Methods of Encoding - Movement

In a college biology class, I was learning about the difference between mitosis and meiosis. If you have learned this concept yourself, you know it can be very confusing to keep the movement of the chromatids straight at each phase of the process.  As I wrote last year, images are helpful, but because it is dynamic process, they were not helping me see how things moved from on phase to another. The professor knew this, so he had us all stand up. We began in a clump at the center of the room (cell). As we moved into prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase, he had us move toward partners and away from other groups until we finally had split into two classes (daughter cells). He was taking advantage of movement for encoding.

Was it because we were a room full of kinesthetic learners?  Nope.  At the time, because I didn't know learning styles were a myth, I would have called myself an auditory learner, but experiencing the motion of each phase did help me encode each one better than words alone (or even words with images) would have. I would like to point out, though, that the movement alone wouldn't have been helpful without explicit explanation coming first.  The movement helped cement the learning, but it did not teach mitosis to me.

Gesture has become all the rage, but there is still much research to be done on its effectiveness.  As with a lot of things in science, the results of experiment are very specific to content and context.  So, the conclusion seems to be that some types of gesture help some kids learn some content. Given that there is zero cost to implementing it and it will help a bit with engagement, I say it is worth trying.  It can be as complex as the "dance steps" we did for mitosis.  It can also be as simple as having students hold up a circle with their hands to indicate a zero.

Content which involves relationships in three dimensional space benefit from use of moving the body to represent those relationships.  Mitosis is one example, but as a physics student, I was taught the "right hand rules" to help with analyzing the relationship between electrical current, magnetic fields, and force.  Each pair of those has a perpendicular effect on the third one.  Unless you are already quite familiar with this topic, that explanation was probably confusing.  It will help if you see this picture, but nothing helps as much as students twisting their hands to the orientation of the set up described in the problem.  One only needs to walk into the test on this chapter and see students silently doing that exact thing to know how much it helps.

Since the research is fairly new, there are a wide variety of hypotheses about why it works and no solid conclusions.  Some have posed that it provides an offload to working memory.  If I can hold the number 3 that I'm going to need in a second in my hand, I don't have to hold it in my brain.  I've done this without meaning to while teaching cycle classes.  If I know we are going to increase tension 6 times, I'll have four fingers resting on the handlebar, so I can tell my class, "This one is number 5 of 6."  If an anatomy student is pointing at her own femur while rehearsing proximal and distal attachments, she won't have to look back at a diagram to remember which part she is dealing with.  The gesture might serve as a physical mnemonic device, reminding you of the thing it symbolizes. Like I said, the research is too new to have drawn any meaningful conclusion about the mechanisms just yet.

We all know the power of muscle memory for physical activities, like dance and sports.  Muscles are meat, so they don't actually remember, but a well myelinated pathway from repeated practice is how we make learning permanent. 

If you want to implement this is your classrooms, start slowly.  There is no need to insist that every piece of content have a motion or gesture, and the research doesn't support that anyway.  I would suggest the use of movements and gestures will only be really helpful if they are natural.  If you have to think hard to come up with a gesture and force it to fit, it will likely not be beneficial.  

What We Don't Know

As I wrap up my classroom teaching career, I find myself a little nostalgic.  As a result, I've been telling students and colleagues a lot of stories about my early years.  That has left me thinking quite a bit about the things I didn't know when I started.  As I have tried to convey to my students for years, you have to keep an open mind about things because you don't know where they will lead.  Allow me a little self-indulgence while I describe a few that have come to mind recently.

When I entered college, I wanted to teach physics.  Just physics.  I had only recently taken it in high school and fallen in love with it, so that's what I wanted to teach.  My advisors kept saying to me, "That job does not exist.  There is nowhere that has a position where you teach physics all day, so you have to be able to teach other things."  My degree plan included three courses in chemistry and their labs as well as four lecture/lab combinations in biology, and had reasonably good attitudes about most of those.  But, the class I was snotty about was earth science.  While I liked Dr. Meleen, I just didn't care about rocks.  If you want a textbook in good condition, you can have mine because I rarely opened it.  After doing my student teaching in physics, chemistry, and physical science, I had to defend it to a panel of three.  One of those three people was my earth science professor.  After I talked about what I had learned in my classroom experiences, he told me that he was going on a partial sabbatical for the following year and wondered if I would be interested in teaching the lab section of the course for a year.  Since I was very interested in paying rent for the year, I accepted immediately.  But, yikes!  I was now going to teach the very course I had blown off.  I remember calling my mom the day before I started in a panic, saying, "But I don't know anything about rocks."  It didn't take long to figure it out because I am, above all else, a learner.  But it was a big lesson for me in keeping an open mind.  

I've been packing up things from my classroom for a couple of weeks now, and one of those things is my calculator.  That little device is twice as old as the students I teach, and I have used it to calculate scores for every test of my career, including last week's exams.  My trusty TI-81 is likely on its last legs.  I'll be sad when it finally dies.  Much like my proofreading sweater, high school backpack, and penny loafers, I won't be able to bring myself to toss it out and will place it on a shelf as a piece of objet d'art.  I've lived a lot of life with that calculator since I got in in the 10th grade.  But here's what I thought about this week.  I didn't want to buy that calculator.  It was the first year that graphing calculators had become available, and the school required it for Algebra II.  I was resistant because they were so expensive.  When they told me that I would not be able to pass Algebra II without it, I had to wonder how people had passed it the year before, when they didn't exist.  This calculator that I now love is something I didn't want to have.

There's so much we don't know before it happens.  I didn't know I would love physics before I took it and almost didn't take the honors section.  I gave up the chance to take art with one of the best art teachers in the region because I was intimidated.  I didn't know I would love putting together yearbooks.  I didn't know I would one day teach students over a computer screen.  I didn't know that attending the Learning and the Brain conference would one day lead me to an interest in teaching teachers or writing a book.  I didn't know joining the Y after I gave up the yearbook would lead to a change of mission in my life.  

We can't see the future.  We can barely see one or two steps ahead of our own feet.  But, as I've written in quite a few yearbooks recently, "Keep looking to the Lord, and he'll lead you in the way you are supposed to go."  He knows what we don't know.

The Last Time I Will . . .

For those who may not know, I am in the last semester of teaching.  After 25 years in the classroom, God is moving me in other directions.  Because it is mid-March, that means I am experiencing many things for the last time.  Some of those are fine.  I'll be happy not to conduct department chair observations or grade NASA essays in the future.  They aren't bad things, but I can't say I'm going to miss them.  

But there are other things that I'm sad to be doing for the last time.  God gave me training wheels for this last year when I was advising my last yearbook, so I am familiar with the feeling of being nostalgic for something while it is happening, but this week has been that experience on steroids.  I think it is because we are in my favorite chapter in 8th grade science (sound waves).  In physics, I am teaching many of the same students that I had as 8th graders during lockdown, and we have reached the material that I taught them from home.

Thursday, for example, I taught 8th graders about how our ears process sound.  I LOVE teaching that. Even though you will not find it in any physical science textbook, I set aside a day for it because I think if you are going to talk about sound waves, you should talk about how you interact with them.  (The same will be true in the light chapter after spring break - we will spend two days talking about the eye and dysfunction of the eye.)  I have honed this lesson into a perfect act, and I love doing it.  I love the questions they ask.  I love the weird answers they give to my questions.  So Thursday was a great day, but I was also sad because it is unlikely I'll ever have a reason to put on this particular show again.

I am excited about the new things that are coming in my life, but there are few things I'll really miss.  For 25 years, I have shown three of the episodes of From the Earth to the Moon to students.  I may have to watch them by myself at home next January because it just won't be January if I don't see them (I'll refrain from watching the same episode 4 times in one day).  When I teach the Doppler effect, I love getting in my car and driving past the kids at 40 mi/hr while holding down my horn.  If I do that after this year, someone will have me evaluated for mental issues.  A lot of what I do are things non-science teachers don't have an excuse to do.  

What is nice is that I know this is the last year.  I can savor these last moments of "This is the last time I will . . ."  The other nice thing is that I can now share this feeling with my kids.  Prior to making the announcement in February, I was having this experience, and they didn't understand the weird vibe I was giving off.  Now, I can actually say to them, "Well, that's the last time I'll ever get to do that" and share a nice moment with them as the people I got to do it for the final time with.

I Literally Just Told You

I spend a lot of my day repeating myself.  I repeat information.  I repeat student's names to get their attention.  I repeat directions over and over and over and over.  While part of this is an issue of attention and listening (particularly when they are just ignoring their own name), some of the problem is also with the mystery of our memories.  The combination of our working memory and how we encode information creates a challenge for teachers as we try to put things into their long-term memories.  

During the pandemic, I discovered a love for British game/panel shows on YouTube.  There's one I am not sure will last long, but it has an interesting premise.  It's called "I Literally Just Told You."  All of the questions in the show are being written live and are about the episode you are watching.  For example, they introduce each contestant as you would on any show, and then the first question might be, "How many children does Darren have?" or "What does Lisa do for a living?"  You would think that, knowing the premise of the show, the contestant might pay really good attention during those introductions.  They might, but they certainly don't remember it sixty seconds later when they are asked.  

Our memories are complex and often paradoxical.  We can be singing an 80s song in our heads, flawlessly remembering every lyric from four decades ago, while walking into the bedroom, only to realize that we have no idea why we walked into the bedroom.  Did I need shoes?  Was I going to make the bed?  Is there a book in here that I want to take to school with me?  I have no idea, but I am still singing "Secrets stolen from deep inside, the second hand unwinds . . ." from Cyndi Lauper's early career while I can't remember the thought I had just twenty seconds ago.  Clearly, recency alone is not what our memories need.

If you attend church, can you summarize last week's sermon?  Your minister worked hard on it.  He structured it in such a way that he hoped would help you remember.  Chances are, it was filled with really important things that struck you upon hearing them.  What about last night's news broadcast.  There was an awful lot of important stuff in there; big things are happening in the world.  Yet, the importance of those story details is not enough for your memory to store it.

For a while, researchers thought memory was related to emotion because of the involvement of the amygdala and because we obviously remember emotional moments vividly (weddings, funerals, where you were when you heard of a tragedy).  Yet, most of what we want to remember and want our students to remember is not inherently emotional.  How would I attach emotion to balancing chemical equations or the quadratic formula?  And, even if I could, is it good for kids?  They are already walking around in an emotional soup, and it may not be ethical for me to add to that.

Could it be frequency?  Maybe I remember the song lyrics because I've heard them so many times.  TV commercials certainly rely on that.  Maybe all the repeating I do is valuable after all, even if it drains my energy.  But . . . ask anyone who has been in a play, having read and heard the lines at every rehearsal doesn't help them on "crash and burn day," the first rehearsal where they are required to be off book.  

This example from the great Daniel Willingham's book, Why Don't Students Like School? shows that frequency is also not enough for your memory.  Which drawing of a penny represents the way an actual penny looks?  There are a few I am certain are wrong.  I know Lincoln does not face left.  But is the year on the left or right?  Yikes!  I am far less sure of that.  I think the motto is on the top, but aren't there some coins where it isn't?  If you are interested, the correct one is G, but the point Willingham is making is that seeing a penny thousands of times doesn't mean you remember its details.

So, how does memory work?  I'd encourage you to read Why Don't Students Like School for the best explanation (or watch Daniel Willingham's TikTok videos (you know I saw them on YouTube) in which he talks about study skills.), but I'll summarize it with this sentence.  We remember what we put effort into thinking about.  As he says it, "Memory is the residue of thought."

Asking your students to think about the material means asking questions.  "Family VIIA is the most reactive non-metal family" is much easier to remember if you understand that each member of that family has 7 valence electrons and only needs one more to fulfill its stability requirements.  So, when I ask students this question in a retrieval activity, I should follow up by asking, "Why is that true?"  Why questions automatically require students to put thought into the meaning of the fact.  It is also helpful to put a fact in the context of relationships.  If family VIIA is the most reactive non-metal family for that reason, what would be the most reactive metal family?  Is the reason the same?  Sort of, so now let's think about the difference.  

This takes a lot of time, and you can't do it with everything you teach.  But if there are things that are going to come up again that you want them to remember and use, invest the time.

As for the directions you keep repeating, write them on the board.  Then, just point back to it when they ask you to repeat it again.

When Everything Goes Wrong: The Best Camp Week Ever

I've been participating in Royal Family Kids Camp for the past fourteen years.  Last week was the best week of camp I've ever had.  I'm not the only one who feels that way.  Others have posted about it as well.  Reading that, you might think everything went according to our perfectly planned schedule.  If you think that, you would be wrong.  Many, many things went differently than we expected, but God used all of it to make a week of fun and bonding and great memories for some awesome kids.

As you can imagine, at a camp that takes place in North Carolina in July, the pool is an important part of our day.  The kids have at least one swim time each day, and on some days, there are two swim times.  At every meal, I ask kids about their favorite things.  Swimming is the most common answer.  So, when we found the pool was likely unavailable, it was a concern.  Many people had spent many hours working to repair the pool (which had apparently been leaking the year before).  The pool itself was fixed, but the repairs required digging up the concrete deck around the pool, so we couldn't get to it.  On Sunday, we believed it to be possible that the concrete would get poured on Monday, the pool inspected Tuesday morning, and that we would be back in business by Tuesday afternoon.  Then, we had a long, heavy rain on Sunday and a thunderstorm on Monday afternoon.  Concrete cannot be poured over wet ground, and it is unwise to pour it if it looks like it will be rained on before it sets; so that meant there would be no pool.  The adults were worried that this might make for a bad week, but alternate plans were made.  On Monday, the kids played water games (think your middle school field day activities), and then we rented an inflatable water slide.  The squeals and laughter coming from the kids on that slide were a sign to me that they didn't feel deprived.  

Because last year, we didn't have "real camp," we invited the kids whose last year it would have been to return this year.  That meant we had a group of graduates who were 12 and 13.  As you know, 13-year-olds don't enjoy the same things as 7-year-olds, so our director planned a sort of parallel camp schedule.  It wreaked all kinds of havoc with the schedule because we had to split the staff in ways we hadn't before.  Adding to that was the goal of keeping kids and adults in cohorts for CoVid reasons, so our poor directors kept having to schedule and reschedule where our people went.  While that was a challenge, it led to some people doing things they never had before.  I did two nights of counselor relief, an hour at bedtime when the counselors get a break and staff members spend time with their kids in the cabins.  I had never done it before because most of my work takes place in the evenings, but because of the challenging scheduling, I got to spend some sweet time giggling with delightfully creative girls who told me about their imaginary pets and sang very silly songs.  

On Tuesday, we were supposed to have a special event with the Super Skippers, a jump rope squad that teaches the kids how to do some tricks.  We have had them before, and they are amazing.  For some reason, they were unable to come.  With no time to plan an alternative, our evening activity became free-play with the birthday presents the kids received at dinner.  I took the opportunity to make one of my eleven Wal-Mart runs (no, that's not hyperbole), and when I returned, I found groups of kids and counselors playing basketball, swinging and climbing on playground equipment, playing with slinkies, and riding bikes.  Have that one hour of unscheduled time was nice for them.  All the things we plan are awesome, and too much downtime would lead to problems, but that one hour was lovely and made going to bed that night a bit easier because they weren't transitioning from a super high energy activity.

Because we are considered a compassionate charity and work with children in foster care, there are some things were are not allowed to do.  One of those is holding altar calls.  We are free to teach Bible stories and pray with kids and respond to their questions, but we are not allowed to ask them to come forward or raise their hands, etc.  Of course, that means we also tell anyone we have invited that they cannot do it either.  The magicians we invited to perform on Thursday went right up to that line, and every adult in the room was scared they were going to cross it.  While it shouldn't have happened, God still used it because the kids asked their counselors questions that led to important conversations.

I'm not sure I've ever had a week at camp where more changed from the original plan, but I also don't think I've ever had a camp week where it seemed every kid had a good experience.  That's not to say we didn't have drama and tears (We had some 13-year-old girls, remember), but at the end of the week, they went home with the experience of riding a horse for the first time or finding the items on a treasure hunt or building a wood project they could be proud of. They took home a bracelet or keychain or checkers board or hat or decorative rock or painting or fuse bead necklace or Lego project or tie-dyed pillowcase (we have a lot of crafts) they enjoyed making.  They went home with the memory of singing and dancing with people who treated them kindly and a CD and CD player so they could listen to those songs and make those memories last.  Their photo albums will serve as a touchstone to remember all of these moments and relationships when their lives are hard and they don't feel important.  They won't remember that the schedule changed or that the Super Skippers bailed.  We hope they will remember that they are loved by a group of adults who will always hold them in their hearts.  

What I Hope They'll Remember

Most of us have, for better or worse, vivid memories of our middle and high school years.  And, we went to school in precedented times, comparably rather dull compared to what my students are experiencing.  Tomorrow, I return from Christmas break.  Contrary to popular opinion, dropping the ball on the 31st didn't change anything (I promise this is my last slam at New Year's until next year).  I will return tomorrow with my mask in place, walk through the temperature scanner, meet in social distanced department meetings, and plan for more hybrid teaching.  Last school year, it was the final quarter that was upended by COVID, but this year, it influences the entire academic year.  Our students will remember this year, telling their kids and grandkids what it was like to live through the COVID pandemic.  I hope what they remember will be formative of their character.  Here's what I'm hoping for.

I hope students will remember teachers who did not panic.  There's a professional line between being authentic with students and sharing things that are not good for them.  My personal rule is, "A student should not go home worried about me."  When the pandemic hit, teachers felt a variety of things.  Some feared contracting the virus themselves or bringing it home to their families.  Some worried about their students whose home situations were not ideal.  Some were worried about the impact of virtual learning on the education of their students.  We were all sad that we wouldn't be able to connect with our students in the normal ways.  I don't know what every student saw from their teachers, but one of the things I am most proud of at GRACE is that we shared emotion, not panic.  Our students saw us cry, but they saw us wipe those tears, pick up our markers, and keep going.  They saw us put on our masks and do our best  I hope when they are adults who encounter difficult challenges that they will do the same.

I hope students will remember that teachers did everything they could to help them.  A thousand decisions have to be made every day in a normal school year, but I am usually confident in those decisions.  During pandemic teaching, I made a lot of decisions that I had no way of applying my experience to.  I tried to let my students know that whatever the result, I would find a way to make it fair.  Overall, I think we came to a good place, in the best interest of the student, while holding to the integrity of our classes.  Where we stumbled, we admitted it, apologized, and worked together to make it right.  I hope when they are adults who make mistakes that they will do the same.

I hope my students recognize that they can handle more than they think they can.  Stress is not fun, and there have been very stressful days, both in the spring during lockdown and in the fall during hybrid teaching.  I have sometimes sounded heartless to others when I have said things like, "Crying doesn't make you (or me) right."  I'm not.  I don't like to see my kids in tears, but I know that you don't teach grit, resilience, growth mindset, or any other kind of character development if you make decisions based on emotions, yours or theirs.  Chronic stress is unhealthy, but bouts of stress are actually good for you.  You go into a situation believing you cannot do it, then do it, and come out on the otherside realize you are stronger than you had imagined.  I hope when my students are adults, and they encounter times of stress, they will remember that they are strong persevere.

I hope my students will remember to be kind to people in need.  In normal times, we sometimes have the tendency to either look down on people who use government and charitable resources or pity them in a way that depersonalizes them.  We rarely imagine that it could be us at any time.  There were many people who lived perfectly normal lives pre-pandmic, paying their bills each month, carrying a little debt, but never worrying about whether they would be able to afford groceries.  When everything shut down in March, those same people didn't know how they would make it until May.  I was blessed to keep my job, but it was eye-opening to realize that you never know when you may be the one in need.  I hope my students will grow up to be people who give to charity and help their unemployed neighbor and do whatever they can to help.

Most of all, I hope my students will remember the people who stepped up.  The first that come to mind are nurses and doctors who cared for COVID patients.  Despite grave physical risk to themselves, they walked into hospital rooms and cared for patients.  We don't yet know what mental and emotional toll this will have on the medical profession in the long term, but dealing with patients who cannot have their loved ones with them and seeing a relentless amount of death while hearing member of the public refuse to do their part is going to have long term effects.  Grocery store checkers don't get paid much.  It's an entry level job, often done by high school students.  None of them took the job, thinking that it would one day be dangerous, but my grocery store has been open every day of the pandemic.  Add to that list delivery drivers and postal workers, whose service we literally could not have lived without.  The scientific community stepped up.  The development of MRNA vaccines at this pace is just short of miraculous.  These people worked round the clock, under pressure, and did an amazing thing.  Hiccups are happening with distribution, as they are bound to, but even with those stumbles, we are witness scientific history from regular people who stepped up when needed.  I have seen people from every walk of life step up, from textile who sewed masks during the PPE shortages to engineers who figured out how to make ventilators more efficient to people who put stuffed bears in their windows to provide joy for children to the news media who did their jobs while being called vile names to the Chic-Fil-A employee who still tells me it is her pleasure to serve me waffle fries.  I hope my students will remember that they can step up from wherever they are, no matter what kind of job they have.  I hope they will remember that people find creative ways to help and will do the same.

I know they are going to remember some things I wish they didn't.  They'll be able to name the people who didn't step up.  They'll remember the santizer hoarders and the toilet paper shortage.  They'll remember things that weren't fair and how frightened they were.  But, I hope, they'll chose to focus on the memories from which they can learn so this time won't be wasted.

Surprised? Completely!

There's a saying used by doctors and crime scene investigators (if television is to be believed).  It says, "When you hear hoofbeats, you should think horses and not zebras."  It's a good way of narrowing your vision to the most likely cause of a problem, but because zebras do exist, occasionally something unlikely does occur.  If I hear hoofbeats, I never think unicorns because that's impossible.  Those do not exist.  This week, however, a unicorn knocked on my front door.

No, the isolation isn't getting to me.  Keep reading. 

I've been teaching yearbook for fifteen years, and every year, when we discuss who we should dedicate it to, my staff members joke, "One of these days, we should dedicate it to you."  I laugh and scoff, "Good luck surprising me.  That's pretty much impossible."  Apparently, this year, my editors decided that was a challenge they should accept.  They found a way to do what I thought was impossible.

While I was busy getting together pictures and information for the person I thought we were dedicating the yearbook to, they were twice as busy, making that page as a decoy and the real page on a system that our yearbook rep set up for them to work on separately.  They asked my art teacher friend how to contact my mom, who sent them information and brought them photos, not only from her house but from mine (she came to my house and took photos from my albums). 

The editors were frequently asking if they could go ask someone in the office questions for the page I thought we were making, and while I thought it was a little odd that they were going together when only one of them was assigned to the page, it didn't strike me as too odd because they were also working on senior pages together and enjoying their collaboration. 

A lot has happened this year, so the yearbook has covered a variety of stuff.  Thankfully, our final deadline was completed two weeks before we went into virtual learning.  (I even like that the Coronavirus won't be reflected in this year's book.  It's a nice way to focus on the positives of the year.)  I knew the stay-at-home order would change our book delivery and distribution.  I even found out recently that Jostens found a way to make virtual signing possible.  What I still did not know was that there would be a spread in the yearbook that I had never seen before. 

Every day since going into the virtual learning environment, we have had a morning faculty meeting.  We share devotions and prayer and make any announcements that need to be made.  On Tuesdays, it includes the faculty and staff from both of our campuses, and our head of school does the devotion.  This week, he asked me if there was a noise at my house because he thought he heard a knocking sound.  He told me that I should go answer my door because he thought someone was knocking on it.  At that point, I obviously knew something was going on, but I couldn't have been more shocked when I opened the door to see my yearbook editors standing on my porch.  In the yard were my mom, my principal and her daughter, our dean of women, and the mom of one of the editors with balloons and a yard sign that said 2020 Yearbook Dedication. 

It was only then that I found out all of this had been going on behind my back since August.  The editors read the lovely text of the page to me while I stood on my front porch.  We took some socially distanced photos (They are standing uphill from me).  They gave me a printout of the page given to them by our Jostens rep.  I struggled with my inability to hug them (just wait until I am allowed to).  And, all of this was being live-streamed to the faculty and staff who were still in the meeting I thought we were having.

After fourteen dedications of the yearbook, I've never been on this end of the sneakiness before.  It's amazing how many people can work behind your back and keep secrets from you.  People keep asking if I knew.  I totally did not.  They have asked if there as anything that I could have tipped me off in hindsight.  There really is not because when you don't believe in Bigfoot, you don't think a person walking down in the street in a furry coat might be him. 

Royal Family Kids 2019

"What kind of camp is it?" people ask.   The simple answer is what I usually give.  "It's a camp for foster children."  While true, it is a gross oversimplification of Royal Family Kids.  When I get home, they say, "How did it go?"  Again, the simple answer of "great" is not fully accurate.  It takes a while to recover from camp enough to really reflect on it, so now that I have had three nights' sleep, I might be ready.

What is Royal Family Kids Camp?  In 1985, Wayne and Diane Tesch started a week-long camp in the California mountains to give kids who had been abused or neglected a week away to enjoy what all kids should have the chance to enjoy, just being kids.  The goal was to create "moments that matter" and to give kids positive childhood memories.  In 1990, they decided to take the camp they had developed and make it a nationwide ministry.  As of this summer, RFK camps exist in forty-three states in America and seven countries.

To a casual observer, I don't think Royal Family would look much different than most Christian camps.  Other than noticing that there are a lot of adults, they would see kids playing games, shooting arrows, swimming, riding horses, learning Bible stories, having tea parties, building things from wood, and a myriad of other camp things. 

Even if the observer were to get a little closer, they might not know that this camp was designed specifically around the needs of abused kids.  They would hear counselors encouraging their campers to keep trying and praising their efforts at everything they do.  They would see lots of food and hear mealtime conversations in which kids are asked, "What's your favorite things we do at camp?"  They might note that the Bible stories are about unlikely heroes (David, Esther, Joseph), but they probably wouldn't put together why those stories were chosen. 

The truth is a person has to be part of Royal Family Kids camp to really get it.  When we attend training, we learn why we play games in which there is a goal to be reached but not ones in which one camper wins over another.  We want these kids to experience the joy of achieving a goal without feeling that another must experience a loss for that to be meaningful.  Mealtimes are times in which campers are served and allowed to have all they want to eat.  If a kid wants a salad that consists of nothing but croutons and bacon, the staff will happily make that salad.  There is no shortage of food for any camper.  The Bible stories are, in fact, stories of unlikely heroes.  Joseph's story, in particular, is one our campers can relate to as he came from a dysfunctional family and was abused and neglected by his brothers.  These stories are chosen with great purpose.  RFK wants their campers to see that God uses the small and the broken to accomplish His plans.  During our training times, we are taught how to view misbehavior as an expression of unmet needs and how to address and correct that behavior in a positive and relationship-building way rather than striving for simple compliance.  Because we know that some of our kids have a negative history with photographs, they are told up front who will be allowed to take their picture.  We make sure to get shots of siblings together because some of them only see each other during this one week of the year.  Every moment is thought about carefully with the core values of RFK in mind.  It is the intentionality of planning around the specific needs of kids from hard places and difficult pasts that make Royal Family different from other camps. 

This year was my 12th with Royal Family.  I have served in both of the North Carolina camps.  I have been a counselor and an assistant to the photographer.  Now, I am a co-photographer and video maker.  I have seen kids experience one week have an impact on their lives, and I have had the honor of seeing kids go through all seven years and leave us different people at the age of 12 than they were when they started with us at 6 years old.  You can see why "It's a camp for foster children" just isn't enough of an explanation.

I can't imagine July without this experience.  I'm not saying it is easy.  Counselors are emotionally present 23 hours a day, and some of the kids are prone to resist that investment.  That can leave you wrecked by Friday afternoon.  Activity assistants are constantly on the move.  They are either setting up an activity or putting it away or helping at the pool or rescuing a weary counselor or cleaning the cafeteria or trying to remember who wants half of a carrot on their salad (I cannot overstate the strangeness of the salad situation).  They must be physically spent by the night time, but for an hour each night, they cover at bedtime so the counselor can have one hour with adults.  The photographers are constantly on the move, trying to capture each camper's experience in a book of photos they receive on Friday.  I'm not certain the directors ever sleep at all.  When I say, "The week went great," I am telling the truth.  It's just that great also means difficult, meaningful, exhausting, fun, emotional, and a lot of other things that the word "great" just doesn't encapsulate - unless you were there.

Each year, after I post my camp blog, someone on social media asks how they can participate.  The truth is everyone can participate in some way.  You may not be physically able to attend, but we have people who make blankets, people who pray for each camper by name, people who donate items for birthday bags, and people who donate money.  Since I don't know where you might be when you read this, I am posting the link to the national site.  It is https://rfk.org/

However, if you live in or near Raleigh, NC and want to be a part of our camp specifically, let me know.  I'll connect you with our directors. 

Science Teacher's Super Bowl

I know.  I know.  The last thing you need on August 22 is another post on the eclipse.  Following NASA on Twitter means I have read so many posts and articles that I can't keep them all straight.  Then, there were the frightened people who kept posting the same article from "an ophthalmologist" (I teach my students if the source is vague, it is suspect.  Don't post something where someone hasn't shared their name.)  Last night, my feed was filled with photos from the path of totality as well as our local 93%.  You've seen everything you can possibly see regarding the moon's path across the sun.  That's fine.  I'm writing this one for myself.

Our school bought every student a pair of eclipse glasses; we even ordered them back in March before they became solid gold.  After spending the first few weeks of school fielding emails about whether we got the right ones, reassuring people that the ancients did not all go blind, and teaching some basic lessons on the cause and frequency of eclipses to my students, the day was finally here.  I'm a science teacher, but I'm also a yearbook advisor, so I enlisted the help of other teachers and parents to take shots of the kids in their glasses or with their pinhole arrangements.  My camera was solar filtered, so I asked the people who couldn't get the eclipse itself to get the kids watching.

I set out a few minutes early to set up my tripod and camera, expecting to get nothing.  Thank goodness, someone suggested bringing out a chair because I would have had difficulty squatting by the tripod over and over.  I took about 75 photos in the hour I was outside, but I didn't want my attempts to photograph the event to interfere with having the experience, so in between shots, I leaned back in the chair with my glasses on and enjoyed the eclipse as a human being, thankful that our administration bought glasses for us.  The experience was so much more real than the pinhole setup I had in third-grade.

The best part of the day, however, was being with and listening to my students.  They hovered around, asking questions of me and each other.  Since we didn't get blackout darkness, they had some difficulty describing what the sky looked like.  To be fair, since it doesn't look like anything else, it is difficult to describe.  Among my favorite descriptions were, "It's like a storm is coming, except it's still blue" and "It's like the beginning of that one Harry Potter movie, where he's on the playground."  I have e-mails pouring in with photos from our elementary students, who went home to watch it with their parents as well as group shots of kids in the glasses.  It's going to be a fun yearbook page, but my memories of enjoying it with my kids cannot be adequately captured.

The Season That Nearly Wasn't

I recently tweeted that if I knew how to get a movie made, I would make one about this season of our Varsity Girls Basketball team.  Sadly, I do not know how to get a movie made.  I do, however, have a blog; so I suppose it is the best I can do to bring attention to this incredible story.

When tryouts started, there were simply not enough girls.  It isn't because we don't have enough female athletes.  We have tons of soccer and volleyball players who are committed to year-round teams, and we have a number of ladies on our swim team, whose season is concurrent with basketball.  As preparations for the season were to begin, there were only five players.  Apparently, that is not enough, so our coaches sent this e-mail to our senior English teacher.

This teacher, well known for her ability to convince students, made an impassioned speech to the senior girls.  In the words of one senior, "Her speech had no commas.  She's an English teacher, so she should really use commas."  Eight senior girls went home that night to tell their parents they wanted to be on the basketball team.  In the end, five of those girls were able to follow through to the team, one as stat bookkeeper, some taking the time to Google "rules of basketball."  Each of these girls was very athletic in other sports, but none had ever been on a basketball team.  Two of the players on this team were 8th graders, playing up to the varsity level.  The coaches of this team choose a word every year for the players to rally around; this year, they chose FIGHT.

Under the mentorship of our incredible coaches, Tonya and David Taylor, and their alumni assistant, Lizz Wilson, these eight girls went on to fight for each and every game.  They grew as individuals and as a team, and their season record was 16-7.  They played in the conference championship, were invited to States, and won the first round there.  The team that nearly wasn't blew away all expectations (or lack thereof).

To a woman, they have each also talked about how much fun they had this season.  Senior Reece Goodman said, "If I'd know it was this much fun, I'd have done it years ago."  When asked what advice they would give to rising seniors, several of them said, "Try something you've never done before."  What a great lesson this is for them to take into their adult lives.  The 8th graders were inspired to fight harder than they would have if they hadn't been watching the hustle in these first-year players.  Apparently, the players weren't the only ones having fun.  Coach David Taylor, known school wide for his funny and often sarcastic tweeting, has put up more sincere love for this team than ever.  He has been effusive about the fun he has had coaching them and how much they inspire him.  Here's a sample from my quick stalk of his feed.  There are many more and many that express his pride in great detail.

As a spectator, I'm proud whenever we play hard, regardless of the outcome.  This team and its coaches, however, will hold a special place in my heart forever.  The courage it took for the coaches to reach out and beg for help showed vulnerability at its finest.  The courage it took for those seniors who had never played before to put themselves in a place of potential humiliation showed the best of school spirit.  The fact that teams they have beaten don't know the story of the team that beat them makes me happy in ways I don't know how to express.

As a teacher, I try to make as many memories as possible.  When you look back on your school life, the days can blur together because so many of them are so similar.  Anything I can do to give a student a positive memory on which to look back, I'll do.  This may be my favorite thing about the story of this team.  As adults, they will be able to look back and remember this amazing season and the lessons they taught each other.  They will be able to tell their own children to do something new and share their experience.  They will remember these coaches and the impact they had forever.  These are days that will NOT blur into each other for them or for me.