Traditions Communicate Values

I am writing this on Easter Sunday, and this year, I am in a liturgical church for the first time.  Tradition and ceremony are the bread and butter of the liturgical church all year, but during Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Maudy Thursday to Good Friday to Easter, Anglicans are at steroid levels of tradition in which every moment, color, and piece of fabric are symbolic and meaningful.  I have loved every minute of it, and it reminds me that traditions communicate values.

Some families have holiday traditions, like reading from Luke or attending church services on Christmas Eve, communicating that they care deeply about keeping the birth of Jesus at the center of Christmas.  Non-religious families may read "Twas the Night Before Christmas," showing that they value time with family sharing a story they have loved.

Even on this blog, I have a tradition.  Every Thanksgiving, I post about educators who have formed my life as an educator, from my own middle and high school teachers to my current administrators to my group fitness instructors at the Y.  This yearly practice reflects my penchant for reflection and gratitude.  

If there is any industry in the world that participates in tradition, it is education.  Schools have dozens of traditions.  There are the obvious, holiday concerts, spring musicals, and graduations.  There are traditions for the first day of school and the last day of school.  Some go back for generations.  

At my school, we have some special ones.  For example, the night before the first day of school, parents of seniors come and decorate their parking space with chalk.  We have a Grandparents' Day celebration, which, even though it has changed somewhat over the years, has been consistently happening for over 30 years.  These communicate that we value the families our students come from and their participation in our community.  We have a high school spiritual retreat, called Ignite, every year and weekly chapel services, communicating to our students that we care about their spiritual formation.  We have an annual basketball game in support of the Kay Yow Fund and a number of yearly service projects, communicating our value of service outside the walls of our school.  And my favorite meeting of the entire year is the last one teachers have before we check out for the summer.  It's called "The Shout Out Meeting," and I consider it sacrosanct.  There is nothing like that meeting to communicate our care for each other as human beings, and it is a lovely way to end the year.

We are heading into the part of the year with more traditions than any other.  What traditions does your school have?  Why do you do them, and what values do they communicate?  Are they values you want to communicate?  If not, is it worth doing or should you replace this tradition with something new?  It matters and should be thought about carefully because, as writer Will Durant said, "We are what we repeatedly do."

Faithful Leadership - A Tribute to Julie Bradshaw

While this post isn't about education (well, actually, it is - just a different kind of education), I wanted to publically thank a woman who has been instrumental in my life this past year because she is moving to a different job next week.  Julie is the Group Fitness Director at the Alexander YMCA, but next week she will be at a different branch.  I won't see her often, so I want to take a moment to thank her for her faithfulness, friendship, and leadership.

The first time I met Julie was in June.  I had been at the Y for a couple of months and I had heard her name from instructors and other members. In June, she came up with an idea for a cycle challenge called the Tour de Alexandre.  Those of us who registered for it recorded our classes and mileage on a large chart with the goal of collectively reaching the same mileage as the Tour de France.  She sent a weekly email, updating us on our progress and including who the leaders were both in the number of classes and individual mileage.  The result was a really fun and motivating challenge.  The two men who were in the lead on miles teased each other and pushed hard against each other.  I knew I wouldn't be able to achieve a high number of miles, but I took more cycle classes in those few weeks than ever before and loved watching that chart fill up.  At the end of the challenge, I replied to one of Julie's emails to thank her for coming up with the idea and keeping us updated because it was super motivating to know that my progress was part of a collective goal (which we crushed, by the way - we ended up at double the mileage of those guys in France).

I didn't see Julie every time I came to work out, but she occasionally subbed for Matt's Group Power class.  In fact, I think the first time I saw her teach was when she and Matt taught Group Power Express together for the summer Group Fit Fest.  I realized then that she wasn't just a creative challenge designer.  She is an exceptional fitness educator.  She cares about the members of her class and is observant of how they are doing.  She is clear in her explanations and models skills well.  She tells Dad jokes both to motivate and to distract you from how hard what you are doing is.  Mostly, she is just super encouraging.  Whatever you are able to do is great, but she encourages you to do just a bit more.

Just as school was starting back, I wanted to tell my Y story to someone, and she seemed like the right person to share it with.  I sent her a very long email, telling her my story from the beginning and praising the educational techniques of many instructors.  She made the mistake of asking me about cognitive science, so she got a few more very long emails as a result.  Every time I see her, she asks lots of questions because she is great about learning everything she can about her members.

In September, Julie asked me if I would be willing to participate in fundraising for the annual campaign.  I was both honored to be asked and thrilled to have the opportunity to give back to the Y.  She kept me encouraged throughout the campaign, even when responses were slow.  When I first began feeling God's pull out of the classroom and towards the Y, she was the first person I talked to there.  I just wanted to feel out if it was a crazy idea, so I asked her if we could talk after a Group Power class one Saturday morning.  I'm sure she would have rather gone home after class, but she agreed to talk with me.  She was so helpful and encouraging and helped me explore the job posting website.  She set up introductions with important people so I could explore options, even introducing me to the president after class one morning.  When I decided to certify in cycle instruction, she was helpful and encouraging.  One of the final things Julie has done in her role at Alexander is to hire me as a substitute cycle instructor, and I couldn't be more grateful.  She gave great feedback on my demo class and asked great questions during our interview.   She has been walking me through every step of the process.  Mostly, she is providing me with an opportunity to be part of the Y's mission.  

In Drew Dyck's book Just Show Up, he discusses the value of faithfulness as both a character trait and a form of leadership.  He describes three questions you can ask yourself to identify faithfulness.

1.  Can people depend on me to do what I say I will do?

2.  Do I look for ways to help others?

3.  Am I a person who can be present even when I don't know what to say or do?

Julie exhibits all of these in her leadership at the Y.  She took the time to meet with me when she didn't have to and followed up on everything we talked about that day and at other times.  She took advantage of every opportunity to be there, not only for me, but for all of the instructors she is in charge of, and gave many members opportunities to be part of fundraising.  During more than one of our conversations about my future, I have begun to cry.  During each of those times, she has been patient to let me express whatever I needed to, comforted me with a hug, and given encouraging words when possible.  Her faithfulness has influenced more lives than she will ever know, and I am proud and grateful to call her my friend. 

This Becoming is Harder Than it Seems

I decided a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to see what music I would hear if I let randomness decide.  I put my iPod on shuffle and left it there.  As a result, I've heard some Christmas songs and skipped through a few things I don't remember purchasing.  But I've also heard some songs that I love and had forgotten about.  

One of them is a Michael W. Smith song called "Place in This World."  If you are younger than I am, you may not even know this song as it came out in 1990.  I had it on cassette tape back then and listened to it until I wore that part of the tape out.  It had become clear that I was not going to be an astronaut as I was already taller than their height limit with no sign of slowing down.  I had not yet found my love of physics, so I didn't know what the future looked like.  The line in this song that most resonated with me was "A heart that's hopeful, a head that's full of dreams, but this becoming is harder than it seems."

As I listened to it in my car this morning, I had many of the same thoughts I had back in the early 90s.  I don't know what happens next at 47 any more than I did at 17.  (And it is all the more jarring after 21 years of knowing exactly what I would be doing from day to day and year to year.)  I have to trust God for that every bit as much now as I did then.  And, I also thought of my students.  They are in the same position I was at that age.  Modern life doesn't make it easier; in fact, in many ways, it makes it harder.  They have more access to information, which seems like it would be helpful; but it can bring about a form of cognitive overload called choice fatigue.  Previous generations may have had to choose between college and a job or the military.  If they went to college, they likely had only one or two options.  Now, students apply to many colleges, and if the one they most want defers them, they are left with many choices they consider disappointments.  They are told all of their eggs rest in this basket even though we know God's plan for them will not be thwarted by one decision.  It's a lot of pressure, and it is worse than it was when we were kids.  Some of them become practically paralyzed with indecision.

If you know a teenager, pray for them.  "This becoming is harder than it seems" is just as true now as it was when Michael W Smith wrote it.  And they likely still feel this:

"If there are millions down on their knees

Among the many, can You still hear me?
Hear me asking, "Where do I belong?"
Is there a vision that I can call my own?
Show me, I'm

Looking for a reason

Roaming through the night to find
My place in this world
My place in this world
Not a lot to lean on
I need Your light to help me find
My place in this world."

Pray for them to know God can still hear them.  Pray for to find that reason.  Pray for God to give them the light they need.  Pray for them to learn to trust Him in the process.

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.

Questions Reveal Values

I've been thinking a lot about questions this week.  The questions students ask.  The questions I ask.  Questions related to jobs and those we are just curious about.  One of the reasons I have spent so much time thinking about these things is that I've been to two job interviews this week.  They were both jobs with the YMCA, but the positions were different; so the questions I was asked about myself were quite different.  As a department chair, I've also been a part of conducting job interviews.  It occurs to me that the questions we ask reveal something about us as askers.

The questions we ask in job interviews reveal what we value in a colleague and the way they will do their job.  In the interview I had this week for a substitute cycle instructor position, I got a lot of questions about how to anticipate and meet diverse needs or what I would do if something didn't go according to plan (does this sound like teaching or what?).  She asked these questions because when there are 25 people in a cycle class, some of them will be having their first ride and others will be athletes.  Some will have physical considerations, like injury or disability that affect range of motion.  It is likely that technology will fail, and I will need to adapt my instruction to accomplish the same goal in a different way.  Since I am likely to encounter these things, the interviewer wants to know that I won't fall apart when they happen.  The second interview was for a welcome desk position, so the questions were about welcoming people warmly, holding the line on rules, and comfort level with computers.  Since the person at the desk sets the tone for a person's experience, she wants to make sure I'm not going to be a grouch or a person who's afraid of technology.  Her questions reveal that she values people who can enforce rules while being respectful and empathetic to the person in front of her.

When we ask questions in a job interview, we may have an ideal answer in mind, or we may be observing how the prospect reacts to the question.  One of the questions I ask, for example, is "Can you tell us about a time when a lesson went wrong and how you reacted to that?"  While I am interested in the answer, what I really want to find out is whether this person tries new things, takes risks, admits when things don't work, and what they do to clean it up.  Because a person who does that is the kind of person I want in my department.

One thing I have noticed since the pandemic is that students ask fewer questions than they used to.  They have an ever-growing view of their education as a box to check off as they progress toward a college or a career, but they are less curious than they were before.  This makes me sad because I value curiosity so much and know that it can be the most joyful part of school, but it makes me really respond to the questions that are asked.  It now takes more courage to ask a question during a lesson because fewer of their classmates are doing it, so when they do, you know it is something they really care about.  Much like job interview questions, student questions reveal what they value.  If they ask a lot of medical-related questions, it may be because they have a loved one who is ill.  If they ask a lot of questions about how things work, they may be future engineers or tinkerers.  Don't just answer the question and jump back to your planned lesson.  Take a moment to recognize that the student has just told you something about themselves and what they value.  Keep it in mind as you develop relationships with them.

Great Teachers Aren't Born

"I'm going to tell you everything you need to know about being a great teacher - steal. STEAL.  STEAL!"  Then, he left the stage.  That's how the great Harry Wong opened the day of professional development for this first-year teacher.  When he returned to the stage, he said, "Well, I told you I was going to tell you everything you needed to know.  I figured you could go home after that."  We spent the day laughing and learning from this tiny man who, at nearly 70 years of age, had more energy than anyone in the room.

Before there were Edu-celebrities, Harry Wong was one.  He didn't try to be. It didn't come from a fine-tuned marketing machine with social media support.  It came from being the real deal rather than a crafted persona, a truly influential person rather than "an influencer."  I know very few teachers who haven't had his seminal work The First Days of School somewhere in their education, whether in a college course on classroom management or required reading for their first-year training in a school or a gift from an administrator.  It is a practical book of techniques that have been tested "in the wild" and it has influenced me from year one.  From procedures for entering and exiting the classroom to attention-getting hand signals, Harry and Rosemary Wong have helped teachers create efficient classrooms and reduced stress for both teachers and students more than just about anyone in the last four decades.  But what makes that book so effective is that much of the writing was not done by the Wongs.  They collected and collated techniques teachers were already using to give younger teachers the wisdom of their experience.

Which brings me back to the day of professional development.  What he meant when he said, "Steal. Steal. Steal." was that teaching is improved by experience, but it doesn't always have to be your experience.  You can learn from the wisdom of others.  While I cannot find it attributed to him, I am 99% certain that I heard Harry Wong say that day, "Great teachers aren't born; they are made by the teacher next door."  (If I am wrong and someone else said it, please don't hold it against me.  It was 1998, and he may have attributed it to someone else that I just don't remember 26 years later.)  

It is true.  Teaching involves a thousand big and small activities every day.  They have to manage their classroom, plan lessons, do lunch duty, deliver lessons, grade homework, give feedback, write tests, create project rubrics, deal with emotional students (or parents), choose curriculum, etc.  Anyone who tries to do that alone with only the knowledge they acquired in college courses will quickly burn out.  Befriending the teacher next door and finding a co-conspirator is as important as preparing your learning activities.  Despite being with 30 to 130 people all day long, teaching can be a lonely job, and the only remedy for that is to spend time with other teachers.  No matter how good you are at this job, you need a mentor.  If the school assigns you one, that's great; but they may not be the person you naturally gravitate toward.  Find that person.  Go in their room, sit down, and start developing a relationship.  You need them. They need you.

Harry Wong passed last week, but his legacy did not.  His book will still be valuable to young teachers everywhere.  His videoed speeches will still engage and entertain while educating educators.  But if anything, his lesson to learn from the experienced teachers around you will continue to do good far beyond the 92 years of his life.  Rest in peace, Harry Wong.  We'll miss you.