You know that thing that you do when you try to communicate all that you are thinking or feeling after some huge life experience? You know how no matter how hard you try, or how many details you give, or how you try to capture the essence of that moment, you just end up saying, "You had to be there"?
Well, welcome to this post.
***
I just returned from three days at the Leadership School at Camp Kieve with the entire seventh grade of the new school where I am teaching. To say that it was amazing, or incredible, or fantastic really doesn't even come close. In fact, it almost cheapens the whole experience. How do you take three days of challenges, risk taking, group bonding, teacher-student connections, adolescent goofiness, staff connections, and perfect fall weather in Maine and condense it all down to a sound bite for others?
You don't.
Or at least, I don't want to, so as to not miss anything.
I often give my students a collaborative task to complete in class and then step away when they are ready, and even sometimes when they may not be. I find various places to sit, and record all that I can see and hear. I then read the transcript to them, free of any kind of judgment, and they deconstruct the activity based on their observations and mine. It allows them to make connections between the outcome and the process in a way that is authentic. While I did not write anything down while observing, here is some of what I saw and heard during those days at Kieve:
I saw students pour out of four buses at the end of a two hour bus ride, most with smiles on their faces.
I saw students volunteer to be the first to climb rope ladders leading them to a wire spanning two giant pine trees. I saw other students volunteer to clip into a belay rig and literally support their classmate. I heard words of encouragement as the climber quickly made his way up the ladder.
I heard multiple students look over the high-ropes course and say something to the effect of, "Yeah, I'm not doing any of this," only to be found ten minutes later making their way across a wire or up a tree.
I saw endless high-fives and fist bumps as students completed every element of the course.
I saw endless high-fives and fist bumps even after students stopped midway up an element and returned to the ground after exceeding their personal goal.
I heard a student tell me she was terrified of heights after she climbed a 45 foot telephone pole, stood on the top, and then leapt to a trapeze hanging six feet away.
I heard a student say, "That was stupid" when his group reflected on an activity where he was the last to make it out of a maze. I could almost see the proverbial wheels turning as he listened to his group mates reflect on the task. I then heard that same student say, five minutes later, "I get it now" and go on to share why he struggled so much with the task and what he would do differently next time.
I saw students climb past where they thought they could reach.
I heard students performing ridiculous chants celebrating the fact that there was no food wasted at their table.
I saw a student smile nearly all day. This followed a day of no smiling and what was a very concerted effort to not have a good time.
I saw a student climb to the top of the 45 foot pole twice, each time staying up there a bit longer, each time cheered on like crazy to take the last big step, each time cheered as he chose to come back down before making that final step.
I saw students swing, leap, climb, sit, walk, talk, balance, build, reflect, share, write.
Learn.
Grow.
***
I spent a lot of time down at the ropes course, never tiring of watching students push past fear, and, yes, common sense, and climb ladders or trees or poles or homemade contraptions. Against my better judgment and the still-present-after-thirty-nine-years voice of my mom inside my head, I, too, climbed to the top of the telephone pole and made the leap. After I was down, and with the adrenaline still pumping, I commented to my principal, "I'm not that guy who does stuff like that." To which he replied with a huge grin on his face, "Yeah, but you are that guy. You did do that."
Two things occurred to me in that moment and the moments that followed:
The first was that I now had a very real, tangible, shared experience with my students that would connect us in ways that only the truly terrifying and exhilarating experiences can.
The second thing that occurred to me hit me a lot harder. As much as I viewed that 45 foot pole as being "the Big One" to experience and overcome, each of those students around me had a 45 foot pole that they were battling. For some, it was the actual 45 foot pole. For others it was climbing ten feet up a tree. It was sharing in their groups. It was getting on the bus and being away from home for three nights.
Whether I was delusional from all the adrenaline, or was having a cathartic moment, I kept seeing all the "poles" that my students were struggling with overcoming. Some students can't eat in front of others. Other students are convinced that their ideas are stupid and no one cares what they think. For some students, the real obstacle was returning back to their daily life. For others, it was walking back into the school on Tuesday morning.
And then I began to wonder.
Maybe raising a hand in my class is someone's 45 foot pole.
Maybe asking for help in my class is someone else's pole.
Maybe believing that they have anything of any value to contribute in my class is still another's pole.
Maybe someone is trying to conquer their own pole that no one else knows about.
These thoughts stopped me in my tracks.
As I watched one of my students clinging to the pole at Kieve, trying to will himself to take that final step, I kept wondering if my shouts of encouragement mattered to him. Could he hear me? Did he care? Was I making a difference?
I don't know.
He didn't end up taking that last step.
But he climbed up there twice, and battled with that last step longer than anyone else that day, and that in and of itself was a huge victory.
And so now, after the adrenaline has left my system, after the sleeping bag is rolled up and put away, and after the welcome-back-hugs from my amazing wife and crazy boys, I sit and think.
About that pole.
And those other "poles" my students are facing.
***
You know how a good piece of writing builds to an unforgettable climax, where the author wraps it up in a great final line that just draws everything all together and makes sense of all the ramblings, and the doves are released and the sun shines down on the character and the Hallelujah Chorus plays?
Don't hold your breath.
This is a work in progress.
The work of learning what my students are facing, and how I can help. The work of what I can say or do that will cheer them on and convince them that they can indeed take that next step. The work of connecting with and engaging my students in authentic ways, even when all the deadlines and stress and responsibilities compete for my attention.
The work of remembering.
That sometimes the victories and challenges are visible.
Sometimes they are not.
