What Won't Change

Pardon a little science teaching.  It's late July, so it's been a while since I got to explain any science.  Homeostasis is an important part of being a living thing.  Living things can only handle so much change, so there are regulatory mechanisms in place to keep things from getting out of control.  For example, when you eat too much sugar, your pancreas releases insulin to keep your blood sugar level within an acceptable range.  When your temperature gets too high, you sweat.  The evaporation process requires energy, which it takes from your body's heat.  Too cold?  The muscle contractions that come from shivering convert kinetic energy into thermal energy.  God's design for living things is structured to limit the amount of change we experience.

And yet, here I am - a teacher in 2020.  Because of COVID-19, it feels as though our lives are nothing but change.  This week, my mom and I went to my classroom to figure out how to set everything up with spaced desks and traffic flow that doesn't jam and where my streaming technology should sit so those who are joining us from home will have the best experience.  She would ask crazy questions like, "Where does this go?" and my answer was, "I don't know yet."    The closer we get to the opening of school, the more on edge my nerves are.  I'm not scared of the virus itself.  For whatever reason, that's never been the kind of thing I fear because that's a risk management issue.  What's making me edgy is the amount of change.  I was talking to someone yesterday about all of this, and I said, "It's like my 21 years of experience are irrelevant this year."  Now, I know in my head that's not true, but it is the way it feels.

One of the things I did while setting up last week was to hang photos of my physics teacher and my physical science teacher (the two subjects I teach) behind my desk.  These two men were phenomenal teachers, and having them behind me, looking over my shoulder, has always been a source of encouragement.  As I hung their photos this year, it was a reminder that there were some things that were not changing.  What I learned from these two men still matters.

School starts in two weeks, and I am going to spend them focused on the things that won't change.  I obviously will have to implement changes and learn about new policies and procedures and plan for how to check in on my at-home students, but my emotional energy will be spent on the things that won't change.  Here's the start of the list.

God is faithful and trustworthy

Since the beginning of the stay at home orders in March, I have sent about 200 cards, mostly to students.  In them, I have written the sentence "God is faithful and trustworthy."  Whether or not we understand our circumstances, we know we can trust Him.  When it feels like everything is changing, we know He is faithful.  That will not change.

Teachers will be there for their students

While the savior mentality some teachers have is toxic, the truth is that students need their teachers to be there for them, to listen to them, to understand them, to know them, value them, and love them.  Whether a student is suffering from normal social angst or the fear of a virus, the need is the same.  If you were equipped before, you are equipped now.  

Grace will be needed

Grace is important in every classroom.  It always has been.  In a room filled with human beings, there are going to be human foibles, mistakes, and sins.  Occasions will arise that will require repentance, apologies, and forgiveness.  As we sit in classrooms with a heightened level of anxiety, that is going to increase, but it is not new.  

I know how to teach science.

When we first went into the virtual learning environment, I kept reminding my colleagues that we know how to teach.  The logistics are different.  We have to figure out the tech.  There are some things we do not yet know how to do, but we haven't forgotten how to teach.  I still know how to explain science in a way middle school students can understand.  If you teach English, you know how to teach your students to write.  If you teach math, you still know how to break down mathematical thinking into steps.  Whether it is virtual or in-person, synchronous or asynchronous, collaborative or distanced, you know how to teach.  Your methods will change, but you still know how to teach.  

By focusing our emotional energy on those things that are not changing, we can establish an emotional equivalent of your body's buffers that maintain homeostasis.  I'd love to add to this list.  What's staying constant in your world?

Just For Two

As a yearbook photographer, I am accustomed to documenting great experiences.  From homecoming dances to sports, I have been privileged to record some of the happiest and most meaningful school events.  As an RFK camp photographer, I recognize the meaning of sending kids home with a record of their positive memories. This weekend, I documented an amazing experience.  It was amazing, not because of its large scope, but because of its small scope.  Twenty masked adults came together to create a camp experience for TWO campers.  

This Week's RFK Staff

For those who are not regular readers of this blog, let me back up and explain RFK.  Royal Family Kids, Inc. is an international organization that provides summer camp for abused and neglected children using volunteers that have been trained to meet their needs and create life-changing moments and positive memories.  Normally, this is a five day overnight camp.  Adults arrive on Sunday and transform a basic campground into a vibrant and welcoming place for kids literally overnight.  With bright and happy cabins, a pretty elaborate theatrical stage, a beautifully decorated dining hall, a highly productive woodworking station, and, of course, a fully outfitted pool, nearly 40 kids arrive on a bus to be welcomed by an enthusiastic group of adults that are thrilled to see them.  That enthusiasm is maintained until we say goodbye to them on Friday.

As with all things, COVID-19 prevented us from having anything resembling normal camp.  Our directors tried to create a plan, but there was just no way to make it work with proper distance, and I cannot imagine masks all day outside for five days in mid-July.  Most camps sent kids gifts and notes, calling it "camp in a box," but our directors wanted more for our kids.  They wanted them to have social interaction during this isolating time.  So, they created a "camp experience" for three hours on three Saturdays, allowing campers' parents to choose which location worked for them (as our kids are spread out all over Eastern NC).  The first week, we had 22 kids signed up, but by the time the event came, we were down to 13 due to symptoms or exposure.  Those 13 had a ball, building a wooden crate, hydro dipping cups, playing field games, singing camp songs, learning Romans 8:39, and receiving medals and birthday gifts.  

This week, we were supposed to have 6 kids, but by Thursday, we had heard from four who couldn't come.  We put on the exact same camp experience for them that we had for the 13 last week.  There were 22 people at this event, only two of which were our campers.

I don't know if those two boys went home yesterday saying, "Twenty adults loved me enough to put on the camp just for me."  I hope, in 2030, when we are all looking back on this time, that might be an insight they have.  I hope the photo album they will receive in a few weeks will send that message to them every day.

It's been a few weeks since this education blog was actually about education, so let me make a connection.  School will be starting again in just under a month.  Depending on where you live, some schools will be fully online while others will open partially in person.  Either way, students are going to look to their teachers for tone.  They are going to see us do hard things, whether that is trying to figure out how to form relationships online at the beginning of the school year with kids you've never met or figuring out how to teach your in-person class while also involving those you are streaming to at home.  They are going to watch us work harder than we have ever worked before to do things in ways we have never done them before.  We are going to model learning in ways we could have never imagined before this year.  What I hope they feel from all of that is, "Wow, these people care about me enough to work this hard."  I hope they will recognize how much education matters.  I hope, when they are looking back on this time as adults many years from now, they will say to their children, "You have no idea how much teachers love their students.  I experienced it in 2020."  

USPS - America's Second Best Idea

I'm taking a break from writing about current news, and I'm not quite ready to write about education again just yet, so this is a weird meandering train of thought for this blog.  It won't be connected to any of the things I normally write about.  It's just a conversation I've been having with myself while out walking.  To be fair, you are reading a blog called "On the Rabbit Trail," so you should expect this occasionally.  So, here is the rabbit trail I have been on this week.

Filmmaker Ken Burns rightly called the National Park System "America's Best Idea."  I completely agree.  I love our country's national parks on a level that might not be normal.    It got me wondering about what America's second best idea might be.  It's bound to be something mundane because it can't compare to the glory of the National Parks system, so you might question my choice (which is fine because these are just my musings anyway), but here it is.  America's second best idea is the United States Postal Service.

It's easy to criticize the post office.  The lines are long.  The people behind the counter are often not friendly.  And of course, in the 1990s, the phrase "going postal" had some pretty terrible connotations.  People also like to use the price of stamps as an indicator that we are being ripped off.  After all, we can all remember when the price of stamps was less than it is now.  A first-class stamp was 13 cents the year I was born, but my first memory of the price of a stamp was when I was 9, and it went from 20 to 22 cents.  They are now 55 cents.  (In a minute, I'm going to make a case for how good a deal that is.)  You may or may not love your mail carrier, so I get why they are an easy target.  When you interact with something every single day, you are going to grow accustomed to it doing things normally, and the errors and flaws will really stand out.

But let's talk about some facts and history.  The postal service dates all the way back to 1775, with Ben Franklin at its head, but since America was not yet a country, it wasn't an official department until 1792.  While we think of it as part of the federal government, it was made an independent agency in 1970 and was required to self-fund, so they don't get any of your tax dollars, and 2006, they were required to prepay health benefits and retirees and had their pricing capped by Congress, a double blow to their budget, which had to that point been mostly balanced.  The USPS employs over half a million people, who have been deemed essential during the pandemic, especially as most of us are doing more online ordering than ever before.  They are exposed to and trusted with more people's stuff than almost any other profession.  In small towns, the post office is a community gathering place, and your mailman is likely a friend or neighbor.  They are obligated to deliver the mail to the remotest of areas, places FedEx, Amazon, and UPS often won't deliver to because it is so unprofitable; so the mail service takes it the rest of the way.  They deliver over a billion prescriptions, many of which are temperature and time-sensitive and must be handled carefully.  This service we mostly ignore and sometimes gripe about is obviously more important than we realize and can't just be replaced by email as has been suggested by some short-sighted people.  Later today, I will be sending a couple of hundred photos to be printed, and they will be delivered to me by mail.  These physical products cannot be sent to me in an email.

During the quarantine, I need to walk outside every day, both for exercise and for mental health and vitamin D.  On school days, I needed a destination that wasn't terribly far and where I wouldn't have to interact with people closely; so I chose the post office.  I wrote notes to my students each day during my office hours and then walked to the post office (a 20-minute walk from my house), where I could simply put the letters in the slot and be back out the door before it had even closed.  Those walks were important to me, but if I were a person who couldn't get to the post office, there is a box in front of my house that is visited by a postal worker six days a week.  I only have to go as far as the end of my driveway to get these letters picked up and sent all over the country.  

As promised, I want to explain why the 55 cent stamp we complain about is the best deal around.  If the postal service didn't exist, and I wanted to get a birthday card, valentine, or letter to someone, I would have to seek out someone who might be willing to take it from my hands to the recipient.  If the recipient was relatively close, I might be able to accomplish that with the goodwill of one friend who was willing to do me a favor.  Let's say, however, I wanted to get it to someone in California.  I might be able to string together favors from friends and friends of friends (or I might not).  For sure, I wouldn't be able to say to someone, "If I give you 55 cents, will you come to pick this card up from my house and deliver it to my friend's house in California in a few days?"  You aren't going to get that deal from anyone other than the USPS.  When the price of gas goes up, they have to drive the same number of miles.  When cold and flu season arrives (to say nothing of the pandemic), they still have to put their hands in the box of every person on their route, handling items that have been licked by strangers.  As Newman so succinctly told Jerry on Seinfeld, "The mail never stops."  Their work is important and goes unnoticed when they are doing it well.  Don't let their ubiquity make them anonymous to you.

Thanks for reading.  Now, go buy some stamps.

Acknowledging Contradiction This July 4th

I was just on Twitter, where someone pointed out that CNN had two different takes on Mt. Rushmore.  Apparently, when President Obama visited it, they said the artwork of the monument was "majestic" and "quite a sight," but when President Trump visited, they pointed out that it included two slave owners.  Of course, his point was that CNN is hypocritically changing its coverage based on whether or not they like the President.  Setting aside how easy it would be to find similar examples in reverse from FOX, I'd like to make a different point.  Both of those stories are true, and it represents America in a nutshell.

If you have never been to Mt. Rushmore, it is hard to express how impressive it is.  When you learn how the faces were made using dynamite inserted into holes, drilled by men hanging from ropes, it is even more spectacular.  Mt. Rushmore is also an image of four flawed human beings who led flawed administrations who were elected by flawed people built on land stolen from Native Americans.  There's no use in arguing the point that two of these men were slaveholders because we know that they were, even if they were a bit conflicted about it.  The other two men had complicated racial issues as well (Teddy Roosevelt's comments about Native Americans are cringe-worthy, and Lincoln cared more about keeping the country together than he cared about the slaves.  Look farther in history, and you will find the same contradictions; we praise LBJ for signing the Civil Rights Act into law, but he regularly used the N-word and openly stated that he wouldn't allow women to be astronauts because then he would have to allow black men to be astronauts as well.  We don't have a leader that hasn't made a problematic statement.  

Why is this true?  The country was founded by human beings.  Our constitution was written by human beings.  The judges who have interpreted our laws are human beings.  And here's the thing with human beings.  We are defined by two things, the image of God and the Fall.  We will live with them both until Jesus returns.  All humans, even the horrible ones, carry the image of their Creator.  This is how we know that there is no such thing as an inferior race or a superior one.  All members of all races are image-bearers.  It's why I can't celebrate the execution of a person, even if I think it was just; I just can't be excited that an image-bearer is lost.  Humans were also corrupted by the Fall.  Adam and Eve's sin wasn't a victimless crime.  From Eve's first bite of the fruit until now, the fall has caused depravity in all of us.  No matter how nice a person is or what heroic things he or she may do, we are all sinners.  All of the lies, racism, adultery, hate, and crime in the history of mankind are the result of the Fall, and none of us can escape that.  It's why we need a savior.  America reflects both greatness and sinfulness because it is a reflection of the humans that founded her and those that continue to form her.  

This July 4th, we cannot recognize only one side of our nature.  We cannot celebrate the genius of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration without also acknowledging his sin.  We cannot celebrate the good the military has done in the world without also acknowledging horrors that have been committed by some of our men and women in uniform.  We cannot sing how America is beautiful "from sea to shining sea" without recognizing that we fill this land because we broke promises to the Native Americans who lived here.  This nation is neither all bad nor all good.  Because it is filled with image-bearers who are corrupted by the Fall, it is a nation filled with messy contradiction.  Knowing that doesn't make you un-American.  There may be nothing more American than criticizing our leaders, given that this is what the Declaration was doing in the first place.  Acknowledging the flaws in something we love doesn't mean we love it less.  It makes our love real rather than blindly idealistic.

Is America great or is America seriously flawed?  Yes.