a gun in my classroom.  My children deserve to have a peaceful environment to learn and be with their friends and not have to be aware of possible danger all the time.  And maybe that sounds naive, but I think that’s the way most teachers feel.  We are the place some children want to go to get AWAY from the violence they may experience.  I will not bring it into my room to shatter that peace.  I’ll take my chances.

I heard today that this last shooting may be the breaking point for people in our country and we’re hearing from young people who are tired of being “soft targets”.  It’s the culture that needs to change, not what we carry into the school building.  It’s building relationships, getting away from screens, looking people in the eye, being aware and interested in what people are thinking and feeling, and teaching people to take responsibility for their actions and deal with the consequences.  I’ve had enough.  How about you?

 

 

When was the last time you heard someone say “I can’t do math.  I’m not talented” or I can’t do science experiments, I’m not talented”.  Never, right?  Math, science and reading teachers expect their students to meet certain standards within those particular disciplines.  There is never a question of whether or not the student is not talented enough to learn these subjects.  But for some reason, when we talk about “specials” or music, art and physical education, we decide whether or not a child can succeed based on some kind of nebulous talent.

I’m going to break it to you here boys and girls.  My students aren’t always talented.  My students are working to become musically literate.  My students are garnering needed skills to convey themselves through what happens to be an art form.  They are studying the elements of music so that they can intelligently speak about and understand something that they encounter in all kinds of venues every single day. They may have an affinity for music, but they are not talented as of yet.

I wish I could tell you how many adults have told me they can’t sing.  It’s not that they can’t sing, it’s that they were never taught how to sing OR they decided they couldn’t sing and didn’t believe they could be taught. According to research, there is a very tiny percentage of people who can’t physically match pitch and that would happen only if there was some kind of disconnect between their hearing and being able to reproduce the sound.  I currently have a student who is deaf in one ear and she can match pitch. Singing is just that, hearing the sound and reproducing it vocally.  This is a learned skill.  Today I had a handful of students who did not want to sing by themselves because they believed they couldn’t do it. I encouraged them to see me after the rest of the class left and they all sang for me.  Each one of them was able to reproduce the sound exactly as I sang to them.   They have the skill, just not the belief.  Yet.

As spectators, we look at entertainers who have distinctive voices and think, I could never be that talented.  Let’s analyze this a bit.  This singer had to begin by matching and reproducing sounds just like anyone else.  Maybe it’s something they heard at lot at home.  Maybe they spent a lot of time practicing as a kid, but it begins with the same foundation as anyone else.  What separates them from the rest of us is that they have made the decision to give all of themselves to the art form.  If you talk to professional vocalists, they will tell you singing is not easy.  It is an aerobic exercise that must be practiced daily, working on specific breathing techniques, increasing their range of notes, using their knowledge of dynamic expression, timbre, and tempo to convey the meaning behind the words they’re singing.  It’s this kind of personal interpretation and plain hard work that turns a well trained musician into what lay people refer to as “talented”.

It’s much like anyone studying physical education.  Sure, maybe they practiced the game at home with parents or at school at an early age.  But a physical education teacher gave them the foundational tools to build consistency in their skills.  That with practice and hard work can help them improve.  Maybe one day they’ll take their personality, competitiveness and work ethic and combine them with their solid foundation of skills and everyone will refer to them as a talented “star athlete”.  Again, this person has taken a set of skills and worked hard to become better, just like the musician.

Both of these examples show how a student, educated in the foundations of a particular discipline can meet curricular expectations, just like math, science, reading or writing.  But I like to believe that in the arts, there can be sparks of magic.  Classroom teachers might refer to it as the “ah ha” moment.  When it happens in the arts, it not only touches the soul of the person who experiences it, but it touches those around them.  It’s powerful.  The arts, done well, can elevate human beings to be the best they can be.  It is the intersection of foundational skills, curricular understanding and the individual themselves.

My kids may not be talented – yet – but in the meantime, my job is to help them to believe in me and in themselves, so they’re not afraid to try new things, to gain a deeper understanding and learn new skills.  In the process, I hope they have some fun and see that music can make them feel things they have never felt before.  In the process, maybe it will cultivate a love for something they’ll carry with them their entire life.  Because you don’t have to be talented to sing well at any age.

You can see the child now, can’t you?  Stomping on the floor, yelling at the top of their lungs, anger and frustration aimed at another child, perhaps a sibling, who has tried to tell them what to do.  Or perhaps it’s a teacher, fed up with ten year old children trying to tell them what to do.  Just kidding.  Kind of.  (“Can you let me be the teacher?”)  Sorry, inside teacher joke there. Nobody likes to be told what to do at any age, even when it’s in their or someone else’s best interest.  We tell drivers not to drive over a certain speed in a certain area for safety reasons, but how many people do exactly what they want anyway?

So, here’s my thought process.  I hope you can stay with me here because I’m not really sure where this is going to go myself.  Anyway, with all of this talk of gun control, it occurred to me that the word CONTROL is the problem.  You see, control of anything is not real in the sense that policies, rules and laws can’t really control anyone.  At it’s very best, control is temporary and sporadic.  It’s false comfort. Most times, those who are being “controlled” are allowing themselves to be controlled either because they agree with the policy/rule/law or they are by nature rule followers and perhaps afraid to break it.

Let’s say you are the opposite of a rule follower, you’re a loophole finder.  You’re the kid who always found that one thing left out of someone’s instructions that allowed you to do exactly what you wanted to do anyway.  Some of you are nodding your heads.  These are people who don’t want to be told what to do and do not want to be controlled by anyone.  These are the gun owners who read exactly what they want to read into the constitution to back up their belief system.  Then there are the anti-gun people who believe that if there are laws or policies written to get rid of guns that it will control the problem just because it’s a law or policy.  We’ve already talked about how that goes.

Now let’s take a page out of the teacher’s handbook.  As I tell my students at school, you can’t control anyone but yourself.  Let me say that again.  You can’t control anyone but yourself.  That means that no matter how strongly you feel about something, you will not be able to make someone else do it, want it, or agree with it.  Period.  Now, as a teacher, I can make things difficult, like consequences if you don’t follow the rules, but even then, the consequences for some people might have to be really dire.  I mean, let’s talk about a serious issue like abortion for instance.  When there were laws against abortion, women who thought they needed one found a way to get one, despite the major health risks involved. This was a major argument for those who wanted to legalize abortion.  If women are going to get one anyway (because they want to be in control), then we might as well legalize it.  The argument from women in general?  Nobody can control my body.

The word “control” gives us a false sense of security.  If we try to control our borders by building a wall, we give those who are concerned about this issue a feeling of safety.  Despite the fact that people are people and we can’t REALLY control them, they will, as Jeff Goldblum says “find a way” to cross the border.  We try to “control” who enters our school buildings but I’m sure a lot of schools, like mine have tons of windows for aesthetic reasons just waiting to be broken to allow someone in. We try to take control of an uncontrollable situation by practicing “code red drills”, knowing that we really have no control if that situation were to occur.  Some people are afraid their control is being taken away if you take away their guns and others are afraid if we don’t control who gets the guns.  It all boils down to fear, and fear that our lives can or will be dictated by someone else.  Someone who may not agree with me and what I believe is right or wrong.

Now to recap.  1.  Many of us behave like the child throwing a fit when they don’t get their way. 2. No one wants to be controlled by others.  3.  Control is at best temporary and a false security.  4.  Policies, rules and laws don’t always work.  5.  You can’t control anyone except yourself.  6.  People who are loophole finders or in dire straits will always find a way to fight what others try to control.

Are you depressed yet?  Don’t be.  The key, I believe, is the fact that we can be in control of ourselves. We’re wasting our time trying to control others and it doesn’t work anyway.  It’s all about self control and teaching self control.  It’s about teaching our children that life is NOT all about them but of thinking about others.  Teaching our children not to feel helpless when there is a situation beyond their control but how to deal with it.  Teaching students about civil discourse and debate rather than arguing and threatening.  This also means that we, as a community of adults ,need to get our acts together, and quickly.

I, as an individual can choose how I react or respond to something.  I can choose how to react when someone else is not doing or behaving in a way that is healthy.  I can respond to anger with calm, fear with reassurance or support.  I can choose not to separate myself from someone I disagree with but can encourage dialogue instead.  If  we all choose to take care of ourselves in such a way that it helps others, the need to control things will not be necessary.  It sounds utopian I know, but that must be the goal.  Even God does not try to control us but allows us free will.  Who wants someone to love or care about them because they were forced or coerced into it?  So, who is the boss of me?  I am – not you!

 

 

“We should be able to smell the dancers from our seats” Doug shared as he told me he had snagged a couple of tickets to the ballet.  The American Ballet performing Stravinky’s Firebird accompanied by the St. Louis Symphony.  Misty Copland dancing.  Bucket list kind of thing.  But the idea of being close enough to smell the body odor from these dancers was, well, NOT on the bucket list.  But there we were, fourth row from the stage, up close and personal.

They make it look so easy, beautifully chiseled muscles responding to every precise movement in time to the music, although at this distance, sometimes you could hear the dancers breathing heavily from the effort. I loved being close enough to see their facial expressions and the tiniest details in their movements, down to the fingertips.  And then it happened.  One of the male dancers did a tour en l’air, or literally a “turn in the air” and as though in slow motion, huge drops of sweat were flung away from him in a beautiful circle.   The turn was stunning, seemingly effortless, but the sweat spoke otherwise.

Nothing truly beautiful comes easily.  Great art and architecture, music, dance, theater, all require discipline, training, patience and just plain hard work.  As I tell my choir kids, the rehearsal is not the fun part.  Okay, we try to make it as fun as we can, but this is where the work takes place.  And work is not always fun – necessary, but not fun.  And that’s okay.  The fun comes much later, when the work is done and the product of that work is beauty.  Beauty that affects other human beings in an meaningful, emotional, life changing way.

As I was contemplating what to write this morning, it occurred to me that the reason there is so much ugliness in the world today is that ugly is easy.  Ugly takes no effort, it’s just allowed to happen.  It doesn’t take any effort to just let ugliness spring from our mouths.  It takes effort and discipline to either hold it in or find a constructive way to say what you feel in a way that is compelling and can change hearts and minds.  It takes no effort to reach out and physically hurt someone when you’re angry.  It takes tremendous effort to reach out to someone with a hug and an “I want to understand you better” when you disagree with them.  It’s easy to hate someone who has treated you badly.  It’s so hard to love and forgive them.  Beauty is hard.

Beauty is all about others.  I create beauty because I want to touch other human beings in a good way.  A beautiful painting, ballet or piece of music, a meaningful theater piece can change a person’s life.  Ugliness is all about the individual.  This is what I want.  This is what I feel.  This is what you should feel or think because I do.  Ugliness is selfish.  There is no attempt to allow the other person to see things their own way.  And an even lesser attempt to accept the way they see it.

The thing with beauty is that each person is allowed to see and experience it in their own way.  At the ballet last night I found myself paying close attention to how each little nuance in the music was interpreted through the movement, to the point where I could see the music.  The other thing that struck me was how silent dance is.  Yes, I know there is music, but there is something compelling about a story told without words.  Doug was focused on the layering of the movement and the work of the ensemble rather than the individual.  Everyone sees beauty in a way that is meaningful to them.

I think it’s interesting how people are both repelled by and drawn to ugliness.  It certainly makes it easy to focus on the ugly instead of the beautiful.  More often than not, it seems we have to find the beauty in a situation and that takes work.  For instance, I saw an article this morning about a wind, percussion and colorguard show in which the percussion section of Stoneman Douglas High School was supposed to perform.  The other students from all the other schools gathered on the gym floor and pledged their support for those students who were suffering.   The ugliness of the shooting last week certainly not forgotten, but these were young people who chose beauty over anger and that beauty touched all who were attending.  No protesting, no fighting, no name calling, just unconditional love and support for the students who are hurting.  Beauty amidst the ugliness.

I once read somewhere that it takes two positives to negate a negative.  For every negative person there needs to be two positive people to fight the negativity.  In a world where ugliness seems the norm, it’s easy to get sucked into the ugliness and show our worst side to the world.  I believe in the power of beauty.  I’ve seen lives changed for the better through beauty.  One of my colleagues has kindly complimented me for being calm during difficult situations.  That’s because I choose to WORK to be that way – it certainly doesn’t come naturally.  My hope is that I either affect change in how people feel and think through calm, kindness and understanding or at least bring compromise.  It takes work.  It takes discipline.  It takes patience. It can create beauty.

 

I know.  The title of this blog alone probably angers a lot of mental health experts.  As a teacher, however, I tend to disagree with the labeling of everything as a disorder.  Labeling in itself can have lifelong consequences for a person who then believes they have an “excuse” for the way they behave, not just a “reason” for the way they behave.  There is a difference.  The reason says I need to find another way to get around this issue to make things better and the excuse says I don’t have to try to make this better.  And certainly, something as serious as a “disorder” is the best excuse of all.  Remember, words are powerful.

Let me give you some reasons why I feel so strongly that defiance is not a disorder.  Defiance is a choice.  I can choose to say no to an authority figure, but there are usually consequences to that, so for most people, those consequences are enough of a deterrent to keep them from being so defiant.  If my principal were to ask me to do something reasonable within my duties as a teacher, to look at him in the eye and just say “no” is defiant and will result in some kind of disciplinary action or loss of employment.  That would be the expectation.  (Boy, that sounded like a teacher, didn’t it?).  And yet, somehow when an eight year old looks you in the eye at school and says “no” to a reasonable request this is different.  The reason I know there are consequences to my actions is because I was taught that.  When my boys went through a defiant stage, they learned there were consequences to their actions and if they didn’t want the consequences, they changed their actions.  So, somewhere along the line, these particular labeled children have not been taught that there are consequences to defiance and disrespect for authority.

Oh sure, it’s cute when your toddler says “no” for the first time and we may even laugh at them.  That sweet little voice, that scrunched up face – I mean, how could you even resist?  And when it keeps happening, because your schedule is so crazy and you don’t get to spend enough time with your children, and maybe you feel guilty because of it, you give in because you want the relationship you have with your child to be a positive one.  Or maybe you give in because it’s just easier.  You’re tired and rightfully so.  Just let them stay up longer than they should. But this kind of thinking backfires on everyone, including you AND your child.  You and other like minded adults have let the child begin thinking that all they have to do is say “no” and not move or throw a big enough fit and they can do whatever they want without consequences.  Not only does this begin a life long struggle for whoever has to deal with this person, it sets the child up for failure.  Finishing school, getting and holding a job, having a positive relationship with friends and family are gone.  It is not helpful to the child.  Period.

Several points to be made here.  First, we’re talking about reasonable requests.  I’m not talking about an authority figure asking the child to do something harmful.  I don’t think asking a child to make their bed or pick up after themselves is being unreasonable.  I don’t think asking a child to follow directions in order to learn is unreasonable.  Secondly, as adults, we are not the the child’s friend.  As a parent, my children were not my friends.  My job was to raise them to be responsible adults.  Now that they’re adults, we can be friends.  And they tend to appreciate the limits and expectations we had for them.  Not at the time necessarily, but they do now.  My job as a teacher is to teach my students to love learning but also to be kind, follow directions, etc.  These are life long skills, skills that will take them far.  They are not my friends, they are my students.  Thirdly, consequences are necessary but need to fit the crime.  I’m not talking about hurting the child here.  However, when my boys refused to pick up the stuff in their room, after a certain amount of time, that they were made aware of, I took everything that wasn’t picked up, put it in a garbage bag and hid it.  If they couldn’t take care of it, they didn’t get to have it.  Natural consequences.  Lastly, don’t get angry when these things happen.  I wish I had realized this more when I was younger, but I see how important this is now.  Being firm but kind lets the child know that this isn’t personal but an expectation of something they need to learn.  You still love and care about them, but you love them enough that you want them to be a good person, one who can survive the real world.  And you love them enough that they can come back to you and not be afraid that you’re always angry with them.

My kids who struggle the most at school are the ones who run up for a hug when they see me.  This should speak volumes.  They want approval, they want to be loved, they want to be taught what the boundaries are, they just don’t always know how to say that.  Being defiant, to me, just means they haven’t matured yet and need to be taught a better way to behave in a loving but FIRM way.  I cannot emphasize the word firm enough here.  I should probably put the word PATIENCE in here now.  You need to know that this is a process – sometimes a LONG process.  Being a parent or a teacher is not easy but being a kind, loving, firm and patient adult in their lives is so important and will make such a difference in the child’s life in the long run if you’re willing to stick with it.

When I work with student teachers, I make very sure that we talk about this.  Being fairly young people themselves, they can tend to react with frustration, anger and uncertainty when faced with a defiant student.  Teaching them to leave those negative feelings behind while still remaining kind and firm will help them in the long run and I believe will make a deep lasting impression on the students they teach.

Are we, and by we I mean ALL adults in the lives of children, willing to take the time and patience to invest in these defiant children in a meaningful, loving, firm, patient way?  Perhaps if we stop giving them excuses by labeling them and make them accountable for their actions at a younger age we can begin to see a change in our culture and the future of our country.

 

“If you mess up that paper I’m going to kill you!”.  Out of the mouths of babes.  I asked the offending first grader who said this to come up to my desk.  “What does killing mean?”, I asked.  “I don’t know” was the response.  I made the choice to express the following to him. “Killing is dead.  Gone.  Never coming back.  Killing hurts.  Killing makes people angry and sad.  Do you still want to kill your friend?”.  “No, I was just kidding.”  “Well, killing is not kidding and we don’t talk to or treat people that way”.   I might be shocked if this was the first or only time I have ever heard a child tell another child they were going to or wanted to kill them, but it’s not.  And I’m not shocked.

Way back in the old days, there were censors who looked at TV and movie content.  Content that was not family friendly was either shown after prime time or not shown at all.  Movies did not have the same graphic violence and language they do now.  Adults did this not to hinder creativity but to protect children.  Children who do not understand that killing and dying are violent and permanent.  Children who do not understand that real killing is bloody and painful.  Is all this cultural violence due to what they watch?  That may be part of it, but that would be too easy.

They don’t have to go far at all to see graphic violence on reality TV, video games and movies.  Their little brains are like sponges, their little psyches etched with the images they see.  And adults are allowing this to happen.  I know this is true because, well, kids talk about everything.  “I got to see “IT” this weekend.  I really liked the last episode of the Walking Dead.  My mom let me see Black Swan.”  Are you kidding me?  Yes, these are just movies and TV shows, but they are meant for adult minds who can hopefully tell the difference between reality and fiction.

And have you seen reality shows lately?  Why are we watching adults (I use the term loosely) swearing at each other, throwing things, physically fighting, (men AND women) sleeping with anyone and everyone, lying and cheating?  It’s the worst of humanity portrayed as entertainment on a screen.  And kids see this and think it’s okay to behave this way.  So why are we surprised?

The violent culture we’re seeing affecting our schools and our children did not happen overnight and it wasn’t even covert.  In allowing ourselves to be exposed to gradually more and more violence and depravity until it became commonplace, we created this culture.  And then we act shocked.  How could someone do this to children?  Well, why NOT do this to children?  Not trying to be crass here, but we’ve allowed ourselves and now our kids to be irresponsible and disrespectful, helped them to blame others when something went wrong in their lives, and allowed them to witness acts of violence, either real or virtual for their entire lives.  What else would you expect?

Then we try to oversimplify the solution.  If we just got rid of all guns, this would stop.  If we just had enough mental health professionals in the schools, that would be the answer.  We can do more background checks, arm teachers, put security at the doors of our schools, give teachers trauma training and have anti-bullying campaigns.  And then, it gets even better.  We face off against each other in every possible venue, depending on what simplistic solution we side with and argue about that until the next shooting when it starts all over again.  In the meantime, teachers do meaningless drills to prepare for what may now be considered the inevitable when the truth is, we don’t know exactly what we’ll do if it does.  My prayer is that God will guide me to do the right thing for my kids when and if it happens because I can’t begin to anticipate the actions of a child killer.

Look, all of us who are caring, loving, well adjusted adults have the impossible task of trying to wrap our minds around the fact that there are depraved people out there who don’t mind killing children.  We’re angry, scared and heartbroken and we want to be people of action but we really don’t know what to do.  Is it because they had access to a gun or because they didn’t have access to mental health care? Are we waiting on a government to do something when it seems they’re more interested in the latest tweet or email? We want to do something and we want it to be fixed right now but it’s only getting worse.  And that feeling of helplessness just increases the anger and fear and sadness we feel for all children.

I don’t have the answers but turning on each other during times like these over philosophical differences is just another demonstration of violence in front of children and, quite frankly, tells them and us just how unimportant they must be in the scheme of things.  What we need is quick, decisive civil dialogue between real adults to make some major changes. That will take some compromise but with the ultimate goal of making our schools safe for our children to learn and grow.  And let’s pray that this happens sooner than later. In the meantime, in my little corner of the world, my job is to do my best for my students, to insist that they treat each other with kindness and respect, even if they disagree with others and to call them out when they don’t, to give them guidance to talk to adults they trust if they’re struggling and to let them know that they matter.  And, unfortunately, give them options in case someone comes in the door with a gun.

 

The flowers arrived at school today and decorated the front office, bringing smiles to the recipients around the building.  I suppose if you only receive flowers one day a year, it would be very special to receive them today.  I did not receive any today, but I received some about a week ago, just because.  My favorites tulips, bought just to brighten up a snowy day.  Because at our house, we’re working to make every day Valentine’s Day.

I have to admit that Doug is much better about this than I am, but we both try to do little things for each other.  It’s Valentine’s evening and we’re sitting on the couch watching Kentucky basketball.  Not what most couples would want to do tonight, but this is important to Doug, so that’s what we’re doing.  You see, he surprised me with tickets to the ballet for this weekend so we’ll have a date night then.  When you have a loving relationship with someone, whether it’s with a spouse or a friend, you shouldn’t have to wait for a particular day to celebrate it.

It doesn’t take much and it’s not a matter of trying to outdo each other.  It’s sending a loving or supportive text in the middle of the day.  It’s planning an evening of takeout pizza and a movie on the couch together.  It’s putting a kind note in a fellow teacher’s box or bringing donuts to share with your team at school.  It doesn’t have to be fancy, it just needs to be what you do; thinking of others and how you can make their day a little sweeter.

I think we make a mistake in limiting a Valentine to a spouse or girlfriend/boyfriend.  A Valentine is anyone you care about.  I’m afraid a lot of my single friends hate Valentine’s Day because of how it’s marketed.  These are people that I know are loved and cared for by others but may feel really left out on this one day.  I need to do a better job of making sure I touch base with those friends to share how I feel about them.

For us, today was our 39th Valentine’s Day together.  We didn’t buy each other cards or gifts, no dressing up, no fancy dinner out.  We threw on some jeans and comfy shoes, hopped in the bug and drove to our favorite Chinese place.  A lot of people came in for takeout but we were the only two eating in.  We spent time talking about our day, sharing funny things with each other and enjoying our food.  At the end, we took pictures of each other at the same time, just for fun.  Yes, this is my husband, but he is my best friend, the one I have lived life with for close to two thirds of my life.  We’ve gotten to that point in our lives where spending time and paying attention to each other is more important than things.  They’re nice, thoughtful, but not necessary.

In our busy lives, we’ve made it a point to schedule time together, putting dates on the calendar just like meetings, rehearsals and basketball games.  I believe the first sign of death in a relationship is when you begin to take each other for granted, to become complacent and just assume everything is fine.  It’s the same in a friendship, assuming things will remain the same, despite not being totally invested in the relationship.

I’m not saying we should get rid of Valentine’s Day. It’s fun and my kids at school would have a hissy fit if there were no more Valentine’s parties!  But why not make every day Valentine’s Day, making sure that the important people in our lives know what they mean to us year around.  Happy Valentine’s Day my friends!

 

There are certain pieces of paper that are obviously important in our lives.  Our birth certificate, social security card, marriage certificate, death certificate, etc, all of which require no more than to jump through certain hoops in a certain order at a certain time.  Academics are the same way, with the same necessary jumping, however, there is the assumption that with each piece of paper, you are somehow smarter, more qualified than those who have no degree or perhaps a lesser degree.  If I pay enough money at the right time for the right number of courses in a certain amount of time and receive certain grades, I too can hold one of these coveted pieces of paper.  Can I succeed in life without it?  You bet, but I’m not always sure that those who have jumped through more hoops than I always agree with that.

I hold a Bachelors of Music Education Degree.  This means I spent four years jumping through the right hoops to earn that degree and the rights and privileges that go with it.  Over the years I gained many more credits, enough for a Master’s degree and then some, but not all from the same institution. People assume that because I’ve been teaching so long that I must have my Masters.  Nope, I don’t. Does it make me any less smart?  No,  Does it make me any less educated?  No, I just don’t have the prescribed courses all in a row from a single institution of higher learning.  And yet, I’ve been able to, with the help of great colleagues, work my way through the ranks of music education professionals to now sit on the National Executive Board of the National Association for Music Education.  I can guarantee that the others who sit on this board as well as its societies and councils all have greater degrees than I do.  And this is not a bad thing as I learn from them every time we get together.  But for some reason there’s an assumption that you can’t pursue these types of opportunities unless you have a Dr. in front of your name or PhD behind it.

I want to say again, that I believe I am where I am today because people believed in me enough to encourage me to pursue these opportunities.  And most of them hold higher degrees than I do, but they don’t treat me differently because of it.  However, there is a caste system of sorts in academia where some who have gone through the hoops consider themselves more of an expert in the field than maybe those of us with only one degree.  Despite the fact that I have nearly 30 years of experience in the field, someone who has, let’s say, five years of experience but who has attained advanced degrees may feel they are more the expert.  Why?  It’s the difference between what some might call book learning versus practical experience.

Unfortunately, a vast majority of courses taught to prepare music teachers are on the impractical side, courses chosen by the higher ups in the world of academia, who might not have as much of a practitioners perspective.  Perhaps it’s been a while since they’ve been in the classroom or they weren’t in the classroom very long, but I often question the hoops that students must jump through to garner their undergraduate degree.  For instance, it’s great to learn about music theory by analyzing Mozart, but how about including how to write or arrange things for your future middle or high school ensemble as well?  It’s great to learn about the history and style differences of the classical composers, but how about more popular styles as well to speak to kids where they are and compare the two?  And while it’s important to teach future teachers how to play various instruments, it’s more important to teach future teachers how to teach those various instrument to others, especially beginners.

And then there are evaluations that must be done in order for the student to graduate.  Another hoop, but if the hoop is required, it should be meaningful to the person being evaluated.  It should also be a model for the student in terms of how they should be evaluating their future students.  It’s important to have a good foundational base in the subject matter and to be musically literate yourself, but it’s the art of teaching those things to future students that should be the most important.

As I vent a little bit about these issues, I also know that there are things about the process of creating college curricula that I don’t completely understand.  I learned many years ago that it’s easy to be the armchair quarterback if you’ve never actually been a quarterback.  I have been a part of academics for what feels like my whole life, and have sat on boards and committees and attended various training for many different aspects of education from the local to the state to the national level, but there are still areas that I don’t completely understand because I have not been immersed in it.  That right there would be the only reason why I would perhaps continue, at my advanced age, to pursue a terminal degree.  In order to be considered “qualified” to be in the middle of what I feel needs to be addressed, despite my years of experience, means I must jump through the hoops to get the piece of paper that suddenly earns me the right to be taken more seriously.

So, do I play the game or do I try to prove that there are other ways to have my voice heard?  That remains to be seen. As always, I will follow my passion for what I do, learn as much as I can and use my voice to support music education and music teachers to the best of my ability.  With or without the paper.

 

Amazing what a little contraction can do.  I don’t mean the childbirth kind of contraction, (thank goodness!) but the power of the apostrophe and the “t”.  It can completely change the direction of  a life.  Spoken out loud and directly to someone can mean the end of a dream, the chance of doing something innovative, the opportunity to do what nobody else has done.  Why would someone do this to another person?  I believe it’s not so much about the other person as it is about themselves.

Let’s take a toddler.  It is expected that a toddler begins to, well, toddle.  Parents encouraging their child with words like “you can do it!” as they take their first steps.  Maybe the child is learning to play a sport for the first time and as they’re up to bat or shooting a basketball, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a parent yell “you can’t do it!”.  We all encourage our children to do whatever they set out to do, right?  Especially if it’s something we want them to do or we believe they can do.  Or because everyone else we know does it.

And why do we believe?  Chances are because we’ve either done it ourselves or someone close to us has done it – we’ve witnessed it. Why do we encourage the toddler?  Because it’s the norm for a toddler to walk.  It’s unusual if they don’t.  But if a person steps outside of our experience zone and tries something new, maybe something we’ve never seen done before, our first response can be something like, “well, go ahead, but I don’t think it will work” or “you can’t do that”.  It’s a powerful thing.  And when the “can’t” comes from an important person in someone’s life, it can be life changing.  A parent or a teacher telling you that you can’t do something, especially if you hear it over and over can make you believe that it’s true, no matter how capable you may be.

But I don’t want to just limit this to physical attributes.  How many parents give the gift of the arts to their children?  Maybe providing music or dance lessons or spending money on art supplies.  Encouraging, even insisting on classes and practice.  And then it comes time to go to college and the parent says “you can’t major in music.  You’ll never make a living doing that.  You’ll end up in the food industry asking “do you want fries with that”?  The arts are impractical, you’ll end up poor, yada, yada, yada.  You’ve been encouraging all along – why do you stop encouraging just because it isn’t your dream or it may be improbable?  Improbable doesn’t mean impossible.

Sports are encouraged in the same way.  We encourage kids to play all kinds of team sports, spending sometimes thousands of dollars to travel in leagues and then the kid says, I want to be a professional sports player.  We immediately go into the statistics.  Do you know the percentage of college players who actually go to the pros?  You need a back up plan.  You’re only 5’4″.  What makes you think you can play basketball?  I’ve seen some pretty quick little guards zip around the legs of the taller guys and score on them.  Improbable?  Yes.  Impossible?  Not necessarily.  Again, if the person is told they can’t by someone they trust, it probably won’t happen.

But here is where it really becomes dangerous.  It’s when the person you’ve said “can’t” to believes it as much as you do and THEY begin to say it.  About everything.  Because once you say “I can’t”, you begin to look at life a little differently.  You begin to analyze everything through the lens of fear and disbelief.  I can’t do “A” so chances are I can’t do “B”.  And the next thing you know they’ve gotten a degree in something because it’s practical and they’re stuck in a dead end job they hate because they did the same thing that everyone else does.  What is it they say – it’s better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all?  We can apply that to following your dreams.  I would rather have given it everything I’ve got and failed than to not ever try and wonder what if.  I will still have gone further than someone who immediately said “I can’t”.  And you never know where the adventure might have taken you in the meantime.

The saddest thing I hear as a teacher is some of my youngest students saying “I can’t”.  They haven’t experienced nearly enough life yet to even be thinking that, much less living it.  Part of my job as a teacher is to help them see that they can do whatever it is they set their mind to.  It doesn’t have to be perfect.  It probably won’t be the first time they try, but as they keep working at it eventually they’ll be able to say “I can”.  Building up a child’s belief in themselves, not building up a false self esteem through false praise or meaningless trophies, can change the trajectory of a child’s life.  Being truthful and teaching a child that they can do anything they set their mind to with hard work and a little grit is a life skill that will take them far.  There will be mistakes, there will be failures, but instead of taking those as proof that they “can’t”, it is only a sign that they need to ask for help or look for another way to do it.  It can be done.

When was the last time you encouraged someone by telling them “you can do it”?.  Maybe they’re struggling through a hard time in their lives, maybe they’re stepping out on a new life adventure or maybe they’re just getting ready to take a test in school.  All you and I have to do together is believe and say “you can”.

 

A few years ago, after watching a commercial where I saw an adult woman with an enraptured look on her face taking her gummy vitamin, I decided to give it a try.  Not because I thought “wow, I get to eat candy and get my vitamins too!”, like I did as a kid with Flintstone vitamins, but because I was having difficulty swallowing the large vitamin I had been taking for awhile.  I had never eaten a “gummy” anything before so I thought, how bad could it be?  It was bad.  Chewing something like rubber for what feels like eternity was not my idea of making taking vitamins easier.  It was annoying.  My son, who had grown up eating gummy bears took on the task of finishing the bottle for me.

I have no problem with adults occasionally taking a walk back in time to remember their childhood.  For instance that brief reconnection with Lucky Charms or PopTarts.  Sorry, those are my problems. But as an adult, despite how tempting something may be, I try not to do it because, well,  I’m an ADULT.  There is a big difference between remaining youthful and trying to remain a kid as demonstrated by young adults who refer to their occasional acts of responsibility as “adulting”.  I want to say before I get into this, that I’m not about to slam all young adults here.  My youngest son who is 27 has owned a home for years, is married, pays his bills on time, put himself through college and works hard.  For him, I think it was a challenge to see how independent he could be, to see how much he could accomplish.  Unfortunately, based on things I’m reading about our young adults, he seems to be the exception to the rule.

As a teacher, I get that everyone develops at their own rate and I understand brain development research and how the male brain isn’t fully developed until about age 25.  This however does not stop us from allowing 16 year olds to drive, 18 year olds to join the military and vote and 21 year olds to drink alcohol.  These are all things that require huge adult thought processes and responsibility, but somehow, despite these very important responsibilities, we, as a society, don’t seem to hold young people responsible for anything else.

More young adults are moving back home than ever before.  In the old days, you either went to college or you went to work and you moved out and started your adult life.  It was assumed that your parents had trained you to do things that would allow you to step out on your own – responsibility, work ethic, respect, and teaching you things like how to budget and take care of yourself and your home.  It would have been embarrassing to have to say you were living with your parents.  Now, it seems it’s the status quo.  Again, there are extenuating circumstances for some and it is necessary for a short time.  But at some point, the parents need to let them go and push them out of the nest.  And not necessarily gently. Struggle is not going to kill them if you have given them the necessary tools.

But unfortunately it seems that we have young people who want their college to be paid for and not have to be responsible for working to pay for it, who want that perfect job right out of high school school or college that pays enough to keep them in the lifestyle they’re accustomed to and still be able to party and play with the latest devices in their leisure time.  But what if I get accepted to Harvard and I can’t pay for it and the only way is to get student loans?  Well my friends, that’s called budgeting and if you can’t afford it and you don’t want to pay off student loans, then you need to go to a school that you CAN afford.  You get out of your education what you put into it anyway and I’ve seen plenty of people succeed very well in life after working their way through state universities.

But I think what concerns me most is the lack of emotional maturity.  I get it.  Life is hard. Life is not fair.  Bad things happen.  But if you understand that this is the way life is, you’re not so surprised when stuff happens.  Parents are doing everything they can to shield their children from hardship, all in the name of love.  We all want things to be perfect for our kids, but the problem is that life isn’t perfect.  And if we wrap them in bubble wrap and shelter them from all the bad feelings and make all the bad things go away for them, it’s no wonder we have things like young adults sitting in their cars immobilized because they can’t face another day of teaching in the classroom.  It’s HARD. We all want to make life good and certainly better for our kids than what we had, but there will always be struggles and we’re doing our kids a disservice if we don’t prepare them for reality and perhaps teach them ways make the world better along the way.

I write this out of concern for what I see in my classroom every day.  I see children struggle with not getting their way and reacting violently when they don’t.  I see children refusing to work or follow directions or lacking respect for authority.  If this continues, these kids will struggle to find and keep work to take care of themselves.  I see kids who can’t deal with struggle or failure and who just collapse into sobs, calling themselves names and thinking they’re stupid.  I and other teachers can only do so much.  Other adults who are involved with these kids have got to step up and help them so they can survive real “adulting” in the future.  Otherwise we’ll continue to raise generations of adults who expect things to be done for them, who sit and do nothing but play on their devices and demand gummy vitamins instead of any “hard pills” they need to swallow.