The Work of Remembering

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.

To Reflect, or Not Reflect...

"Last published on April 11, 2014."

Those words have haunted me.

I have only recently (March 2015) gone back and read some of my posts that not only captured what I was feeling and dealing with last year, but actually helped me through those times. Those posts meant so much to me, first for what I was reflecting on from my classroom, but also because they helped me process all I was experiencing. The joy, the wonder, the pain, the struggle.

Now, close to a year has gone by without an update or an explanation of either how the year ended, or why there has been such an absence of posts.

So the dilemma of "to reflect or not" is indeed the question.

Or perhaps it's more about "details or no details."

How about results rather than details?

The reality, my reality, was that I left school in late June totally broken. I was exhausted physically and emotionally from a year with many highs and many lows with my students. Yet what occurred in my classroom was not what broke me.

It was everything else.

I was broken by the number of times I walked down the halls feeling that I needed to be ready to defend the changes that I made or strategies I used in my classroom. I was broken by the number of times I actually did have to defend those things. I was broken by rumors, comments, behaviors, and a host of other things that came from stepping out and trying something new and different.

I spent a great deal of effort this summer trying to forget and to move on. I would say I was only marginally successful. To be totally honest, I played out scenarios in my mind when I would confront those who had the negative things to say about me and I would defend my choices and give passionate speeches about Learning vs. Teaching, about Meeting Student Needs vs. Unquestioned Traditions, about Compassion and Grace vs. Strict Adherence to Rules. I was passionate, I remained respectful, I was articulate, I was applauded afterwards.

I was also dreaming.

It is easy to come up with the right thing to say when you are sitting on a lawnmower thinking about it. It is quite another to know how, when, or if to respond in reality.

I wish I could say that I spent more time reflecting on the incredible successes that my students experienced last year, or how they grew so much as learners, or the incredibly supportive and encouraging comments from parents and some colleagues. I wish I could say I extended the same grace to adults that I try so hard to extend to students.

But I can't.

It was a "Glass Is Half Empty" kind of summer.

It kills me to admit that. I lost all positivity and allowed the actions and words of others to define my outlook on myself. What's worse, I was quick to judge, quick to become angry, and slow to forgive.

But that happens, right? I spend everyday in a middle school afterall.

***

Three days before school started this fall, I reached something that, while it can't be called "peace," was in the ballpark of "acceptance." Yes. Three days before school. As a result, I entered the year at about 50% of my usual passion, excitement, and energy level.

It's been a difficult journey with more opposition than I care to mention.

But let me fast forward through all of that because I don't want to add to the mess.

I reached a point a few weeks ago, while emailing a friend and colleague, when it hit me. Even as I wrote, I wasn't exactly sure what the next line would be, only that it was important that I say it, and more important that I do it.

I wrote the words, "So think on this, my friend..." and knew that something was about to happen. Here is an excerpt from the email that not only vaguely summarizes the cause of absence of posts, but more importantly outlines a plan that I hope will lead to healing.

So, think on this, my friend. This is a battle that will keep going whether we lay down our arms, or raise them to attack and defend. I believe that peace is possible in our own hearts even in the midst of the most hellish circumstance provided we lay our weapons down and choose that peace. It is a peace we will never know if we continue to raise our weapons, take aim, and either prepare or actually fire. In many ways it saddens me that there are those who will never know peace. I want to make the choice that will breathe life into me and into my class.

I choose peace.

This is the hard choice as it is counter to our nature, yet it is the choice that leads to life. There is no other way. I must lay down my right to attack or defend. My hope is that I can do this. I know I've got a better chance if I'm not the only one. What do ya say? Join me?

And so today, close to a year after my last post, I put it down in writing that I choose forgiveness and grace. I choose to focus on my students. I choose to lay down my right to defend. I choose to draw my self-worth from within rather than from without.

I choose peace.

Discovery

My wife is a genius.

Really. The things that she comes up with to do with our two boys blows my mind. She creates these amazing projects and activities that throw fuel on their fire of awe, wonder, and amazement of the world around them.

One activity in particular stands out to me from this winter. It was an especially hard winter of cold, and snow, snow, snow. My oldest son was knee deep in an obsession with pirates, treasure, and maps. My wife took out our ice cube trays one night, put drops of food coloring in each of the little sections, filled it with water, and put it in the freezer overnight.

The next morning we had a set of "ice gems." I went out back, dug holes in the snow, buried an ice gem in each hole, and then marked the spot with an "X" made by a spray bottle filled with colored water.

We then gave Eli and Sam a shovel and bucket, and told them there was treasure buried in the snow. What ensued was incredible. They were so excited to combine their passion for digging (yes, that can indeed be a passion) and playing in the snow. Their smiles lit up their faces. Eli's eyes shone as he called out, "I found another one!" They filled their buckets with beautiful ice gems of yellow, blue, red, and green.

The gems themselves were cool looking, but I believe had we just handed them to the boys straight from the freezer, they would have lost interest after a short time. Instead, it was an activity that lasted close to an hour, which, for those of you with children 5 and younger know, is an eternity.

What was the difference? Why did this bring so much joy? Why did they stay engaged for so long?

They got to dig. They got to trudge through the snow. They got to explore.

They got to discover.

This is the childhood I want for my boys. For them to be given multiple opportunities to discover, explore, question, tinker, experiment, fail, succeed.

I want the same for my students.

I believe that the most important thing to do in a classroom of learners is to create the conditions for authentic and organic growth. I believe that it all begins with me letting go of the need to control and lead, and allow my students the freedom to discover. Just like with my boys, I can guide them, I can give clues as to where those ice gems are buried, I can give them the tools, but the most important thing to give them is the ability to explore and discover on their own.

This freedom to discover is in direct opposition with a culture that more and more wants to cram students into boxes that are easily labeled, sorted, weighed, and distributed. I see this happening all around me and it saddens me.

But I have also seen firsthand what happens when you give students the freedom to explore and discover. My students are in the third month of exploring and discovering the importance of and crisis facing honeybees. They have poured enormous amounts of effort and time into learning all that they can about the topic. They have read. They have researched. They have interviewed master beekeepers. They have watched documentaries. They have given presentations to our superintendent, school committee, members of the Wells Reserve National Estuarine Research facility, as well as our entire staff of teachers. They are assembling beehives that we purchased to place at the Wells Reserve. They are learning about beekeeping and how to create the conditions for growth for the bees. They are expanding their presentation to bring to local elementary schools, libraries, Rotary clubs, and any place that will have us. And it was all their idea.

They are engaged.

They are learning.

They are growing.

They are owning their education.

They are exploring and discovering.

It is absolutely amazing to witness.

Shifting Focus

Remember those 3-D Magic Eye posters? You know, the ones that everyone was going crazy about because they could see a panda riding a unicycle or something in the midst of the weirdo colors and designs, and you lied and said you could see it too?

Yeah. Those.

It is really easy to look at them and see the wavy lines, the different colors, and the crazy designs. It is tempting to count lines, colors, and patterns. You can describe a lot and spend an awful lot of time and energy looking at the surface.

But if you take your time, and completely change how and where you are focussed, all those lines, colors, and designs come together to show an incredible image. You are then able to see what was intended.

I think education is very similar.

I know from my own experience, though it pains me to admit it, that when I focus on teaching rather than learning, I miss the point. When I focus on delivery of content, tests, grades, checking off boxes, what's happening in other classrooms, fitting things into neat boxes that we label "Education," I get bogged down and completely miss the opportunity to see the amazing things that are right in front of me.

But when I focus on learning, I see a completely different picture. With the 3-D posters, all those lines, colors, and designs are still visible, but their purpose, their reason for existence, is to create an image that literally jumps out at you. The classroom is the same. Those things that take up so much of our time and focus, like curriculum, tests, grades, and all the other "stuff" (word chosen quite carefully by the way) should exist only to give us an image of learning. I believe that they are not meant to be our focus.

If for no other reason, they are just simply not as beautiful as the image of a student engaged in learning.

Just as there were times when I, for whatever reason, couldn't shift my eyes to see that panda on the unicycle, there have been and are times when I focus more on the teaching than the learning. It kills me to admit that even this year I have experienced times when my focus was all wrong. Usually it was in a moment of uncertainty, or fear, or doubt, when I freaked out and listened to some of the negative voices floating on the air around me, and the beautiful image of my students learning vanished. All it took was something drawing my attention from the real point of education (learning, right?) for just a moment, and I lost the whole image.

My struggle right now is holding back my frustration with those things that take my focus away from learning. That may be systems, requirements, schedules, people, philosophies. Anything that causes me to lose that beautiful image of learning. I am angry. I am frustrated.

But I am hopeful. And I just want to block everything out that doesn't matter and focus on the beautiful image that became so clear this year, of a group of students completely absorbed in their learning. I want that image to guide me, to inspire me, to challenge me.

I want to commit to keeping my focus on relevant, authentic, engaging learning, even in the midst of everything that competes for my focus.

Join me?

Loosening My Grip

In 48 hours, my students will go before our superintendent and present their project proposal.

Guess how I'm feeling.

In so many ways this presentation is not just about getting the green light for our service learning project. It is about us showing what we've done. It is about trying to communicate that this program is working. It is about these students showing that their engagement goes up when they take ownership of their learning. It is about them showing that they have indeed risen from the ashes as something better.

That is an awful lot to have riding on one presentation.

My biggest struggle right now? Letting go of my need to control, fix, and perfect. Giving my students the freedom to own their learning and to study things that really interest them has been one of the most rewarding and challenging things I've done. I absolutely believe to the core of my being that I need to not only encourage but also assist in busting students out of the boxes in which school has jammed them. They need the freedom to explore, discover, experiment, succeed, and, at times, fail. They need for me to throw heaps and heaps of fuel on the embers of the former fire for learning they possessed as young kids. They need to be invited to become players in their education, not audience members. They need to be encouraged to become better critical thinkers, not task-doers.

But, this is messy. This is beautiful.

This is hard for someone who likes plans, routine, and control.

As I walk around the room days before the presentation, I want desperately to wordsmith vision statements, clean up Keynote slides, nitpick body language, and organize spreadsheets. I want a slick presentation that will leave our superintendent with her jaw on the floor.

I want it to reflect well on me.

There. I said it. I want to look good. I want it to look like I know what I'm doing. It kills me to admit it. But it's true. Perhaps that is where a lot of the tension is coming from. Wishing there was not as much brokenness in me, but recognizing that there is.

I need to let go. I need to get my head right.

So today, less than 48 hours from when my students will present, I let go of my need to look good. I remind myself that it is not my class. It is my students'. I remind myself that authentic and organic is often not shiny or sparkly, but of much greater value. I remind myself that I love these students unconditionally. Grace, not outcomes. I remind myself that they have already shown me how extraordinary they are.

I remind myself that they are no longer defined by what they did last year, or even what they are doing now. They are defined simply by who they are.

To OOTA, I am sorry there was ever any hint of me wanting to look good as a result of your hard work. Please forgive me. I am in your corner, cheering you on like crazy, and I believe in you. This is about you, your hard work, and making sure you get all the credit you absolutely deserve.

You are amazing.

Support And A Shot Of B-12

I've gone back and read my last post several times and sighed.

I was and am frustrated and even a bit embarrassed that I am so worn. However, as I have been open and honest with the state of my head and heart, there are those that have come around me and given me some much needed support and encouragement.

My assistant principal has been a tremendous advocate for me and what is happening in my classroom. When I sent an SOS email to him, he responded very quickly with a list of things for me to do, most of which were focussed on caring for myself and doing things to breathe some life into me. His counsel, listening ear, and never-ceasing support have been an enormous encouragement for me since he and I sat in his office last January saying, "Wouldn't it be cool if school were..." which led to this grand experiment.

Our school social worker has worked very closely with me this year making sure that the students are successful in every way possible. What started out as me sharing a concern about a student quickly turned into a full-blown therapy session with me spilling my guts to her about the weight I was feeling on my shoulders. She sat and listened. And listened. And listened. Her words of advice and encouragement meant the world to me and allowed me to leave her office feeling a bit lighter than when I walked in.

To say that my wife has helped me through this time and so many others is as much of an understatement as saying, "Breathing is kind of important." Her support, her patience, her friendship, her willingness to put the boys to bed to give me a few hours to get schoolwork done, her amazing ability to sit and listen to me verbally process for seemingly hours on end, her unfailing love, her tremendous heart, and her unceasing ability to extend her husband grace is much more than I deserve. She has reminded me constantly where peace and joy may be found, and how to release the heavy burden I try to carry with my own strength.

Sometimes it takes being worn to truly see just how much the people around you impact your life to its very core.

And of course there are my students.

To say that I have been invigorated by their engagement and excitement in the past few weeks is a gross understatement. They took it upon themselves to adopt a new project based on educating others about the importance of and current crisis facing honeybees. I was absolutely blown away as my students formed groups themselves based on their individual interests and learning styles. They have worked harder in the past few weeks than I have seen all year. They are calling experts, researching multiple topics, and organizing their time, all with the goal of creating a presentation to give to our superintendent that gives an overview of their project. Students who once struggled with staying focussed in class are now emailing a variety of vendors trying to get the best deal on honey sticks for a fund raiser. Students who struggled with having their heads down for a chunk of class are researching, comparing, and contrasting different races of bees and determining what will be best for our observation hive. Students who struggled with talking in class are creating a blog and social media campaign to get the word out about our project. Students terrified of bees are studying pollination in flowers and how to plant a garden with different flowers so that something is always blooming for the bees. Several students formed a treasury department team and have crunched numbers, researched different vendors, and made tough decisions in order to minimize the amount we have to fundraise to get this off the ground. Students formed marketing teams to research how we could both get our message out to the public and do so in a fun and creative way. Students have worked together to assemble all the data and research gathered by their classmates and put condensed it down into a well-organized and engaging Keynote.

And they did it all themselves.

And I didn't plan for any of this.

Our Essential Question that the students created for their latest project is "How do living and non-living organisms interact with their environment?" All I intended was to bring in my beekeeping equipment and talk to them about bees for the day, showing one way that I interact with my environment.

Then things just blew up.

In an amazingly beautiful way.

These past two weeks are exactly what I pictured this time last year as I lay in bed in the middle of the night dreaming about what school could be. As I lay there wondering how I could create an environment that would throw tons of fuel onto the fire of wonder, awe, and amazement that is deep within us all, these past few weeks is exactly what I dreamed would happen.

My students are owning their learning. They are working together. They are working independently. They are stepping out of their comfort zones. They are trying new things. They are engaged. They are driving this thing. They own it.

And it has lifted me up from where I had fallen, breathed life into me, and makes me so excited to see what the next day will hold.

Feeling the Strain

I keep putting this off.

"I've gotta plan for tomorrow."
"I've got to give feedback and assess those essays."
"I need to pack more boxes (our house is on the market)."
"I. Am. Exhausted."

All of those are, I think, terribly accurate and acceptable reasons why I haven't posted a blog in a while. We wrapped up a large project recently about who we are as learners. It was incredible to see the students delve deeply into how they think and learn best. It has been jaw-dropping to watch these presentations where they take their learning styles, interests, abilities, and intelligences and actually use them all to produce something for school. Now we are moving on to the project that I spent the better part of the summer planning, outlining, and thinking about.

So what's the problem?

I'm exhausted.

My brain has been in creation mode for a year now about what this class could look like. I have spent hours upon hours examining my practice and thinking of ways that I could change my assignments, delivery, expectations, feedback and everything else to maximize my effectiveness for each individual student with unique needs and abilities.

In September, I shifted from the theoretical to the actual. Now I have actual students, all with unique backgrounds, interests, and abilities, all of whom need something different in order to become the best learners that they can. They are all in a different place in regards to their thoughts about school, themselves, their family, and everything else. All of which directly impacts the way they interact in class.

Tweaking and overhauling is the business I am in.

But I am feeling the strain.

On top of being tired from creating, tweaking, and overhauling, I find that I am second guessing myself. Perhaps that is what is the largest burden right now. In the beginning, I was so pumped full of adrenaline for being able to stage my own educational revolution in my classroom, that I did not spend much energy being self-conscience or fearful. That has changed. For whatever reason, the voice of the critics that have been present from the beginning are now beginning to sound much louder to me. I do not believe that their volume has increased, I think it is something within me that has caused me to notice it more. What's more, I think there are times when I am actually imagining the sounds. Some of those voices have not only quieted, but have actually begun to say positive things about what is happening in my class. So what's my issue? Why do I live in fear right now of having to stand in front of a tribunal and answer for every second of teaching I have done?

I really do not know. I believe with every cell in me that the direction in which I have taken my students is the right direction. I also believe that there has been enough time that has passed where I now have my own little collection of mistakes, ranging in size from tiny up to gargantuan, and I need to analyze those mistakes to determine how I can learn from them. It is no longer theoretical. It is no longer a cool conversation to have with someone over dinner. It is real. It is messy. It is beautiful. I find I am spending a significant amount time looking back on what I should have done to avoid those mistakes. I then start thinking about how I will do things differently in the future. Both of those are fine to a degree, but it can become quite exhausting and distract from applying the lessons to the present.

This is the part where I bring it all together in some deep way and make myself feel much better.

(Crickets chirping for several minutes.)

There. That's better.

Except, it's not.

I do not know what the answer is, but this is what I am going to try.

I am going to try to let go more. Give more control to my students. Allow their creativity and interests to guide us more.   I am going to try to give more opportunities for growth to occur in my class. I am going to try to give myself a break. This is not a perfect classroom and it never will be. I am not a perfect teacher and never will be. That's ok, and I need to be ok with it. I am going to try to spend more time doing things that I love doing, without trying to turn it into a lesson. I just want to experience that joy in the moment when I am playing with my kids, spending time with my wife, cutting wood in my woodshop, or whatever else it may be. If it turns into a lesson, great. No more forcing. I am going to try to be more patient. First with myself, and then with all those around me. I am going to rest. Not everything will be cleared off of my to-do list for today. If you're ok with that, than so am I.

Will any or all of this work?

I hope...

That Clicking Sound

My oldest son has recently rekindled the Lego fire that began burning in his life last year. We have spent a lot of time over the past week building stuff together and we are both having a blast. One of the things we started to do was to make our own creations rather than building off of directions from a kit. I would add a piece, then Eli would add a piece, and back and forth it goes. We had very little idea of what the end product would be, but we just concentrated on picking out that next piece.

I watched as his small hands shuffled through the bin of blocks and carefully selected his next piece. I listened as he exclaimed, "this would be a good piece!" and then watched him add it to our slowly developing creation. Aside from his little voice talking to me, one of the most satisfying sounds was the squeak-and-click sound of two Lego blocks fitting perfectly into place. Eli's four year old hands still struggle with getting the pieces to make that sound and I leaned over several times to help him as we both pressed the pieces together. It is a very distinct sound that I remember well from when my small hands would press the pieces together until there were tiny, round indentations in my thumbs. It is the sound of things working. Of things coming together. Of being one step closer to the finished product.

I love that sound.

I heard the squeak-and-click sound in class this week. Instead of the sound of plastic blocks clicking together, it was fingers tapping on iPads as my students completed graphic organizers for their essays. It was the sound of low talking as students read each other's latest blog posts and gave feedback. It was the sound of my students telling me their goals for the day as I conferenced with them individually. It was the sound of the radiator blowing warm air into a nearly silent room as my students worked.

There were many other sounds over the past few weeks. Harsh sounds coming from mouths that once spoke softly. Defeated sounds made by voices once filled with joy. Some from my own mouth, some from my students.

It's been tough.

But the past few days have been worth plowing through the rough patches. We have made it to yet another clearing where there is peace and productivity. Safety and shelter.

Where the sounds of things clicking into place help give a much clearer picture of what this creation is and is turning into.

I love this sound.

Who We Are and What We Do

A roller coaster couple of weeks.

We have experienced great highs as a class, as well as great lows. It has taken awhile for me to both process the events as well as muster the courage to publish these two posts about a particular experience. They are from Wednesday and Thursday:


Yesterday:

The past week has been an emotionally draining one. 

Last week saw us sharing intensely raw and emotional blog posts together. There was an incredible sense of us coming together as a group and sharing our experiences. I heard student after student beg for more time to write so they could express what was on their hearts.  

What they shared was messy, raw, and emotionally charged. It showed their brokenness, their struggles, their burdens.

It was beautiful. 

There was an incredible sense of trust and honesty in the room. I felt like we made it to a new level of connectedness. 

And then today all the connectedness fell apart. 

The details are immaterial, but the impact was intense. A deep division occurred and emotions were at their peak. It was truly one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. The outrage and frustration was aimed at me and I would not be honest if I said I wasn’t deeply hurt. There were multiple students who came to my defense, but I still felt the blows.

But this isn't about pain or hurt or who said what. 

This is about grace and moving on.

I am thankful for an opportunity for us to spill our guts to each other, even if it was not done in the most respectful of ways. I am thankful to have an opportunity to demonstrate grace and what a fresh start looks like rather than just tell them about it.

We need to pull ourselves back together. We need to heal. We need to move on.

Fresh starts and clean slates are for us all, whenever they are needed.

Today saw us burned down to ashes.

Tomorrow will see us rise as something better.

Today:

I wrote yesterday's post in the car as I sat by the beach processing the day. I committed to putting my thoughts down and then focussing on being the husband and dad that my family deserves and needs me to be once I got home.

Being a very analytical person, it is often quite difficult for me to not examine previous conversations or events from every conceivable angle, thinking of things I should have done or said. While I did have images of the day flash in my mind, I found myself thinking more about the end of the year when I could high five, fist bump, or shake hands with my eighth grade students as they conclude their time at our school. I kept imagining how significant it will be to shake or slap hands with a deep knowledge of all that we have been through together. The triumphs. The challenges. The wounds. The healing.

Today, that restoration and healing began.

We begin every class with students reading the mastery objectives for the day. I always write them in "I can" language, and the first one on the board was "I can rise from the ashes." I saw so many smiling and eager faces as a student read that. She happened to be the one who articulated the meaning behind OOTA at the beginning of the year and she knocked it out of the park again today: "That's just who we are and what we do."

That is who we are and what we do.

For the majority of class, we moved forward by going outside to examine trees for Winter Moths and will be reporting our findings through Vitalsigns.org.

For a few students, restoration looked like individual conversations where we talked about how to move forward and be the best that we can be. It was incredibly touching to see students ask for forgiveness and a fresh start.

It was wonderful to give a fresh start and see smiles on faces that have recently held frowns.

Today, we rose from the ashes and became something better.

It's who we are and what we do.

The Dream

This past week was draining in so many ways. I am formulating multiple things to write about, and this post is not about any of them. This is a quickie. My dream for what education could/should be. It hit me tonight as I thought about several of my students who are struggling with particular content areas.

This is not the whole of the dream, but merely one small aspect of what I could do to teach my students to learn and to help change lives. Both theirs, and mine.

I believe in marketing as a key strategy in my classroom. How something is pitched to the students often plays a significant role in how engaged the students are in the content. I would love to capitalize on my students' natural inquisitiveness and pitch to them that we are focussing on how stuff works: Here's how understanding other people's writing works. Here's how expressing our own opinions, ideas, frustrations, thoughts, feelings, points of view works. Here's how governments work. Here's how civilizations work. Here's how money works. Here's how numbers and data works. Here's how life systems work. Here's how our body works. Here's how the creative process works (well, that's a stretch since the creative process often takes what works and pile drives it into something new). Here's how language works, both ours and others'. Here's how communities work. 

Instead of segmenting everything up into different blocks both within a schedule and within our minds, we would show that, while they are all separate cogs, here's how it all works together and here's why you are essential to keeping it all going. Here's when you're going to learn how to change things to make them work better.

If I do not impress upon my students that they do indeed have an essential role to play in the beautiful and messy synergy of it all, I will continue to see students staring out of windows or into screens looking for where they belong and why they should care.

A Clean Slate

One of my students came into my classroom this week clearly frustrated and struggling with a heavy burden. After a moment or so, she began to share very vague snippets of what was going on. I sat and listened for awhile and then asked her how I could help. I said that I could just listen, I could try to offer some advice, or I could tell a story from my experience. She asked me to tell her a story from my experience. When I asked what it should be about, she said, "People being mean." This is the story I told her:

When I was in sixth grade, there were three guys. Guy One was a really nice kid who happened to have some geek-like qualities. Guy Two had always been a good student and a good kid. Guy Three was an OK student and a generally good kid. The three were also a bullied kid, a bully, and an observer.

Guy One moved down the street from Guy Two's house during the summer and they became friends. They each had a brother and the four of them had a blast making up games on their bikes and chased each other all around their neighborhood.

When school started, things started to change a bit between Guy One and Two. After some time, Guy Two started teasing Guy One a bit for some of his geekiness. Good natured teasing was actually something he did a lot to friends and family, but it started to make other kids laugh. So he did it a bit more. Soon, he was teasing and making fun of Guy One nearly everyday. Things just started to snowball, and without even planning it to happen, a group formed that was all about teasing and making fun of Guy One. Guy Three was a member of that group and he laughed right along with everyone else, though he never did any direct bullying.

Eventually the dad of Guy One found out about the group and took action. He spoke to Guy Two and was quite upset about the way his son was treated. The dad reminded Guy Two how they used to be friends and wondered what happened to change that. Guy Two felt terrible, apologized to the dad and tried to explain that he wasn't even really sure how it had gotten so out of hand. He assured the dad that things would change.

Things did change. 

Guy Two stopped teasing and making fun of Guy One. He apologized to Guy One who was gracious enough to offer Guy Two a clean slate. He told the people in the group that it was over. Guy Three also got to the point where he felt terrible for going along with the group and doing something he knew was not right. A few years later Guy One and Guy Two became good friends. They each had some difficult times in high school, and both of them were there for each other despite the rocky road in sixth grade. They kept in touch in college and would see each other on vacations. They even got together along with their wives when they were both living in the same town. Guy Three ended up drifting apart from both of them, though they ran into each other from time to time and caught each other up on what was happening in their lives.

When I finished, I asked her, "Now. Who am I in the story?"

"The guy being bullied."

"No."

"Were you the guy that just watched?"

"No."

She paused and stared at me for a moment.

"You were the bully?"

I silently nodded my head.

"No. I don't believe it."

I assured her that I was serious. I also shared with her that I truly felt terrible for what I did and I never intended things to go so far, they just got way out of control. I explained that while I wish that I had not acted in that way and caused so much pain, even out of that brokenness, my life changed for the better. It was after that experience that I began to seek out the marginalized or the "left-out." As a student in high school and college, as an adult in my personal life, and as a teacher, I tend to naturally gravitate towards the people on the outskirts and try my best to come along side them and let them know that they are not alone. I try to make them laugh, most often by making fun of myself in some way. In fact, even as I write this I am realizing that it was around that time when my self-deprecating sense of humor came about. I would make myself the clown and the brunt of the joke rather than others, though my wife and family can assure you that I still get in my fair share of good-natured teasing.

My students are trying desperately to navigate through a tumultuous time in their life. They are going to make a ton of mistakes, just like I did and do. The absolute least that I can do is to offer them a chance to have a clean slate. I need one as teacher, husband, and father on a daily basis. Why would I ever not extend the same grace to my students?

I reminded another student that in my class he always has a fresh start when he needs one, and he really needed one this week.  He responded with, "I don't believe that." I was terribly saddened that he had such a hard time believing that. Whether it is showing them that they have a fresh start, or sharing stories of times when I have needed one, I will do all that I can to make it clear to my students that their past actions do not define who they are. I will do my best to show them that they have a chance each day to reinvent themselves.

My students, many of whom are the marginalized and "Didn't Fits" of the traditional classroom, named themselves OOTA: Out Of The Ashes. When I asked what they meant by that, one of them said, "We all used to really struggle and have a hard time in school and it was like we were burned down and in a pile of ashes. And we want to be something better."

To rise from the ashes as something better, my students need a fresh start and a clean slate, just as I did in sixth grade and today.

My Lousy Garden

Should I be at all concerned that multiple posts lately have started with a confession? Well, this one will follow suit.

I paused during a leaf-fight with my boys on Friday and looked at our vegetable beds that resembled something from either Jumanji  or Where the Wild Things Are, and I realized something.

I'm a pretty lousy gardener.

I truly love the idea of growing my own vegetables. It is with great excitement that I lay in bed on cold evenings in February, dreaming of what we should try in the garden this year. I shuffle through seed packets at garden stores the way I did with baseball cards when I was ten. I begin tilling the beds. I get down on my knees and plunge my hands into the rich, dark soil, and I breathe in the rich smell of fresh earth.

I plan out where seeds and seedlings will go, place them gingerly into the ground with the help of my oldest son. We talk about the mystery and majesty of tiny seeds just waiting to explode and bring forth new life that can actually sustain our own. Yes, it's a bit heady for my four year old, but he humors me so that he can do one of his all-time favorite activities: digging.

The first few days or perhaps even weeks go fairly well. I water the right amount. I destroy any weed that dares spoil the beautiful black canvas that is a weed-free raised garden bed. The first sign of Cucumber beetles gets me out with my organic spray and I blast them like a gunslinger at high-noon. Okay, I admit that I may even make gun noises at times. I will not, however, comment on whether I ever asked a Cucumber Beetle if it "felt lucky, punk." Those records are sealed.

Then things start to go south. I miss a watering or two. Cucumber beetles invite their friends over for an all-you-can-eat buffet at the Coleman Family Garden. Leaves yellow. Plants droop. Bugs make swiss cheese of the large green leaves. In only the time that it took me to write these past few sentences, the weeds decided that they're taking over everything.

Then it comes time to harvest. Though we always enjoy many gifts from our garden, there is much left to be desired. Peppers look pathetic. Multiple tomatoes have cracks. There is powdery mildew on zucchini. Many of  the red potatoes look like marbles. There are zucchinis the size of small babies laying hidden under broad leaves. Beans hang from their poles looking as though they will burst from the pod any second.

So if there was some success, how did things also go so very wrong? It did not happen because I don't enjoy gardening. It did not happen because I have no idea what to do. It did not happen all at once.

I believe the main reason why my garden never lives up to my hopes is because I do not give it the conditions needed for optimum growth. All plants have essential needs to grow. They need water, sunlight, room, nutrients, and freedom from predators.

This is basic stuff, right? So why can't I give my garden what it needs?

The answer is that there are different needs for each plant and it can be overwhelming. While all plants need the same essential elements, where they differ is in the amount of each. They also differ in their tolerance for things like shade, soil temperature, and alkalinity. Where they are planted in relation to other plants as well as the spacing between rows is another factor. All of these things can significantly impact whether a plant dies, merely survives, or thrives. The rhyming stops now, by the way.

So, if I can name all of these conditions that must be met for my garden to thrive, you would think that my actions would reflect it, right? So where do I go wrong.

I go wrong when I see that there are too many different needs of all the plants and I do a one-size-fits-all regimen of watering, feeding, and weeding. I let minor problems develop into larger ones because I am too busy. Despite knowing that there are very different needs of all the different plants, and that I truly desire a variety of vegetables come harvest time, my practice does not reflect diversity, but rather a monoculture approach to gardening.

Ready for the pathetic part? I am actually surprised when I look at the produce and am less than thrilled with the results. I get frustrated with the plants and say that I am never growing that vegetable again. Yes! This really happens! I vowed no more onions and peppers of any kind because they were unwilling to produce what I needed, despite me not creating the conditions that they needed. "They're just too hard to grow, so I won't grow them." Stupid onions. Stupid peppers.

I want variety, but create uniformity. I dream big, but deliver small. I have good intentions, but pathetic practices.

And so...

As I begin a second week of exploring different learning styles with my students, my hope is that I am a better teacher than I am gardener. May I truly listen as they share what they are learning about how they learn best, so that I can help create those conditions that they need. May I realize that a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching will yield the exact same results that I see in my garden. May I realize that the time it takes my students to learn something will be as diverse as are the number of students in my room. May I know when to step in to assist, and when to allow them to grow in the direction that they need.

May I do all that I can to create the conditions for growth for each individual student in my class. May I never take for granted the privilege to witness the mystery and majesty of watching new growth before my eyes.

The Weight and The Relief

Confession time again. I've been feeling a significant weight on my shoulders and nearly buckled under it this week.

Confession #2: I have struggled with being an overachiever, perfectionist, and professional stresser-outer for nearly all my life. Some days or even seasons of my life are easier than others. Some days or seasons nearly crush me.

I've been feeling the crush this week.

I believe with every cell in my being that the changes that I have made and continue to make to my teaching is absolutely in the best interest of my students. Admittedly, while my intentions may be noble, the execution of some of these plans or ideas of mine do not always go that well. I've been feeling a significant weight this week as multiple fronts combine to create a wall before me.

I do not wish to go on and on about my burdens, but will say that even the things that I believe are best for students can create a significant weight on my shoulders and require an exorbitant amount of time. I was feeling that this week.

I made plans to go to bed early last night, be up and out of the house as soon as possible, and try to get caught up on all that I need to do to meet the needs of my students. Despite being woken up three times last night (once for a truck slamming into and totalling one of our cars and the hour and a half ordeal with the police (who could not have been more helpful, by the way), once when my oldest son had lost his pillow, and another time when my oldest son had a nightmare and wanted me to lay in bed with him), I was still up at 4:15 getting ready to go. I arrived at school and got a significant amount of work done. I was feeling a very miniscule portion of the weight lift, and then my students arrived.

What I witnessed today from these students made me feel as though the burden had been wrenched off my shoulders. The perspective that it gave me allowed me to see through the wall that is before me, and see the wonderful things that are happening to and in my students.

I was so proud of my students yesterday that they were able to complete three sets (of five minutes each) of absolutely silent and focussed writing. For students who view writing as many adults would view root canal surgery, this fifteen minutes was nothing short of a miracle. Afterward, they said how much easier it is to write once you get started. They said how much easier it was to write using an outline. They said how much easier it was to write after I modeled for them what writing looks like. They said how much easier it was to write when they created a custom plan for how they would use class time.

I was on top of the world, and today I realized there are a few more floors to go.

I praised them today for their hard work yesterday. We talked strategies and plans. We checked rubrics and outlines. Then we tried the five minute silent writing again.

They didn't want to stop.

They kept asking to share what they wrote.

They begged for more time writing.

Yes! I am not making this up! They begged for longer than five minutes.

I suggested seven minutes and they laughed at me.

"We want 10."

"Guys, come on. Seriously. Let's try 8."

"Give us 10 minutes. We can do it." 

That's when I caved. The fact that they unanimously believed in themselves that they could accomplish this goal was an accomplishment in and of itself.

"Ok. 10 minutes."

They didn't believe it when the timer went off. They thought I cheated and only set it to eight minutes. We debriefed afterwards and talked about what went well and what could have gone better.

They started begging again.

They wanted 15 minutes of silent writing.

I was amazed. We talked about strategies for if they get stuck, or if they finish.

Then they wrote. And wrote. And wrote.

I mentioned to them beforehand that if they could actually pull this off, then I would call the principal on the phone and brag on them for a bit.

When the fifteen minutes was up, and we listened to our writing, they insisted that we bring the principal to the room so they could see his reaction. He was gracious enough to oblige, and the smile on his face as I recounted the events of the day was enormous. He then asked, "How many of you are proud of what you wrote?" Every hand shot up as though he asked "Who likes pizza?"

And the burden is gone.

Yes, I still have a ton to do. Yes, I will probably have to prioritize and let a few things go. But what I saw today in these students was extraordinary, and it deserves nothing less than my full attention.

So you have seen my therapy session for the day. I put aside everything else to write this blog and reflect on the beautiful experience I was able to stand witness to today from students who have been so disenfranchised by school.

They named themselves OOTA, Out Of The Ashes, because "we've always been burned by school and have been covered in ashes, and we want to be something better."

Today, I saw the birth of something better.

Something beautiful.

There's No Debt...

Confession: I'm an NPR junkie.

I have a rather long commute to and from work each day and I love listening to NPR. My oldest son even enjoys listening to it when I bring him down to spend a day with my parents. I love getting caught up on world and national events, I love learning about "all" the things that they talk about on All Things Considered, I love when I am doing errands on Saturday and can catch snippets of Car Talk and Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me.

My favorite part, however, has to be the three to four minutes a week on Friday morning when they play excerpts from Story Corps. It is a project to record people's stories from around the country and it is incredible. This morning's story hit me hard. It was a dad and his grown son reflecting on an excruciating time in the son's life. It was incredibly touching to hear the two speak with such love and honesty. The line that got to me was toward the end when the son said, "I owe you so much. You saved my life." To which the dad replied, "There's no debt."

There's no debt.

I immediately thought of my two boys. My oldest is four and doing all the things a four year old should: getting dirty outside, jumping off of anything he can climb inside (though we try to discourage this one), asking a million questions before lunch, dressing up as Batman, learning to read, and throwing fits and testing his boundaries. My wife and I are admittedly struggling with how to correct the fits, the tantrums, and the talking back. He has had a particularly difficult week this week and we spoke often with him about him asking for forgiveness for his actions or words towards us, and how we will always forgive him, no matter what. We spoke to him of clean slates and fresh starts. We spoke to each other about how to offer correction and grace at the same time.

There's no debt.

We will not view him today through his poor choices of yesterday. We will always offer a fresh start and do all that we can to help him grow and choose what is best, not what is easy.

Here's the catch. He starts preschool in two weeks. I worry about that for a host of reasons. The big one? I want everyone he encounters to offer him the same fresh start. I want his teachers to extend grace as well as corrective guidance. I want them to do what is best for him, not what is easiest for them. I want his teachers to not hold his mistakes or errors over his head from day to day or year to year.

All this has been on my mind and heart but came to the forefront this morning when I heard the dad and his son talking. All of the thoughts that I have had about my son, and all of the thoughts I have had about my students came together somewhere between home and school. Just as I want what is best for my son from his teacher, someone somewhere wants that from me for their son or daughter.

Each and every one of my students deserves to be "debt free" in my class. Each student has someone worrying about him or her. Someone is hoping and praying that his or her teacher is doing what is best and not what is easy.

So today I make a commitment to my students and to their parents.

There's no debt.

I will not view my students through the lens of all of their past mistakes. I will give fresh starts each day or even each moment if I need to. I will not participate in discussions that come anywhere close to keeping the students in a perpetual state of judgment for past actions.

I will do my best to do what is best for my students and not what is easy for me. I will remember that my students are other people's children and those parents desperately want someone to "get" all the strengths and weaknesses and quirks of their children and support them in every way possible.

I want my sons and my students to know that when they are around me, there's no debt.

What a mess...

I had a very different idea of what "messy" meant when I originally thought of the title to this post a few days ago.

In this blog, and in numerous conversations with colleagues and my wife, I have spoken about how amazed I am at what my students have been doing these past few weeks. I have seen things that I hoped would occur by the end of the year, but time and time again these students exceed all expectations I have of them.

It has been wonderful to watch them break out of the confines that normally or traditionally bind them. One of the strategies that I have been using is to remove myself as a resource. We go over the goals for the day, I give them an overview of what my expectations are in regards to any products they need to produce during class, I give them a few minutes to ask me questions, and then I go mute.

This was harder for me than I thought it would be, but is incredibly rewarding. They create plans as a whole class before moving forward. They elect a supervisor through blind voting, they break up into small groups according to student interests and skill sets. The leaders check in with small groups. Representatives from groups travel to other groups updating them on progress. Small group and whole group leaders meet with students without jobs asking them how they would like to contribute to the project. They come together a few minutes before the product is due and make sure that everyone understands the purpose and the final product. They make sure that everyone likes what the individual groups came up with.

They do it all without me suggesting any of it.

We are only in the fourth week of school, yet they act like they've been doing this forever. Each day I do something like this, they streamline the process a bit more. They try strategies that worked for them in the past. When they aren't that effective, they try new things.

But it's messy.

There's a lot of noise. There are miscalculations, things overlooked, plans that don't work.

But this is exactly what learning should be. No obstacle has gotten in their way that they couldn't find a way around. Sometimes there were obstacles there from the beginning that they just didn't see. Sometimes obstacles pop up somewhere in the process. But they move forward.

It is a beautiful mess.

Then "messy" took on a whole new meaning yesterday.

Without going into a lot of details, the "candy coating" is wearing off, and the "honeymoon" appears to be over with OOTA. It has nothing to do with a falling out or any particular incident. I do not even mean to imply that there is anything wrong with transitioning to the next phase. There was just a noticeable change in mood and atmosphere. The burdens that students carry started becoming much more apparent. There were a few absences. We struggled through changing Apple IDs and other tedious activities.  It was a mess yesterday.

I went home drained and discouraged. I saw pain in my students' eyes from the weights that they carry. I longed to be able to somehow make their lives better so they could be kids and not deal with the adult-sized burdens that some of them bear. I was frustrated that I allowed myself to become rattled by things of little lasting significance.

I was a mess.

Then the sun rose and it was a new day in more ways than one. Smiles were back. Fantastic progress was made on the projects that they are creating. Students were spilling their guts in their blogs. I felt the fire ignite within my own soul again. I saw students get excited about what they were blogging about moments after initially moaning about having to write anything. I saw students figure out ways to get around obstacles on their own. I saw them write with honesty and openness. I saw spelling mistake after spelling mistake. I saw some students momentarily off task. I saw students help each other. I saw a student return from being absent and not miss a single beat with his project. I saw a student display more independence and willingness to take charge of his learning than he has displayed so far. I saw students laying on tables, but on task. I saw students working collaboratively in the hall. I saw students taking selfies.

It was a mess.

And I loved every moment of it...

"You Say You Want a Revolution..."

I spent most of class on Friday and Monday amazed as I watched student presentations that were created to answer the question, "What is Project Based Learning." It was an assignment that was a spur of the moment idea thanks to some honest feedback from a student (an iPad held up for me to read a screenshot that said 'Boring').  There were few guidelines other than to use any resource in the room to create some kind of product to explain Project Based Learning. It was the first opportunity to really let them explore and experiment on their own.

My first reaction was amazement that they could come up with such great presentations using technology that was brand new to them to communicate a teaching method that is also brand new to them. There were special effects in Keynote. There were great movies made with iMovie. There were films using stop motion animation, fantastic character voices, and legos. There was a high level of "razzle dazzle."

And then I really listened.

I will be honest that what I heard made me a bit uncomfortable. I did not ask them to make any judgments or comparisons or to take a particular side, yet student after student spoke with something in between passion and certainty that PBL is a better way for them to learn. They talked about past experiences that did not necessarily meet their needs. They spoke about "better" and "more exciting."

I started to squirm.

I did not squirm because I don't believe or agree with them, but because I do believe them and agree with them with every fiber of my being. I may or may not have joked (your Honor) with several people over the summer about staging an academic revolution. Where students are shown another way to learn and they rise up and demand it. All I kept thinking as I sat through the presentations was, "Holy smokes they're actually doing that!" "Revolution Leader" is not on my resume, but I'm willing to learn.

As I sat and listened and watched, there was excitement in their eyes as they explained that they could work at their own pace, that the learning would be relevant, that the projects themselves would be both how they learned and how they demonstrated their learning. There was smile after smile on students' faces as they talked about what this year is going to involve. Their own pace. No tests. Hands-on projects. Flexible instruction. Authentic assessments. Relevant content Engaging application. What I heard and saw, in a word, was hope.

Then it hit me. They have totally bought into this new endeavor. What kept going through my mind was, "I better deliver." They were all-in and actually excited to be here and to learn in a new way.

The revolution is beginning and there is no turning back. 

My hope is that we can stage a revolution that does more building than tearing down. If we need to clear some space and tear down some barriers or old structures, so be it, but only if we can build something better. One of the most beautiful things about this revolution is that I have only a shadow of an idea of what the "something better" looks like.

The only thing I am certain of is that we can and must build it together.