How I Use Remind to #teachsmall

When I heard about this hashtag and idea “#teachsmall,” I wondered to myself, how do I “teach small” with my own students?  What does “teach small” even mean?  And then a former student, a young lady who just graduated high school after having my Digital World class in her final semester, answered the question for me.

My pocket buzzed, and I took out my phone.  Now that Madi had graduated, we could be friends on Facebook, and so she sent me this message over Facebook Messenger:

Just like I had done for them all semester using the Remind app, this former student saw something relevant to what we had studied and used in class, and she shared it with me.  Of course, I then sent it (via Remind) to all the students I had last year in both semesters’ Digital World classes.  By the next morning, that message had received three stamps: two stars and a check.

So then I scrolled back through some of the messages I sent my DW students and my group of advisees over the past few months.  I found myself chuckling out loud at the memories.  

For me, #teachsmall has meant sending the kids a funny meme as a way of reminding them of something coming up in class.  

It has looked like a group selfie of our advisory every time we’re together, shared with them using Remind.  This became especially poignant when the kids learned that one of the group would not be in our advisory next year.

#teachsmall has meant contacting the kids when I am not in school to share with them what I am doing at a conference that relates to what we’re learning in class.

And it has meant staying in touch over summer vacation, sometimes just to tell them I miss them.

Now, some people may balk at my communication with students.  They may judge its appropriateness.  I can live with that.  When a former student’s eyes light up and she greets me with a smile and a high-five every time our paths cross, I know that my communication choices made a difference in forging a caring relationship with a young person.  When another former student stops by my office almost daily for candy, but spends most of the time talking to me about daily life stuff, and -- that one time -- even explained to me what aspects of economics I was witnessing in a class Minecraft experiment (because he had taken economics and I never did) I am reminded that those connections we make with students are what sustains them.  And what sustains us.  What sustains me.

I became a teacher because I love students.  Even now, as a majority of my job involves working directly with teachers more than their students, I relish my own classes, my advisory, and the times I go into other teachers’ classes to work with their students.  Young people bring a fresh energy and enthusiasm -- and let’s face it, I work in a high school, so also sarcastic wit -- to each day and each experience.  I frequently remind teachers that serving students is the sole reason we became educators (or it should be).  But another reason, I admit, that I became a teacher is the way the students serve me.  They remind me what it means to attack each day like the adventure it is.  And “teaching small” has enabled me to keep in touch with that.

So, how do I #teachsmall? I use the Remind app to update my students, send them reminders, let them know I am thinking of them, make them laugh at something I know only we will “get” because of that thing that happened in class that time, and sometimes ask them questions to which they can “stamp” their replies.  This year, I can begin to use the Chat feature to carry on a private-but-safe conversation with a student when needed when just one more kid needs to bring back that permission slip. Or when that one student seems to be a little off-kilter and I can privately check in and let him or her know I have noticed and I am here if they need help.

I like to think that #teachsmall has a synonymous hashtag: #dailysmile

The Two Americas

Here I am, sitting at LAX, one of the busiest airports in the country, and possibly the world.  My one-hour flight has been delayed by about three hours, so I have some time to sit around and people-watch while I wait.  Two Los Angeles Airport Police officers just walked by.  One had a massive rifle.  So that's a thing.

I have been on dozens flights in the past year and a half or so, and I've been to at least fifteen different airports. One thing I see in just about every airport is a class divide that is almost always along race lines.  People of all races travel.  But the majority in most airports are white.  Not surprising, given our country's population demographics.  But the majority of people doing seriously hard work, likely for low pay, are people of color.

I stopped to get a pizza and soda here today.  The woman scooting by with a cart of water and soda bottles to replenish at the counter was Latina.  All the cleaning workers and food service workers and various attendants here and there have skin much darker than mine.  This is something we are accustomed to.  Perhaps too much.  Because when the caucasian gentleman sitting near me finished his beer and pizza, he got up and left his mess for someone else to pick up.  He had to walk past multiple garbage cans to leave the little food court area.  But his assumption, likely, is that it's someone else's job to pick up after him.  (For the record, I bussed my own space, thankyouverymuch.)

I see this at supermarkets too, and it's a pet peeve of mine.  People bring their shopping carts out to their cars, empty their purchases into their trunks, and leave the carts where ever they damn well please.  Yes, it is someone's job to come out and get the carts.  But can't you make someone's day at work a little easier and smoother by putting your cart in one of the designated places for them?  It also helps keep everyone else's cars from getting dinged.

On that note (helping others have a nice day at work), what about treating people with respect, kindness, and dignity while they're doing their jobs to serve you and your needs?  I smiled, made eye contact, and spoke with the woman who was carting all those beverages in to restock.  I made way in the line for her cart to get through.  The young lady ahead of me helped move some water bottles to their intended location in the cooler before I could reach them.  Am I telling you this because I feel I deserve accolades?  No.  I just think it's common sense to be nice and help people.

The airline worker who checked in my bag was super helpful to me today.  She woke up this morning, I am sure, being Black in an America where people are still getting shot for looking like her in the year 2015.  I couldn't locate my email with my confirmation number, although I was already in the express bag check lane, and she politely took my ID and got me all set in mere moments.  I thanked her twice, called her ma'am, and wished her a great day.  I've seen people in my many travel experiences forget such basic manners because THEY'VE GOT PLACES TO GO, DAMMIT.

And let's not forget to dress comfortably when we travel.  Don't think I haven't noticed, white teenaged girls of America, how you fly in pajama pants and a skimpy tank top, rolling your eyes, and keeping your earbuds in, when young black men are wearing chinos and a polo shirt and smiling and thanking and calling everyone sir and ma'am, maybe just so they will be shown some respect.  If that ain't white privilege, I don't know what is.  White youth can do pretty much anything in this country, it seems.  But if a young black man sags his pants, we get national news media asking "where are the fathers?"

White people can pierce and tattoo the hell out of themselves (present company included on the tattoos), but a Mexican dude gets his baby's name on his arm and he's a banger.  White guy dresses scruffy and grows an out-of-control beard, and he's a hipster.  Black or brown guy does it, he gets arrested and/or assumed to be homeless.

No lie, a blond girl just walked by in blue socks (no shoes) with pot leaves on them.  Would a Black girl even dare?

This is what I am saying.  We live in two Americas.  And they happen parallel, side-by-side at the same time, everywhere you go.  Sometimes they are separate.  Do you think I will ever find myself in the neighborhood where many LAX food service workers live?  I wonder how often they find themselves at some of the nice restaurants I got to eat in while I've been in LA this week.  But more often than we realize, we find ourselves sharing the same space.  Too many people who look like me just seem to breeze through airports, supermarkets, shopping malls, movie theatres, seeing right through the people who work hard to make their time there clean, pleasant, and convenient.

We have certainly come a long way in this country, but we still have so far to go.  White privilege is a thing.  It doesn't make white people evil.  It means we've had it really good for a really long time.  Usually on the backs of people with darker skin.  We don't have to stop being white.  We just have to stop acting like it hasn't done us any favors.

Recipe for Teacher Success

Sometimes, it takes a high school sophomore or two to remind you what’s important.

Earlier today, I was reading and “grading” my students’ reflections on the coding experiences I put them through this semester, and I was really blown away by some of their personal epiphanies.  I really enjoyed commenting back to them, as I think I’ve now been through enough time on this planet to say I might know just a FEW of the “answers.”  After I finished, I posted the following “recipe for teacher success” to my Facebook and Twitter:

1. give kids a hard task

2. have them write reflectively

3. read reflections (bring tissues)

It didn’t take long for someone to respond on Twitter with a step 4: “give kids a hard task based on reflections.”  Absolutely right.  If we’re going at this whole education thing the correct way, that is the natural next step.  Some people call it “life.”

One of my students, whom I teased about whining when the coding activities got frustrating, shared that she learned she has a tendency to give up too easily.  She found herself relying on friends for help, or avoiding the task at hand, but then eventually prevailing when she just forced herself to push through it.  I loved that I was able to respond with encouraging words, suggesting that now she can see this predilection on the horizon in future situations and self-talk her way through or around it.  

She also quipped one of my favorite lines of student writing I’ve read in a while: “You know how kids don’t want to eat their broccoli at dinner? That was me with coding.”

This was the perfect opener, on their last formal writing piece of the course, for me to recognize her very effective conversational yet well-crafted writing style.  It reminded me of my own blogging.  Which is how we find ourselves right here, right now.

Another student observed that text-based games like the Zork series seem to act like programs themselves, that require particular commands in order to be completed.  (We had modified a text adventure style game in Trinket one day in class.)  I had never thought of that before.  Just the act of playing a computer game, which had to be programmed by someone else, consists of commands and other actions that require thinking like a programmer.

Though one of the students in the class determined that these activities, learning coding through games, solidified for her that she has no desire to pursue programming again, many of her classmates discovered that programming was more fun and accessible to them than they had ever imagined.  After all, they took this course with me to avoid taking a programming class.  Since one of my goals was to alter their perception about computer science and programming, and to change their ideas about whether coding is “for them.”

I’m really sharing this reflection of my own because I feel so grateful to get to work with young people and try new things with them and witness how they respond.  I feel as though if I don’t tell somebody -- everybody! -- then maybe my lack of gratitude would jinx the whole thing and I could lose it all.  But also, because it seems I have discovered a kind of secret sauce that many of my amazing friends in EdTech have also found.  This recipe for teacher success is a recipe for student success, for meaningful educational experiences, for happiness, for true reflective practice, for so many things we need more of in schools (and in life) but that our testing-crazed and over-committed lives frequently rob from us.

Haircut Day

Today, it’s a Saturday in May, and I am spending most of it grading. Deadlines, you know. But I needed a break, so I thought I would write about last Saturday. As weekend days go, it also had a singular, very focused purpose: getting my son a haircut.

Now, you need to understand that my son is eleven and has mild autism and has been growing his hair long because he wants it that way. And my husband and I have been walking a tricky tightrope of give-and-take, since hubby isn’t super into the boy having his hair long (though he is coming around somewhat), and I feel very strongly that I want him to be able to have power of this aspect of his appearance and his life.

First things first, though: we are all about the hygiene. Both my husband and I work with children. Other people’s children. Sometimes smelly children. I have leaned over many a pre-teen head to give guidance at a computer and had to hold back on the retch I’ve felt welling up. I have a super-sensitive olfactory gift, you see. Another aspect of hygiene is appearance. Neither my husband nor I can handle an unkempt appearance. We just can’t. Don’t try to fix us; we’re fine.

So we have set up rules about bathing and washing hair daily, brushing hair several times a day, using deodorant, brushing (and flossing and rinsing) teeth, and so forth. It’s hard enough to have autism. Being the smelly, dirty, weird kid is especially hard to bounce back from. And we start middle school in a few months. People with Asperger’s and autism are especially prone to a condition called “not giving a damn about personal hygiene.” So we’re vigilant, to say the least.

And so we find ourselves on a lovely Saturday with a boy who doesn’t want anyone coming near his hair, and me promising we won’t do anything drastic. And then it occurred to me: this isn’t just about being eleven and wanting to exert some control over a matter of one’s personal style. Getting a haircut is a rather sensory experience on a lot of levels. A person you don’t know very well touching your head. Loudly buzzing clippers right next to your ears. Strange smells and foreign noises while you sit on a chair that spins and goes up and down under someone else’s control.

On the drive to my hair dresser’s salon, I asked Cameron if there was more than one reason he was not happy about getting his hair cut. I told him that I understood that he wants to be old enough to decide about his own hair, which he agreed was part of what upset him. I also asked him if maybe all the sensory experiences I just described were upsetting to him.

Yes. Also, the last time his Dad took him for a haircut, the lady cut off more than even my husband told her to. So not only does the boy have no control, even his father can’t protect him from too extreme a cut.

We’ve done most of Cameron’s haircuts at home, with clippers. That is no longer an option or something we will consider. Scissors only. And neither hubby nor I are qualified to wield those.

I brought Cameron to my own hairdresser, who has been doing my hair since before he was born, I think, and whom he knows and at least respects and likes. I had already texted her in detail about what was up. She was really great. She explained to him, reassured him, and was really gentle and calming the entire time.

He still silently wept through the entire ordeal, but that wasn’t her fault. 

All we did was have her trim some dead ends and do a small amount of layering to the top and sides, so it would fall more neatly when he combs or brushes it. She complimented the length he had grown it, and she told him how much she likes how the back gets curly. I couldn’t have asked for a better performance by her, emotionally and professionally. His hair does look really nice. Most people can’t even tell it was cut, just that it looks neater.

But the build-up, the ride there, the talking him down during and after, and the therapeutic discussions and choices made for the remainder of the day were hard work and they were very draining. I negotiated my way through getting him to actually eat something when we went for lunch on the way home. I talked him into having some of my fries, and by the time we got to the front of the line to order, had even wrangled him into getting a chicken sandwich. I let him get whatever he wanted to drink (no beer, wine, or artificial sweeteners, though).

When we got home, he was free to do whatever he wanted. I am pretty sure he played with Lego in his room and rode his scooter outside for a bit. To be honest, I was so wiped from trying to maintain emotional control, that I don’t completely remember the rest of the day. I know I took him for sushi on the Friday night as a positive start to the weekend, to sort of buffer it all.

This is the kind of thing that can be really challenging about even the mildest of autism. People think your kid’s a little quirky but they expect him to be able to do everything a neurotypical kid can do, just the same way or at the same level or speed. I had a pretty busy and eventful week at work, but we had Haircut Saturday, followed soon after by Dentist Tuesday (with x-rays, a cleaning, and the news that we need to have two of his teeth pulled next week), and frankly, a lot of my life becomes a total blur on a semi-regular basis.

I just wanted to blog about this lest ye think that it all sunshine and rainbows over here in autism family land. I tend to share pictures and blog posts about the small victories, because that is what I want to remember. But a lot of our most important lessons on this journey come out of the difficult, painful days.

#makeschooldifferent Challenge

Yesterday, I was tagged in a tweet that brought my attention to this very cool challenge.  Diana Neebe blogged her response and tagged me in her list of five educators, all of whom I love and respect immensely, and I am very much looking forward to hearing their thoughts on this.

The origin of this challenge is Scott McLeod's April 13 (2015) blog post.

So here goes my contribution:

When it comes to education, we have to stop pretending that . . .

1. Standardized testing is ever going to give us any useful data beyond what we already KNOW about our students.  Testing only shows us who is good at taking tests.  Actually, let me revise that statement.  Poor performance on standardized tests is great for pointing out who comes to school hungry, overtired, stressed out, impoverished, neglected, or victimized by racism and classism inherent in our society's systems.  We need to stop using test scores to tell us what we already know, and then ignoring their message.  Rather, let's solve those societal problems and stop giving tests at all.

2. "The way we've always done things" and "BGUTI (better get used to it)" are good reasons to keep doing things that are ineffective, harmful to students, or both.  Students, parents, families, teachers, administrators, and everyone else involved in education deserves better.  Do you still have a VCR you use daily?  A record player?  A rotary dial phone?  In every other aspect of life, humanity has discovered, developed, or invented better ways of doing things.  And that's not just with regard to technology, though that's the easiest place to find contemporary metaphors.  Adults, think back to your own school days.  Do you remember all the things you learned from worksheets and workbooks?  How about lecture and note-taking?  I know that my own strongest and most positive memories are from the times I was actively involved in creating something: music, a poster for a project, a model.  Some of the memories weren't even all that positive, but they stuck.  Worksheets? Not so much.

3. All students learn in the same way, at the same rate.  If there is one thing that having a son with autism has taught me, it's that I was wrong a lot in the past in my assumptions about students who need to do things differently.  One famous quote that is often misattributed to Albert Einstein is about how if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid.  While that is more about everyone having their own strengths, it also applies to how we learn and how quickly we learn.  If we could make our education system truly more individualized and personalized, we could eliminate a lot of the negativity surrounding education.  A potential subtitle for this point could be "We have to stop pretending that homework doesn't suck."  Don't even get me started on homework.  Kids that need extra practice are tortured by it, and are likely practicing concepts incorrectly. Kids who "got" the concepts in class and who sail through their homework probably don't even need to be doing it. The divides we see among students are widened because kids who need extra support are often in homes where there may be no one available to provide that support during homework time. And kids who have special interests or activities outside of school, the things they love because they're good at them or successful there when they aren't in school, often have to choose between homework and what they love and can succeed in.

4. Teaching is a profession anyone can do, especially when they drop out of something "better."  Too many people in our society view the career path of teachers as something we've settled on because we couldn't make it as anything else.  And society also seems to expect that all these all-but-failures they've somehow okayed to be in the classroom can get it together to completely transform their kids, despite all the factors working against us. So teachers are given no respect, but are expected to perform miracles. And despite all they are up against, most of them do.  But it's never enough.  And then people wonder why we can't keep good teachers, or why no one wants to enter the profession in the first place.  We need to change society's view of and value placed on teachers.

5. Education is about anyone other than the students themselves.  There's a lot of talk in this country today about our societal ills and how if parents would just do their jobs, if teachers would just do their jobs, etc. But when people "just do their jobs," young people are often given the short shrift.  By the time students are old enough to figure out that someone may not have done right by them, it's often too late to win them back to having a positive outlook about their own futures.  In the meantime, while we're racing to run off copies of a quiz, or grading piles of homework, students need us to stop and get to know them.  To ask why they're upset. To check in on how things went in that competition or performance they just had. To find out what they like about the book we're reading.  To validate what they didn't like about a project.  During August trainings, I've heard teachers (myself included) joke about how school would be so much fun if it weren't for the students showing up on the first day.  And I've heard some people say it who were NOT joking. I've heard complaints about the kind of students a teacher "has been given" as if they were talking about an STD they caught by accident.  I've known educators who simply do not like kids.  And I've asked, sometimes out loud, "Um, WHY did you go into teaching?"

I think all of my ideas point to a bigger picture of having our lenses all out of focus when it comes to accountability.  I am a professional.  I have two degrees. I have over two decades of experience in the classroom. And I have a very good track record. Allow me to do my job and be accountable to my most important stakeholders: my students. Honor that as a teacher, I make great sacrifices to do right by them every day, and even on weekends and holidays.

I am also a parent.  Please like my kid.  Get to know my kid.  Give him a chance to show you that he IS capable and that he CAN do and learn, even if he needs more time or different methods than other kids. Especially now as he enters adolescence, he is looking to everyone BUT his parents for validation that he and his very existence are not mistakes.

I've been absolutely blessed. Not every step of my path as an educator and parent have been easy or positive, but I have spent much of my time in both roles in relatively cushy situations. I am valued where I work. I am given the resources I need. My son is loved and appreciated and encouraged in his schools (past and present). I am well aware, however, that so many educators and parents experience the myths I've outlined above daily. And I've received my share of snide remarks about my choice of profession.

Finally, and partly in hopes of a post that is more positive to follow mine, I need to tag five educators to continue the conversation in their own spaces.  Who are five people whose views I would really love to hear on this? I choose Rushton Hurley, Julia Fallon, John Miller, Jon Samuelson, and Karen McKelvey.  These are all people I've spent time with in various situations, solving the world's problems over a drink or a meal or a ride to the airport, and each of them has made me better at what I do.

This feels like progress.

Yesterday, my son and I had the most productive conversation we’ve ever had, squeezed into the ten to fifteen minutes it took us to drive from school to his social skills group meeting.  It started when he said to me, “You know how things take me longer to learn and I’m sensitive because I have autism?”

So I said, expectantly, “yeeesss…?”

“Well, I think maybe Axel (not his real name) might have autism too.”

“Why is that?” I queried, naturally.

“He’s kind of slow with learning some things, and he seems pretty sensitive too.  Does he have autism?”

“Well, I don’t know him or if he does.  Everyone with autism is different anyway.”

“Do you think HE knows about autism?”

“Well . . . let me ask you something: did you have autism when you were in third grade?”

Creative Commons licensed by Chris Costes (SOURCE)

“Yes. I have had autism my whole life.”

The world went slightly blurry just then, as I pulled up in the left-turn lane.

I then went on to say that maybe Axel does have autism, or maybe he doesn’t.  Maybe he does and it has not been diagnosed.  Maybe he has a diagnosis but only his parents know.  Or maybe he and his parents know, but they’re not telling Axel’s classmates, like what we are doing right now in our family’s case.

In that moment, I was grateful we told Cameron about his diagnosis as soon as we learned it.  For us, it was absolutely the right thing to do.  In this moment in the car, I also chose to tell him about someone else I know who didn’t know all throughout elementary school that he has autism.  He was in sixth grade when his parents finally told him.  And they had the teacher help tell the kids one day when the child in question stayed home from school.

We arrived at our destination with me realizing that my helpless little baby is now a tween with his own self-directed personality with his own objectives and goals for his life.

I picked up on this conversation a little bit today on the way home from school.  We were already talking about some interpersonal stuff with my boy and his current friends at school.  I asked him if he thought he might ever be comfortable telling his classmates about autism and how it affects his life.  Not this year, I assured him.  But maybe next year in sixth grade, or perhaps the year after that.

“I don’t know. Maybe I will.”

Yeah, I’ll call that progress.

Superlative Disease

I live in Silicon Valley. And I work in one of the most prestigious private independent schools in the country. In Silicon Valley. So I am surrounded, it seems, by a culture of fastest, smartest, youngest, first, best. You would think that in a place known for innovators who took unconventional routes to success, we wouldn’t be so wrapped up in these superlatives we keep using to define ourselves and set ourselves apart from one another. You would think we could focus more on the journey than how quickly and amazingly we reach the destination.

My ex-husband used to say he planned to make his first million by age 30. Sad for him, I suppose, that instead he was bankrupt and divorced from an amazing woman (that would be me) before he turned 33. When we have these labels as goals, do we hurtle toward them at all costs? Do we miss the journey because we are hyper-focused on the destination? Do we forget to be human -- and to treat others humanely -- along the way?

Source: http://stress.lovetoknow.com/Statistics_on_College_Student_Stress

I worry about my students, my advisees, and my son. My students took my class, for the most part, to avoid taking programming. They have already labeled themselves as being not inclined toward computer science. Is it because they feel they can’t be the “best” at it? I get one semester to dispel myths and transform mindsets. My advisees are wonderful, adorable freshpersons. They still have three more years of high school after this one. Three of them intend to take AP Chemistry as sophomores. I’ve been working on them and their parents. Is it really necessary? What edge do they think it will give them to take it next year rather than as juniors or seniors, if at all? And at what cost? The other six are, for the most part, enjoying high school as the final years of their childhoods. And I get to enjoy it with them. Don’t need no AP Mania harshing my mellow, y’all.

I think I have decided to not allow my son to take AP courses. His passion is history, and I think he’d be frustrated and bored in a class that is basically a year (or even TWO!) of preparation for one big test. Tests are not my kid’s friend. I want him to continue to enjoy and explore and interact with history. Not to see how much of it he can cram in his head and keep there until May. As for other APs, I’d need a pretty good argument. If I thought he’d pursue art, I’d let him do those.

And to what future doom am I cursing my child by denying him the choice of AP classes and all that stress? Gee, I don’t know . . . a life? My son will never be an amazing student. At least not as long as school is done to kids the way it currently is. But he already is and will continue to be an amazing person. And I will opt for that any day of the week. You know what his superlative is? Being the best HIM there is. I dare not do or say anything to squash that joy and wonder and, yes, sometimes struggle.

I had a ninth grader tell me she felt school was so competitive, so she always had to keep pushing herself. Why? I asked. Says who? I exclaimed. And then I told her she doesn’t have to play that game. She told me she wishes she was already an adult. No way! I uttered. I begged her to enjoy childhood while she still could. I told her that I try to act like a kid as often as possible to see if I can still get away with it. Childhood rocks. Adulthood kinda sucks sometimes.

But what about that spectre of competition she senses haunting her? It follows her home from school and creeps around when she’s trying to enjoy a tv show or read just for fun, I am sure. It keeps her up late studying and preparing and working. And it wakes her up early to get just a bit more studying in.

We need to exorcise these ghosts of a made-up belief system around education and achievement in our country. We have one side saying our kids aren’t competing on the global stage, and the other side making them crazy with worry about their future. That future is going to be filled with the kinds of problems you don’t solve by studying for tests. The drought in California? The global need for new fuel sources? Future food shortages? Climate change? All the A+ test grades and 4.0-plus GPAs in the world are not going to keep our species from destroying ourselves and our planet.

Home is Where You Remember to Drive to After Work

In the past month, I have made a trip to Boise, moved house, and made a trip to Portland. I’m exhausted. My lower back hurts. I’ve got a lot on my mind.

If there is one thing that moving from a 3-bedroom house to a 2-bedroom apartment teaches you, other than the fact that downsizing is good for the soul, it’s that needing to get rid of tons of stuff will expose neuroses you didn’t know you had. Also, storage units are expensive.

The past year has been really challenging. Just read any blog posts I’ve written in the past ten months if you need to get caught up. I also realized something else really significant during the move: the fourteen years we lived in Willow Glen cover a LOT of major life experiences. We were ten months in one house, and then thirteen years and two months in the one we just moved from. Fourteen years TO. THE. DAY. (That day being Valentine’s Day, coincidentally.)

Standing in the echo-y empty living room of the house, it hit me. Both my parents had visited us and slept in that house. And an aunt. And all my siblings at one time or another. Plus two of their partners and all three of my sister’s daughters. It was the house where I brought my son home from the hospital. That house had seen late-night feedings, nosebleeds, vomit, diaper changes, potty training, and checking for concussions. Several of those. (Kid’s got a hard head.)

The walls of that house witnessed me finding out my Dad had died. Coming to grips with my son’s autism diagnosis. Finding out Mom was sick. And then learning Mom was gone. Those same walls looked on as I earned my Master’s degree online. And as I taught online classes and participated in weekly video broadcasts. Song parodies and videos. Helping raise another person’s child. Taking in her boyfriend. Telling them they had to go.

Meals with family and friends. Christmas trees and cookies for Santa. Annual school portraits. Arguments over the dumbest of things. The only home my son had ever known.

Don’t get me wrong; I wanted to move. I suppose it would be nice to be able to come up with a down payment on a home we could own, but this is Silicon Valley, so I’ll settle for a pool I don’t have to clean and grounds I don’t have to keep. We’ve traded nearby train tracks and the 280 freeway for light rail and 17. We’re not as close to the airport. We’re a tiny bit closer to the mountains and the ocean beyond. We almost overlook the Los Gatos Creek Trail, and we hear the bells of St. Lucy’s on a regular basis. We have all our own furniture, and eventually we’ll put stuff up on the walls. I like it.

But after the year I’ve had, it just feels like one more fork in the road of life where I’ve had to decide how to proceed . . . and be prepared to live with the consequences of my choice. I definitely wanted out of that house. But I am not used to this new home yet. It will come.

When NO to One Things Means YES to Another

(This was written January 21, 2015.)

My life has gotten REALLY busy. That is part of why I haven’t blogged in a while. Another part is that, while I have plenty to say, I haven’t been able to get my head around HOW I want to say it. And I was waiting to tell some folks something in person before I shared it widely.

And that was the worst introduction I’ve ever written. So let’s just dive in, shall we?

I’m wrapping up my second year as Director of the MERIT program here in the Bay Area. It’s an amazing year-long professional development cohort situation for teachers, and I absolutely love it. As I wrap up my second year, I have decided to wrap up my being Director at all. We typically serve three years as Director, and that had been my plan all along. But then, life loves to throw us curve balls when we have the audacity plan that far ahead, doesn’t it?

Many people who know me personally know that this past year has been eventful, but not necessarily in the good way. Last May, we found out that our son’s learning challenges are caused by autism. Shortly after that, we discovered that my mother had stage 4 cancer. I traveled to the East Coast (or close) seven times between April and December. There was a Spring Break trip to Boston with my son, a conference in Atlanta, and three trips to see Mom (the final one being for her funeral). I also went to Pittsburgh in August for an EdTech thing. The last of the seven trips was to spend the holidays with my family in New Jersey. Because we all really needed it.

All those trips made my year INTENSE. My husband, as always, stepped up and did even MORE than he usually does with taking care of everything around the house and seeing to all our son’s needs during the five trips Cameron didn’t take with me. And this has meant a lot of new adjustments, given what we’ve learned this past year about how our son learns and functions. It made me start to look at things I could cut out of my professional life to make more time for my family’s needs.

When I was in Napa in October at a conference, I found out that the dates of CUE Rock Star Lake Tahoe would conflict with the MERIT Summer Institute in the summer of 2015. My son goes with me to Truckee for this event every year, and I wanted to continue that tradition. Applying to be part of that event’s faculty would mean I would have to step down from my MERIT Directorship. I realized that after the year we’ve had, I did not have the strength to tell my son that Truckee was off because I needed to work another year for MERIT. I had to make a choice.

I chose my son.

It’s not that the MERIT program has caused me to have to neglect him or anything. It’s just a big commitment, and I didn’t want to start feeling resentful. I also chose to stop teaching the grad school class I teach online for San Diego State. For a few years at least. I’ve thought about starting a Doctoral program in another year and a half or so. That’s on hold in my mind until we get a handle on the transition between elementary school and middle school for my son.

But I am the kind of person who doesn’t like to turn her back on a commitment. It’s always been hard for me to say NO. But with a full-time job that is busier than any I’ve had before, and my family’s needs changing as they have, I’ve learned that in order to say YES to my family, I need to say NO to the rest of the world sometimes.

If Michael Brown had been Michael White . . .

Last night, it was really hard for me to go to bed.  I was tired.  I’d had a long day at work and afterward.  I needed sleep.  But the news was full of the aftermath of the grand jury’s decision to not even indict Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown.  So no trial.  No hashing out of the testimonies and evidence in court.  No attempt at justice for his survivors.

And all I could think about was this: if Michael Brown had been a white kid, the police officer would not have shot and killed him.

I’m not looking for debates and arguments.  No one is going to change my belief in this.  

In seven or eight years, if my blond-haired, blue-eyed son and his African-American classmate walk into a store together, they will follow the other kid around.  It doesn’t matter that his Dad is a wealthy and famous professional athlete.  If they walk down the street together as teens-becoming-adults, people may wonder if my kid is okay, and if this young Black man is bothering him.

And I will never have to teach my white son how to act when he gets stopped by the police, just so he doesn’t have to fear being killed.

That is just how it is in this country.  And in some places, like Ferguson, Missouri, it is a lot worse than in others.  

This didn’t start in Ferguson.  It didn’t start with Trayvon Martin or even Dred Scott.  It began when Europeans stole people from their homelands and brought them to this continent and Europe and South America and the Caribbean against their wills.  It began when white people broke up Black families and turned people into property.

It continued as white people denied Black people education.  As they split up enslaved people from the same African cultures so they couldn’t communicate with one another or even offer each other comfort in their imprisonment.  This continues, in a different, insidious form, even today.  We see it in school systems that offer less and lesser to people of color.  Nowadays it comes down to socioeconomics.  But . . . surprise, surprise . . . socioeconomic stratification in this country has always been on racial lines. Why? Because of centuries of denied opportunities.

These days, you will hear white people talk about the way Black people speak, act, dress, express themselves through music and other media, and it is almost always with derision.  Everything about being Black in America descends from what white people have put in place.  Oh, but NOW you don’t like it?  Maybe early white Americans should have thought of that when teaching Blacks to read was punishable by death.

If your ancestors had been kidnapped, beaten, raped, abused, considered property, and KILLED simply because of their skin color, you’d be seriously pissed off too.  When we look at the historical conflicts in Europe . . . let’s take the Irish and the English . . . these are viewed and discussed in academic terms.  Former “terrorists” (depending on who you ask) are now leading politicians.  The subjugation of one people by another is looked back upon with regret, pity, compassion, and understanding.  (NOTE: as a person of English and Irish heritage, I take no sides in this one.)

Rebellion and protest are in our nation’s DNA.  In school, we study the American Revolution.  Rebels are heroes.  Wanton acts of violence and unrest, such as the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, are put in the spotlight as proud moments in our history.  The murders of Loyalist neighbors, and their banishment to Canada or elsewhere tends to go unmentioned.  But it was all good, because these were white people fighting for white freedoms.

But in the year 2014, Black people aren’t allowed to be angry when police officers kill their sons and brothers.  When their people are routinely arrested and incarcerated at a hugely disproportionate rate to whites.

And I’ve seen wealthy white kids using the N-word with their friends and posting pictures of their drug paraphernalia on Facebook and Instagram.  No one even bats an eye.  A Black kid walks down the street, and he MUST be up to no good.

If you’ve got a problem with me and what I am saying, don’t try to change my mind or convince me it’s not about race.  Unfollow me and unfriend me on social media if you want.  I don’t hate cops, and I don’t condone rioting or looting.  But I am also clever enough to realize that white, straight, female me has NO CLUE what it’s like to be Black in America.  And I am still angry about all these dead Black kids.

"No Brainers" and My Son, the Scarecrow

Yesterday, my son told me something that I can’t stop thinking about.  We had already been discussing school and how he feels there, especially in math class.  Math is his hardest subject.  It just always has been.  He has some special issues where math is concerned.  No one denies that.

What he told me, though, was how he felt when a teacher poses a “no brainer” and he doesn’t know what to do.  That was the term he used: “no brainer.”  I don’t know if he heard that from a teacher or what.  His dilemma is as follows:

“If I raise my hand and get called on, and I get it wrong, everyone will know I don’t know it.  But if I don’t raise my hand and I am the only one not raising my hand, everyone will know I don’t know.  They will talk about me outside of class, about how I don’t know anything.”

He is ten years old.  In case you have not read about me and my son before, it may help you to know that he has mild autism.

My son seems to believe that he is the only one who doesn’t know everything when it comes, especially, to math.  Also, he can’t understand why anyone would like math when it is so hard.  He thinks he is the only one like this.  He’s like the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.

The Scarecrow wanted, more than anything, to have a brain.  By the way, can I just say that neither a scarecrow nor a tin man have a heart OR a brain?  So that’s a whole thing right there.  But I digress.  Let us continue to suspend disbelief so I can keep using this metaphor.

At the end of the film (SPOILER ALERT), the Scarecrow learns that he is, in fact, smart after all.  When it came time to need to solve a problem and have “smarts,” he came through.  He wanted the Wizard to give him a brain, but he had it all along.  Like the Scarecrow, my son wants someone to make him be good at math.  He wants external validation that he is good enough academically, and that he can do things other kids can do.  It just takes him longer.  And he might need some additional tools.

So is my son internalizing the idea that if he can’t correctly answer a “no brainer” in class, then he doesn’t have a brain?  Or that the brain he has isn’t good enough?

We have tried to help him understand that his autism is a difference in neurology.  He has a brain (and all the stuff connected to it), but his is wired differently than most other people’s.  He reacts differently to things.  His senses perceive more of some things, and maybe less of others, compared to his peers.  What he has begun to sense a lot of, very recently, is that being different isn’t just hard for him, but it’s hard for the people who work with him.  And he doesn’t understand why they might feel impatient with him (as he perceives it) or maybe not like him (again, his take on things).

When we use glib terms like “no brainer,” and when we react to kids in ways that might increase their anxiety, we certainly don’t mean to upset them.  But for a kid like mine, who is mostly trying to figure out how the world works and his place is in that world, I’d like to ask everyone to consider their word choices and their voice tones, and all those other additional meanings that can be attached to what we say.  There’s a little ten year-old Scarecrow over here who wishes his brain was like everyone else’s, and doesn’t realize yet that it will never be.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

When Bullied Kids Become Forgiving Adults

There’s been this article going around on the Internet recently: 17 Things Former Bullied Kids Do A Little Bit Differently As Adults.  It resonated with me on a number of levels.  I did experience some bullying as a kid.  I also experienced it in my first marriage.  And yes, it has shaped who I am as an adult.  In a way, it has made me a better educator and parent, because I know what to look for, what to ask, and how to empathize.

There are also some items on that list in the article that used to be a lot more true of me as a younger adult than they are now.  Time heals wounds, sure.  And as we age and mature and gain wiser insights from our experiences, we learn that our coping strategies and defense mechanisms are sometimes just that: masks and maneuvers we don’t always truly need.  But there is another silver bullet to overcoming bullying: forgiveness.

Some time this past year -- I don’t really recall exactly when -- Facebook suggested I befriend someone I kind of knew in high school.  Funny thing (not really) was that this person had bullied me during my first year of high school.  I guess it was kind of short-lived, but it was scary as hell and while it went on, it was relentless.  I’m not going to reveal too much about the person, and you’ll see why in a moment.  But I do need to tell you a bit about what happened so you can appreciate the progress I needed to make in myself to reach a place of forgiveness.

This older student was in two of my classes.  So was at least one of her friends, and I guess some other kids they knew.  In gym class, she threatened me one day out of the blue.  It continued here and there, and carried over into my art class.  The teacher was out for an extended illness, and as we worked on our projects with a substitute there for supervision purposes, this aggressor broke apart projects of students in other class periods and threw pieces of them at me from her table partway across the room.  Again, no provocation by me.  I was a freshman just minding my own business.

After gym class one day, as I returned to the locker room to change, the bullying girl and a couple of friends were waiting, menacingly, just inside the locker room door.  I had to detour into the teachers’ office to say, “I’m not going in there.  There are these girls that are going to beat the crap out of me if I go in that locker room.”  I ended up at the vice principal’s office, my Mom got called in, and it got dealt with, I guess.  And knowing our vice principal, I am sure he said that if they retaliated against me for telling on them, he’d call the police.  As it was, my mother threatened to have the police down there that very day if it wasn’t stopped immediately.

In the intervening years, I never knew what became of this young lady, except that I heard she had worked in a place I had once worked, with my sister I think.  If you’re reading this, and you’re from where I’m from, stop trying to figure out who it was.  It doesn’t matter now, as you will see in a moment.

So like I said, Facebook thought we might like to become friends.  I found that . . . well, kind of amusing.  Thirty years later.  So I didn’t request a friend add, but I did decide to write to this woman.  I sent her a private message via Facebook:

“Hi _______.  Do you remember me from high school? You and some other girls were in my art and gym classes when I was in 9th grade. For some reason, you decided to harass and threaten me. As far as I can tell, I had never done anything to cause these attacks. I know that you later worked with my sister. Looking at your Facebook, it seems like you are at a happy place in your life. Having been an educator myself for over 20 years and working with many kids over the years, I guess I have to chalk up the way you treated me in high school to some stuff you were maybe going through back then. I just thought that since Facebook suggested you as a friend for me, I would get in touch and tell you that I am happy that you are happy.”

She wrote back the very next morning and apologized.  I was on the right track that she had gone through some difficult times back then and took some of it out on me.   I’d be willing to bet that she never even remembered bullying me until I reminded her of it.  Her apology was sincere, and I was really moved by her offer to try to make things up to me.  I simply responded “all is forgiven” and I later did add her as a friend on Facebook.

And I am really glad I did.  I can see that she has encountered difficulties in her life and has triumphed over them.  Things I have never had to face.  I am encouraged and impressed by her bravery and strength.  Would I have known these things had I just snorted and clicked “ignore” at Facebook’s friend suggestion?  Even more importantly, would it have just been so much easier to consider myself superior in some way, after she expressed sincere contrition, by just “moving on” and considering it in the past and behind me?

What kind of Christian would that make me?  What kind of human being?  Bullying is bad.  It’s not okay.  But it doesn’t just arise out of nowhere.  People who bully others, whether they are children, adults, pet owners, commenters on social media, teachers, clergy, ANYONE . . . are hurting, damaged people.  And since we all are potentially in that same boat, aren’t we all just one or two thoughtless comments and snide remarks away from being the perpetrators ourselves?

So these difficult experiences did indeed mold me into a certain kind of person.  I have those reactions and feel those emotions outlined in the article.  But by confronting the experiences I had, and opening them up to look inside what they truly were, I was able to give myself and another person some healing and peace.  So let’s be careful when we throw around the term “bullying.”  And let’s also stop blaming the Internet.  It was, after all, a social network that enabled me to initiate this reconciliation with someone I would never have encountered otherwise.  And let’s just be kind to each other.  And forgive those who hurt us.  And tell them so.  For everyone’s sake.