Teacher Appreciation Week

It has been almost one year since I stepped out of full time classroom teaching.  That's a hard thought for me because there have been times in my life when I thought of teacher as my identity (thankfully, God knocked that out of me about ten years ago, or I couldn't do what I'm doing now). But I still interact with my teachers as I sub and speak at education conference, not to mention most of my friends are teachers.  

So, this week, I want to give a big shout out to the people who persevere, pouring their hearts, minds, and energy into the work of training up the next generation.  Here goes:

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Teachers, your task is difficult.  It may, in fact, be impossible.  You walk into a classroom every day, expected to equip, challenge, and inspire every student, regardless of background, home support, past educational experience, or interest level in your subject.  You may or may not have the support of your administration when it comes to classroom disruptions.  You likely don’t have the budget you need to properly carry out the things you would like to do, so you employ your creative skills to work around lack of supplies. As with all of the other issues in our society, education has become polarized along political lines, and you are in the middle, just trying to do your job. 

And you do it. You do it well. You do it because you know kids need you to do it.

Every day, you equip your students with the information they need to be good decision-makers.  This

is no small task, especially in an ever changing technological, political, and social landscape.

You fight the people who say they never use algebra because you know that they use the thought

processes of algebra daily. You overcome the fact that someone's mom didn't like the Scarlet Letter

or thinks teaching poetry is dumb because you know that the analytical skills that accompany analysis

of complex texts are important for the developing mind. You insist on the proper ending to chemical

formulas because getting it right can literally be the difference between life and death. You make them

memorize even though it isn't fun because you know the act of memorizing strengthens their brains,

no matter what some TikTok influencer says.  The mere act of equipping them is Herculean, and

it is the most basic level of your job.  

American teachers, you are also meant to challenge students at all levels of the ability spectrum (I

understand this might be different in other places).  In the same classroom, you have a child with

profound learning disabilities and those with intelligence higher than your own and the full spectrum

of academic levels in between.  You have students who may have had a bad experience with science

or math in the past and enter your classroom skittish while others suggest lab experiments to you

because they spend their free time reading about them online.  You know differentiation isn't really

possible, but you try. You ask ALL of them to perform better than they believe they are able to at things

they don’t think they are good at.  You are supposed to be fun and joyful and engaging while you

demand more from a child than the child (and sometimes their parents) think you should be asking for

because you know meeting challenges is good for the soul.

The best of you inspire, asking your students to look beyond the grade, the curriculum, and the tests to

see what they can do with their education. You have a student who “doesn’t like art” on the first day

they enter your classroom who will tell stories someday about the teacher who made them care about

the what the Dada movement was trying to accomplish or have an emotional reaction in a museum. 

Some may go into medicine because you taught them anatomy, but most will simply be enriched by

having a better understanding of their own body.  You build up students into people with a broader

view of the world than they would have if you hadn’t been their teacher. 

And that is just the academic part of your job; I have not included all of the social counseling, emotional

baggage, and safety concerns you keep in balance.  You know which students shouldn’t be put in a group

together and who needs a friend to sit with at lunch.  You are the frontline of reporting abuse and the

shoulder to cry on for many students and colleagues.  You make hundreds of decisions per day, often

without time to reflect on them thoroughly. 

Now, you know why you are so tired on Friday afternoons.

This teacher appreciation week, I hope you got some of the love an gratitude you deserve.

Curriculum Isn't Everything

For the past two weeks, I have been teaching my middle students about the Apollo era, the causes of NASA's fatal missions, and discussing what it would take to put people on Mars.  It is my favorite thing to teach, and I have been doing so for 25 years.  However, if you open any published physical science textbook, you will not find this chapter.  It is not part of any physical science curriculum.  I added it during my first year because I had students who didn't know anything about the space program, and I wanted them to.  I asked the history teachers if they covered the space race, and they said that, because the '60s were covered so late in the school year, they were doing well to cover the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War.  Knowing I wouldn't be stepping on anyone's toes, I developed a short unit so I could share my passion for space exploration with physical science students.  It has become everyone's favorite unit, including mine.

This takes me back to my own middle school years and a history teacher I have written about before on this blog, Mr. Danny Watkins.  History was not my subject.  I didn't perform badly in it; I just didn't care that much about what I was learning.  There are excellent history teachers out there, but I had precious few of them.  My experience with history was mostly men with the first name "coach" assigning reading and questions and then sitting down at their desk to create plays for their teams.  Mr. Watkins was the opposite of that.  He absolutely loved sharing the stories of history and the people who made it.  There were specific people he was particularly inspired by, like Winston Churchill, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and Frank Boyden.  One story he particularly loved sharing was that of Tsar Nicholas I and his family.  I read the book Nicholas and Alexandra during my 8th-grade year, a book far above my level, for no other reason than Mr. Watkins loves it so much.  Nine years later, I was in an art museum in Tulsa, where a traveling exhibit of imperial art was being shown.  I had seen portraits of Catherine the Great, Faberge eggs, and cloisonne pieces.  It was all beautiful, but I hadn't really responded to much until we reached the last room of the exhibit.  There was a desk that had belonged to Tsar Nicholas on one wall.  On the other, was a large painting of the coronation of Alexandra and her crown.  I stood in that room, thinking about the letters Nicholas wrote from that desk and the grief Alexandra felt because of her only son's hemophilia and how desperate she had to be to allow Rasputin into her home.  Before long, I found that I had tears running down my face.  This was not a response to a piece of furniture and a jeweled hat; it was a response to the story that Mr. Watkins had shared and the depth with which it had stuck in my heart.  By the way, the name of the class I had Mr. Watkins for was North Carolina History.  Other than the reason we are called Tarheels and the fact that the governor's mansion used to be in New Bern, I really cannot tell you much about the history of NC.  The tests I took in Mr. Watkins' class were about NC History, but I studied the book for those and quickly forgot them.  The stories that stuck with me were those that Mr.Watkins told in class, and he didn't much care if they were part of the curriculum or not.

I'm not sure a teacher these days can be a Mr. Watkins.  If an administrator observed his class, I'm sure he would be dinged for not having an objective posted and not remaining focused on the standard for the day, ignoring the enraptured faces of students like me.  We have become so committed to covering curriculum and meeting standards that we have forgotten that one of our most important jobs as teachers is to inspire.  

Listen, curriculum matters.  Of course, it does, but it is not the only thing that matters.  It is entirely possible my students could solve Doppler Effect problems but not recognize it when an ambulance passes them on a street.  It is possible for them to state the definition of refraction but not notice its effects on a straw in glass.  I want my students to meet the standards and objectives I have for the course, or I wouldn't have chosen them.  But more than that, I want my students to see science in the world.  I want them to ride a roller coaster and know why they feel lifted from their seat at the top of the hill.  I want them to watch curling during the Winter Olympics and remember things like momentum and friction.  Even more importantly, I want them to ask questions for their entire lives.  Why can we see through glass windows and not wooden doors?  Why is it so hard for a gymnast to stick the landing?  How do we feel so light in a swimming pool?  That won't happen if I focus ONLY on curriculum.  

While you are making lesson plans, think about standards and curriculum, but also think about how you are going to make something matter.  Think about what made you love the thing you teach and how you might show them that.  It's easy in science because we can blow things up, but most of the inspirational teacher movies are about English, History, and Music teachers.  Stand and Deliver is about an AP Calculus teacher and the difference that was made in the lives of students because of a passionate teacher.  No matter what you teach, you can bring the awe and wonder of your subject to your students.  I hope my students will be excited by a rocket launch or marvel at the oxidation of pottery glaze in a kiln.  To do that, they have to see my excitement in those things too.

Try New Things

I didn't plan for it to be, but this week inadvertently became the week of trying new things.  Monday's was actually planned.  I've been taking spin classes since March, but until this week, I had not tried peddling while standing up.  Tuesday, my spin instructor was out and had a sub who isn't my cup of tea, so I took a class called Group Power, which is a weightlifting class.  Wednesday, I had dinner with friends at a restaurant I had been curious about for years.  That's when I realized what this week had become, so I had to try and think of things that were new (a few things related to the senior prank and buying things from Dick's Sporting Goods - If I had been planning it, I could have done better.).

People are often resistant to trying new things.  It can be scary because you don't know what to expect or because you risk failure.  Students resist it because they worry they will embarrass themselves.  And sometimes, you do fail.  Sometimes, you do embarrass yourself.  But sometimes, you find a source of joy you didn't previously know. I will be taking Group Power every week now because it turned out I was better at it than I thought I would be (to be fair, I thought I would be atrocious, so it wasn't hard to be better than that).  I can't wait to take people to the restaurant I went to because it was delicious.  I will try to stand up more while peddling because it works different muscles than seated peddling does.

Students think they already know what they like and often don't think they need to try anything else.  When I encourage them to take art, they will sometimes say they aren't good at it.  It seems odd to them to think you could enjoy something even if you aren't good at it.  They have trouble believing they could get better at it.  They can't imagine that there are things they do not know and don't believe me when I say I regret that I didn't take art and that I would take Latin if I could go back to school and do it over.  By their middle school years, they have bought into the idea that they should only have to learn things that will get them a job, and since I teach physics, they don't understand how I might want those other things in my life.  By the way, I didn't know I liked physics until I took it in my senior year either, so even that thing that became my job was a new thing to me at one point.

I recently wrote a scholarship recommendation letter for one of my juniors.  I made a lot of observations about her in that letter, but the one I spent the most time on was how much I admire her willingness to take on new challenges.  She started acting in middle school and joined the swim team as a sophomore just to try something new.  I wish this quality weren't so rare.

If you are an adult in the life of a child (whether that is a parent, a teacher, a coach, or a camp counselor), please encourage them to try new things - new foods, new sports, new musical instruments, new classes, new friendships.  You may help them find a career, but you may just increase the amount of joy they have in their lives.

What Will Your Verse Be?

This week, my school celebrated Grandparents' Day.  It's a long-standing tradition and one we haven't had in person for the last two years.  It was so lovely to hear them laugh at the corny jokes of our emcees, cheer for our band, and oh and ahh over our theater dance class.  Even better, I get to travel from classroom to classroom photographing kindergartners running and leaping into their grandpa's arms, 3rd graders proudly showing a project to their grandma, and 5th graders interviewing their grandparents about major historical events on a timeline.  It's a precious day, but this weekend, I have mulled on its deeper importance.  It's more than just sweet.

Yesterday, I was sitting in a MacDonald's drive-through behind a car whose license plate was CARPAYDM.  After I chuckled at the clever way to express Carpe Diem, I started thinking about the movie Dead Poets' Society, a favorite of mine since I saw it in the theater decades ago.  My love for Robin Williams knows no limit, and as a person who loved teachers so much I eventually became one, it's an inspiration.  Most people carried away the phrase Carpe Diem or perhaps quoted "Oh Captain, my Captain" at school, but the scene that has always stuck with me is the one in which Mr. Keating quotes the Walt Whitman poem "Oh Me! Oh Life!" which ends with, 

"That you are here—that life exists and identity, 

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."

Carpe Diem essential became YOLO in Latin, basically meaning you should do what you want now, but the end of the Whitman poem should cause you to examine it differently.  You are here now, continuing a story that began long ago.  Watching kids talk to their grandparents about their memories of historical events reminds us of that. The world didn't start with our birth, and it won't end with our death.  "The powerful play goes on."  What we have the opportunity to do in our time here is to "contribute a verse."  The scene ends with Robin Williams looking Ethan Hawke in the eye and saying, "What will your verse be."

Schools are ever-changing plays in many ways.  No matter how nice we are to them, seniors leave every year.  New students join.  Some teachers stay for decades; others are in a school for only a year or two.  Unless you are the school's founder, it was there before you were, and unless you are unfortunate enough to be part of a school's end, it will be there after you.  What you have the opportunity to do while you are there is leave a mark, contribute to a legacy, and leave something for those that follow.  

What will your verse be?

The Men Who Look Over My Shoulder

I don't know how well you can see this, but this is the wall behind my school desk.  I believe it is important to establish credibility, so I hang my college diploma and my certification.  The thing at the bottom was added after the yearbook staff managed to surprise me with the dedication during the lockdown.  The two photos are of the two men who taught me what I now teach.  Mr. Sandberg, who taught me physical science 31 years ago, is the man in the color photo on the right; he is holding a Bible that I gave him as a goodbye gift we both left the school in which he taught me.  The man in the black and white photo was my physics teacher, Mr. Barbara.  (Incidentally, I took both photos, but for the black and white one, I not only took that photo, but I also developed the film and printed it in a darkroom.  I don't know why that matters to me so much, but it does.). Since the real first day of school is Monday, I thought it was a good moment to reflect on the power of these pictures.

These men look over my shoulder as I plan to teach students the same content that they taught me.  I've written about both of these men on this blog before and why they are meaningful in my life, so you can click the links at their names if you wish to read about them.  That isn't what I want to write about today, even though I would be happy to talk about them all day long.

What struck me this week as I pointed to these pictures as part of my orientation speech is the connection education provides to all of us, like a game of Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon.  

Education is a lot of things.  For some narrowly focused people, it is simply job training.  Those are the "When am I ever going to use this in life?" people.  They are the people who don't recognize they use algebra every day.  I'm glad that we can use the things we learn in school in our jobs, but if I thought that was the point, I wouldn't find it very compelling; so I am grateful it is more than that.  Others, including myself, have a view of education that is about knowing God.  As I told my students this week, "Education makes you a fuller human being.  We are made in the image of God, and He has given us all of this to help us know Him better, and learning it helps us to reflect that image more fully."  And, of course, there is a range of thoughts in between these two extremes that are also true of education.  But when I looked at these pictures before leaving on Friday, I thought about the fact that my students are being taught, in part, by these two men, which led me to think of education in a different way than I had before.  It is a connection to both the past and the future.

This isn't a new idea.  I just hadn't thought about it much before this week.  There are many examples of how people pass down knowledge to multiple generations through teaching. 

• Socrates mentored Plato, who passed philosophy on to Aristotle, who taught Alexander the Great.  
• Yoda taught Luke Skywalker who then trained Rey.  
• When Newton built on what Galileo had established; he called it "standing on the shoulders of giants" and credited it with his ability to "see farther than other men."  

Some of my students have become teachers, which means that it is possible there is something happening in their classroom because it happened in mine, which is true only because it happened in Mr. Sandberg's or Mr. Barbara's (and many others as well).  And the chain could go farther back and farther forward as they were taught by people before and my students will also have students who teach others.  I don't know if I am adequately conveying how powerful I think this is because I feel like I am rambling, but in my brain, this is really awe-inspiring.  

The world of education has been rocked in recent years.  The pandemic was tough and amplified some of the problems that were already evident.  Public education is experiencing a profound teacher shortage.  We are all exhausted.  But this - this idea that education perpetuates knowledge so we don't have to discover everything in every generation - this has not changed because it cannot.  

Thank you to these men who look over my shoulder.  Thank you to those not pictured who are also part of my teaching.  Thank you to those who taught them.  Thank you to Sal Kahn and Hank Green and others who teach online to provide a horizontal connection as well.  Thank you to all whose teaching has informed my own.  Your influence will carry farther than you or I can ever know.

You May Never Know

When a surgeon does his job well, he knows because the patient recovers.  He can see the results right away.  When an airline pilot does his job well, he knows because the plane lands smoothly and all passengers exit in one piece.  He can see the result right away.  When a farmer does his job well, the results take a bit longer, but they can see it happening when the plants grow, flower, fruit, and are eventually harvested.  There are a few professions in which the result of the work is slow, so slow that those who practice it may never see the evidence of their impact.  I'm sure there are many professions in which this is true, but the ones I am now thinking of are preachers and teachers.  

Twenty years ago, I taught a student with a massive anger management problem.  When he got angry, he started gearing up for a fight by dropping his backpack and pawing his foot on the ground like a bull.  As I recognized these signs, I would put two fingers on each of his shoulders and gently push him out the door to count to ten or a hundred or whatever it took.  I would tell him to go to the bathroom and wash his face and come back when he was calm.  This scenario happened several times a week for the entire year, and I didn't imagine I had made much difference as he left my class still angry.  Five years later, I happened to be in a restaurant when I ran into the boy (by then, a 20-year-old man).  He hugged me excitedly and introduced me to his friend as "the teacher who put up with all my crap."  I don't know what he is now doing in his life, but I hope that he is less angry as an adult (now 35) than he was in high school.

I have posted my favorite TED talk on the blog before.  Its official title is Everyday Leadership, but I have always referred to it as Lolipop Moments because it is the story that drives the point.  A man working in a school has a massive impact on a young woman's life; she eventually invites him to her wedding because of the meaningful experience he gave her on her first day of college.  Yet, he doesn't remember this event.  He makes the point that in living your daily life, you may have had influence you don't know you had.  We should all live our lives in a way that people will remember positively.  We all have these opportunities in our lives, but teachers have them every day.  Wink at the quiet kid, roll with the silly joke, say yes to the project that doesn't quite fit your expectations.  

I once taught a boy named Sam.  He graduated 10 years ago.  I happen to be Facebook friends with his mom, so when she posted a link to his pottery business, I went to his website and made a purchase. When the package arrived, there was a handwritten note on the invoice, thanking me for being his science teacher.  It said, "My love of glaze chemistry comes from your class."  I never taught him about glaze chemistry.  I know a little about it but not enough to teach it in my class.  He had been a scienc-y kid long before I got to him, but I was able to keep his love of chemistry alive.  He also had art teachers who inspired him along the way.  Now, he makes his living with a combination of art and science knowledge and skill.  I might never have known this.

How many students have you influenced in your career?  You might think only a handful because those are the ones you know about.  It's probably a lot more; there may be an adult out there right now who is telling their kids about you and something they learned in your class.  

You may never know.

I Didn't Expect That

After you have taught for a while, you get a sense of what questions are going to be asked about certain topics, and you plan for them.  When I'm teaching about sound waves, for example, I do one day on how the human ear works.  Because it is responsible for more than just sound processing, I work time into the period for questions about tubes, ears popping on planes, dizziness, ringing in the ears, etc.  If, by some chance, they don't ask about these things, I say something like, "Sometimes, people wonder about ear infections, and . . ." After a few years, it would be easy to think you know what is coming but occasionally, something you didn't expect derails your planned lesson.

When I teach about the atom, it is important for students to know that the standard model we all learn is an oversimplification of the real thing, so we do a little imagining of what it would be like if protons were the size of bowling balls.  If they were, electrons would be roughly the size of a thumbtack, and the first one away from the nucleus would be across the street.  I'm used to them being surprised by that and a little taken aback by the idea that there can be empty space in the atom.  It bothers them that there is nothing there.  But once, a girl was floored by the idea that 99% of the atom is empty space.  "It can't be empty," she said.  "There's got to be air or something."  When I explained that air was made of atoms and, therefore, could not fill the space inside atoms, she got very quiet.  Then she started saying, "Wait . . . wait . . . wait."  I waited.  She finally said, kind of slowly, "So, you are telling me . . . that everything . . .  is mostly made of nothing."  I had never thought of it that way before, but yes.  Everything is mostly made of nothing.  They were so floored that I didn't get to move on for about five minutes.  I wasn't expecting that.  This doesn't happen very often, but you know when it does, and it stops the show.

When moments like these happen, it is my obligation as a science teacher to let them play out.  I can finish tomorrow or leave something out, but it would be educational malpractice to halt these moments of awe.  It is also a good idea in those moments to think about further implications of the realization the student has had.  While we were marveling over the idea that everything is mostly made of nothing, I said, "That 1% that is something is just really important."  That's an important consequence of the idea, and it comes up when talking about electrons as well.  (Just because they are small doesn't mean they don't matter, given that they are almost completely responsible for chemistry.)  It's also a good opportunity to imagine what it would be like if it weren't that way.  If all that nothing were something, even small objects would be too dense to lift.  As a Christian school teacher, that will lead to an opportunity to naturally discuss how wisely designed creation is, right down to the smallest level.

Science, by its nature, is obviously replete with opportunities like this, but I'm betting your subject has them as well.  One day a student came out of my friend Jenny's math class and started pacing back and forth.  She came out and said, "It's okay.  Just walk it off."  A gave her a strange look, and she said, "He's just had his mind blown by the concept of limited infinity."  (In case you don't know what that is, think of something like all odd numbers.  It is limited because there are no even numbers in the set, but there is still an infinite number of them.)  He just kept muttering to himself, "Infinity can be limited.  That's crazy.  It's infinity, but it can be limited."  She had not planned for this to be a show-stopping concept, but it definitely was, and those students left with an awe for math they would not have otherwise had.  You never know who it will come from either.  This boy was not a future math major; he didn't even like math.  He was just someone for whom the words "limited infinity" became magical and had a teacher who pulled back the curtain.

We spend a lot of our time equipping and challenging our students, but these are the moments where we inspire them to love learning.   It's not about a test or a state standard or what job they might have in the future.  It is about noticing something amazing in the world and pausing to be amazed.  We should model that.  That's our primary job.

Is there something in your discipline that you were surprised by when you first learned it?  Share that with your students, and give them a second to realize how cool it is.  You can plan some of these, but there will be some you don't expect.  Keep your eyes and ears open for them, and take full advantage when they happen.  

Thanksgiving 2020 - The Forgettable Conversation

As I thought about what to write for Thanksgiving this year, I looked back through some prior years and realized that I have written about the same five teachers pretty frequently.  One day, I was telling a story about my chemistry teacher and realized that I have never written about her on this blog.  

There’s a good reason that I haven’t.  She wasn’t one of “those teachers.”  I didn’t have particularly strong emotional attachments to her.  She didn’t open my eyes to the wonderful world of chemistry.  There are only about three things that I can specifically remember learning from her.  Nevertheless, the story I was telling my colleague made me realize that she is responsible for changing the trajectory of my life, and I am thankful.  Let me explain.

The high school I went to had a well thought out plan for registration in classes for the following year.  You were required to have a conversation with your current teacher about the next level course you wanted to take in their discipline, and they were required to sign off on your choice.  A student in 10th grade English could not simply decide they wanted to take AP Lang the next year or go to the office and enroll in honors.  The teacher had to sign your registration card (This was before there was an internet - I mean, there was one, but it wasn’t yet used by normal people).  If you or your parents wanted to override the teacher’s advice, there was a procedure for that, but it meant that you were not allowed to drop the class once having overridden the judgement of the professional.  This process made everyone take their choices and their decision to override advice very seriously.

Having finished Chemistry, I had several options about which science to take next.  I had decided not to take AP courses, saying I would wait until I was in college to be in college, thank you.  Back then, no one would have pressured anyone into an AP course, and colleges were not yet using them for admissions.  I wasn’t particularly interested in life sciences or earth science, which left me with two options, regular and honors physics.  Not knowing much about physics, it sounded a little scary (and the regular level teacher was incredibly attractive - I was a high school girl; cut me some slack), so I chose regular physics.  When I sat down with Mrs. Demby, she said, “No. You should take honors physics.”  I attempted to argue for a minute, but she said, “I will not sign your card unless you sign up for honors.”  I was an extremely cooperative teenager and believed strongly in the judgment of teachers (Yes, I was annoying to my classmates), so I complied and would never have dreamed of going through the override process.

When I got my schedule during the summer, my honors physics teacher was listed as Jim Barbara.  My brother had been in his class two years earlier.  He said, “You’ll like him.  He’s kind of crazy.”  

If you don’t know my brother, it would be hard for you to fathom what a ringing endorsement those two sentences were.  My brother did not like teachers.  They loved him, but it was rarely mutual.  In the dividing up of our genetic material, I got all of the enthusiasm for school, love for authority figures, and faith in the judgement of experts.  He had none of that, so teachers were mostly necessary annoyances to him.  If he said a teacher was good, that meant most students would find them amazing.  In fact, I’ve only ever heard him say that about one other teacher.

So, I started my senior year in honors physics with my brother’s endorsement of Mr. Barbara and Mrs Demby’s belief that I would do well.  About four days into the school year, I realized that I not only liked physics; I adored it.  I found out that math wasn’t just math.  It expressed relationships between aspects of the world.  Mr. Barbara was, in fact, a little crazy - in the best possible way.  I believe he would have stood on his head if he thought it would help us to learn better.  

I’ve written about Mr. Barbara many times before, so I don’t want to focus on his role in my life.  You can read previous posts for that.  What I realized recently was that I would not have been in Mr. Barbara’s class if Mrs. Demby had not been willing to say, “I won’t sign your registration form if you put regular.”  She didn’t want me to take the easy way out.  She may have even known that part of any girl’s motivation was having the good looking teacher.  Whatever she knew, her willingness to insist that her judgment was better than mine put me on a path I might not have otherwise been on.

I haven’t seen Mrs. Demby since I graduated.  I’m not even sure I saw her during my senior year because I didn’t have any classes on her floor.  I don’t even know if she is still alive, so I cannot ask if she remembers this.  If I had to guess, I would imagine that she has no memory of this conversation.  She had similar conversations with every student every year.  As a teacher, I don’t have specific memories of these conversations for more than a few days (except for the times when they override my advice and it goes poorly).  The conversation that changed the direction of my life was likely the most mundane conversation she had that week.

The other physics teacher at my school said that one of her inspirations for majoring in physics in college was a video her high school physics teacher showed.  While it is possible that teacher had chosen that video very carefully because he believed it to be powerful, it is also likely that he was just tired that day and chose to show a video rather than teach (come on, now, we’ve all done it).  Either way, it sparked her interest in the world of physics.  These stories make me think about the power we have as teachers.  What conversation do I not remember having with a student that has stuck with them for years?  What did I do or say in class that changed a student?  Was it a good change or a bad change?  I speak hundreds of thousands of words each day.  Each one of them has some degree of impact on my students.  Some are minimally impactful, carrying influence for only a few minutes.  Others may change the path of a students’ life in a way I will never know.  This is why the Bible gives a strong warning In James 3:1 that “not many should presume to be teachers because they will be judged more harshly.”  While it is referring to those who teach the Scripture, I believe the principle applies to all teaching because of the potential we have to build up or tear down.

While I thank God for Mrs. Demby’s insistence that I take a higher level class, I also pause to pray that God gives me wisdom as I have similar discussions with my own students. As far as I know, Mrs. Demby did not believe in God. It's possible that my friend's teacher didn't either. That'd didn't stop God from using them. Surely as people whose mission is to spiritually equip, challenge, and inspire students, he can use us in similar ways.


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Do Your Methods Match Your Mission?

Last year, I did a whole series of posts on my school's mission statement.  All schools have a mission statement.  All churches have a mission statement.  All businesses have a mission statement.  At this point in America, I think it is possible that all individuals have a mission statement.  As a reminder, the mission statement of GRACE Christian is

"GRACE Christian School is a loving community that spiritually and academically equips, challenges, and inspires students to impact their world for Christ."

Mission statements are good to have and to put on t-shirts and coffee mugs, but what is more important is to use your mission statement as a filter.  Do you take the time to ask yourself whether your goals, objectives, or even methods align with your mission statement?  I think most of us are good at making goals from it, but I'm not sure that most people filter our methods through it.

I confess that it took me until last year to ask myself that question.  I knew our school's mission statement and I was fully committed to it, but I don't know that I intentionally constructed my classes around it.  So last year, after deciding to be almost obnoxious about it, I set out some student goals based on the specific mission of my school.

Equip:  Make you the informed thinker you need to be to make good decisions.  Ultimately, I want my students to make good decisions.  Whether that is choosing the right classes to take or exercising integrity in difficult moments, students must be informed. 

I teach them science, but I also tell them as many things as I can about as many ways as God gives me.  I show them that I love art and literature because it shouldn't just be an English teacher thing.  If they are interested in something, I learn what I can about it.  From baseball to theology to music, if you are going to make wise choices, you must be informed.  I can't teach them everything, but I teach them as much as possible and model for them that I am always learning. 

Challenge:  Ask you to perform better than you think you can at things you don't think you are good at.  If there is anything that two decades of teaching have taught me, it's that kids are capable of more than they think they are.  I teach eighth grade, so they enter my class with seventh-grade skills.  They have to leave my class with high school skills so they will be ready to learn more deeply.  For that reason, I use a lot of class time training.  I don't give them a study guide.  I teach them three ways to make their own.  I don't provide a "word bank" for tests.  I advise them on how to create good flashcards for themselves.  I spend a lot of review time showing them how to eliminate wrong answers in multiple-choice questions, a skill they will need for at least the next four years and possibly longer. 

Many of my good students perform lower in the first quarter than they are accustomed to.  It frightens them, and they want me to go back to their comfort level.  Sometimes, their parents want that too.  It would certainly be easier to do so, but I know that isn't right.  We would never take a toddler who falls down after their first few steps to go back to crawling, and we should tell kids who fall at their first few self-improvement attempts to go back to their old ways either.  We should comfort, encourage, and support; but we should not allow them to revert to their old ways.

Inspire:  Ask you to look beyond the grade, the curriculum, and the tests to see what you can do with your education.  This is the part of the mission statement I know I cannot accomplish.  God inspires, and he uses the many teachers a child has (including academic teachers, parents, culture, coaches, and even friends) in their lives as tools. 

So many of us are focused on grades and how learning applies to a job that we forget the purpose of education.  It's nice that we can get jobs related to our education, but it isn't the point.  The point is that they become more human.  A robot can be programmed to perform a job task or given the knowledge (data) needed to complete a calculation.  Part of being human is interacting with other humans who are different than we are, people with different skills, values, and interests.  The multidisciplinary approach to education helps them become better at those interactions.  When I have
this conversation with students, I say, "What if the ONLY thing I could talk about was physics.  Would you want to spend time with me?"  Of course, the answer is always no.  What if scientists only married other scientists?  What a boring life that family would lead.  Being interested in things makes you more interesting.  It allows you to interact with more people.  It allows you to serve more people.  Don't lock yourself into one thing.

Taking Your Education for Granted? Read Educated.

I tend to be a little behind in reading best-selling books.  If there's a hot, new book that everyone is reading, you can bet that I haven't read it yet.  I'm usually a good year behind.  My friend, Meagan Stone, recommended this one to me, and I am so glad I didn't wait to read it.

Educated is the memoir of Tara Westover of Buck's Peak, Idaho.  Raised by a father whose Mormonism was so extreme that even members of his own church thought he was crazy (and, he likely did suffer from undiagnosed bipolar disorder).  Tara had never seen a doctor because her father believed they were in league with the Illuminati or gone to school because, according to her dad, that was the government's way of brainwashing their kids.  They largely supported themselves through shed construction and scrapping from a junkyard, and some of the injuries she describes are astounding, especially when you consider they were treated with herbs and oils.  She didn't even have a birth certificate for the first nine years of her life, and no one can say with certainty when her birthday actually is.

As she described her childhood, I kept imagining a sort of 19th-century scene.  Then, she describes her family's preparation for Y2K and their response to 9/11.  I realized she is younger than I am.  How is it possible that this was happening in the 21st century?

While the story is gripping in every way, from her brother's abuse to her fear of a boy touching her hand for the fear she would get pregnant, the part that sticks with me is how quickly she learned to learn once she had the opportunity.

One of her brothers left home and, while attending BYU, encouraged her to do the same.  While she had been taught to read nd write, she had no education in math or in conveying ideas through writing.  In order to apply to BYU, she had to get at least a 27 on the ACT, so she got books and taught herself.  It took two only two attempts.  I know people who have been in school with excellent teachers their entire childhoods that required two attempts. 

It's not like once she was enrolled, she was prepared to do well in classes.  A friend had to tell her that she could actually read the art history textbook, and when she didn't know the word "holocaust," she upset her classmates by asking about it.  Nevertheless, this 32-year-old learned how to learn very quickly, found some people who believed in her abilities, and she now holds a Master's degree and a doctorate from Cambridge and was a visiting fellow at Harvard. 

There are two things that strike me most when reflecting on this book.

1.  Resilience is deeply embedded in children.  Tara witnessed and was subjected to manipulation, abuse, injury, and a myriad of traumatic events.  Had they been a bit more on the grid, she would likely have been removed from her family at a young age.  Yet, she overcame these challenges with teaching and encouragement from a few important people.  We talk about this in camp training every year.  We are working with foster children, but when they receive unconditional love for a week, we see remarkable growth because God has placed resilience in the human heart.  No one has suffered so much that they cannot thrive when finally placed in the right conditions with the right encouragement.

2.  Don't take your education for granted.  As I said earlier, as I read this book, I kept feeling like it was from another era or a less developed country.  You may have a had a bad teacher now and then, but you had teachers.  You may not have gotten the study skills training you should have gotten at your school, but you probably knew you could read the textbook before you got to college.  You may not know as much math as your peers, but you didn't start from scratch at the age of 16 by teaching yourself.  Whether you attended public school, private school, or had real homeschooling, be grateful for it rather than complaining that someone made you work more than you wanted to.

Do You See What I (Don't) See?

Friday night, my school carried out one of its greatest traditions - our senior dinner.  One of the special things about working in a school with a graduating class of sixty is that we have the opportunity to make this event very personal.  Each student is talked about by a teacher, who has signed up to talk about them (sometimes having to fight for them with another teacher who also wants to) and shares stories about their character.  We know, love, and value our students' and their character, and this is a great night to showcase that.

There are many things that I love about this event, but there is one thing that strikes me every year.  The kid who pushes my buttons is someone else's favorite person.  Every year, I find myself listening to a speech and saying to myself, "I would never have thought that."  I find that students I have only known from the hallway (because I didn't get the opportunity to teach them) are different than I imagined.  I hear stories that make me think, "Wow, I wish I had gotten the chance to know her."  The stories we tell about our experiences with kids are inevitably revelations to other teachers

This night reminds me every year why every student needs a team of teachers, not just one.  If a student only had me, there would be some who would not be reached well.  The history teacher may see something that the English teacher doesn't.  The yearbook advisor or art teacher may have the opportunity to find a gift that doesn't show up in math.  The math and English teachers may have the chance to observe a student's perseverance in a way that others can't.  Each of us gets to see something the others might not. 

When we finish this night each year, we hope that each parent in the room knows that their child is loved and appreciated by at least one teacher.  We hope that each student in the room knows there is at least one teacher who knows them and sees who they are.  That's what we want for our students and parents.  What I hope for the teachers in the room is for us to see how much we are all needed.  You see what I cannot, and vice versa. 

A Life Invested - Tribute to Henry Black

I didn't know Henry for very long.  We were RFK camp colleagues for six summers.  All together, between camp weeks and training days, that means we had only spent about 7 weeks together.  What you may not know about RFK is that the intensity of service to foster kids drives relationships deeper during those weeks than they do in the non-camp world.  Knowing Henry during these few weeks taught me much, and his death makes the world a dimmer place.  In tribute to Henry, I'd like to share a few of the lessons he taught everyone, especially those at Royal Family Kids Camp.

1.  Gentleness is not weakness.  The kids at RFK have lived difficult lives.  They have seen and experienced things that made them grow up too fast and become defensive.  Often, they arrive at camp with a tough front.  In their lives, vulnerability leads to bad things, so they have to pretend they are strong, whether or not they are.  When they met Henry, they met gentleness personified.  He was kind, but he was not weak.  I have no doubt that there are many adults in the world today who are kinder than they would have been if they had not seen Henry's example.


2.  You don't have to be loud to be heard.  Henry was the calmest man I've ever known.  I never heard his voice raised.  I don't think I ever heard his voice louder than 30dB.  Yet, I stood close to him at camp training because he said great things.  He was funny and profound and worth hearing.  When we planted a new camp, the woodworking director had been trained by Henry.  While the woodworking area is loud, he isn't.  Henry's influence carried over into more than one camp.  While this lesson was never explicitly stated, the kids who spent time at either of those woodworking stations saw what quiet influence was. 

3.  Doing something tangible with your hands is therapeutic.  I mentioned before that Henry was in charge of the woodworking station.  There is no part of camp that was more surprising to me than this station.  Before that first year, I pictured small projects in the realm of those little snap together kits you get at Lowes.  I arrived at camp to find real lumber and real tools.  Kids were building everything from bug catching boxes to chairs.  Yes, chairs that they could actually sit in.  In my second year as a counselor, I had a girl who pulled out a sheet of paper with a list of wood projects she wanted to make, mostly as gifts for family and friends.  She wanted to spend every activity time at the woodworking station.  When I asked her what she liked so much about woodworking, she said, "I can take home something real that I made and give it to people."  Make something real gave her a sense of accomplishment that she needed.  One of the most memorable moments I have from that year happened when I was with her, helping her make a jewelry box.  An angry seven-year-old boy arrived at the table with his cabin.  He didn't want to be there; he didn't want to make anything.  Henry calmly handed him a block of wood, a pile of nails, and a hammer and said, "Just hammer these."  For an hour, that boy pounded nails into a block of wood.  He started pounding them with anger, but by the end of the hour, he was laughing with his counselor while joyfully hammering these nails.  I'm not under the misconception that all of that boy's problems have now been solved because of an hour of hammering nails, but for that hour, he put his energy into something besides anger. 

Camp wasn't the only way in which Henry served the Lord (see his obituary here).  He was an active member of his church, and usher, a Royal Rangers commander.  He invested his life in others, and that investment is reaping eternal benefits.

Embracing the Average

The Dove company, makers of soap and other personal care products has established it's marketing as embracing the beauty of all.  They started with the Dove Evolution videos, in which they showed the transformation of a model from her everyday girl on the street look to her magazine ready look to show people that this ideal to which we all aspire is an illusion created by artists.

They followed up with the Dove Beauty Sketches: You're More Beautiful Than You Think videos.  These encouraged us to realize that while we focus on our flaws others do not.  I'm on board with this, and it has gotten Dove a lot of attention as these have gone viral.  There are others, but these are the two that became the most well known.

I applaud Dove for these efforts and hope they will continue to make women of all races, sizes, and looks learn to appreciate themselves.  They have one experiment that I take issue with, however, because it seems to be asking us to deny a basic fact.  It is the Choose Beautiful experiment.  They replaced the signs above the entrance doors to a store with the words "Average" and "Beautiful."  They then recorded women as they entered.  Any woman who is like me probably didn't notice the signs, to begin with, and just entered whichever door they habitually entered, but you can see in the video that some women saw and paused to consider their choice.  Here's where I am bothered rather than inspired.  Any woman who entered the door marked Average was stopped and told that she should embrace the idea that she is beautiful.

Let's recognize a couple of basic facts.  First, by definition, most people are average.  If everyone is beautiful, no one is beautiful.  I'm not saying that everyone doesn't have some uniquely beautiful thing about them or that everyone doesn't have some special gift.  I absolutely believe that God has given everyone what they need to do what he has given them to do.  However, the idea that no one should see themselves as average is just a silly idea.

Second, the most beautiful women don't look the same every day.  Perhaps she is sick or hasn't slept well.  She may know that she is less beautiful today than she normally is.

Third, and most importantly, let's stop thinking of average as a bad thing.  Average isn't bad.  It isn't ugly.  It isn't something to shun or deny.  It is exactly what it is.  It is average.  Our culture has become so obsessed with the superlative that we can't be satisfied anymore.  A meal isn't worth eating if it isn't the best meal I have ever eaten, worthy of posting on Instagram.  A Disney cruise is somehow deficient if I don't have the luxury passes for everything.  Prom isn't just supposed to be fun; it has to be magical.  We don't post pictures with a friend that says we are friends.  We say, "my whole heart."  Setting aside the idolatry of that, let's just address that it isn't true.  That person is not your whole heart.  No matter how good a friend they are to you, they are one person in your life that you love.

With the best of intentions, Dove took something away from the women who went through the average door.  They took away their sense of self-assessment.  The attempt to make everyone think they are beautiful seems loving, but it still means I have to believe you and not myself.  In the same way that kids who got trophies they hadn't earned actually felt worse when they looked at it, telling everyone to view themselves as beautiful is making them feel worse when they evaluate the image in the mirror.  Getting a compliment on something you don't personally believe to be commendable leads to insecurity and a sense of imposter's syndrome.  "If only they knew," you will think.

My blog is supposed to be about education, so let's look at this academically.  Telling every kid that they are the best student ever seems loving, but they know their weaknesses better than you do.  When you compliment something they feel bad about, it just makes them feel worse.  Instead, have them engage in some reflection.  If they don't like what they've done, don't tell them they are wrong.  Ask them why.  Ask them what they would do differently if they could do it again.  Teach them the humility to embrace the fact that they aren't the best at everything, but they can get better at anything.

Statistically, unless you are in a school for the academically gifted, you teach mostly average kids.  That means they will be very good at something and mediocre at others.  Embrace that, and teach them to embrace it.  They should want to grow in everything, which they can't do if they are already being told they are amazing at it.  Help them develop their strengths, and help them see how they can grow in their weaknesses.  Do not try to make them think they will be the best in the world at their weaknesses in the belief that it will be motivating.

Which door would you walk through?  Some of you may rightly walk through the "Beautiful" door.  I would walk through the "Average" door and then be proud of my self-awareness, but I have a long history of not caring what other people think.

What Inspires Me

Last week I mentioned Danny Steele, an administrator with a Twitter account of educational encouragement.  Occasionally, he does a few posts called "What Inspires Me?"  Since I don't do New Year's resolutions, I thought I would use the typical end of year reflective time to think about the things that have inspired me in 20 years of teaching.  Here are some things that inspire me (and just a few of the people who display them).

- Teachers who challenge their students and then spend their time helping students meet that challenge. (Zane and Meagan)
- Students who give their best to meet challenges. (They're minors, so I won't use their names, but they know who they are.)

- The energy and enthusiasm of first and second year teachers. (Hannah and Emily)

- Veteran teachers who still spend time reading and learning from the latest research. (Kristin)
- Teachers who keep using techniques they know to be effective, not being swayed by fads. (Kellie)
- Teachers who come to our school from other places and give us a chance to see it with fresh eyes, reminding us what we have. (Melanie and Julianne)
- Colleagues who generously share their best practices. (Too many to name)
- Media specialists who help me think through new things. (Laura and Daniel)
- Colleagues who give me great ideas and then help me implement them.  (Kellie, Elizabeth, Jaime)
- Administrators who problem solve so that everyone gets the best they can have. (Mandy, Eric, James, Pascale, Isaiah)
- Office, lunch, and maintenance staff who give their best every day even though their work doesn't get talked about. (Karen, Kathleen, Willa Bea, Beth, Vivian, BJay)
- Educators who take to Twitter to share their wisdom and encourage strangers. (Danny Steele)
- The memories I have of my best teachers (I wrote about them in November)
- Alumni who return to share their lives with us. (Harrison, Will, Jay, Caroline, Cassidy, Rhea, Alex, and dozens of others)

Thanks to all of you for inspiring everyone you influence.

Magic of the Mundane

Do you know what a miracle walking on two feet is?  No, you don't.  It's okay that you don't.  You aren't crazy enough to think about things like this while just living your regular life.  I'm the person who thinks about physics all the time and how, while we think of friction, as a negative thing, we could not walk, swallow, or write with a pencil if it didn't exist.

Okay, let's talk about bipedal walking.  First, have you noticed that we are the only species (besides non-flight birds) that use it as a primary form of movement?  I'm not saying nothing else can walk on two legs, but they do it for short periods and then drop back down to four for actual travel.  My cat will get on his back legs to swat at something with his front paws, but he doesn't walk to the kitchen that way.

Why?  Because bipedal motion is inherently unstable.  Most animals keep three points of contact with the ground most of the time (exceptions when running fast or for defensive reasons, but for most regular activity, they keep a tripod on the ground).  Keeping three points of contact means that if the center of gravity shifts a bit, it is still supported (physics, just roll with me).

Now, let's look at the way we humans walk.  We stand on two legs, which means there is a much narrower range to how far our center of gravity can move before we lose our balance.  Then, we pick our foot up, shifting all of our weight to one foot and make ourselves fall forward!  The other foot comes down to support our shifting center of gravity and just as soon as it does, we repeat the process with the other foot.  How are we not falling down multiple times a day?  We aren't.  We walk without even thinking about it.  If you aren't amazed by that, adjust your sense of awe.  Even atheist researcher Steven Pinker,  in his book How the Mind Works, calls it miraculous.

Your hand is even more amazing.  It can open a vacuum sealed jar, turn a key in a lock, type, lift a fork, operate a pencil or chopsticks, stroke someone's hair, and pinch.  These are massively different skills involving different sets of muscles.  Have you had this experience?  You are on the way out of the house to get in your car when you realize the trash bag is full and needs to be taken out.  While still holding your car keys, you reach down and hook the bag with two fingers.  When you get outside, you lift the garbage can lid with your one free finger and drop the bag in without letting go of the keys?  What?  Do you realize how many different kinds of muscle maneuvers that involves? 

I could keep going, but here is my point.  We live our lives every day with awe-inspiring incidents all around us that we don't notice because they are so common.

This week is going to be stressful.  We are getting close to Christmas.  For some schools, that means there are exams.  For others, it means kids getting rambunctious.  For all, it means there will be tons of sugar coming into your building.  I haven't even mentioned the non-teacher related stresses of the holidays.

When you need something to destress during this week, look around.  Look at your hand while it holds a pencil or types on your computer.  Be amazed at the quick movement across the keys and how your brain and fingers work together without your even noticing.  Look at the paper you are writing on and think about how incredible it that it was once an actual tree with bark and leaves that there is no way you could write on with a pen.  Marvel at your calculator, which has more power than the computer that took us to the moon.  Be amazed by your stapler, your copy machine, or any of the other astonishing things that surround you in everyday life.  It will make you smile to recognize the magic in the mundane.

Thanksgiving Post 4 - Mr. Barbara

When you teach, you often get asked who was "the one."  People want to know who the teacher was that inspired you to be a teacher.  You may be able to tell from the series of posts this month that I didn't just have one.  I had many teachers in my life that pushed me along the way and inspired me in different ways.  (I haven't even touched on the English teachers who made me love literature and taught me to organize my thoughts in writing.  I haven't mentioned a favorite math teacher who showed me the magic of fractals.)  God definitely blessed me with "the several."  However, there is one teacher who beyond doubt is the reason I teach physics today.  My physics teacher, Mr. Jim Barbara, is the physics teacher everyone should have had.

Let's start with this astounding fact.  My brother liked him.  My brother is not a fan of teachers.  He tolerated their presence in his life at best.  When I got my schedule for my senior year and saw Mr. Barbara's name on it, my brother said, "You'll like him.  He's crazy."  That may not sound like a high praise, but from my brother, it is a glowing recommendation.  From the first day of school, it was clear that Mr. Barbara loved physics.  I mean, he loved it, and he obviously loved teaching it.  I'm not sure I ever had a teacher who seemed to be having more fun than Mr. Barbara.  I'm sure you already know this, but when the teacher is having fun, the kids learn more (A thought I keep in mind while I'm teaching as well).

Mr. Barbara had more energy than a person can handle while standing still, so he was always bouncing around the room.  He would be in the middle of a sentence and run into the storage room to get something to illustrate his point, emerging from the storage room still talking.  He just had more to say and show us than he could contain.  I couldn't get enough, and since I had him the last period of the day, I would often stay for a few more minutes to ask him more questions (I didn't stop being a demanding learner after Mr. Sandberg, you know).

Although Mr. Barbara and I had different worldviews, I felt that he respected mine (or at least my devotion to it).  When he discovered the internet (This was 1994, and he was the first person I ever heard use the word internet.), he actually took the time to tell me about "religious things" he had seen on it.

Because of Mr. Barbara's energy and response to my innate curiosity, I devoured physics.  I went home at the end of each day and did my homework in reverse class order so that I could do my physics first.  I would be sitting at a concert and be really excited that I knew how the microphones worked.  I would watch a play and wonder about the physics behind getting the sets to move.  This was possibly also the first time I understood that math described the function and relationship of things.  I had been able to do math, but I had not understood its purpose until Mr. Barbara connected it to physics.

I was a college freshman when I found out that Mr. Barbara was leaving the teaching profession for the world of computer networking.  I wrote him a letter, telling him that while I knew he didn't owe me an explanation, I wanted one anyway.  I'm sure he enjoyed his career in computers, but the world of education suffered a great loss that day.

When people tell me they don't like physics, I tell them they didn't have the right teacher.  The teacher is important in every discipline, but in a subject like physics, it is essential that you have someone who can show you the bigger picture and reveal "the awesome" that lies behind the work.  Mr. Jim Barbara did that for me, and for that and all his energy and love, I am thankful.

Thanksgiving Post 3 - Mr. Sandberg

While I wrote these posts in order of the year I had each teacher, I am very happy that this particular teacher landed on the week of Thanksgiving.  When I think of the teachers for which I am most thankful, Mr. Don Sandberg is number one on the list.  This should be the easiest post to write, but it is actually difficult because it is hard to sum up what Mr. Sandberg has meant to me in just one post.

Mr. Sandberg taught me physical science in the 9th grade, and this is the subject I have taught every year for the last twenty years.  In the first two years of my teaching, I never sat down to do a lesson plan without thinking of how Mr. Sandberg taught me.  If there was an analogy or example or technique he used to make something clear to us, I wrote it into my own plans.  Although I have developed my own style and techniques in the classroom, some of those early things remain in my teaching to this day.  Any student who has had me for physical science has gotten at least a little instruction from Mr. Sandberg.

Perhaps the most important thing Mr. Sandberg did for me as a student was to encourage my curiosity.  He didn't make me curious because I came into the world that way, but he did keep me curious.  And at a time in my life when it would have been easy to throw me off track as I was a loud, strange, 14-year-old girl when I was in his class.  I was a pretty demanding learner.  In the 10 months that I was in his class, I estimate that I asked him 144,000 questions.  I asked him how keys open locks, how gas pumps know to cut off when the tank is full, and thousands of other things.  One day, he pulled out a scrap of paper and said, "I think you would find this book helpful."  It was The Way Things Work by David Macauley.  I ran right out and bought it; and before there was Google, this book was a valuable source of information for me.  I still have it today.  While his recommendation of this book might have been as much for his benefit as mine, it just led to me asking him even more questions.  The important thing is that he never seemed exasperated by my constant stream of questions.  He didn't turn me away, even if he couldn't answer.  It is scary to know that a frustrated teacher on a bad day could say something to squelch a student's curiosity, and it is amazing to me that he never did.  I keep this in mind when I am teaching students like myself.  I look at the picture on my classroom wall and say, "Mr. Sandberg was patient with you.  You must be patient with them."

If you have never taught in a Christian school, you may not know the responsibility that a Christian educator feels in fostering the spiritual development of students, modeling faith, and integrating Biblical worldview into the curriculum.  It is frightening because the last thing you want to do is innoculate students to the Lord, giving them just enough of a weakened version of Jesus that they miss the real thing.  You may not know that teachers receive zero training in how to do this, even when getting an education degree from a Christian university.  When I started at GRACE, I was at a bit of a loss for how to lesson plan with this in mind.  Once again, I thought back to my times with Mr. Sandberg.  He revealed the gospel in everything he did and every conversation he had with students; it was just implicit in who he was.  While I don't know that I will ever think I'm doing enough of this in my classroom, his model was inspirational and still is.

For all that Mr. Sandberg was to me my freshman year and what he continues to be for me now, I am thankful.