Rolling Deep

There's an expression that I first heard used when I was a freshman in college.

Any time the cross country team would be going somewhere in a group, one of the seniors on the team, Mike Kirkland (whose role of going out of his way to care for the underclassmen on the team earned him the friendly nickname, "Uncle Mikey"), would declare,

"Look at us...we are rolling deep!"

Now, over time I've learned that for many, the notion of "rolling deep" has a strong connotation to gang culture and to the reality that you have someone's back and someone else has yours. It's a term of protection, a term of belonging.

And, frankly, that historical connection is okay with me. Because that's what I felt, too, when Mike Kirkland used to pull me under his wing. As a freshman in college, he made me feel like I belonged. Mike wasn't a particularly talented runner on the cross country team. In fact, he never ran with the varsity team during a meet. But he was so integral to the identity of the varsity squad because he enabled us to feel a sense of connection we wouldn't have otherwise had. 

It felt good to roll deep. It felt good to feel as though we belonged. We had a unified purpose whenever we were together (even if that purpose was heading to get chicken parm at one of the campus dining halls after a late September practice of brutal hill repeats on Chipman Hill).

And I think of that in the fall. 

I think of that when I make my first connections with students...when no single assignment outweighs the value embedded in the rapport I begin to develop with each of the children who inhabit the desks in my classroom. I only have nine months to connect with these students, to make them feel a sense of belonging, and a kinship. 

I want them to know that as hard as I hope they will work for me this year, I want to work twice as hard for each of them.

I want, above all else, for them to feel a sense of connection to their classmates and to the shared opportunity to build a culture of curiosity and trust within the four walls of the classroom.

I want them to know that, if only for one academic year in the story of their lives, we are rolling deep together.

This week I saw this as students shared the stories of their names.

I saw it as they shared the cultures in which they feel the most like themselves.

And I saw it when we talked about the words we love, and the ways the words we use differ from the way the dictionary uses them (and, "Why, Mr. McDonough, is slang in 2018 so obsessed with heat?" (e.g. lit, roasted, fire, 🔥, et al.)

In all of those moments, as fun and interesting as they were, what I really wanted to say was this...

You belong here. This is your classroom. Your ideas are welcome and invited. They are the VIPs and the MVPs.

So "Let's roll." 

And while we're at it, why don't you all take the lead.