Learning is Change

12: Writing and Reading Letters #LifeWideLearning16

 

There are very few books that I read more than once. Even fewer are the books that I feel compelled to come back to again and again because they feel like home. These books are the ones that I will never put down once I have started. These are the ones that fill me up with a moment in time so completely that I must give myself over to it, leaving anything happening in the real world behind. They embrace me in that moment just as much as I embrace them. These are my books, and they have a curious similarity to them.

I first read Dear Mr. Henshaw in the second grade. It was a present from my teacher, Mrs. Buck. She gave it to me on the last day of school before winter break that year, and I must have read it three times before we came back to school in January. The letters written to a real Mr. Henshaw and then to a diary that the boy still addressed to Mr. Henshaw were so personal and revealing. I wanted to receive those letters myself and have someone be so open about their life. In fact, the words “Dear Mr. Henshaw” are a trigger for me. They signal to me that a secret inner life is about to be revealed, that someone is about to find something out about themselves through the process of writing. And from this book, I learned that writing was going to save me. It was going to bring things to the forefront that I would never be able to get access to within myself otherwise. And it did.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is likewise an Epistolary novel. The major difference being that you never really find out who the character, Charlie, is sending the letters to. This novel is the book I have read the most in my life. I read it, on average, once a year. It is the one I recommend to anyone who has even the slightest interest in Young Adult fiction. I think this is because it is the one that resonates most with my own coming of age. While the events in the book do not mimic my own life, the perspective does. The protagonist is the wallflower, the observer, the one who takes notice. He may not be great at knowing what to do or understand the nuances of every situation, but he does see and interpret the world in a fundamentally transcendent way. He “feels infinite” and “lets the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.” Whenever I read the book, I know my own story better because Charlie is the friend that I want to be. He is the right kind of nostalgic and courageous. He is self-reflective, but never self-righteous. And most of the time, I just want to see the world through his eyes.

The less obvious choice for this triad of books is Will Grayson, Will Grayson. Although it is not technically a book of letters, it is a back and forth between two characters named Will Grayson that gives the feeling of call and response. I come back to this book again and again because of the third act. In it, Tiny Cooper, puts on an autobiographical musical within his high school. And it is spectacular. Tiny is described this way: “[he] is not the world’s gayest person, and he is not the world’s largest person, but I believe he may be the world’s largest person who is really, really gay, and also the world’s gayest person who is really, really large.” I keep coming back for this character and his interaction with the two Wills. Its description of Love is so full of hope that I want to stay inside of it and live there. I want to feel as deeply as Tiny does about his musical about anything in my life. I want to create something that touches those around me in the profound way that his art and his personality do. So, I keep coming back because I want for the whole world to emphatically choose to say “yes” instead of “no”. To love instead of mistrust. And above all, to try.

There are other books that could fit the desert island all time top five. There are books that would be torture never to read again. But those are different definitions of me than these, describing different sunsets within my life. But, so it goes.

11: I hope that makes sense. #LifeWideLearning16

I once went to a the Denver Zen Center with my wife. We went for an introduction to meditation and to learn by attempting it ourselves. The building was absolutely beautiful, and as we sat in total silence on our zafus I came to the exact opposite realization than I had intended. Instead of clearing my mind of all words and thought, I found myself with words ringing in my head. So much so that they became visual and all I could see were the shapes of letters as they rattled around in my brain.

I need words. I need to write them and to read them. I need to know what they mean and how to find out more of them. I lie awake and type out my thoughts on a virtual keyboard behind my eyelids. I draw my signature with my fingers into tables. I drive distracted whenever a billboard shows up. I read the fine print on magazine ads.

Words are how I make meaning of my world. I need them to stay with me. For as long as I am living, I need to be able to make them with my mouth and share them with others. I need to be able to take them in or write them down.

If you were to ever study my emails, you would note that I write a single phrase in nearly each one. It isn’t in the signature or an introduction. Rather, I continually write, “I hope that makes sense.” I write this habitually because I have to know that my words mean something to someone else too, that I am not simply writing them to the void. I must prove that my words have impact with each message I share.

I fear this changing more than I fear losing a job or my house burning down. Were I to lose my words, I would lose myself. They are more than just my companions as I sit in a quiet room, they are the voice in my head telling me to move forward and create something new. They are the courage to have difficult conversations or ask for forgiveness. My words are supporting my sanity, and I hope that never changes.

10: One Owned Hour #LifeWideLearning16

 

I loved being the first one to school, arriving in the dark with so much promise still to be explored. I would plan and I would write. I would grade and I would rearrange desks. That time was more my own than just about any other. I owned not just my classroom, but also the whole of the school for the first hour of every day.

When my daughter was born, that hour vanished. A new hour, around 2:00 AM replaced it. I listened to podcasts and wrote on my blog. I planned lessons then too, balancing her head in the crevice of my elbow while I typed out new ways to read The Outsiders.

My first son split the hour into wonderful little pieces where I could only catch up on a few tweets or grade a single paper. They were scattered in the morning and the evening, always with love from him to bookend the times that I could own for thinking of my classroom.

I stopped owning the school, far before I left it.

And it was the slow realization that I needed the flexibility of splitting my moments or shifting them into the wee hours of the morning that showed me I had to leave. As much as I called my students “my kids,” my actual children were stepping into that role. My childrens’ room became the classroom I needed.

I believe there are those who can do both. There are those who have found ways of living inside of the salary and the hours. They have made the moments work for them. But, I couldn’t keep my classroom at the school. I had to carry it with me, ensuring my own children were the beneficiaries.

It is selfish to think that your own children are the most important. It is hubris to believe you can make a bigger difference farther away from an individual relationship with a student.

And yet… I own my moments. All of them. I own up to the fact that my first home was my classroom and I will always miss it. I own up to the betrayal I feel in teaching others to do what I could not commit to. I own up to the desperate need I have to love my three children and to ensure they are learning deeply.

They do not keep me out of the classroom, though. Instead, they bring me closer to it. They help me to see why I was there in the first place. It wasn’t to own an hour or a school. It was to create something worthy of the effort. I believe that they are just that.

 

9: Teaching Disappointment #LifeWideLearning16

I am a big fan of unintended lessons. They aren’t quite teachable moments and they certainly weren’t a part of the original plan. The unintentionally learned is perhaps the most powerful because it is mostly seen through actions rather than words. It is mostly something being modeled directly in front of you, causing you to know a hidden strength or unforeseen flaw.

It is in this that I most recently taught others to get their hopes up and be disappointed. I modeled the excitement of what could be, the optimism of how everything was going to work out. I showed just how much we are in control of our own destinies and how well we are able to build and create when we do it together.

And then, I taught the disappointment of having those things become a lie in front of you. I showed just how badly things can go wrong when you blindly trust. This unintended lesson was all over my face and it showed to others that my optimism can be just a naive wish.

And then as I tried to pick up the pieces, I hope I taught another lesson. The way we come back from disappointment is even more important. The way we continue to embrace our values even as we learn from our mistakes is the true test of our fortitude. It doesn’t make the lesson of disappointment any less poignant, but it does make it more hollow. It makes it so that the wound heals rather than festers.

I hope that both lessons were unintentionally on display. I hope that both of them were taught and then learned. I hope that those who saw the disappointment, also saw what it means to not let it win.

Both. And.

8: Innovation #LifeWideLearning16

I used to love innovation. I used to love how we talked about it and how we made it something to strive for in schools and within ourselves. We reinvented and improved upon. We expanded what was possible.

But, it doesn’t mean what it used to mean.

Innovation is a code word now for when we don’t want to research. It is when we are trying to sell someone on what comes next. It is when we want to repackage and rebrand.

I’m exhausted with innovation.

 

7: My Father's Logic #LifeWideLearning16

When I asked my father if I could get a hamster, his response was that he needed to “cogitate” about it. He did not need to thinking about or even contemplate it. He needed to cogitate.

This was the first time that I realized my father’s type of logic was different than most other folks. Although the answer was eventually “yes” to the hamster, the process that he went through for this and every other decision held a gravity that I could see readily in his eyes. The wheels were always turning, always looking for a deeper understanding or a new set of data that he had not considered previously. Whether it was about hamsters in the household or research that he wanted to do as an electrophysiologist, he threw himself into those decisions and they became “the right decisions” in the process.

My father’s logic is within me. I too try to separate the emotion of the moment from the decisions worth making. I too try and see a third option when there is a seeming dichotomy. I too look for root cause in the face of anecdotal data.

Or, at least I wish I did.

I am so less sure of my decisions than he ever was. I am too swayed by a good story or by the situation right in front of me that I can’t quite see what comes next. I do not plan the way that he can, years in advance. Logic is a hobby of mine, but for him it is a full time job. But, that means he must put in the hours every day, while I can put it away for a while and do something else.

I can live in the frenetic emotions of my kids and get caught up in their worlds. I can lean upon others to solve problems when I can’t quite reach the perspective necessary. I can intuit what comes next, and adapt to meet the needs of whatever is thrown at me.

I do not cogitate nearly as much as my father does. But I always see it as an option, and when I need it, I make it mine.

6: I will be healthy. #LifeWideLearning16

My son, Tobias, is coordinated. He intuitively knows how to throw and catch a ball. He can defend a goal. He can dance. He can run forever (seemingly) and not get tired. He does not eat or covet desserts to excess. He loves fruit and eats his vegetables without question. In other words, he is an incredibly healthy kid.

He also takes medicine for acid reflux. And he gets angry easily. He is often unkind to his sister and has to be asked multiple times to do simple tasks. Sometimes he hits. Other times, he has very little regard for his toys or other things at home. He wants to Minecraft almost all of the time. In other words, he is an incredibly healthy kid.

Healthy is a synonym for human.

If I only ascribe the positive and judgement-based aspects of being healthy to myself or others, then anything outside of those things is un-human. I am saying that being healthy can only be one thing or only can be expressed in one way. It is more than that.

Being healthy is doing what you need at the time when you need it. It is opening up yourself to all of the possibilities in front of you. It is learning from your own experience and making choices based upon that new knowledge. To be healthy is to be honest about your needs and accepting that you don’t have to be perfect to be you.

I may not always make the right choices in terms of my diet or exercise. I may not moderate my intake of alcohol. I may not always sleep enough. But, so long as I am authentic within those decisions, I will be healthy.

5: I did not savor college. #LifeWideLearning16

I knew I wanted to teach English from the time I was in the 8th grade. Reading 1984 one time was enough to make me say, “I want to teach these books for the rest of my life.” The knowledge of what I wanted to do dictated nearly every academic decision I made. Everything became about the speed with which I could become a teacher.

I chose AP classes because it would allow me to get non-English Major courses out of the way while I was still in high school. I chose the University of Denver because it was one of the only schools that allowed you to do a Teacher Education Program as a part of your undergrad. I specifically engineered my schedule and accelerated my pace with Interterm credits so that I could finish college and start teaching in 3 years. In the end, I started teaching 5 months after I turned 21, having achieved my 8th grade goal on the fastest route possible.

This path had some drawbacks.

In no particular order, they go like this:

  1. I didn’t take math in College because of my AP credits. In fact, I haven’t really sat down with a hard math problem since I was 18. I like that part of my brain, and I would have liked to continue to develop those skills.
  2. I took masters level courses for undergraduate credit. I somehow convinced myself that this was a good idea. The Teacher Education Program that I went through was primarily a masters program, but they let a few undergraduates through who were “highly motivated to teach.” This means that all of my classmates were receiving their masters in a year-long program that essentially only earned me a Minor in my BA.
  3. I didn’t stay an extra year and get a Masters in Education. I could have easily received an undergrad in English and then turned the Minor in Education into a Masters within a year. I didn’t realize just how hard it would be to get a masters after my children were born.
  4. I know almost no one from my Graduating class. Because I finished school in 3 years, I was taking classes with folks in all different years of school. My wife (then girlfriend) was also two years older than I. This meant that the people I knew best were in the graduating class of 2003, rather than my own of 2004, or what would have been my graduating class of 2005 if I had stayed for 4 years. Many people have a deep connection to those they met in college. Other than my wife and a few of her friends, I have no lasting relationships from those years.
  5. I did not savor college. I really didn’t understand just how easy college was in comparison to working and raising a family. I probably couldn’t have fully appreciated that at 19, but I could have seen college as more than just a means to an end. I could have stopped just long enough to embrace just how much I loved learning and the space within which the learning was happening.

My academic journey was rathe quick and one that was determined when I was 13. I’m not sure my 13 year old self knew what he was getting us into. While I don’t regret any of the things that have happened as a result of my speed, it does make me wonder about other similarly motivated kids. Is there anything that someone could have said to me that would have made me slow down? Is there anything that I could have experienced that would have shown me the power of choosing multiple paths and not just one?