Are You Pro Life? Part 2

Friday, the Supreme Court announced its overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.  So much ink has been spilled on this topic in the past 72 hours that I almost feel redundant writing this.  This blog, however, is often used for me to work out my own thoughts, which I very much need to do on this issue; so if you get something out of it, that's just icing on the cake.  In the week after George Floyd's death, I wrote about how my view of what it meant to be pro-life was expanding (which is why I have titled this Part 2), and you can read that here if you are interested.  As always, when I am working out my own thoughts, it may appear rambling, disconnected, and even somewhat contradictory as I try to embrace and/or resolve cognitive dissonance.

I have been against abortion for as long as I have known what it was.  I think I was 12 when I first started writing legislators about it, and I was 13 when I became the database keeper for the Raleigh chapter of the NC Right to Life.  I think how you view abortion hinges entirely on whether you believe life begins at conception.  If you do, you believe that the woman is carrying a human baby, and it is impossible to find your way to accepting the destruction of the unborn child.  If you don't believe life begins at conception (and if you don't, I would have to ask, "If not then, when?"), then it makes perfect sense to you for the woman to decide what she wants.  I also learned about how our state/federal system is meant to work in some of my college classes and am one of the rare people who have been required to read the US Constitution in its entirety (which is not even required in all law schools) thanks to Dr. Stephen M King.  So, for more than one reason, I am in favor of the decision to return this issue to the states.  

I am not, however, doing the victory dance you - or I a few years ago - might expect.  I've been reflecting on why that might be since the draft was leaked a couple of months ago.  I think it is because, while I believe this to be right, I don't think the church is prepared to handle the resulting fallout well.  We've put so much effort into overturning Roe that we haven't put a lot of thought into what the implications would be if and when it happened.  I think part of that might be because we didn't expect that it would.  After four decades of being told to vote Pro-Life, it seemed that those candidates cared more about keeping it as an issue than they did about following through.  Now, we are facing women who are frightened or feeling desperate.  Whether or not you or I believe they should feel scared doesn't change the reality that they do, and it seems especially cold to celebrate around them as though our team just won a sporting event against their team.  While I believe it to be good, I do so soberly and with compassion.

Many compassionate Christians have posted something equivalent to this one from Jen Wilkin.  It's a call to take care of the women who would seek abortions out of desperation (as opposed to the women who use it for birth control).  Jen and others like her have gotten flack from people on both sides.  While Jen is quite conservative, those that are farther to the right have accused her of "wokeness" and trying to play both sides for simply saying that she wants to love women in crisis.  Those on the other side have told her that if she cared about women, she would have already been doing this and that she only cares about controlling women and their bodies.  These people have obviously not looked into Jen or the Village Church, where she works because they have a history, as many churches do, of supporting women in crisis with finances, medical care, job search assistance, and adoption services.  When she calls for redoubling and expanding, she means building on what they have been doing, not starting something new.  

As with all political issues, there are extremes and inconsistencies on both sides of the spectrum.  I have friends who have posted statements that would make you believe any and all pregnancies are terminal and that every woman carrying an unwanted child will die.  I have also seen posts that bristle at the argument that this is about women in danger because a woman ought to be able to terminate her pregnancy for any reason or no reason at all.  I also have friends that are heartless in their statements about poor and desperate women (Being right doesn't make you less obnoxious when you attack a grieving woman).  While I am far from liberal, I think it is worth noting that any analysis of abortion rates have shown them to be lower in the times and places where liberals were in government.  In spite of lower restrictions, the increased amount of social services allowed women to feel it wasn't their only choice.  I also think it is worth noting that the rate of both unwanted pregnancy and abortion had been steadily dropping for the last ten years as contraception became better and more available.  My fear is that the backlash from this may reverse that trend.

I think one of the reasons for this level of emotion is that we are 

a) encouraged by our culture to be in a state of perpetual outrage (and it is exhausting).

b) led to believe that if we put enough words on social media, we have done our part (slacktivism).

c) led to believe that if something doesn't solve the whole problem, it is not worth doing (all or nothing).

Here's the part that's going to seem disconnected, but hang with me because all of this was swimming around in my head yesterday when I went to see the Elvis movie (highly recommend, by the way, but expect it to be more stressful than fun).  I have always loved the Elvis song, "If I Can Dream," but I never knew the story of its writing before this movie.  Elvis was in the middle of recording the 1968 Comeback Special when Robert Kennedy was assassinated.  For those who may not know, 1968 was the 2020 of the last century.  Between violent Vietnam war protests, racial conflict,  the assassinations of both MLK and RFK, the Zodiac Killer, and the highjacking of commercial flights, it seemed the world was falling apart.  Perhaps the only two bright points were that Mr. Rogers started airing and Apollo 8 orbited the moon.  Anyway, back to Elvis.  They were in the middle of filming when the news of RFK's shooting broke, and taping stopped for the night (over the objections of Colonel Parker who wanted him to record "Here Comes Santa Claus," like anyone would be able to do that at that moment).  As Elvis watched the television coverage, he began thinking of some of the words of Dr. King and did the only thing he could do to process his feelings.  He wrote a song with lyrics like, "There must be peace and understanding sometime. Strong winds of promise that will blow away the doubt and fear" and  "We're trapped in a world

that's troubled with pain, but as long as a man has the strength to dream, he can redeem his soul and fly." The next day, he recorded it, awing the studio audience, and the song has inspired millions since.

While I was watching this is the theater, I thought about how Elvis responded to this horrible event by doing what he could with the gifts he had.  Did recording this song solve the issues that led someone to shoot Robert Kennedy?  Of course not.  I don't think that ever entered his mind.  He didn't have the political power to affect that kind of change.  Few normal individuals do.  He couldn't fix the system; he couldn't perform surgery.  What he could do was write and sing a song.  Those are the gifts God gave him, and he used them.  In a few minutes, I'll be leaving for RFK camp training.  This camp serves children in the foster care system, and the point is always made at training that we won't be solving systemic problems.  We aren't capable of solving child abuse.  We are doing what we can with the gifts and resources we have to help the kids who are right in front of us.  

I think this is what we have to do with any issue, including abortion.  Whether you are happy or sad about the overturning of Roe, your response should be to use whatever gifts and resources you have to help women experiencing crisis pregnancies.  The church or charity near you may already have ways in which you can volunteer to give a woman rides to her doctors' appointments.  You might have the financial resources to donate to a crisis pregnancy center or adoption service.  Perhaps you own a business in which you can employ a mother and be flexible with her schedule.  Perhaps you can organize a fundraiser.  I don't know what your gifts and resources are, but when Moses stood before the burning bush, God asked him what was in his hand.  He then used that staff in ways Moses could not have previously imagined.  He can do the same with us and our feeble efforts, and if you call yourself Pro-Life, it is your responsibility to do whatever you can, especially now.

James Clerk Maxwell - Lessons of a Well Lived Life

You know the name of Isaac Newton.  You know the name of Albert Einstein and a few quotes that are misattributed to him.  Unless you have studied physics, you probably do not know the name of James Clerk Maxwell.  Yet, without him, you would not be using an electromagnetic device today or have a color television.  And all of this from a man who died at the age of 48. In the words of British mathematician and chemist, C.A. Coulson, "There is scarcely a single topic that he touched upon which he did not change almost beyond recognition."  In the biography The Man Who Changed Everything: The Life of James Clerk Maxwell, I found more than a brilliant scientist.  I found a three-dimensional human from whom we can all learn.

Curiosity - All children ask a lot of questions.  Why is the sky blue?  Where does the sun go at night? Young James was curious from the start as well, asking questions like "What is the go of that?" and "How do you know it's blue?"  His parents encouraged these questions, even when they didn't know the answers.  They never told him that he didn't need to know something because he wouldn't "use it later in life."  I have often told students about the study that shows the average four-year-old asks 300 questions per day, and I always tell them.  Those of us who never stopped doing that became science teachers.  Maxwell exemplified this in his life.  He read broad categories of literature, explored historical connections, was deeply religious, and pioneered methods of experimentation at a time when that was looked down upon by theorists as less scientific.  His parents wanted him to pursue a "real profession" like law, but the only parts of his law classes that interested him were the philosophy portions, likely because they explored the universal questions for which he wanted answers.  When Maxwell began his career, science was "thought of as interesting but not particularly useful and a splendid hobby for a gentleman but a poor profession."  By the time of his death, he had helped turn it into a respected field.

Growth Mindset - James' educational career started out a little rough.  They started him with a tutor, who was too young for the job, felt the need to exert extreme authority, and had no patience for young James' questions.  It came to a head when the boy jumped into a washtub and rowed himself out into the middle of a pond just to get away from his awful tutor.  His parents gave up on the idea of private tutoring and sent him to school, but they dressed him weirdly on the first day, and he paid a social price for it.  Despite this (and with the help of an aunt who gave him some better clothes), he kept working and eventually found a small group of like-minded friends.  He developed a reputation for kindness, and he eventually overcame his social stumbles.  When he was given the chance to choose his classes, he found a teacher that formed his view of study for the rest of his life.  "He had found someone who did not shirk from answering his awkward questions, and he was delighted to find that the answers sometimes came in the form of yet deeper questions."  When he discovered the work of Descartes, he loved his work so much that he considered him a friend.  He felt that "he appreciated their struggles, knowing that most discoveries come only after a period of stumbling and fumbling." While James understood concepts deeply, he often struggled with basic mathematical processes, and many of his errors were published.  One of his colleagues, Gustav Kirchoff, said, "He is a genius, but one has to check his calculations."  He was constantly looking for a better analogy or way to model a complex idea.  He is probably best known in physics for his system of equations that show the relationships in electromagnetic dynamics.  Those equations are admired for their simplicity, but finding them was anything but simple.  We like to think of genius as having sudden flashes of insight, but "His system of equations worked with jeweled precision.  Its construction had been an immense feat of sustained creative effort in three stages spread over nine years."

Faith - John and Frances Clerk Maxwell raised their son in two churches as he was Presbyterian and she was Episcopal.  He not only learned the doctrines, but he deeply felt them and loved the Creator.  When he moved from Cambridge to Trinity College, much was being made of whether science and religion were in contradiction, with some on both sides finding them incompatible, but there were some, like James, who found them complementary.  "His faith was too deeply rooted to be shaken, but his probing mind would not allow any possible fissures between God and science to remain unexplored."  This resulted in both deeper faith and better science.  He understood that his mind and the ability to pursue education and science was a blessing from God, and he responded by offering public lectures so that tradesmen might also have access to this blessing.  

Learner and Teacher - While James was a sought-after teacher, he never stopped being a learner.  He built upon the work of Michael Farraday, who had himself been a student of Sir Humphrey Davy.  While their work complemented those before, they also explored their fields in new ways.  In the last few years of his career, he was offered the opportunity to design and build a school.  In spite of the fact that the prevailing scientific view looked down on lab work, James insisted on balancing known theory with experimental research and invested heavily in a lab.  He wanted his students to explore new ideas, not just learn about his.  "It was a rule with him never to dissuade a man from trying an experiment, no matter how slim the prospect of success, because he might find something entirely unexpected."  

Legacy - Many scientists get hyper-focused on one thing, and while they may make a breakthrough in that one area, they don't often contribute to the larger world of science.  Perhaps because of his faith, James Clerk Maxwell seemed to understand that science was about more than answering his questions, but it was about revealing the nature of things for the good of all.  Among his poetry and journals was found this statement, "Happy is the man who can recognize in his work of Today a connected portion of the work of life, and an embodiment of the work of Eternity."  The way he approached his classes was to encourage them to learn to think and thereby explore beyond what he was teaching them was rooted in this perspective.  Because of this, "James' personal influence in Cambridge spread far beyond his own department.  Many mathematicians made use of his ideas and suggestions in their own work.  People who were at first hostile to the new laboratory, with its emphasis on combining theory with practical work, were, in time, completely disarmed by his unaffected charm and patient generosity of spirit.  Science at Cambridge entered a new age."

We may never reach the level of achievement that Maxwell did, but if we live lives of curiosity, growth, faith, learning and teaching, we can have a legacy that last after our careers are over.

Professional Development Book Recommendations

Teachers approach summer in a variety of ways.  Some don't even think about school, taking the time to completely unplug.  Others teach summer school and plan for next year.  My approach is in the middle.  I do a lot of reading and make resources that I wouldn't have time to make during the year, but it amounts to an hour or two per day, balancing personal goals and rest time with growing as a teacher.  

If you are a person who doesn't want to think about school, bookmark this post for another time.  If you are looking for some resources to develop professionally, these are a few recommendations.  Feel free to add your own to the list in the comments.

1.  Learning Begins by Andrew Watson - I wish I had read this book earlier in my career (but I couldn't have because he hadn't written it yet).  In this book, Andrew explains the impact of working memory on teaching practice.  When students reach the limit of how many items they can hold in their brain at once, we have hit the wall in our lesson.  Andrew loves science and research, but he is also intensely practical in his advice.

2.  Architecture of Learning by Kevin Washburn - If you have taught for a few years, you know what lessons are sticking points in your classroom.  Kevin's structure for planning lessons is especially useful for those units.  

3.  Powerful Teaching by Pooja Agarwal and Patrice Bain - While this book would have benefitted from an editor to remove excessive exclamation points, don't let it distract you from the good techniques offered in this book.  Retrieval practice takes advantage of how the brain works to make learning stick, and this book offers a lot of options for how to do it. (I also recommend their website, www.retrievalpractice.org.

4.  Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov - Doug is strong in his convictions, but he believes in a diversity of practices.  This book has had 3 different editions because it is filled with techniques and videos of real teachers implementing them in their real classes.  

5.  A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley - Don't let the title fool you.  This book is valuable for all teachers, not just math teachers.  She also has a book called Learning How to Learn, based on her highly popular MOOC of the same name.  

While these are all books, there are some great podcasts (Tips for Teachers with Craig Barton, for one) and videos (Go to youtube and put in the name John Almarode).  Perhaps, I'll use another post to expound on some fo them.

Educating in the Pandemic - A Terrible Trilogy

Those who follow this blog or know me in any way know that I am in favor of reflection.  I'm a big believer in John Dewey's statement, "We don't learn from experience; we learn from reflecting on experience."  He said this in a time before experiences came at you as quickly as they do now, so taking intentional time to think about what you have learned from an experience and put it in perspective is not only wise, but critical.  Your brain simply needs the time to process it all.  That's why this blog exists.  You are along for the ride while I engage in reflection.  

If there's anything that has been moving fast and needs reflection, it is the pandemic.  It has come at us in the form of a pretty terrible trilogy - the spring and summer lockdowns of 2020, the hybrid year, and the one that was supposed to be better.  Each of them had its own challenges and lessons, so I wanted to spend some time thinking about them, hopefully in hindsight.

Spring and Summer 2020 - The first person who suggested lockdown to me was a student.  While our administration had a lot of foresight and had begun discussing the what-ifs, I had not yet heard about it.  When this student said, "Do you think they'll close schools?" my response was, "Schools don't close."  Well, little did I know that school buildings would, in fact, close and remain closed for quite some time.  We got the email on Saturday, March 14, and had two days of planning on the 16th and 17th.  I then proceeded to teach every class I had from March 18 through the end of May in a virtual environment from my house.  I wrote extensively about this back then, so if you care about the details, you can go back in the archives and read about that.  What I want to reflect on here is the big lesson of that time.  

It's this.  We can do things we didn't imagine.  When I began my career, if you had told me that 22 years later, I would teach students who were at their house from my house, I would have suggested you get some professional help.  If you had told me that on March 1, 2020, I would have done the same.  We learned so much so quickly.  We made mistakes, but we adapted.  I learned that, while many say that grades don't motivate students, not having grades certainly de-motivated them.  I learned that non-verbal communication is even more important than I realized, especially from students to teachers.  I learned that the neurotransmitters we get from physical contact are important to a healthy brain.  I learned that my administrators are the best people to be led by in a crisis (actually, I was reminded of that because I already knew it).  I am grateful that we had the ability to keep school going, but I hope we never have to do it again.

I included the summer here because it wasn't really summer.  We spent most of it reckoning with the aftermath of George Floyd's death and preparing for the return to school.  It is hard to separate it from the spring because we were still mostly in lockdown.

Hybrid Year - "So, how was it?" It seems like a casual question.  The answer is anything but casual.  It's too much to talk about with someone who didn't do it.  The answer I finally came up with was, "It's the hardest thing I've ever done for that long."  That answer is honest, but it doesn't require me to go into detail about how difficult it was to attempt to teach students in my classroom and online simultaneously, to know kids stayed home to cheat on tests and be able to do little about it, to spend weekends recreating everything I had used for two decades of teaching in digital form, to know that no one was getting my best and that working harder (even if that were possible) wouldn't solve that because split focus is inherently not a good model.  Don't get me wrong.  It was the right thing to do.  We had students who needed to stay home because they were immunocompromised or because they lived with an elderly family member or because they had been exposed and were required to quarantine.  For all the focus people have put on masks, that what actually the least difficult part of the 2020-2021 school year.  

It's harder to find what I learned from that year because my brain wants to block so much of it out.  I'll start with this.  The kids were incredibly kind and patient with teachers who were figuring out how to deal with technology in another new way (it was different than the lockdown because you had to also show it to the kids in the room with you).  They helped out when the internet suddenly went down or I got feedback from having too many microphones on at once or when I forgot to take the iPad outside for a demonstration.  I may always feel more connected to the kids I had that year because we did it together.  I also learned (again, was reminded of what I already knew) how amazing my co-workers are.  People stepped in to cover duties when someone had to leave early even though we all had more duties than ever.  If they figured out a better way to do something, they shared it with others.  They sent encouraging messages.  They held virtual meetings with students and their parents since parents couldn't come in.  My hope is that any student we had that year knows that they are valued and loved by their teachers because it was the only reason we would have put ourselves through that experience.

By the way, the pandemic wasn't the only difficulty of that year.  How do you help kids process a contested election, role models who scream at others, and an insurrection at the Capitol (while we were virtual for the week)?  The pandemic was not the only hard part of the year.

The Year That Should Have Been Easier - After the vaccine rollout in the spring, we were living well in the summer.  We went places again.  We were mostly unmasked.  We got some actual rest.  We thought we would return to a pretty normal school year.  Then, the Delta variant happened.  We rightly returned masked, but while the year before it had been a non-issue, it was now a daily battle.  If a word cloud were to be made of my speaking for the first three quarters of the year, the biggest words by far would be "Mask Up."  Students have experienced social-emotional developmental effects, and that was a lot to deal with because I know how to teach the grades I have experience with, which wasn't how they were presenting.  When the Omiron wave happened, it was like being back in hybrid.  Thankfully, it was pretty short, but it was crazy.  We also had grief to deal with because so many of us knew someone who died or struggled greatly with Covid.  People have changed their worldview, and they have become more dramatic and less tolerant of anyone whose view is even a little different from theirs.  (Again, the pandemic isn't the only thing to deal with.  The Russian aggression in Ukraine and mass shootings are difficult to navigate with students as well.)  In early February, someone said that the past two months had been the most difficult of the entire pandemic, and I think they were right.  We had as much to deal with but with less fuel in the tank.

I want a name for what teachers are experiencing.  I don't think it is PTSD.  For one thing, it is a response to chronic stress, but also, it isn't the same as what police officers and military veterans experience.  Last year was hard, but I didn't see someone die.  So, I don't think it is PTSD, but it ain't nothing.  It is definitely something.  If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to put a name on it.  

It may be too early for me to know what I've learned from this year.  Perhaps, it was that, with intentional effort, students can progress faster than we think.  I didn't want to send my 8th graders up to 9th grade as far behind as they were when I got them (socially - academically, they seemed okay), so I and my fellow 8th-grade teachers did a lot more behavior training and character discussions and mediating arguments than we have ever done in other years.  While they didn't end up where I hoped, they made remarkable progress.  I'll have to mull a bit longer through the summer on what else this year that should have been better taught me.

Here's hoping for something resembling normal for next year.