Visitors

We had a group of visiting teachers spend the day with us at school this past Tuesday. While Tuesday visitors are a regular part of our week, this group traveled all the way from Manitoba, Canada. Having groups of teachers come in to observe our school and our classrooms with the expectation of seeing things that are both new and exciting can really keep you on your toes. Especially when they’ve invested so much time and money to do so.

There was a time early in the year when I really wanted to make certain that I was doing my “best” teaching on Tuesday mornings so that the visitors wouldn’t be disappointed. Or, worse yet, so they wouldn’t compare me unfavorably to the other classrooms they had visited. I’m certain there have been times when this has happened but no one has ever mentioned anything to me. It’s true what they say, you know – ignorance is bliss.

I’ve since gotten over the need to impress. I now teach as though Tuesdays were any other day. In fact, they are. We’ve reached a point where the kids and I scarcely even notice the small groups coming in to watch, scribble in their notepads, and occasionally snap a photo or two. For the most part they’ve become part of the scenery.

Having outsiders come in does have its benefits. For one, it provides us an opportunity to look more closely at ourselves through the eyes of others. After each visit, a few of us spend some time during lunch debriefing with our guests. The first question asked is always “What did you notice as you were walking through the classrooms?” Most times the responses will have something to do with the kids’ vocabularies or the classroom discussions taking place. Other times they’ll note how engaged the kids are or call attention to the projects they see the kids sharing. But my favorite observations, by far, are the ones that speak to the feeling you get when you are in the building.

On Tuesday, when asked to share what they noticed during their visit, the first words out of our Canadian visitors’ mouths was:

“This building is just full of love.”

Wow! I doubt there’s a bigger compliment anyone could ever offer than that. Certainly, no talk of instructional strategies, architecture, or test results could possibly compare to such a powerful statement. They went on to further explain.

“Everything and everyone is just so welcoming. When I walked into the classrooms the kids looked up at me and asked ‘Do you want to read with me?’ And they didn’t even know me. The kids are so trusting- you can really tell how great the relationships are between the kids and adults.”

I think back now to the times I’ve been involved at other schools with developing a “School Improvement Plan.” Funny, but amidst the talk about new reading programs and faculty committees, I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning anything about the need for love and trust and warmth. No one thought to suggest that we reach out in sincere ways to our students and families to make our school seem like a second home to them. Or to us.
Too bad, because if they, too, could make a Tuesday morning visit they would see that it’s most important place to start.

Much Ado About Nothing

Two weeks.

It's been two weeks without a blog post. Two weeks of planning out pieces while I'm driving in the car, lying in bed, or stepping out of the shower. Two weeks of bringing those ideas to the computer only to lose my momentum or focus. Two weeks of feeling progressively more stressed at imaginary deadlines long overdue. Two weeks of avoiding other blogs because they just served to make me more anxious about this growing case of writer's block.

This happens quite often to the kids in my classroom. I'll walk by only to find them staring off into space with a wrinkled forehead.

"How's the writing coming along?" I'll ask.

Often, this question evokes a look of frustration upon their young faces. Writing workshop is the best part of the curricular day for at least half the kids in my classroom and to sit there for a long period of time without any hope of starting is worrisome.

"It looks like you don't have anything down," I'll say. "What's the problem?"

"My mind is stuffed up!"

"Stuffed up?" I ask.

"I can't think of anything to write about." they respond.

The beauty of this is that I can generally get them talking about something and within a few minutes they're busily scribbling down lines of description or dialogue or the like. We'll start with something they remember really well (perhaps a scary moment, a disappointing experience, or a happy memory)and I'll prompt them by saying "Yeah, but what if...". And soon they're imagining all kinds of new possibilities that could have happened and would make for a great story.

I can't do this. I'm the doctor that refuses to take his own advice. This is due, in part, because I don't like to write fiction pieces. I really don't even care for narrative pieces. They're not much fun to write. I much prefer essays. So I spend my week in search of the one crucial ingredient for any essay: a topic.

The topics don't need to be all that spectacular to inspire the writing. Over the past few months I've found a way to write entire pieces based on such inconsequential topics as Sky Mall magazine, silk boxers, losing an Othello game, coaching flag football, and backyard camping. Certainly not Earth-shattering material. Yet two weeks have come and gone without so much as a single publishable paragraph.

That's not to say I haven't started any pieces. There was some initial excitement over a piece I planned to title "Hell on Wheels." It was my intention to show the parallels that exist between spending an eternity in Hell and spending two hours at the Monster Truck Jam. Yet after just four or five paragraphs I had to pull the plug. Like so many Saturday Night Live skits, the concept was far more entertaining than the actual content.

There was another idea that initially sparked my interest. All alone on Kiawa Island last weekend, I wound up watching more national news programming than I've probably seen in the last year. While this really isn't saying much, a lot of what I did watch focused on the visit that Barrack Obama paid to the Republican Retreat in Maryland and the scandal surrounding John Edwards. I had this rough idea floating around in my head that I could write about the problematic nature of a two-party system - being that both sides are far more interested in seeing the other fail than working together to help the very people they have been elected to serve. Black eyes and verbal barbs seem to be more valuable than solutions. I thought I might write about the need for a third or fourth party of thought and action. But this seemed too far-reaching and burdensome. Not to mention, a genre of writing I'm not used to tackling.

With hope fading, there was one final opportunity to present itself to me.

Orange juice.

Every morning I have a glass of orange juice with my breakfast. While the brand we buy each week may differ based on price the one constant is that we always buy "no pulp." Well, "always" until last week. Last week Tricia bought a gallon of orange juice with "some pulp" because Ty said he likes it better. Likes it?

Even though I know there are plenty of them out there I find it hard to believe that people exist who prefer pulp in their orange juice. Tolerate it, maybe. But like it, I just can't see it! Who in their right mind would elect to have tiny limp shards floating around in their beverage? We have filters to prevent just this sort of thing!

Yet, this idea, again, took me nowhere. Another day wasted.

So here's hoping the coming week treats me well. Perhaps I'll watch more carefully and want to write about the girl in the bookstore who cried her poor eyes out because she just loved that little book that came with a stuffed animal so much that she had to have it despite her father's insistence that they weren't buying it. Maybe I'll listen more carefully and write about the student in my classroom who took one bite from her hamburger,looked up at me, and said "I can't believe my parents are paying for this!" Or maybe I'll think a little longer and harder and write about by latest idea to try to give away half of everything I own.

Let's hope something comes. If not, I'll have a repeat of this week.

Nothing to write about.

Table Talk

My buddy Tim and I used to do some pretty serious cycling. Learning rather quickly that we lacked the physical capabilities to ride really fast we chose, instead, to focus on riding really far. We'd do some short rides during the week, often fifteen to twenty miles, and then on the weekend we'd set out on significantly longer rides of sixty, seventy, or even eighty miles.

We had a favorite route that took us from our house in the outer city limits of St. Louis, around Forest Park, through a few neighborhoods where not even two flat tires could convince you to stop, down Market Street through the heart of the city, onto the Arch grounds, and eventually to a trail that ran parallel to the Mississippi River. Near its end, the trail delivered us to the Old Chain of Rocks bridge leading us into Illinois where the roads were less traveled and much safer.

Although we loved riding, our favorite part of the day was stopping around the fifty mile mark at the Quick Stop Amoco station. We'd drag our numb "sit bones" off our bike seats and happily welcome the ice cold air that greeted us just inside the glass doors. We made our way straight for the candy isle and scooped up a Snicker bar apiece and a bottle of Gatorade. Once back outside, we'd remove our helmets and gloves, find a patch of shade along the side of the building, and sit to enjoy our snacks. I can tell you without doubt that no other delicacy in the history of the world has ever tasted better than that Snicker bar. The smoothness of the chocolate, the creaminess of the caramel, and the crunchiness of the peanuts worked in perfect harmony. Either of us could have died a very happy man at that moment.

Not long after one of our first visits to the Quick Stop we again found ourselves at a gas station looking for a snack. This time, however, we were not in the midst of a long bike ride but, rather, just making a run-of-the-mill snack run before watching a favorite television show with Tricia. Returning to the house, we all settled in and ripped open our candy bars. It didn't take long to notice something was wrong. Terribly wrong. I immediately looked over at Tim to find him making the same face as me - one of bewilderment.

"Uh, what's wrong with this candy bar?" I asked.
"Do you mean it doesn't rock what-so-ever?" he replied.
"Rock? It doesn't even necessarily taste all that good."

Tricia shot us both a look of confusion. She didn't understand because her expectations were not nearly so inflated as ours. It seems that the satisfaction of the Snicker bar had been a by-product of eating it at just the right time - when we were overheated, incredibly exhausted, and starving.

That's when I learned how much circumstances can significantly affect my appreciation of something new. A song. A movie. A person.

There's something to be said, though, for coming across something at the very moment you need it most. This happened to me again recently. This time, however, it was an essay. I had been noticing that on the rare occasion Tricia and I were out to dinner by ourselves we had far less to talk about than we once did. Our conversations centered on teaching and the kids and maybe what we needed to do the next day. This was, of course, due to the fact that we really don't have two separate lives to discuss anymore but, for the most part, one single one. It was at this time I came across the following piece (an excerpt) from David Sedaris...

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Old Faithful

I suffer a crippling panic whenever Hugh gets spontaneous and suggests we go to a restaurant.
"A restaurant? But what will we talk about?"
"I don't know," he'll say. "What does it matter?"
Alone together, I enjoy our companionable silence, but it creeps me out to sit in public, propped in our chairs like a pair of mummies. At a nearby table there's always a couple in their late seventies, holding their menus with trembling, spotted hands.
"Soup's a good thing," the wife will say, and the man will nod or grunt or fool with the stem of his wineglass. Eventually he'll look my way, and I'll catch in his eye a look of grim recognition.
We are your future, he seems to say.
I'm so afraid that Hugh and I won't have anything to talk about that now, before leaving home, I'll comb the papers and jot down a half-dozen topics that might keep a conversation going at least through the entrees. The last time we ate out, I prepared by reading both the Herald Tribune and The Animal Finder's Guide, a quarterly publication devoted to exotic pets and the nuts who keep them. The waiter took our orders, and as he walked away I turned to Hugh, saying, "So, anyway, I hear that monkeys can really become surly once they reach breeding age."

It's work, though, and it's always my work. If I left it up to Hugh, we'd just sit there acting like what we are: two people so familiar with each other they could scream. Sometimes, when I find it hard to sleep, I'll think of when we first met and my impatience to know everything about this person. Looking back, I should have taken it more slowly, measured him out over the course of fifty years rather than cramming him in so quickly. By the end of our first month together, he'd been so thoroughly interrogated that all I had left was breaking news - what little had happened in the few hours since I'd last seen him. Were he a cop or an emergency room doctor, there might have been a lot to catch up on, but like me Hugh works alone, so there was never much to report. "I ate some potato chips," he might say, to which I'd reply, "What kind?" or "That's funny, so did I!" More often than not, we'd just breathe into our separate receivers.
"Are you still there?"
"I'm here."
"Good. Don't hang up."
"I won't."
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I love this piece because Sedaris takes something to which many of us can relate, exaggerates it, and then ends with a tender exchange that lets you know that despite the predictability and occasional silences that come with spending your life with someone there is comfort to be had in something far greater than any conversation - the comfort of being there together.

My friend Joe and I talked over Christmas break about how television and movies often give an unrealistic and inaccurate account of falling in love and marriage. Too many movies and shows make it seem as though you never have to work at being together with someone for a lifetime. Sedaris gives a more honest look at a relationship. And I appreciate him for that. Sometimes you have to work at it a bit.

While I doubt I'll ever find myself clipping news articles out before dinner, I have decided, recently, to take some measures to rediscover some things that perhaps Tricia and I had allowed to become dusted over. I decided that we should no longer bring school work home every night. Too many evenings have been spent putting the kids to bed, working on plans and grading papers, and then going straight to bed.

Another change we made was to turn off the TV and computer for a week. While it felt a bit awkward for the first few days, it wound up being wonderful. We took more walks together, played more games, and talked. It seems talking - like most things in life - comes easier with regular practice. Oh, and it's amazing what removing the soft glow of a television screen can do for conversation!

So perhaps I found this piece to be so wonderful only because it came along at just the right time. But somehow I don't think so. I think it's more than just a Snicker bar at the fifty mile mark. It's a timeless reminder, no matter where you are in a relationship, that happiness comes from the simple act of being together - and never hanging up.

"Because It's There."

Each year hundreds of climbers - and even non-climbers - take on the tremendous challenge that is summitting Mount Everest. At 29,035 feet, it is the tallest mountain in the world. However, those climbing today are hardly walking in the footsteps of those that went first - George Mallory, Andrew Irvine, Edmund Hillary. Today climbers pay many tens of thousands of dollars to be led up the mountain by experienced guides who plan each and every aspect of the ascent. Tibetan Sherpas carry much of the climbers' gear and food to provide them a better chance of reaching the top. Despite all this support, it is still a grueling experience that ultimately kills a very significant portion of those who actually make it to the top.

George Mallory, who some believe to be the first to summit (before dying near the top of the mountain), was once asked why he would even attempt such a dangerous expedition. "Because it's there," he replied.

My friend Joe doesn't buy this. He can't for the life of him understand why anyone would subject themselves to such terrible conditions and risk death for something so silly as standing on top of a mountain.

"I don't get it," he has said. "Big deal - you get to stand on a mountain that happens to be higher than the thousands of other mountains all across the globe. Mountains that are safer and probably a whole lot more fun to climb."

Risking one's life for the sake of an adrenaline rush or to beat their chest in triumph is a topic that really sets him off.

"They're bucket heads - all of them," he continues. "They go out there - spending over $70,000 - and risk frostbite or death. Congratulations! You'd risk your wife and kids having no husband or father for the rest of their lives just so you can tell everyone you climbed to the top of Everest. Idiots!"

He feels the same way about skydiving. I once shared that I thought it would be fun to skydive - especially since I'm afraid of open heights.

"What better way to get over being afraid?" I asked. "Or at least, if I can't get over it I could at least prove to myself that I won't let the fear own me."

He was far from impressed. Or supportive.

"What purpose could there possibly be in jumping out of a plane?" he argued. "Thrill seeking isn't worth the price to be paid if something goes wrong. Sure, the chances of death might be small but it's still a whole heck of a lot higher than not jumping out of a plane!"

"But look at how many people die each year in car accidents," I argued. "Are you saying people shouldn't drive?"

"That's different and you know it," he answered. "You have to drive to carry on your daily life. Very few of us ever have to jump out of a plane. There are far too many enjoyable and exciting things to do in this world for us to have to revert to risking our lives."

I'm not all that certain I ever really disagreed with him. I did argue, though. Maybe it was just because this whole idea seemed to make him so angry.

I think, though, there's an interesting discussion to be had amidst all this. Do we have a right to do what makes us happy? Does having people who depend on you (children, seniors, patients, etc) mean that you have to give up things that you love - even if they are an important part of who you are?

This would generally be the point where I would share what I think I know to be true. But the thing is...I'm not sure. Do we feel pity for the climber who dies, leaving his family saddened and financially strapped? Or do we get angry at him for putting himself in that situation to begin with? I just don't know.

Season of Giving

I’ve been told that I’m hard to buy for. I hear this each Christmas and while it would make sense to assume that this must mean I am a man who wants for nothing, it means only that I’m a man who wants for things far too particular to just leave to chance. Or to the ones whose job it is to know me best.

Thus the list. I don’t actually make a physical Christmas list but, instead, leave a number of well placed hints around the house. This year’s hint called for me to bookmark the specific page where Tricia could find the very item I wanted at the price I found to be most reasonable. It was a Gregory Z65 backpack. An internal frame pack with 4,000 cubic centimeters of storage and weighing less than four pounds. It came in three colors – flint gray, Moroccan blue, and olea green. But I didn’t request a specific color. Instead, I left it to Tricia to decide. That’s the type of guy I am - gracious just to be given anything.

My mother doesn’t wait for hints. She takes you shopping and waits for you to mention something that you like. Spend more than a millisecond looking at something on a shelf or rack and you might as well bag it up and take it home right there.

“What on Earth made you ask your mother for a white, floral-lined dinner jacket for Christmas?” Tricia asks later.

“I assure you I didn’t,” I insist. “I wasn’t planning to hit my ‘white’ stage until at least seventy.”

“Then what made her even dream of getting you that?”

What? That slight pause in the store that I spent wondering to myself: What self-respecting man would wear something like this?

My mom’s notorious for this. In an attempt to keep these gifts a surprise she will take you in July when it’s a thousand degrees outside and Christmas is the furthest thing from your mind. It would probably work, too, if she didn’t call the very next day to brag that she just bought your Christmas gift. You have to pretend not to remember trying on three different pairs of shoes the day before while she pulled a little notebook out of her purse to record the exact make, size, and color.

When it gets right down to it, I’m probably not even worth the effort of giving. I don’t act grateful enough. There are those people who seemingly can’t contain their excitement when opening a gift and fill the room with shrill screams. Or, at least, a small smile. I, on the other hand, hold the gift up before me, blank faced, and assess it in a more pragmatic manner- wondering Where in the world am I going to keep this? I tend to look at gifts much the same way a stock boy might look at a delivery. Every new box has to find a home and if there’s no room that means new stacks in the stockroom. In our house this means cramming things into cabinets, under beds, or in the attic. Right this very minute we have an oversized turkey tray tucked away in the crawl space beneath the house and countless knick-knacks in boxes somewhere in the back of our closets.

Sometimes the problem’s not so much the where as the what. I once received a pair of dress socks from a second grade student. They were nice socks. Black with small pinstripes running vertically up each leg. Of course, I didn’t own a pair of dress shoes and had never shown up to school in anything remotely resembling khakis or slacks. Perhaps he was trying to tell me something.

That would have been the oddest gift I received that year if it weren’t for the little girl in my class who later gave me a pair of underwear. Silk underwear.

“Uh….thanks Claudia,” I choked out as the entire room erupted in laughter at the sight of me sitting there holding up a pair of boxers that would, presumably, one day grace my nether regions.

I didn’t wear them for quite some time because the thought of it made me uneasy. I imagined her asking me how they felt or to model them or something. Far back in the dark shadows of my drawer they sat until finally I gave in and tried them out only to find that the feel of silk against one’s skin, namely a man’s, can bring up a whole new set of problems. From there, I decided to bypass the usual sites of gift purgatory for the donation box. It later warmed my heart to know that somewhere on a cold city street was a needy soul walking around with a newfound smile upon his face.

Sometime it’s just easier to give than to receive.