Experiences

I am always looking for new experiences for my students. In fact, I feel experiences are the ways that one's education is defined. As educators, we shouldn't be asking 

"What should my students know before they leave my class?"

Rather, we should be asking, 

"What should my students experience before they leave my class?"

Experiences impact us and we learn from them, but all learning and knowledge is not experiential. And it should be.

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My students recently finished Lord of the Flies and as they embarked on the writing of essays about famous philosophies on human nature and epistemological thinking, I wanted to have them experience something about the various ways that power and corruption and relationships can become intertwined.

Here's what transpired.

I placed, in the center of the room, a bowl of chocolates.

 

I handed each of my 17 students a marker.

I told them we would play a game. I would tell them how many chocolates were in the bowl.  Without speaking to one another, they would write the number of chocolates they wanted to have on their desk (whiteboard markers are awesome). As long as the total number of chocolates written on their desks didn't exceed the number of chocolates in the bowl, they would get the number they'd written. However, if the added number of requested candies exceeded the number in the bowl, nobody would get any.

The first round there were 16 chocolates.

The second round there were 9 chocolates.

The third round there were 9 chocolates, but students had to give their chocolate(s) to someone else.

The fourth round students voted for two people who would decide how the 17 chocolates would be divided.

The fifth round saw one student's name chosen at random; that student was the RULER who could decide how the 17 chocolates were distributed.

The sixth--and final--round invited students to discuss and vote on how the chocolates should be distributed.

(Then, of course, when we were done I made sure everyone had the number of chocolates they wanted)

It was fascinating and I am sure you can imagine how different groups of 8th graders responded.

They experienced something. They felt things. They learned stuff. 

I bet they won't forget it.

Submerged in the sunrise of wonder

“At the back of our brains, so to speak, there was a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life was to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder.” 
-G.K. Chesterton


I think G.K. Chesterton would have made a terrific teacher...or at least he would have centered his educational experience around a pedagogy that possessed great value; the very object of education, after all, should be to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder.

Shouldn't it?

I wonder, then, whether our spiritual and artistic selves--however we identify them--might actually be closely tied to our own identities as learners, too. I've always appreciated the word "learner" more than "student" because, while we're always learning, we don't always identify ourselves as "students."

For years, I had this Post-It note sitting on my desk:




This served as both my reminder to retain empathy for my students, while also ensuring that I didn't forget to be a learner, fueled by curiosity and an absolute sense of wonder at the "burst of astonishment" in my own mind.

Right now, my students are embarking on the "WHOA" Project, an assignment I created to invite them to study something that made them say Whoa!, but that we wouldn't be studying in world cultures this year. It's also an acronym for Worldly Histories, Oddities, & Anthropology. But the root of what I love about these two weeks of exploration is the chance I get to come alongside my students as research assistants. No matter what they are studying, I get to be just as curious and inspired as they are.

I feed off their energy.

I research with them the relationship to feet in various cultures.
...or the origins and interpretations of Santa Claus around the world... or the varying ways that children are named.

Side-by-side, I question the cultural appropriation of EPCOT's World Showcase with a student, and I listen to the stories of Argentinian corruption that another student learned from their parents the night before.

It is a magical ride, and all I've done is open a door.

And it is this that I love about middle school, about my students who are so fully children and so fully emerging into adulthood. They are fascinated and scholarly.

Their brains are awake. They are alive.
They are submerged in the sunrise of wonder.

Employers of Words

My students are holding an essay in their hands.

They pore over it and mark, in pen, the elements they like, as well as recommendations for improvement.

As they discuss the piece, they realize each of them only had an incomplete portion of the piece of writing. Thus, they are forced to engage with one another.

"Wait, do you have page one? What was the thesis?"

"Who has the last page? Did they come back to that initial anecdote?"

"What was the author getting at here in this block quote? Do they analyze it on the next page?"

Overall, they enjoy the essay, but it is different from the literature they generally engage with in eighth grade, because the essay they are reading was written by an eighth grader.

We rarely share writing with one another as adults, but what better way to learn to write than by reading assignments of others who have done the same, and who shared our goals? What does a great thank you letter look like? What about an email? A cover letter? An apology? Words matter so much, but we seldom see things outside of formal writing in books and periodicals.

The one wrinkle here is that this isn't peer editing because the essay they're reading was written by one of my former students...someone who sat in their seats years ago.

See, that is one of the beauties of teaching. While I get wiser each year (hopefully), my students are always eighth graders. I love that and I love hearing them refer to my former anonymous student as "the author."

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I received an email from the parent of a former student this week. The student is now in college and had written a piece for their school's literature magazine about rape culture and the responsibility of colleges. The piece was beautifully written and--as a result of the troubling topic and the student's strength as a writer--very difficult to read. It was hard to read something so raw and painful from someone I had only known as a 14 year old.

But, I supposed that's what happens. Children become adults.

It made me think about where my students end up as writers. Perhaps they become authors or publish articles in their college newspapers. 

Perhaps they don't.

Maybe they grow to write a poignant and meaningful thank you note, or a cover letter that takes a future employer's breath away. Maybe they just leave a note on the kitchen counter for a future spouse that keeps their relationship intact or heals a moment of miscommunication with a friend. 

What I felt as I read my former student's writing, and as I watched my current students read the work of someone who is off in the world writing something different and new, was the gravity of our words.

Our words matter and when we date our work and save it, we leave a trail of insights and development around the ways we interact with the world. 

What we write today becomes tomorrow's history, but it's also capable of influencing the present audience that experiences it, and it serves as a stepping stone for our futures as writers and employers of words.

Human Beings vs Human Doings

I was speaking to a student recently about time management. I laid out some strategies and recommendations about how he could prioritize those elements of his life that were both urgent and important. I was beginning to discuss the notion of "triage" when he cut me off,

"Mr. McDonough, wrestling season is starting soon. I'll have practice every day. I will be fine. I'll be so busy I won't have time to procrastinate."

I was shocked, but not surprised. Of course my student felt this because it's the way we have to be. When we are slogged with responsibility, weighted down by the burden of it all, we just we don't have a choice.

This week was that way for me. My wife was away at a conference and every night existed with a HUGE responsibility, but also sandwiched in between was so much joy. My responsibilities are rich with life and entrenched in the experience of being human.

Yet still, when someone close to me recently said, "Will, you aren't a human being right now, you are a human doing." I realized they were right. And through realizing this I can empathize in meaningful ways with my students.

I need to remember, as Thich Nhat Hanh writes, "I am here to be here."

Human being, not human doing.

Orange Cones & Picture Frames

I place an orange cone on a desk and ask my students to describe the object.

What is this?

What is its primary function?

Next, I place an empty picture frame.

Again, I ask

What is this?

What is its primary function?

The answers range, but generally they land on 

A traffic cone is used for identifying hazards.

A picture frame is used to identify things that are noteworthy.

I then asked my 9th graders to consider which object they use metaphorically in their lives on a regular basis.

Do they highlight the anxiety-inducing hazards, or emphasize the noteworthy beauties and accomplishments of their days?

They all agreed that the tests, failures, and faux pas tend to overwhelm their days with orange cones and caution tape.

The small victories and nice moments? They hardly notice them.

We then discussed how one job of a leader is to look for opportunity and inspiration in the everyday and the mundane. Leaders need to shift an organization or team's focus onto areas for growth and development. They need to look at things that are easy to address and that are important...things that shift culture, that create norms and traditions, and that reinforce values.

So what did my brilliant students do next?

We took a field trip around campus to hold the frames up and identify everyday moments of inspiration, opportunities for joy, or ideas for how or where we could draw our communal attention to invite a manifestation of GOOD to overtake our campus.

I was happy.

I was inspired.

I was, as always, following my students.

Let's focus more on framing the good instead of cautioning against the danger in our lives this week.

After all, schools should be places where student leaders are constantly seeking places to grow and evolve the culture...not places where anxiety and orange cones become the culture.

Self Care is Brave

There are so many things I could have written about this week. So many good and beautiful things.

But I didn't.

I said "No."

I went outside and sat in the sun for thirty minutes instead.

I closed my eyes and I breathed.

It's what I needed.

Today, that was enough.

#selfcareisbrave
#IamEnough

Swiss Army knife thinking

This week I spent a great deal of time alongside my students as they studied the geography of South Asia, and simultaneously collaborated on a group project (their task was to create a board game proposal that included some link to Hinduism).

On both activities, many students expressed their curiosity (and, yes, their skepticism) about my rationale for the assignments.

"Mr. McDonough, if we can search any of these places [rivers, countries, cities, mountain ranges, etc.] on Google Maps, why do we need to memorize them?"

or

"Can we please not work in a group? We are not collaborating AT ALL. I need a different group."


See, I didn't see these questions as a threat, or as an inappropriate questioning of my authority, or an insubordination of any kind whatsoever. Instead, I loved the questions. I leaned into them. They meant that my students were doing exactly what I wish for them to do...they were challenging the status quo and they were seeking clarity. They were questioning and they were being curious about the process of their learning. They were not threatened by what my response might be, and they willingly engaged me in conversation. They trust me.

I knew I had to have an answer. And I do.

So, here's what I said.

Firstly, the reason I have you memorize places in the world is not because I want you to know where they are on a map. Rather, my goals are twofold. One, when you read the news and hear about an earthquake in Kathmandu or a wedding in Mumbai, or an organization cleaning up waste in the Ganges, I want you to have context. Being an engaged cosmopolitan citizen (yes, they know the term) is about having awareness, and when you meet your college roommate and you learn that they are from India, I would love for your next question to be, "oh which state?" or "which part?" or "Oh, is that near Kalimpong?" I want you to be able to see that there are so many things to learn and that knowing even a little bit more increases your cultural capital and allows you to have empathy for the experiences of others; it allows you to engage with human beings in a new and deepened way. If globalization is the "widening, deepening, and speeding up of global interconnectivity," we too must widen and deepen our understandings to keep up with the pace of the world around us.

So, you're right, my student...Google saves time, but awareness about the world connects lives. Cultural capital keeps us curious, but Google just keeps us informed.

And what about those group projects, you ask?

Well, I've been reading David Epstein's new book, Range: why generalists thrive in a specialized world and I've been wildly inspired. I want you to collaborate so you can feel the satisfaction that comes from building something that pushes you to adapt and rethink on the fly. I wanted you to face a deadline and face critics who were invested in the performance as much as you are because they are your partners and teammates. I wanted you to see that there is beauty in the messiness of being finished and admitting "this is good enough....not perfect, but enough for today." I wanted you to toil together. And, yes, my students, I wanted you to struggle. Because the struggle is part of it. And you are learning about yourself as a member of the group, and about the strengths and shortcomings of your own role and identity.

Oh, and I wanted the board game to be fun, and for you to think laterally about the marketing plan and about Hindi and how you might incorporate the language, and about competition, and about the Caste System and the Himalayas and about the landscape of South Asia and the exchange rate of rupees and your own curiosity and brilliance. I wanted you to incorporate as much (or as little) as you possibly could and to be given free rein for your ideas to get BIG. I wanted you to use your abstract thinking skills and I wanted you to see the abstractions in the ideas  of your classmates. I wanted to give you many days to problem solve and to rethink your ideas because I love listening to the ways your ideas merge and transform. And I love watching you have time to do things slowly.*

I know you think that you would rather study on your own and take a test at the end because you know what you need to do to solve that equation, and to get a 100%. But the world's problems aren't solved alone. And you don't get 100% on really anything in life. Life just isn't that binary. And YOU aren't binary. And this IS life. Already. Right here. The real world isn't out there waiting for you...it's right here in your hands, and at your feet, and in your lungs, and in your minds.

And we need you to think beyond the tests and the scores and the grades and the isolated studying. Epstein agrees in that book I'm reading, Range. He writes that the current model of education and specialization within academia

"...must change...if students are to capitalize on their unprecedented capacity for abstract thought. They must be taught to think before being taught what to think about. Students come prepared with scientific spectacles, but do not leave carrying a scientific-reasoning Swiss Army knife." -David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (referring specifically to the work of James Flynn).

I want you to think like Swiss Army knives, my students, so you're ready to do anything. I want to watch you transform the world...and that is why I assigned you this work.

And please, never stop asking me why I do.


*these two paragraphs are, coincidentally, exactly the kind of learning environment my son has in his kindergarten class. Kind of beautiful how I am trying to remind my 8th graders to learn like the once did...back when it came so easy.

This above all...

These were the slides I shared with my 9th grade life skills students on the first day of class this year.

I am teaching them life skills and I genuinely wanted their input...what did they see as the non-negotiable skills they'd need to lead a fulfilling life?

Their responses stunned me.

While each of the three groups of students articulated it differently, they all landed on the reality that one student described as 

"Um, I guess it seems like all of our goals [including relationships, offspring, careers, etc.] have to do with how we treat people. Isn't a fulfilling life all connected to the way we are with others?"

This was so simply put, but so beautiful. 

Isn't that the case with many things? The simplest ones often end up being the most beautiful.

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Two weeks later I introduced them to a new exercise. It was about our core values.

The most important person in our relationships with others, I suggested, is the one we have with ourselves. 

In Act I, Scene III of Hamlet, Polonius quips,

This above all- to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.

And so it was that my students embarked on an exercise that invited them to think about the people who had impacted them, and the experiences they'd had losing track of time.

What were you doing?

Who were you with?

When are you your favorite version of yourself?

Next, I asked them to choose from a list of values the values that resonated most deeply with each of them. They chose ten, then reduced that number to the three core values that were most central to their existence.

The results were incredible.

One student spoke about ABUNDANCE.

"Was that even on the list?" a classmate asked.

"Yeah, they're alphabetical. It was first." Then, the student paused. "And can I just say that I don't mean I value abundance as in I want to have the most; instead, it's that I recognize that there is enough already and I just value the fight to ensure that everyone has a piece of the pie."

Another student spoke about CONFRONTATION as a value and their frustration with people who "let me have my way without digging in and debating me about my beliefs and ideas." It reminded me of Steve Jobs' contention that he needed to surround himself with "lions" who would challenge him and question his every move and insight. He realized that he, himself, was a lion, and he needed to be checked to yield the best results.

My student realized this, too.

Another student wrote TRADITION, LOYALTY, HONOR as their three. Their classmates were in awe. They didn't see their classmate this way...but that didn't matter. They understood their values now and it changed the way they treated them.

See, understanding our values isn't just about ourselves. It's also about the people we lead; but it's also about the people we follow--those who inspire us. It's about our families and role models who have led by example, who have passed down their values as well.

And that's where the beauty of discussing values in the classroom comes in. Our school is committed to the partnership between families and the school, and discussing values invites these elements of our shared mission and unified intention: we all desire to help students succeed. Families want this and so do educators. But we also all want our children to grow up to be fulfilled, and to lead meaningful lives. 

I only get to be these students' teacher for one year. 

My life skills classes meet 22 times this year.

That's less than 24 hours of time.

They get to spend their entire lives with themselves. Their families get to be their families forever. Their parents are always their parents. I will one day be their "former teacher" or their "8th grade teacher."

So what is the impact of a conversation about values?

Well, I don't know whether we can definitively say what the impact is right now. We might need to wait until my students are 40. 

What I do know is this: during parents' night for my kindergartener last week, the teacher indicated that there are two goals for every kindergartner. They hope that by first grade each child will have a friend (and know how to make more), and they will understand themselves (as people and learners).

Those are big goals for a 5 year-old, but they're beautiful goals. They're goals that we can partner with as parents...and they're goals I would love to have for my own students as well.

And making friends and knowing oneself? Maybe those are the things we need to learn this year.

The world needs more friends and more self awareness, too.

You know what else the world needs, though?

My ninth grade students.

Musing

One of the websites I visit most frequently is etymonline.com, a website devoted to the origins of words. You see, I love words. I cherish them. I think they are brilliant in the ways they can make us feel things, and I think they are beautiful in the ways they sometimes fail to articulate the things we feel.

As Mark Twain once famously quipped, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug."

Words can be that big (and, truth be told, even those subtle fireflies are my favorite animal).

Today I found myself curious about the word muse and its origin. 

The word muse (and Muse, for that matter) is of particular interest to me this year because in many ways this year has felt different than any other. I have changed classrooms, transformed much of my curriculum, and I am doing more than I've ever done. I am a hustling whirlwind of activity on many days, and I am often stressed, anxious, and very much not well.

But I am also more consistently at peace, more aligned with my needs, patient with my faults, and generally fulfilled.

The moments of insecurity and self doubt still come, but in those moments I invite my own weakness and meet it. There is a running adage that goes, 

"You can let pain sit in the front seat, but don't EVER let it change the music."

The suggestion here is that during the course of a running race we will feel pain. And when the pain arrives we can invite it in. Welcome it. 

"Hi pain, I was wondering when you'd get here."

But what we can't do is allow pain to become the definitive tone...we can't change our difficult moments, but we can change how we respond to them. My grandmother, Ros McDonough, once wrote, "Just to show our weakness, the storm comes."

Which brings me to my Muse. My inspiration. The heart of my entire creative existence. 

When I met Nicole Chenell, the woman who (SPOILER ALERT!) would 13 months later become my partner and spouse, I was amazed by the way she challenged me. She inspired me, yes, but her inspiration came in the form and flavor of forcing me to think differently about the world...and about everything in it. She linked ideas, dug into difficult topics, and listened so brilliantly to better understand the world and people around her.

So, yes, eleven years later Nicole remains my Muse and my favorite musing partner.

But here is the way she has inspired me in the classroom: she has forced me to think about myself first. She has encouraged and questioned my motives, my outlook, my values, my dreams, and the lens through which I see the world. 

This ability has always been there. It's part of her essence, her innsaei. We often have joked that she is the "good listener" of our neighborhood, or the "world's therapist" because of the ways people open up to her (always embracing a depth and vulnerability that stretches beyond the familiarity of their relationship with her) at the park, the bus stop, while walking the dog.

But recently, Nicole has also taken some risks in a new direction. She has founded a life coaching business. And the growth and vulnerability she, herself, has displayed in reinventing herself has inspired my own creativity and my own vision for what's possible in my classroom and my life.

Her website, her Instagram profile...it's all the stuff of brilliant genius. It is helpful and hopeful and beautifully observant. It is a call to action and a treasure just waiting to be found. 

And it reminds me of my students. The world--and their crashing course through it--is ready for them and their brilliant ideas. They are in their infancy, but their thoughts and questions are real...they are big...and nobody else has their ideas. Nicole, my Muse, has been home with our kids for nine years and now she is breaking out of her chrysalis, spreading her wings, and letting the breeze float her to the next just right thing...always moving, always musing, waiting for the next idea to pollinate and spread. Just like my students, those students of the world who bring magic to my classroom each day.

And I suppose that's where I actually fall in love with the etymology of muse again. The moment when I read "to loiter, waste time" a smile broke across my face. Daydreaming is part of being creative. Nicole taught me that. Butterflies don't know which flower needs pollinating, they let the breeze float them to the next right flower for that moment.

And that's what musing--and Muses--do, they invite the big magic into our next great idea.

wonderfully dangerous

I introduced my students to an app called "The Most Dangerous Writing App" this week. Now, I don't know why it's called that, but I used it for five minutes and produced the following piece of writing:


                                                --------------------------------------------------------

I'm working this week with my students on some writing. Well, I suppose I am always working with my students on writing. This week, however, was different because I introduced them to an application on the internet that was first shared with me by my cousin, Preston Noon. Preston is someone who inspires me whenever we connect. He is a really fascinating thinker and I love connecting with him on a wide variety of topics.

What Preston shared with me was an application called "The Most Dangerous Writing App." The app erases everything you've written if you stop writing for five seconds.

Like, the words you've written are completely gone. Forever.

So I introduced my eighth graders to this idea. I invited them to answer one of three writing prompts, and the only goal was to not stop writing. The three prompts were creative and relatively open-ended. They included

1) you are an astronaut. Describe your perfect day.

2) what can happen in a second?

3) A houseplant is dying. Tell it why it needs to live.

Their assignment was just to keep writing, to not stop writing...to churn out ideas and a direction for their words and their thinking.

For so many students this caused immediate anxiety, but it also helped them realize what a beneficial tool this could be.

Fear can be a motivator, but so too can the challenge of competition. If a student is able to stay on task for five quick minutes, what can't they do?

If they KNOW their work will be erased, they won't be interrupted by things like the internet, text messages, a desire to run to the fridge and grab a snack...no, instead they will just write like their hair is on fire.

The sound right now as I write this is electric. Deep exhales and inhales married to the clickity-clack of typing on their laptops.

Nobody is stopping, I'm not sure anyone is even breathing. But we are all writing...and as I write this on my own computer, I'm a little scared but I'm also a little excited and empowered. What if I used this every day and just got in the practice of letting my words flow, my ideas snap onto the page with an immediate urgency...

What if all my ideas made their way to the page.
What if I learned to sustain a task and work with no interruptions.

What if this was the most dangerous writing app, not because it will destroy us but because we will all turn into Alexander Hamiltons .

"Why do you write like you're running out of time..."

And the chorus chimes, "That man is...NONSTOP."

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This experience of writing beside my students in this manner was inspiring. It was compelling. It was addictive. I always write when my students write, but this felt different. It felt like I was writing like a man on fire (just like I'd hoped my students would be). So, perhaps that's why it's called "the most dangerous," because danger can also mean wild, it can also mean untamed.

When we face danger we are vulnerable. 

When we take risks, we are in danger.

Ands when we write, we invite vulnerability.

When we write we take risks.

And when an app invites you to take risks without thinking, our inhibitions shut off and we begin to write things and feel things we didn't know we were feeling.

And that can be wonderfully dangerous to shifting the core of the status quo.

Expectations

Every fall I have the opportunity to fall in love with school again.

I suppose it's become sort of an expectation of mine.

I have always loved school, but I have also always loved the feeling of falling in love with something. It's that newness--that feeling of everything being a "first time" and a shocking delight. When we fall in love we float, we daydream, we imagine what might become.

With a school year I still feel that way. The rebirth of possibility and ideas and relationships. Even the air seems to buzz with a coolly snapping crispness.

During these first weeks of school I like to articulate the expectations I have of my students. None of them have to do with performance, but all of them have to do with the relationship I'm developing with them. Things like honesty and communication and avoiding chronic tardiness are topics we discuss often.

But I also love that my students arrive with expectations of me. I love that they come in thinking they know what English class will feel like or how they will receive feedback.

And then I love surprising them. And I love being surprised by them.

Yesterday I slipped a student a handwritten note acknowledging their contributions to discussion and sharing how excited I was to teach them this year.

Later, the student returned.

"Mr. McDonough, I didn't expect that. Thank you so much for writing those words. It really means a lot. I am excited for the year."

I smiled, took the student's extended hand and replied,

"I didn't expect you to come back to thank me. Thank you."

May this be a year of exceeding the expectations--however lofty--others have for us, and of communicating deeply and meaningfully in ways that make people float, daydream, and imagine what might become.

Bandwidth

I don't know if I am going to continue this blog.

Writing those words feels good.
It feels cathartic. Real.

Sometimes just acknowledging my own indecision can help me to find the ground beneath my feet. From there I can better identify where I am...where I'm going to ultimately land.

And right now, I don't know where that is.

The new school year is stretched before me and I am excited--probably as excited as I've ever been. And you should know that I have always been excited about school starting. Even when I was a little kid; yet this year feels particularly electric.

I've moved to a new classroom.
I have big ideas...ideas that have grown and evolved over the summer.
I have excited students and I've met many of their parents who are excited for them.
I'm teaching a new course.
I am eager to be led by inspiring new leaders.
I am tutoring some really wonderful students.

In so many ways I am doing so much--so much that I love.

And, still, I am worried. I am worried about my bandwidth and about whether or not I can handle it all.

So I might not. I might elect to give something up, and it might be this blog.

But for today it has felt good to write this. I write as my students write. They are writing about what their life will look like twenty years from now if they've had a fulfilling life.

My life, 20 years removed from eighth grade, is one of inspiration. I feel grounded. I am here. I know where I am, even if I don't know where I will ultimately land. For today, that is fulfilling. For today--the second day of school--that is enough.

arrivals & departures

It is the end of the school year. 

In fact, next week at this time we will have held our closing exercises and the class of 2019 will be on the brink of whatever comes next. Yet those graduating students are not alone in their new adventures; for each student experiences a moving up and a moving on. 

It is a time of arrival.

And it is a time of departure.

I wrote earlier this year that many things can be true at once, and this echoes through my heart at this time of year.

I am reading a book by Thich Nhat Hanh entitled Work: How to find joy and meaning in each hour of the day in which the author describes the nature of mindful walking. He writes,

"Bring your full attention to the contact between your foot and the ground. Breathing in, you make one step with your left foot. You can say to yourself: "I have arrived." This is not a declaration; this is a practice. You have to really arrive. "Arrive where?" you may ask. Arrive in the here and now. According to this teaching and practice, life is only available in the here and now. The past has already gone. The future is not yet here. There is only one moment when you can be truly alive, and that is the present moment. When you breathe out, you make another step with your right foot and say, "I am home." My true home is not in the past, not in the future. My true home is life itself--it is in the here and now. I have arrived at my true home; I feel at ease in my true home. I don't need to run anymore."

Perhaps, like the Zeno's paradox of the arrow (in which he questions whether an arrow in flight actually exists because it is either moving into, or out of, a space and, therefore, is never actually in a place because you can't pause it's movement to identify its location) Thich Nhat Hanh is onto something compelling, something that can tether us to the relationship between ourselves and the earth, between time and place, between what's just been and what will be.

I am leaning into the arrivals and the departures of the school year, of summer, of my relationships with my incredible students. I am aware of the departure of beloved friends and colleagues and of the loss of innocence, of feelings of security and feelings of vulnerability.

In all of it, though, I am going to resist the urge to speed up.

Instead, I slow my cadence and whisper, even in the departing.

"I have arrived. 

I am home."

We cannot change our circumstances, we can only choose the role we play in the moment we're living.

Here to be here

I really enjoy reading, but the book I've been reading this week has been particularly touching. You see, my mother shared this collection of essays, a word from the field, that her friend Brendan compiled a few years ago. I was drawn to Brendan's words because, firstly, they were beautiful reflections on adventure, life, art, self-exploration, and the thin line between nature and humanity.

There were three moments, however, that struck me most deeply. The first was the following passage.

Like Brendan, I too am still much the same kid I was twenty years ago though I often fear I've changed. Like him I am excited by beauty and a little too easily hurt by the world. I still need to be cared for and, yes, I am still searching for poetry in daily life.

It made me happy to read Brendan's words and to know that others reflect in the ways I do. We grow and we stay the same. We take baby steps forward, we shed our skin, our hair changes, our joints grow creaky...but at the end of the day, we are still the little children we once were if we allow ourselves to be.

I was also touched by the words he shared from Peter Matthiessen: 

"I am here to be here."

I shared these words with my students today as we prepared together for their final exam in my world cultures course. "What," I asked them, "would a Taoist say about this line?" "How about a Buddhist?" "And a Confucian scholar?"

In essence, I wanted them to prepare for the exam by looking through the lens of this statement...by asking "Why are we here?" because that's what belief is...and it is so central to the ways we build culture.

Culture answers the question, Why are we here?

I also encouraged my students to read these lines as they prepare for their English exam...which characters about whom we've read this year would identify with these words? Who stays the same? Who changes? Who, over the course of the novels we've read, transforms and loses themselves? Who finds themselves?

Everything can be an opportunity to think deeply about what we are learning. Everything is a lens into our minds. Everything is connected. And when my students ask "Does this matter?" during an exam review session, I always say, "It all matters! Yes!" then I add, "but it won't necessarily help you get an A."

In his next essay I was reminded that I am here. Teaching at my school. Learning alongside my students. Befriending so many in this community. We have boarded a ship together and we are tacking for the horizon, whatever it may bring.

These are uncertain times. But I am certain that our ability to cling together will sustain us, whatever the storm may be.

On a deeply personal level, this notion of "sister ships," those "parallel lives" we didn't chose, but that have still left a mark on us resonated with me. 

I reflect often on decisions I've made and circumstances in which I've found myself. I daydream sometimes about what might have been. Not because I wish for a different outcome, but simply because I am a dreamer and I wonder where those ghost ships are and who may have taken my place at the helm of that story.

Brendan wrote these words as he navigated Escalante, one of my favorite places in Southern Utah. I happened to have walked the same steps he walked as he wrote about these "sister ships." I even slept beneath the same outcropping of rock he described, gazing up at a ribbon of stars and the ancient petroglyphs on the wall of stone behind me. I walked and slept among these magnificent rock canyons of Death Hollow with my father just before I moved to Connecticut in 2008 to take the job I now love. That hike was my swan song to southern Utah...that ship sailed off in another direction. But the beauty was that my father had also left Utah when he, too, was in his twenties. He embarked on a new adventure, one that included my arrival to the world.

There's something magic about space and time. I am aware of that with a week to go until my students are no longer my students, off on their own ships, navigating new seas.

And here I am. Here to be here. Glad to be aboard this ship, churning slowly forward alongside these shipmates, ready to face the mysteries of the deep. Here to be here.

How We Think About Power

At the recommendation of one of my students, I decided, instead of requiring my students to read the same novel to conclude our time together in English class, that I would instead invite each of them to select their own "choice reading" book from a list I compiled in collaboration with our school librarian and the incredible support of the #NCTEvillage hashtag on Twitter.

The eleven books we ended up with were united by their connection to POWER as a literary theme.

On Wednesday of this week I decided to encourage the class (and their grandparents who happened to be on campus!) to lean into an opportunity to think laterally.

This was a different way of thinking for them, but it represents such an important skill in their lives. I asked them to take the scientific formula for power (one with which they were quite familiar from their work this month in Physics class) and ask, "is this formula the same for societal power?" Can we metaphorically think of the power that humans wield (political, social, familial, etc.) in such a simple output-based manner?

 

As always, my students took the bait and off they went. They didn't settle for "yes" and "no." 

Instead, I listened in awe as they discussed the nature of manipulation and circumstance and luck and birthright and inherited power and fear and mentorship and courage and relationships...none of those elements are evident in the formula above. But they also were able to acknowledge that if Archie (the newest royal baby at Buckingham Palace) was like a bouncy ball, his starting point was simply higher than others...that he was likely to bounce higher (i.e. have more power) than others because he needed less force...the gravity of circumstance would simply propel him by merely existing.

It was so neat to watch them all being lateral thinkers. They applied their scientific understanding and slid back and forth from the literal to the figurative, from the physical to the metaphorical...from the quantitative to the qualitative. 

I was proud of their thinking, sure. They are more than ready for the final exam, and they are more than ready for 9th grade. But the pride I saw in the eyes of their grandparents and special friends was even more exciting. They have the long view on their grandchildren's lives and they know that an ability to think so flexibly and to courageously take risks in the classroom will be skills that support their growth and achievement...because knowledge, after all, is power.

A Mindset of Scarcity

Yesterday I found myself in a car for two hours and seized the opportunity to listen to an audio version of Brene Brown's The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings on Authenticity, Connection and Courage.

In the first 30 minutes or so, Brown explains that we live in an age of perceived scarcity. From the moment we wake up ("I didn't get enough sleep!") to the moment our head hits the pillow ("I didn't get enough done!") we have grown to adopt a mindset that we aren't enough or haven't done enough.

The same is true for my students.

But as Brown explains, the solution to the scarcity mindset is not abundance. Instead, it's the opposite...

For my students, I believe it's about being present. About finding joy. About reading for pleasure. Finding things to be interested in. 

In short, as Cathy Vatterott noted in a recent Educational Leadership article entitled "The Teens Are Not Alright," teens need, more than anything, "Time to just be teens."

This week and next my students are working together to turn their research on independent World Congress topics into collaborative speeches. The World Congress Symposium takes place in another twelve days and their task is a big one. But it's a task that is so similar to the projects they will undertake when they are older. Whether in high school, college, or their careers after graduation, they will be parts of teams and they will need to incorporate their skill sets into the complex chemistry of the groups of which they are a part. They will have deadlines and they will need to manage their time. 

But they won't be required to be on task 100% of the time. Their energy will ebb and flow. They will need comic relief. They will need breaks. They will need to be doing things for pleasure outside of the workplace, pursuing their interests, finding pleasure and joy, and connecting with other humans.

So as I watch my students working hard, I am not so myopic to think that they need to be on task all the time. What I can do for them, though, is name and affirm these strengths when I see them. I can ask them questions based on how I perceive and observe their energy.

"I notice how much you value humor...that's such an important part of who you are."

or

"You seem so genuinely excited about timing your speech...that's a really cool thing. What do you think it is about revising and rehearsing that you enjoy so much?"

or 

"So when do you think your group will need a study break? Let's look at the clock and be realistic about how much you can get done before you reward yourselves with a few minutes of down time."

By discussing time and the ways that energy shifts in a group, I hope I can help them gradually shift their awareness of the scarcity mindset. Maybe I can help them hold their perfectionism more loosely, and relax in the midst of their excessive workloads (whether perceived or real). 

I think teens can be reflective in the midst of being teens. Sometimes they just need a gentle nudge to believe there's enough time for it.

Naming our Gifts

Back when I was in college I worked for Red Bull.

My job title was student brand manager and my role was to make connections on my college campus with people and groups who were "on brand" with the Red Bull identity.

It spoke to many of my strengths as an enthusiastic extrovert who loved making connections with people, was optimistic and found great joy seeking fun in the outdoors.


Among my responsibilities I was also supposed to "seed" Red Bull to people at the exact right moment when it would have a positive impact on them (at the gym, in the library, heading to a campus job, etc.)

Oh, and once a year I would attend a retreat for all the other American Red Bull SBMs. At these retreats we would do many activities, but one of the most memorable was when we were asked to watch potential commercials for Red Bull. The commercials were all over the place. Some were funny. Some weren't. Some were offensive. Others were crazy.

And the purpose? Red Bull wanted to see where their guardrails were. They wanted us to say "Hey, commercial A is way too offensive, but commercial F is right on the border between funny and going too far."

We were their focus group and the experience of sharing hundreds of ideas with a group of people without concern for the terrible ideas was just incredible. It was Brainstorming in a way I'd never brainstormed before, and I imagine Red Bull ended up with the best ads that straddled the self-mocking, fun-loving, risk-taking nature of their brand.

Weirdly, I was reminded of this annual retreat today during my time with my students.

We have been learning about Japanese culture and today I had the chance to share some insights about the Japanese verb ikigai. I've written about it before, but it literally is made up of two Japanese words: iki (life), and gai (purpose). It is, in essence, the reason you get up in the morning...the thing you were meant to do.

As we talked about this I wrote some verbs that Tim Tamashiro uses when he discusses ikigai.

To Serve
To Create
To Delight
To Nourish
To Provide
To Teach
To Heal
To Connect
To Build

I asked students to write the verb to which they feel the greatest sense of connection...the one they feel like they instinctively do when they want to do good.

Then, on the other side of the card I had them write some element of our shared experience here at school that they saw as an opportunity to serve/create/delight/nourish/provide/teach/heal/connect/build.

And the result was amazing. They were so brilliant and so thoughtful and they care so much.

They truly are servers and creators and delighters and nourishers and providers and teachers and healers and connectors and builders.

All I did was gave them permission to (A) affirm their own strengths and gifts in an area of human connection, and (b) asked them to identify opportunities to use those gifts.

Then, we shared all the ideas. And we discussed the idea of "low-hanging fruit" and the small ways that cultural shifts can begin. And they all got so excited to be 9th grade leaders next year, or--for the students who will be heading elsewhere for their first year of high school--they became so excited about imagining what their classmates will do next year.

It felt a little like those Red Bull sessions when we'd ask, "Who does Red Bull want to be?" and "Where are the guardrails of what works and what is possible and effective?" "What are we capable of?"

This is how we impact culture, right? We find ways to empower people to use their energy, their gifts, to dig into transforming relationships slowly...one at a time...until a movement happens. Perhaps our life purpose--our ikigai--is actually a collective purpose toward which humanity is always moving. It requires each of us to use our strengths to impact the world around us.

Only my students are better than Red Bull because they're not selling anything...they are trying to make tomorrow better than today. You can't put a pricetag on that. And you certainly can't serve it up in a can.

Orientation to Time

I think often about time.

I reflect on the past.
I try to plan for the future.
I do my best to stay grounded on my own two feet in the flexible immediacy of the present.

I am, however,  a much better improvisor by nature than I am a planner or reflector (though I work really hard to improve in both areas).
I find comfort in being able to know, in the moment, that I can read people's expressions and gauge how they feel. I can react and respond accordingly and there is no guessing or overanalyzing involved. Living in the present keeps my anxieties about what's happened in the past at bay and I can't catastrophize about the future.

I am also acutely aware of the passage of time through my own children's growth and experience as well as my reflections and attempts at growing myself, continuing to be a student of my own life.

Recently, though, I have become inspired by the notion of our individual orientations to time. Specifically, the idea that each of us orients our understanding, our consciousness, our actions, according to time. And we do so differently.

Some people center themselves and find comfort in the past.
Some people center themselves and find comfort in the present.
Some people center themselves and find comfort in the future.

I asked my students today to write about their own orientations to time because I was curious to hear them discuss the topic with one another. I genuinely wanted to understand them better and to see how they would discuss notions of goal-setting, reflection, anxiety, and the navigation of their days. They are teenagers and I want to better understand them.

But the conversation led us somewhere I couldn't have predicted, too. It led us to discuss the nature of "paradigm shifts."

The term paradigm shifts originally referred to a change in our understanding of a scientific theory. But in listening to my students as they engaged in a seminar-style conversation, I heard them build on one another's ideas. I watched their grasp of the relationship between patterns and shifts in thinking and understanding develop as they spoke and shared ideas.

Finally, they came to the resolution that a paradigm shift--one of those moments that causes us to reflect in such a way that we say, "this is a moment that changed my life--my thinking--forever"--actually requires us to dwell in all three mind frames of time simultaneously.

To experience a paradigm shift, they argued,

Requires us to reflect (past)
Requires us to be courageous (present)
Requires us to imagine and establish a vision (future)


And then, of course, there is a leap of faith involved.

Some students called it an epiphany. Others liked the word Hallelujah. Others still talked about Eureka moments.

I loved listening to them discuss their own anxieties about dwelling on the past, or planning for the future, or knowing how to interact with the fast-moving decisions of the present.

For me, it was a moment in which I experienced my own paradigm shift about what it really means to study my students. To endeavor to understand them fully.

I am running out of time with them, but I am also gaining the opportunity to share space in such a way that we can dwell equally in the past, the present, and the future.

Today was a moment that feels--and perhaps I'm exaggerating here--like it could change everything.

It reminds me of the second half of a poem, written by Charlie Daniels as he traveled to the funeral of Ronnie Van Zant. When I think about this poem I don't only associate it with death, but with life as well.

"...So say it loud and let it ring,
We are all a part of everything.
The future, present, and the past,
Fly on proud bird you're free at last."


I think paradigm shifts should feel that way, too. They're part of the future, the present, and the past...and by leaning into the leaps of faith and by embracing our own "Eurekas!" and "Ah-has!" we can free ourselves.