First deodorant day of the year

Ever since someone mentioned to me that deodorants contain aluminum, I've avoided using them except when I need them.  (I don't know if aluminum is harmful, but it just sounds weird.)  Nevertheless, with the amount of person-to-person contact involved in teaching, you simply can't afford to have smelly armpits.  And so, I always have a roll with me in my backpack.  Today was the first time this year that I needed to pull it out. 

It was partly due to the fair weather, but also due to having to operate "under the clock" for most of the day.  On Fridays, I am responsible for facilitating five separate, ten-minute assemblies, one for each grade level at the elementary school where I receive training.  Managing available time and space in a school building is more complex than what you might imagine.  Today I shuttled back and forth among three different assembly locations, sometimes with less than a minute to spare to get from one place to another AND set up my audio-visual equipment. 

The singular objective of this assembly series is to teach children to appreciate cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity.  In my presentation today, I introduced the terms "Latino" and "Latino culture" to the children through Ballet Folklorico, a gorgeous and visually appealing style of dance.  I also showed an equally engaging clip of Square Dancing, which of course is a European and American style of folk dance.  The students are just thirsting for this kind of learning.  As I've mentioned previously, the over-sensitivity among grownups towards the topic of race is leaving children thoroughly confused and vulnerable.  To adequately convey this kind of knowledge on a schedule of ten minutes per week is a challenge, especially when what is appropriate for fifth graders is not necessarily so for first graders.  But I relish the opportunity, and feel I am just the right person for the job. 

Darned plastic grocery bag!

We have a beautiful view out the back windows of our home.  Since we live right at the edge of a recently developed complex, we happen to look out on a farming/orchard property.  For over a month now, however, our view has been marred by an ugly Dollar Tree plastic bag that had somehow floated into our neighbor's back yard and ended up stuck, hanging from a tree branch.  We have wonderful neighbors (I assume they're wonderful, anyway), so I was sure they'd spend the five seconds it would take to walk out to their backyard, reach up and grab it.  But days.. then weeks.. went by and nothing happened.  They even mowed their lawn during the span.

Meanwhile, seeing the little plastic bag hanging there day after day began to increasingly feel like underwear that was uncomfortably stuck up my crotch.  And to take the analogy a little further, in the same way that you just can't suddenly reach down into your pants and adjust your boxers when you're in public, a hanging bag didn't seem to rise to a level that justified a neighborly visit either.

Well, in the true American spirit, I took the law into my own hands this morning.  As I was out walking my dog this morning along the sidewalk that runs behind our homes, I brought with me a long wooden pole.  And reaching over their back, brick wall, I poked, twisted, and tugged the damned plastic bag out of the tree.  It took multiple attempts, and the weathered bag shredded into stubborn polyethylene strips, but I got that sucker.  And unless my neighbors were peeking out their back windows at 6:45 this morning, I did it without affecting our orderly, suburban, neighborly relations.  It was a great start to my day!

My secret love--teaching math

Today I found just enough space in my schedule to escape from my usual administrative responsibilities and projects to teach math.  I am awesomely good at teaching math.  Back when I was just starting out as an administrative intern and had more flexibility, I would often sneak into math classrooms with substitute teachers, and just take over the class.  My reward is always the same--the disoriented look on kids faces when they realize (for the first time since forever) that they too can understand math.  I love that look. 

This morning I asked one of my math teacher friends to give me ten of his most clueless students.  We all trooped over to an available portable, and went step-by-step through the questions on a worksheet.  In a situation like this, I look and sound more like a basketball coach running drills on the full-court press.  Contrary to all that is nouveau in educational research, my style is very teacher-centered.  And instead of taking a holistic approach, I execute upon a strategy that is focused like a laser on the steps at hand.  By the end of the hour the kids were so proud of themselves.

True story:  at the end of last school year, I talked to my principal and asked if I could be a math teacher.  (I had been a special educator all my career.)  She shook her head and replied, "No school would want to hire you because you're not 'highly qualified' to teach math," referring to state licensing requirements.  I wasn't willing to spend what little money my family had on taking coursework on a topic that I was already a self-made expert on.  Over months, one thought led to another, and here I am now on a course to a principalship.

The irony is that if it weren't for some inane, bureaucratic state regulations, my teaching career would have entered a whole new second life.  But no worries, once I become a principal, I'll be able to sneak into any math class I please.

My clutch performance

It took five years, but last week I finally found myself in an actual working meeting with our school district's superintendent.  My ticket, so to speak, was my new status as a quasi-administrator, which allowed me to be an observer in a meeting that consisted of some 20 important people.  But anyone who knows me knows that I never just observe--I always end up contributing something, for better or for worse.  I'm irrepressible that way.

In this case, I'm proud to say that my single contribution to the meeting was something akin to a minor leaguer being called up for his first major league game, sitting on the bench until the bottom of the ninth, appearing at the plate as a pinch-hitter for his first at-bat, and smashing a game-winning home run.  Of course, I am prone to strike out on three pitches at times, but as far as my superintendent is concerned, I am clutch.

Details?  Unfortunately, I was explicitly instructed by my supervisor that the entire meeting and all meetings like it are sensitive and confidential in nature.  With a warning like that, even blogger anonymity isn't cover enough.  Though this entry may mean nothing to anyone else in the world, for me it's the preservation of a sweet moment of triumph.

Reflecting on my visit to prison

A riot broke out in our state's penitentiary yesterday with the resulting lockdown still in effect as I write this.  I have a mild interest in this news story because I recently met 20 or so young men who are incarcerated there, most with life sentences.  The occasion was a school field trip, and I was one of the chaperones.  

Part of what makes public education such a noble enterprise is that as a system we insist on providing an education to all students, even to those that some might call "the worst of the lot."  All school principals (especially at the middle and high school levels) must on occasion be prepared to expel students, and my school district has a special campus consisting of four or five portable structures that serve as an alternate school site for them.  As an administrative trainee, I had the opportunity last month to accompany a small group of these teen-aged students on an hour long drive down to the penitentiary.

Surprisingly and unexpectedly (to me), we were able to meet with a group of inmates face to face, handshake to handshake, without any walls, windows, or escorts separating us.  I say "meet," but in fact "mingle" may even be the more apt description.  These were all young men who (in stark contrast to the horrible choices they made earlier in their lives) have somehow managed to carve out a niche of humanity and purpose out of prison life.  Their purpose: to speak with troubled youth and motivate them to make something positive out of their lives and avoid ending up where they unfortunately have.  Honestly, they remind me of the collection of characters from the film, The Shawshank Redemption.

My purpose isn't at all to engender sympathy for these men.  I am simply reflecting on what I observed and felt that night.  And the students?  I hope I am wrong, but I don't believe this visit was any sort of turning point in their lives.  They are so deeply mired in a rut that I am not confident that they even have the wherewithal to grab onto a hand that is offering to pull them up.  Before these kids failed themselves, they were failed by their parents first, and then failed by an uncompromising school system. 

Odd how in the same entry, I have described public schools as both "noble" and "uncompromising."  I suppose it's true that two sentiments that are opposed to each other can be equally true.

Where were you 27 years ago?

Lately I am all over anything the Karate Kid.  First, let's get one thing out of the way: one of the best movies ever.  But even if you don't agree, you must check out this "movie trailer" from FunnyOrDie.com.  It's been around for some time now (over 2 million hits), and it will re-kindle your heart guaranteed, all the way back to the glory days of 1984 when the PG classic first hit the screens.  (Wow.  27 years.)

To emphasize my point, I also checked out the "Special Edition" DVD of the movie from my library--just to see the awesome collection of special features.  I often love viewing the "behind the scenes" mini-documentaries about movies as much as the films themselves, and "the making of" featurette for the Karate Kid comes in not one, not two, but four parts.  Movie lovers paradise!

Incidentally, the director of the Karate Kid, John G. Avildsen, also directed Rocky.  That'll be my guilty pleasure for next week. 

Actual quote: "It's not yoga, it's weight loss yoga"

I have managed to utterly shock my wife.  For over a week now, I have been exercising every morning to a workout video.  There were about 50 exercise DVD's at my local library, and I checked out the only one that had some males on the cover.  (I was NOT going to spend the first 30 minutes of my every day focusing on women in leotards...)  If you must know, the title is "The Biggest Loser: The Workout: Weight Loss Yoga."

Exercising for the first time in my life has been about four months in the making.  You see, over the last Christmas holiday, I gained close to ten pounds--probably ten pounds in chocolate.  No problem, I've always lost weight pretty easily as a matter of course.  But for some reason (aging) that didn't happen this time.  What's more, I didn't start shedding any weight once I began my new role as an administrator-in-training either, and that was a real surprise.

As a teacher, I was fairly sedentary, spending a lot of time teaching from my desk, or at most rotating around my classroom space.  Once I became an administrator type in January, however, I was required to walk almost constantly:  up and down the halls, to and from various classrooms, even eating lunch standing up as I supervised lunch duty!  I was convinced that a return to my former weight would occur in the blink of an eye under these circumstances, and yet it didn't happen.  Apparently my extra Christmas weight has a personality of its own, and it is stubborn.

After one week, I still don't get the "weight loss" part of the "Weight Loss Yoga" title.  But I have to say that I am actually appreciating this addition to my morning routine.  My wife didn't think I would actually even pop the DVD into our machine, much less continue for any consecutive days, but I've shown her wrong.  And best of all, just today she was inspired by me enough to revisit the yoga DVD that she actually owns and used to use regularly.  Only leotards in her version, so I'll just stick with my own.

Sadly, there are some f*ck ups

Last Friday afternoon as I pulled out of my school parking lot to head home for the weekend, I flipped on the radio to my sports talk station of choice and was horrified to stumble into the middle of a call-in segment that consisted of teachers lining up to explain to the hosts how theirs was the easiest teaching gig in public education.  Since there is so little sports talk programming to be found in my town, I am thankful for whatever little I can get--but upon realizing what I was listening to, my initial reaction was rage and a pledge to declare good riddance to the station forever.

I calmed down and persisted.  But two days later as I write this, I still can't believe the utter idiocy and shamelessness of teachers who would actually call into a radio program and brag about being such losers.  One spoke of simply handing out worksheets all day to their kids.  Another clown pointed towards art teachers as having the easiest job when in fact the opposite is closer to the truth.  (Art teachers regularly have the most challenging students placed or even "dumped" into their classrooms.)

I only caught the last 15 minutes of the segment, and it verged on humiliation, but I took my lumps.  Unfortunately, there are a small number of f*ck ups that somehow end up teaching kids, and SHAME ON the school principals and school district HR personnel that allow it to happen.  I have taught in three different schools over a twelve year period, and I am happy to say that I have never come across such dysfunction and immorality.

Teachers are amazing people.  They are far more worthy of praise than what is being afforded to them in the current political climate.  It is infuriating how a tiny number of societal slugs that somehow manage to job the system stain the reputation of the rest of us.

Chicken noodle soup

Yesterday, I was bragging to a colleague that I have not had to call in sick this entire school year.  In fact, my entire family has enjoyed a cold-free year.  But clearly you must already know where this post leads:  just today I started suffering from some kind of bug.  It started with congestion, which could easily be due to allergies.  But it morphed into body aches and fatigue rather quickly.  My wife (love her) made some homemade chicken soup stock for me.  (With chicken bones, of course--the only way to do it, if you ask me.)

I went to bed right away after coming home this afternoon, which explains why I'm up at 2:00 in the morning blogging.  I must be well enough to go to work tomorrow, as I am facilitating a school's first assembly on cultural diversity (or cultural competency, as is the phrase du jour).  After sleeping through the entire evening, it's time now to see if I can coax some additional hours of rest, and be ready for the new day.  I think I'm feeling better--thank goodness for homemade soup!

More proof that men and women are different

I am married to my wife.  Which is to say that I see her every day.  So how does it happen that I'm not able to notice when she gets a haircut, but when we go to a parent teacher conference at my daughter's school (as we did today) the teacher compliments my wife right away on her "new haircut"?  I am fortunate to be married to someone who doesn't take such things against me.

We thoroughly enjoyed our conversation with our daughter's teacher, by the way.  I have nothing but positive associations with schools, whereas my wife looks back at her early childhood schooling with much pain.  My wife used to be very anxious when it came to parent conferences--it took some time for me to understand the deep-seated impact of her past experiences.  Happily, my daughter has led the way forward with one sparkling conference after another, and mom and dad are all smiles.  Of course, noticing new haircuts also helps.

Fixing a faulty sensor in my mind

Of late, I am coming to understand that I have a cognitive flaw that will limit my ability to accumulate social capital among the movers and shakers of my school district.  Put simply, I am not able to sink my teeth into details.

I've actively participated in a wide spectrum of school- and district-level meetings, committees, and task forces.  And as we are wont to do in public education, we spend considerable time developing action plans, policy language, and vision statements.  I believe I have a skill when it comes to understanding the essence of a matter, or grasping the elusive, key insight that allows a group to take an important step back and see the larger picture.  But during the meaty 80% of meetings when bullet points are dissected and smaller dots are connected to form meaningful threads, my mind begins to glaze over and wander.

I am also not proud to admit that this phenomenon occurs with regularity when I am engaged in one-to-one conversations with colleagues as well.  My wife once compared her mind to a hard drive, and declared that she habitually avoids cluttering it with unimportant information.  I do the same except that my mental "importance sensor" is flaky.  I need to get some maintenance done on it as soon as I can.

Trying to belong

As an administrative intern, I am now allowed to participate in the adminstrators-only meeting that occurs every week in our principal's office.  As I sit through these meetings (which last about an hour), my mind is tugged in two opposite directions.  First, there is certainly a moderate thrill involved in being privy to information and discussions that were previously off-limits, so to speak.  But on the other hand, I feel an internal sense of awkwardness and un-belonging, especially when it comes to understanding the conversation norms of the team.

Specifically, I haven't been able to figure out when they are being serious or joking.  The topic might be the "importance" of an upcoming meeting, an assessment of whether a plan "worked" or not, or the contributions of a particular "someone".  Sometimes they are sincere, sometimes they are sarcastic, and I often find myself unable to tell the difference.  I focus hard on their facial expressions and tone of voice (much like the way my family dog looks at me when I speak to him) but it doesn't much help me.

None of this is a commentary on the value of the conversations--for an aspiring principal, these meetings are rich with information and insight.  And these (now) colleagues of mine have been nothing but generous in mentoring me.  I will only know that I've ascended to another plane when I, too, am able to offer an adequate joke about coffee, which is what they always do before these meetings start.

Ready or not? Not yet.

I can't help at the end of every day taking a snapshot self-assessment of my readiness to be a principal.  My feelings swing wildly and day-to-day, between "I'm ready and so good to get going" and "You have no clue what you're getting into, do you?"  It's as if my confident, unrefined side is locked in a Greco-Roman grip with my rational, risk-averse one.  In a nutshell, I have the raw skills, but I don't have nearly enough knowledge. 

For example, today I spent a day with a mentor principal at an elementary school site.  A discussion she had with the school nurse underlined my greatest fear about becoming a school leader.  At a specific level, it is the fear of a student getting seriously injured during the school day, and at a more general level, it is my worry that I may not make the right decisions in a time of immediate crisis.  We talked about medical treatment training, student health reports, preparedness for severe allergic reactions, 911 calls, and more.  It was enough to scare me into logging onto our school district's professional development portal, and signing myself up for every type of medical and safety related training that was available.  I am so not ready yet to be a principal!

My Assistant Teacher

Although I am training to become an administrator, I am holding on to one classroom assignment--I teach one period of Japanese, three days a week.  Formally teaching the language is a completely new experience for me as a teacher.  It makes all the difference in the world that these students requested to be in the class, as opposed to being scheduled into the class on some other basis.  My classroom is packed to the brim with students, but without exception they sit through each class with wide eyes and anticipation.

I've taken the approach up front with them that I have no other objective than to make the class fun for them.  (I even close each class by asking, "Did you all have fun today?")  I tell them that there won't be any graded tests, per se.  I tell them that any homework assignment I offer them will be completely optional.  When we are doing handwriting activities, I tell them to write as much or as little as they want.  And the amazing thing is that the students just gobble everything up.  By requiring (or challenging) them to be self-motivated, they are rising to the top.  I have never seen a class where every student WANTS homework, and yet, this is the phenomenon I see from my students.  They are a special, delightful bunch of kids.

The other evening, I asked my first grade daughter if she would be interested in grading my students' handwriting assignments.  (She knows Japanese fairly well for an American kid.)  And she accepted the invitation with a surprising degree of zeal!  Yesterday, I arrived home very late because of an evening class, and as I walked through the door, she came thundering down the stairs demanding a stack of papers to grade.  It was past nine o'clock, but she went straight to her desk with the papers I handed to her, a red grading pencil, and got down to work.  My students enjoy the fact that my daughter is taking this kind of interest in their work.  So am I--hopefully her interest will last for awhile.

We adults need to decide already

Today I spent the better portion of my day trying to untangle the circumstances surrounding a classroom incident where some 2nd graders told a classmate that he/she wasn't allowed to come to school anymore because he/she was black.  Without going into specifics, one of the interesting aspects was that the targeted student wasn't even black.  It is also relevant that only minutes before, the class had just finished reading two children's books about the life of Martin Luther King.

As I mentally synthesize 1) my conversations today with students, parents, and teachers, 2) the illustrations and text of the two MLK books, and 3) my own recent diversity training experience, I come away with one unmistakable conclusion:  we adults need to get our collective act together when it comes to talking about race.  All of the confusion, hypersensitivity, and avoidance surrounding the topic and language of race that exists in the adult world, is trickling down to blameless children, leaving them in a state of bewilderment and insecurity.  

For the purposes of this entry, I want to focus on one simple question:  can we adults decide whether we are comfortable with the terms "black" and "white"?  On the one hand, one of the MLK books referred to "white kids" and "black kids" throughout.  My diversity training (which was facilitated by a black man) purposefully referred to races, cultures, and people as "black" and "white".  Many adults are comfortable with the terminology.  On the other hand, many adults of various skin colors are decidedly UNcomfortable with those terms and go out of their way to use the somehow-more-appropriate sounding "African-American" and "Caucasian".  The second of the MLK books only referred to "African-Americans".  On top of all this, I have never witnessed a teacher or parent even attempt to sit down with children and actually match visual images of people with their correct racial identity--we are all afraid or uncomfortable to do so.

Do you see the problem here?  As early as kindergarten, children are learning about "black history month" and Martin Luther King--my first grade child has already learned about slavery.  We talk in blithe, general terms like "color of our skin" and "colorblind".  And yet none of us are taking the time to explain to children what black, white, brown, African-American, Caucasian, Latino, Mexican, Hispanic, Asian-American, and even "American" mean.  And it's only because we as adults are not willing to have a dialogue among ourselves about the topic.  It is no wonder that in a society that is obsessed about race, our children have no idea what "race" even means.

On behalf of the entire grown up world, I couldn't help but feel a deep sense of regret and shame for each of the children I spoke with today.

What does it take to become a first-time director?

This week I borrowed from our local library a copy of "Whip It" which was Drew Barrymore's directorial debut film about roller derby girls.  (I enjoyed seeing the movie before--I'm a real sucker for feel-good movies.)  With the DVD sitting in the passenger seat of my car as I was driving home, I began wondering how difficult it was for Barrymore to convince some risk averse studio to hire her as a first-time director.  After all, at some point in the future, I am hoping that some school will take a chance on me as a first-time administrator.

I wasn't able to uncover anything juicy on the internet about Barrymore's selection as director.  But I did find this snippet from an interview of her by filmindependent.org:

Interviewer:  Since you were one of the producers on it, whom did you have to convince about hiring you as the director?

Barrymore:  We ended up doing it with Mandate Pictures, which is a finance company. I gave them my pitch and my vision. Nan and I believe in doing the homework. I told Mandate, ‘this is where I see it visually...and the economics of what I need to make the movie.' You have to be able to back yourself up and explain everything. You can't just go in there and say ‘I want to direct this.' As a producer I always like to think that the director must keep their promises.

If I were to make any analogies to being hired as a school principal:  1) have a compelling vision, and 2) be able to articulate it down to its minutest components.

The challenge of impacting Latino students

Race has been at the front of my mind lately.  Today I reflected on my interactions with students of color at my own school setting and wondered why it is that I am more confident in the effectiveness of my approach with African-American students, and less so with Latino students.  Is it a cultural?  In terms of the neighborhood demographics of my school, I have more in common with African-Americans when it comes to such interests as television, sports, media, shopping and the like.  Is it a matter of language?  African-American families would have a general advantage (in terms of relating with me) over families that spoke Spanish as a first language.

But no.  I realized that the gap in my confidence has little to do with the above, and far more to do with a simpler concept:  numbers.  There are only ten to twenty African-American students in my school.  On the other hand, there are hundreds of Latino students.  If I could focus my energy on developing a strategy to help African-American students, I could do it, because even as one individual, I could make the time to establish a personal relationship with each student.  But if I were tasked with improving the school experience for Latino students, I wouldn't know where to start.

And so, I experienced something of an epiphany.  No matter how effective I might be as a one-on-one educator, I will not become a transcendent principal unless I develop the skills to motivate an entire school staff to buy into a shared vision about students of color.  I can impact students one at a time, but in a school of hundreds, that will not "get the job done."  I will need the help of many others.

Part of me resists accepting over-used phrases like "systemic change" and "leadership," but today I feel more open to those concepts.

Kids vs. Content

There is a common stereotype in education that elementary school teachers "love their kids," and high school teachers "love their content."  I was talking about this with a colleague this morning, and she asked, "Why couldn't it be both?"

In truth, the stereotypes are probably something of a myth.  I spent a whole morning at an elementary school, observing a three-hour long staff development activity focused around improving children's writing skills.  I must say that I was surprised by the intensity and technicality of the teachers' discussions, even down to the kindergarten teachers.  Love their kids?  Absolutely they do.  But to say they don't take writing instruction seriously would be an insult.

The last I taught in a high school setting was 2005, and even then I had little to no visibility into high school classrooms because I taught a self-contained classroom for special needs students.  Though I'm sure high school teachers are passionate about what they teach, I would imagine they would be downright indignant if anyone were to suggest they didn't care for their students either.

Some might argue that stereotypes exist for a reason.  But I'm going to do my part to put this particular one to permanent rest.

Keeping kids safe

After two days' worth of group discussion on the impact of race in school settings, this morning I attended a presentation on how children and teens use internet and cell phone technology to bully others, a depressing societal trend known as cyber-bullying.  Taken in succession, the topics feel like a one-two punch to the gut. 

On the other hand, as I dusted myself off and returned to the work of being an educator, I couldn't help but look at every single child with an overwhelming desire to protect and uplift him or her with every loving fiber of my being.  The social stresses on children of all ages is unprecedented, and so is the need for educators to invest the time and effort to build individual connections with them. 

Diversity Training (Day 2)

There was a palpably lower level of energy flowing through the conference room as we wrapped up our second and final day of diversity training yesterday.  Dialogue of this nature is difficult to sustain for too long, before it begins to feel tiresome for everyone.

Today I reflect upon the notion that there is a certain amount of risk you take in trying to summarize lessons learned on a sensitive topic like race.  A summary by its very nature, sacrifices context for details, and race can't be discussed in a constructive manner unless the context is thoughtfully and deliberately conveyed.  The tone of my previous entry that described my thoughts on "Day 1" were honest, but strident and coarse--perhaps too raw.  I didn't think that was the case at the time, but they were.  And so I have gone back and edited my wording, softening its tone considerably. 

As a future school leader, I should remember that 1) passion can some times undermine you, and 2) if there may be a time when a colleague regrets something he said to me or the manner in which he said it, I should honor his sincerity.

Diversity Training (Day 1)

Today I participated in a full day of regional diversity training, with another full day tomorrow.  By "regional" I mean to say that participants were drawn from across many school districts in our metropolitan vicinity.

I've long been active in my district's formal and informal efforts to promote equity in our schools--but it is a role that can often feel exhausting.  This is primarily because it is difficult in my district (as in every district in my state) to find many educators who are people of color.  The experience of growing up black or brown in the United States can not be fully understood by someone from a Caucasian background.  And so although a vast majority of educators are sympathetic to the challenges facing students of color, sympathies alone are not enough to promote the needed systemic change. 

Today's training involved packing what must have been about 200 educators into a large conference room. Minority educators such as myself accounted for about twenty of the total.  The facilitator was simply excellent--far exceeding the low expectations I brought with me into my car as I pulled out of my driveway this morning.  On the other hand, the audience was far too large, and the ratio of minorities to non-minorities far too small for meaningful dialogue to occur.  And race is a topic that cries out for deep, honest dialogue.

Here are a couple of important concepts that I learned or of which I was reminded:

• When children of color enter a school, they are entering an environment that is alien to them culturally.  Therefore, it is imperative for us as educators to do what we can to help them feel welcomed and valued.  
• The concept of "assimilation" is not necessarily neutral in its connotation.  For immigrants and families of color, assimilation means having to say good bye to most or all of their native culture, especially their language.  This is because assimilation isn't fully realized until the dominant culture finally accepts you as such.  
• Children of color walk a complex and harrowing line that runs between their family culture and the culture of schools which were designed around the value system of a majority Caucasian populace.  Successfully navigating back and forth between the two cultures is a skill that somehow must be taught explicitly.  (How that teaching can happen in schools, I don't know.)  

 More after day 2 tomorrow!

The little reasons to love someone

I like the sweetness of moments when I curiously appreciate for the first time an otherwise insignificant detail in my relationship with my wife.  Think Harry telling Sally: 

I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out, I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich, I love when you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts, I love that after I've spent the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. 

Tonight it occurred to me that my wife always lets me be the one to select movies for us to watch at home.  When we visit our local library, my wife is only concerned about loading up our children with wholesome books to read.  Me, on the other hand, I'm always heading straight to the "New Release Video" section, hoping to find some gem.  (More often than not, there isn't one.) 

It's not that my wife doesn't care to be entertained.  I think she just doesn't care to expend the effort it takes to stay on top of what's hot in Hollywood.  The truth is, neither do I.  We're both woefully out of touch with anything to do with trends in music, TV, and movies.  My knowledge of movies is only gleaned in accidental fashion when an entertainment headline manages to squeeze its way into the hardcore news sites that I frequent. 

But back to my wife, she simply trusts me whenever I tell her, "Hey, I got a great movie for us!  I don't know what it's about, but the critics said good things about it!"  Tonight we watched the library copy of "Crazy Heart."  What a lovely movie--the kind you wished was an extra hour longer so that compressed plot points at the end of the film could be explored in more detail.  And we were both drawn to the tender, human qualities of the movie's original songs.  I reserved the CD soundtrack on our library's website just now, in fact. 

I love my wife--she lets me drive the car, she lets me pick the movies. 

How Slavery Really Ended in America

That is the title of a six web-page article from the New York Times, written by Adam Goodheart and adapted from his just published book, "1861: The Civil War Awakening."  I am thankful for its provocative title, which I saw on my Google News page--otherwise I probably would not have taken the time to read it.

Reading the article surprised me in the sense that it undermined my self-perception as a lover of history.  There were some simple realities about the Civil War that Goodheart brings up which caused me to cock my head to the side and say to myself, "Wait.  Why didn't I know that already?"  For example, we all know in a general sense that the Emancipation Proclamation "freed the slaves."  But what does that mean?  For starters, it means that prior to the Proclamation, slaves weren't free--even after the onset of war with the South.  So in the early stages of the Civil War, what was a Union military camp to do if a slave wandered onto its compound, asking for freedom?  That is the intriguing true-to-history scenario about which Goodheart writes.

At one point Goodheart writes:

True, the laws of the United States were clear: all fugitives must be returned to their masters. The founding fathers enshrined this in the Constitution; Congress reinforced it in 1850 with the Fugitive Slave Act; and it was still the law of the land — including, as far as the federal government was concerned, within the so-called Confederate states.

The Civil War era isn't particularly an area of interest to me, but I do remember those basic facts--the founding fathers support of slavery, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Emancipation Proclamation.  But I remember them in isolation from one another.  Goodheart's article caused me to shake my head in disappointment at myself that the synthesis of those concepts and events weren't properly ingrained in my personal historical base of knowledge.  If they had been, I wouldn't have been so surprised that an escaped slave presented such a complex conundrum for a Union general.

Running out of breath

Getting to the end of this school year is going to be a marathon in more ways than one.  I'm trying desperately to make it to summer vacation without having to invest in new clothes.  As a teacher, I routinely wore jeans, polo shirts, and tennis shoes.  But when I became an administrative intern in January, I suddenly needed to move my limited collection of khakis, dress shirts, and leather shoes "up in the rotation".  Now in April, with still more than two months to go, my wardrobe is running out of breath.  My slacks are fading, my shoes are scuffed up, and even the backpack that I've been using for years is proving inadequate for the job. 

I feel my clothes need to reflect a certain level of respect for the position.  On the other hand, I admit that this wanders closely around the neighborhood of "First World Problems", as described recently in my friend George's blog. 

Looking for a wag

Our family dog has been with us for 12 years now.  Last month, he suddenly became really, really old.  He started struggling to get his hind legs up.  He ate less.  He had to lay down in the middle of walks to rest. 

At the time we first began to notice the symptoms we freaked out and thought we would need to put him to sleep, for his comfort.  But things got better, and we cancelled our visit to the vet.  Two days ago, he slowed down even more and so we set up an appointment for today, struggling all the while thinking about how our children would deal with the sudden loss.  But my wife called me at noon today to give me the happy news that we would cancel our appointment again. 

In the case of both cancellations we've been swayed by one thing--the wagging of his tail.  It's amazing how much he communicates about himself in this simple autonomic response.  Apparently he was wagging quite vigorously this morning.  We are fortunate that he has not appeared to be in any pain at any point in this process.  Clearly, the end is near, but we don't see the point of bringing finality to someone who still exhudes happiness. 

Evidence of an exceptional leader

I have been shadowing an elementary school principal a couple days a week for the past month.  In the short time I have spent with her, her exceptional leadership skills have been immediately evident.  I noticed simple things right away.  For example, she knows every student by name, and the face of most every parent that walks through the door.  She spends time teaching children two classes every day, in order to free up time for teachers to collaborate.  Teachers welcome her active supervision--inside their classrooms. 

Our school district has decided to move her to a new school next year so that she can work her magic in a different setting.  Today a district HR representative dropped by the school to receive input from the staff about the qualities they would like in her replacement.  Here are some new things I learned about her: 

• She is so well-loved by staff that many began to cry as they spoke about her leaving. 
• Every year she sends each incoming kindergartener a personal postcard from wherever she might be vacationing. 
• She gives every child in the school a Valentine. 
• She bakes a cake for every staff member on their birthday. 
• Clerical and support staff work overtime without pay and without scheduled breaks because they are so committed to the vision of the school. 

Sitting in on this meeting was an inspiring experience.