Using the Olympics to Teach

When there were only three TV channels, there was a pretty safe bet that if you mentioned something from last night's television line up, most people would have seen it.  Because of the number of choices for viewing on television and the internet, this is no longer the case.  Everyone once in a while, however, there is something that draws a large crowd.  The wise teacher should take advantage of that and plan for it.  The Olympics is one of those.

While no one event drew the majority of my students' eyes, the Winter Olympics as a whole certainly did.  Some students love figure skating.  Others are fascinated by snowboarding.  The biathlon, which most didn't know existed until last week, has captured the attention of many (because it is weird and different).  They may like to mock curling, but a lot of them watch it anyway.  

For a science teacher, the connection to the curriculum is pretty low hanging fruit.  My 8th grade had just finished the chapter on Motion, Forces, and Newton's Laws when the Olympics began.  The chapter that began two days into the games was on Momentum and Energy.  I would have to be crazy not to reference as many events as possible, especially since the Winter Olympics is basically 85 kinds of sliding.  For two weeks, there was primetime coverage of a momentum-based physics lab.  NBC even has a video series called NBC Learn, in which they have short documentaries on the science of each sport.  My kids liked the one on SlopeStyle.

Even if it hadn't been so perfectly timed to the chapter I was on, I would have used it in some way.  My physics students finished Mechanics last semester, and we had begun talking about waves and sound.  I still took the first five minutes each day to reference the physics of the games.  I put up photos of a couple of events each day, trying to choose ones that were as different as possible (luge and curling on the same day, for example).  Above the photo, I listed 3-5 physics concepts (momentum, Newton's 3rd law, rotational momentum, etc.) that were heavily represented by that event.  As I write this, I am watching the closing ceremonies, and I have seen several examples of concepts that I plan to use in the chapter on Light and Color as they use light as a kind of paint on the floor.

If you aren't a science teacher, the applications may not be as obvious, but they are certainly there.  

- Foreign language teachers can find coverage of the games in just about any language just be going to YouTube.  

- Latin teachers, you probably can't find Latin coverage, but you can obviously address the classical history of the games.  

- History teachers, this is a prime opportunity for teaching geography but also to address the culture of a country by discussing why some countries are always better at certain sports.  Do you teach about the Cold War?  I heard the Miracle on Ice mentioned at least half a dozen times this week even though it happened 38 years ago.  

- Math teachers, there are many opportunities to use real data.

- PE and Health teachers, duh.  Yours is as obvious as physics.

- English teachers, do you have your students write journals or blog?  The Olympics can provide a very enjoyable prompt.  My 8th graders' blogs were great this week because they were excited about getting to choose whichever Olympic sport they wanted.

You may not have time to construct entire lessons around the Olympics.  That's totally fine.  You will, however, reap the benefits of taking five minutes a day for two weeks to show how the subject you teach connects with something that has the attention of the world.  

No, You Don't Know How to Keep This From Happening Again

I didn't want to write this post.  I tried hard not to write this post.  After all, there have been several hundred thousand blog posts, articles, and social media rants since the shooting in Parkland this week.  What more can I add to this discussion than what has already been said?

Today, as I scrolled through my Twitter and Facebook feeds, however, I realized that this may be precisely the reason why I should write this post.  A lot of people are spouting off a lot of manufactured outrage and phony heartbreak.  Before you get mad at me for that statement, recognize that no heartbroken person is posting to facebook while they are heartbroken, and any person who is truly outraged puts their phone down and does something.  People are spouting off a lot of opinions from both sides of the political spectrum, and most of them are ill-informed.  Everyone seems to think they have a "solution," everything from arming teachers to hiring veterans as security to new laws that restrict access to guns.  Most of these "solutions" are coming from people who haven't set foot in a school in several decades.  WARNING:  This will be long, probably have some conflicting thoughts as I work out my own feelings, and will likely come off as a little rant-y.

I have been teaching for 19 years, starting the year after the Columbine shootings.  I was a substitute when Columbine happened; and, while it wasn't the first school shooting, it was the one that changed the way we looked at them.  As a sub, I walked into a different classroom every day.  After Columbine, the first thing I did every day was to look for the second exit and the place we might hide if there were a gunman in the building.  (I was 22 years old, by the way.)  Columbine tore my heart to pieces.  It happened on a Tuesday, and I remember sitting in church the next night, sobbing so loudly that I disrupted the service, and my congregation spent the rest of the time gathered around me as a representative of schools and praying.  During my second year as a  high school teacher, my school found a shooting threat letter with a hit list and a map one Friday afternoon.  I spent a lot of time in prayer that weekend, and when my students entered my classroom that Monday, after having their backpacks searched at the door, I told them, "They won't get to you without going through me."  I assured them that there was a plan (this was before we did drills, so they didn't know what the plan was) and that if we needed it, they should just do what I told them.  Then, I taught as though we weren't under threat, with the exception that my eyes darted from the window to the kids to the door about 150 thousand times per class period.  In the years since that day, some of my students told me that they felt safest in my room.  This never fails to amuse me, given that I was the youngest teacher in the building at the time.

Now that you know I am not someone who only thinks about this when it is on the news, let me say a few things.

1.  There is NOT a simple solution.
Given how many shooters there have been in schools, movie theaters, nightclubs, military bases, etc. in the past two decades, if the solution were as simple as something you could post to Facebook, it would have been done by now.  Here's the thing; there isn't a simple solution because this isn't a simple problem.  Anytime something goes wrong, whether it is a disease or the explosion of a space shuttle, people want there to be ONE cause that they can blame because that makes fixing it easy.  Almost nothing has one cause.  When I teach my students about the Apollo 1 fire, we discuss the fact that, while the official cause was an electrical arc from a wire with worn insulation, that arc alone would not have caused three fatalities.  It was a combination of the arc with the high pressure, 100% oxygen environment, and manual opening hatch all interacting with each other that killed three astronauts that day.  The problem of mass shootings doesn't come from one source.  Each shooter has a different past, different levels of access to weapons, different mental states, and different motivations.  The combination of home, school, and work lives is unique to each individual as is their constitution for a response.  Don't go online and pretend you have the solution; you do not.

2.  This is NOT about Gun Control.
Most of the phony outrage I see online surrounds firearms, saying things like, "You cannot cause this many casualties without a gun."  These people were remarkably silent when a truck drove into a crowd of people in France, killing over 70 people.  None were advocating truck control.  When there are terror attacks that involve stabbing people, I don't see knife control advocates coming out of the woodwork.  Guns don't shoot themselves.  Criminals, by definition, don't follow laws.  Adding new laws will not solve this problem.  Apparently, our founding fathers felt pretty strongly about the right to keep and bear arms because they made it the second amendment, right after the one about free speech, press, and religion.  That said, most people who lay claim to the second amendment haven't read it.  It does not say that you have a right to own any weapon you want.  It specifically references "a well-regulated militia."  Thomas Jefferson had no concept of bump stocks, high round magazines, or anything that could cause more than a few casualties in a few minutes, and I don't believe he would be happy for us to use his name to claim a right to own whatever weapon gets invented, no matter what.  I'm not going to claim to know where the line is, but can we agree that there is one?  

3.  Arming Teachers is NOT the Answer.
Possibly the most infuriating posts I read online surround arming school personnel.  If you look at these posts, you will find that they are rarely posted by educators.  I find it interesting that the same people who advocate for this in the days following a shooting are the same people that criticize teachers online on other days.  They don't trust their child's teacher to teach them math or reading properly; they question every disciplinary tactic the teacher tries; they talk about teachers as though they are too stupid to have chosen a better paying career.  Then, in the days following a shooting, they want that same teacher to be in command of a weapon.  

I'm not saying I would mind having someone in the school armed; when I taught in public school, there was an armed police officer, and I was fine with that.  Please don't arm me.  I do not wish to have a weapon strapped to my body while I am leaning over a desk to help a student with a math problem.  If you think about it, you don't want that either.

4.  Take Mental Illness Seriously (or Don't) - Stop Just Pretending You Care.
In order to divert the conversation away from guns, some have decided that the real problem is mental illness.  It is easy to assume all mass shooters are mentally ill.  After all, if you don't believe in sin, what other reason could you give for a person's decision to kill others?  That seems logical, but the research doesn't support it.  According to the American Psychiatric Association, "the overall contribution of people with serious mental illness to violent crimes is only about 3%." (See full study here.) 

Mental illness is a serious problem in our society, and we have not taken it seriously.  We have used the mentally ill for our amusement since the freak shows of the 19th century, and probably before that.  Reality TV has normalized the public's use of mental illness for entertainment.  We cannot spend nine seasons watching Hoarders and six watching My Strange Addiction, entertaining ourselves with their struggle, and then pretend to have compassion for those who suffer from mental illness.  

5.  These Events Reflect Our Culture's Worldview
I was at dinner Friday night with some older people, all of whom had thoughts about the shooting.  They talked about guns, mental illness, and school and parental discipline (which I am not even going to address here).  I said, "Well, we taught this generation that human life doesn't have value.  Are we surprised they act like it doesn't?"  

For the past forty years or so, we have taught kids that humans are just another kind of animal.  In practice, we actually teach them that animals are more important (Think about how many more ads you have seen about rescuing abused animals than you have helping abused children).  We have taught them that there are good reasons to kill human beings, from the inconvenient unborn child to lack of life quality in the elderly or disabled to the right of the chronically ill to plan their own death.  We have two living generations who believe that there is some standard which, if a person's life falls below, their life is not worth living.  This has led to a slow but steady rise in the suicide rate.   We can't be too surprised when it also translates into killing others.

The secularized culture in which we live teaches us that humans aren't special or particularly valuable.  Noted atheist, Stephen J. Gould tells us, "We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during the ice age; because a small and tenacious species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and crook. We may yearn for a higher answer, but none exists."  Richard Dawkins tells us we come from living mud but without design.  He has gone so far as to say that there is no objective reason to believe murder is immoral, that it is only wrong by "my reason says it is wrong."  I guess as long as a mass shooter's reason tells him it is not wrong, Dawkins and the culture that listens to him will be okay with events like Parkland.  

Conclusion:
I know I have talked more about what won't work than what will.  See point 1.  There are no easy solutions to this problem.  I have no magic spell, practice, or policy that will ensure this never happens again.  When Jesus returns, this will never happen again.  Until then, we have to deal with the effects of the Fall.  Man's depravity is only going to be dealt with by the blood of Christ. 

Senioritis - a Term of Privilege

A few weeks ago, our school had a special winter spirit week.  One of the days was "Fake and Injury Day," which turned out to pretty fun.  One of my students came in with completely normal dress, so I asked what his injury was.  He said, "I'm a senior."  Seriously, that's your injury?  Being a senior somehow makes you pitiful?  Just stop it.  

From the first day of school, I have students claiming "senioritis" as an excuse for everything from not wanting to participate in an activity to not turning in their homework (in August).  A junior told me two weeks ago that he was not going to do anything his senior year, once he got accepted into college.  Setting aside for the moment that colleges can and do rescind acceptances, this is just a gross way to think.  I told him that would dishonor the God who gave him intelligence and the privilege of private schooling, and he looked at me like I was the crazy one.  A few months ago, a girl in the hall was bemoaning her "senioritis" because she had to do homework on the same weekend as another activity.  I said, "Senioritis isn't real.  It's a cute name for your sin." and walked away as she gasped in horror.

It's an excuse - a socially acceptable one - but an excuse, none the less.  Society has just accepted it to the point that it is almost expected.  Adults feed this crazy, which makes it grow.  We act like they have actually been infected by a virus and therefore have no control over their own actions.  Giving it a cute name doesn't change the fact that it is just an excuse for sin.  Whatever work God has put before you today is what you are supposed to do, and you honor Him by doing it well and dishonor Him when we choose to do less than our best.

I'm not saying the temptation isn't real.  Everyone who has ever left a job knows that when you near the end of something, you feel a strong temptation to do whatever you want and be lazy (because, what are they gonna do, fire me?).  I've known a lot of people who left jobs that way, and it ruins their memory at that company.  People remember the way you leave.  I don't use the term senioritis in my physics class because I don't want to even open that door.  If they signed up for physics, I expect them to learn all of physics.  A person can't honestly believe that it is okay to write off the highest quarter of their high school education.

So, yes, the temptation is real.  Like any other temptation to sin, however, giving into the temptation is the sin.  Here's the deal, senior.  God has given you gifts that he didn't give others.  How dare you waste them.  God has given you (my students) a lot of privilege; you live in an area of high education and social standing with parents or grandparents who have chosen private education for you.  How dare you waste their sacrifice.  They could have done a lot with that money, and it is wrong for you to do less than your best with it.  

Believe it or not, senioritis has a Wikipedia page.  Before you jump to the conclusion that it is real because of that, remember that Wikipedia also has pages on the tooth fairy, leprechauns, and unicorns.  If you visit the page on senioritis, something might stand out to you in the first sentence.  This term is used "in the United States and Canada."  It is not a term used in places where people would give everything they have to receive an education.  Remember Malala Yousafzai, the girl from Pakistan, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for trying to attend school.  She would not have used the term senioritis, I can assure you.  It is a term used by those for whom easy access to education has made it familiar, thereby causing them to view it as a hardship rather than a blessing.  In short, it is a term of privilege.

The Gift of Imposter's Syndrome

Every adult has been there.  You walk into your job on the first day or third month or seventh year and start to wonder if you really know what you are doing.  Have I actually been getting away with this?  Do people actually think I know what I am doing?  This phenomenon is known as Imposter's Syndrome when it interferes with the ability to live normally. 

I have heard people from a variety of fields talk about this feeling.  Hank and John Green, the renowned YouTube content creators and authors, discuss their battles with it in their online videos.  I have heard a lot of tech professionals talk about their feelings of inferiority as the field changes so rapidly that it is difficult to keep up.  People early in a medical career often feel this way as the comparison with their peers is ingrained in their education.  Emma Watson told Rookie Magazine, “It’s almost like the better I do, the more my feeling of inadequacy actually increases, because I’m just going, ‘Any moment, someone’s going to find out I’m a total fraud, and that I don’t deserve any of what I’ve achieved."  See this list that shows even Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks feel this way.  If after all their awards and attention, these amazing actors feel like frauds, what hope is there for the rest of us?

As a teacher, I have a mild panic attack every August.  I wonder if it is possible I forgot how to teach during the summer.  It's been ten weeks since I have been in the classroom, after all.  Maybe I will walk in on the first day and forget how to keep all the science I know.  For years, I had some pretty frightening dreams about this, with scenes right out of Dangerous Minds (why don't I ever dream of Dead Poets' Society?) because I no longer have the ability to manage behavior.  A couple of years ago, I almost called another yearbook teacher to ask if she ever forgot how to do it because I was relatively certain that I didn't know how to make a yearbook after ten years of making yearbooks.  

There are times when this is a toxic experience, especially if it comes from a place of insecurity or fear or what other people think of you.  Sometimes, it is misplaced pride.  Other times, it is legitimate humility, a much-needed quality in the world in which we live.  While it is unpleasant for the person experiencing it, I submit to you that it is a good thing in small and temporary doses.  

Imposter's Syndrome can drive us to improve if we handle it correctly.  It can cause us to focus on providing value in our jobs and relationships.  It can make us actually become better in an attempt to feel better.  With the understanding that I am in no way an expert, I offer the following advice that has helped me.

1.  Own your mistakes.  If you feel like a fraud, it could be because you have been trying to make everyone think you are perfect, which of course no one is.  While I don't recommend running around advertising all of your weaknesses to everyone, admitting them out loud to trusted friends can be helpful.  They may encourage you, laugh at how seriously you are taking it, or give you advice on how to improve.

2.  Engage in professional development.  Nothing makes you feel better about your job than getting better at your job.  Take a class.  Attend a seminar.  Read a book to improve some specific skill.  You will know that you are making the effort to improve, which helps reduce the feeling of being a fraud.

3.  Make a list.  Okay, this is the kind of nerd I am.  I am a list person - to do lists, grocery lists, pro and con lists.  I like seeing things clearly laid out.  Make a list of things you are certain you are good at.  Make another list of skills you would like to improve.  It helps to visually see that there actually are good reasons for your success as well as recognizing that you can always improve.  Then, do what you need to do to move something from the second list to the first.

4.  Recognize others.  Recognize what is good in your peers.  If you talk to them, you might find that they are also not sure of their value.  If you see good in them while they don't, you might realize that the same is happening in the other direction.

5.  Keep faking it.  Faking it doesn't make you a fraud.  It makes you a person who is trying.  If you ever learned to play an instrument, you know that it took thousands of hours of really bad practice to become even moderately good.  You may have felt like it would never happen, but as a person continues to fake it (also called practice), the brain adapts and improves at the skill.  When you learned to walk, you fell a lot.  That didn't make you a fraudulent walker; it made you a baby learning a new skill.  This is also true in your adult life.  Faking it leads to growth, so keep doing it.

This blog sometimes causes or alleviates my own experience with Imposter's Syndrome.  Whether I am happy that I have something to offer or confused by the idea of anyone reading, I keep writing.  Some posts may help a new teacher or encourage a veteran teacher, and that makes me happy.  Some posts may only help me, and I can be okay with that too.  Don't put so much pressure on yourself to be perfect, and you might no feel like you are pulling the wool over the eyes of everyone around you.

Can Any Good Thing Come From Nazareth?

The inscription on the Statue of Liberty reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"  For 241 years, our country has been a place where people came to make a better life for themselves and their families, as Emma Lazarus' lovely poem memorializes.  We have taken in those who needed help, due in no small part to our Judeo-Christian roots and Biblical commands to take care of the poor and take in the refugee.

A week ago, President Trump's comment on people from Haiti and many African countries reflected that he wants to change that culture.  He wants to make immigration policy based on "merit."  When he said that he wanted more people from places like Norway, he didn't just mean that he wanted more white people (although, seriously, could he have chosen a whiter place?) but that he wanted people with something to offer.  If he passed his ideal policy, America would no longer be the friend that helps you clean up your house after a flood.  America would be the friend that helps you move only if you helped him and are willing to buy him dinner afterward.  Everyone has that friend, but no one likes him.  

I have come to expect this from President Trump, so it is difficult to be disappointed in him.  What I am disappointed by are the number of people that I know and love, people who claim to love Jesus and want to follow His example, who defend this attitude.  I have friends who immediately posted about the long history of presidents using foul language.  While true, I don't know when adults decided that something was acceptable as long as other people had done it too.  I have friends who were quick to sidestep the issue by complaining that the media isn't reporting on rising stock market or companies who are bringing jobs back.  Again, these things are true, but how does doing one thing right make another thing less reprehensible?  I have friends who jumped totally on board with the Norway portion of his comments, exclaiming how glad they are to "finally" have a president who wanted to bring people here who could help us.  I think these are the people who bother me the most because it shows that they share his "America first" attitude and are proud to abandon any concept of our melting pot history in the name of cold, hard greed.  Some of you that are reading this are offended by this statement, and I'm fine with that; but if you love Jesus, let me ask you to set aside your offense for just a minute and consider something about Jesus.

Jesus was born in poverty and adopted by a working tradesman.  His parents fled with him to Egypt as refugees from a king that was paranoid and unstable.  He grew up in Nazareth, a town of around 500 people.  It may have had one public bath at the time of Jesus earthly ministry, a metric archeologists use to determine the size of an ancient city.  It is seldom mentioned in the historical record outside of scripture, from which most people infer that it was considered too trivial a place to mention.  This appears to be supported by the statement of the not yet disciple, Nathaniel to Phillip, when he said, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"  To borrow the phrase of President Trump, Nazareth was a "s#*!hole country."  Jesus offered no skill that would cause people to think He had merit.  He was exactly the kind of person President Trump's policies seek to exclude.  How many people missed the Messiah because of their expectations, their prejudice, and their self-centered attitudes?  How many people would have preferred that their Messiah come from the ancient equivalent of Norway?  

William Holman Hunt - Nazareth.jpg." Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. 23 Mar 2017, 18:37 UTC. 22 Jan 2018

My blog is supposed to be about education, and so far this post has been political and religious meddling.  So, here is my application to the classroom, at least the Christian school classroom.  We must teach our kids that EVERY person on this planet, no matter where they are from, is a creation of God who carries His image.  We must teach them that EVERY person on this planet, no matter what their skill level, was created with a unique purpose.  We must teach them that EVERY person is a fallen sinner in need of a savior (yes, everyone, including me and you).  God doesn't have an America first policy; He so loved the world that He sent His Son.  If we are going to view people the way God views them, we must love the world.

The kids we teach will soon vote.  One day, some of them will be responsible for making immigration policy.  We owe it to the future to teach them now to view people the way God does.  Viewing people as God views them will not make immigration policy less complex; there will always be more need than resources.  Viewing people as God views them will not even make immigration policy easier; difficult decisions will always have to be made about how to allocate resources.  These are thorny issues that deserve thoughtful discussion.  Viewing people as God views them, however, should make those discussions more compassionate.  Start those discussions in YOUR classroom.

Statue of Liberty Poem - "The New Colossus." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 18 Jan. 2018. Web. 22 Jan. 2018.

Don't Stop Paying Attention

It's January, which means returning from Christmas to my favorite chapter.  The unit I teach on manned space exploration is not only my favorite, but it is usually their favorite as well.

One of the best resources I have in teaching this chapter is the excellent HBO Mini-Series, From the Earth to the Moon.  While there isn't time to show all 12 episodes, I have carefully selected three that enhance the flow of the unit.  The first episode, "Can We Do This?" sets the stage by taking the viewer all the way from Yuri Gagarin to the introduction of the Apollo 1 astronauts.  The second one that I show them is "Mare Tranquilatis," the episode when Armstrong and Aldrin actually land, usually prompting my students to feel sorry for Michael Collins more than anything.  The third is episode 10, "Galileo Was Right."  Someday, I will write a post entirely about that episode because it is my absolute favorite.  For right now, I want to address something in "Mare Tranquilatis."

Shortly after landing on the moon, Buzz Aldrin tells Neil Armstrong that there is something he would like to do and has cleared with Deke (the head of the astronaut corps).  He reaches into a velcro pocket and pulls out a small chalice and communion wafer and a handwritten card with two scriptures written on it.  Given that the Apollo 8 astronauts had been sued by famed atheist activist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Buzz gave a rather vague statement over the public radio broadcast, saying, “I would like to request a few moments of silence … and to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours, and to give thanks in his or her own way.”

Neil Armstrong then respectfully looked on while Aldrin quietly read John 15:5, "I am the vine.  You are the branches.  He who abides in me and I in him will bear much fruit,  for you can do nothing without me."  (By the way, the members of his church, Webster Presbyterian in Texas, home church of many astronauts, gathered at the same time to join him in communion.)

I have seen this video over 60 times, but this year, something struck me in this scene that I had never noticed before.  The passage ends, "Without me, you can do nothing."  For the first time, it hit me how profound this statement was in the context of what they had just done.  These two had just landed the lunar module, a feat that some had previously believed to be impossible.  Yet, moments later, Buzz reminded himself and his commander that this event was only possible by the grace of God.

When you teach for many years, it can be hard to imagine that you haven't heard everything.  The moment you think that, a student asks a question you've never been asked.  It can be tempting to think you know your subject so well that you won't need to alter it.  I don't know about every subject, but I can assure that isn't true in science.  It's always changing.  It's hard to imagine that you could notice something new in a video you have watched over five dozen times, but you can.  Teachers, don't check out when showing a video.  They are filled with teachable moments.  Don't stop learning from the world around you and the way your students interact with it.  In short, don't stop paying attention.

Awareness of the Moment

In the penultimate episode of The Office, Andy Bernard says,

"I wish there was a way to know you are in the good old days while you are still in them."  

I love that line.  It makes me cry every time I watch it.  (Disclaimer:  I'm kind of a sap, so everyone's last line on that show makes me cry.)  Nostalgia has long been one of my favorite feelings because I think it is really the gratitude we feel when we recognize the patterns of God's providence in our lives, so I totally love this sentiment from Andy.

Here's the thing; if you pay attention, you can know.  You just have to be careful to pay attention to the moment you are in.  I learned this life lesson from my sixth-grade teacher, Tom Dorrin.  Neither one of us knew it at the time.

The Teacher Who Changed My Personality
Until sixth grade, I was a crybaby and a touch-me-not.  We didn't have the word "triggered" then, but if we had, mine was a hair trigger.  Today, I might be called a snowflake.  I cried at the drop of a hat even if I had to drop the hat.  Say the wrong thing to me or look at me sideways, and I was that kid who would run crying to the teacher or my mom.  Once, when I was in college, I was babysitting a child who was like that, and I called my mom to apologize and thank her for letting me live to adulthood.

Here's where Mr. Dorrin enters the story.  At this time, sixth grade was still considered elementary school, so I had one teacher all day.  For this particular teacher, affection was shown by teasing.  If he liked you, he picked on you.  He loved me.  He had taught my brother and liked our family, so he teased me a lot.  He teased me so much that another child's mom reprimanded him for it at the conference for her child (I found this out much later and wished I could have told her to mind her own child's business).  You may be thinking, like this mom did, that it was horrible for him to pick on me, especially given how sensitive I was to being teased.  If you are thinking this, you are wrong.  This was the best thing that could have happened at this time in my life.  He taught me not to take everything so seriously, particularly myself.  He taught me that only people who love you will take the time to tease you; other people will ignore you.  I'm not sure I would have developed the appropriate personality for teaching middle school if it hadn't been for this man.

I didn't recognize that this massive change was being made in my life until I was in the eighth grade and had a chance to reflect on how I was different.  The problem was that he had left our school at the end of my seventh-grade year.  He left to work for IBM, which we used to say stood for "I've Been Moved."  There wasn't social media or even an internet yet, so tracking people down wasn't an easy thing to do.  "He'll never know," I thought.  "He's made this big difference in my life, and I can't tell him."

The Promise I Made to Myself
I was incredibly bothered that he would never know how important he had been in my life.  That's when I made myself a promise.  I would not let that happen again.  I would keep my eyes open for the impact people had on me so that I could recognize it sooner than I had with Mr. Dorrin.  I would be aware of their contribution to my life and let them know it as soon as possible.

If you have ever gotten a card or letter from me, thanking you for what you have done in my life, this is why.  As a department chair, I write notes to my people, thanking them for the work they put into a great class.  This is why.  My colleagues know that I consider our "Shout Out Meeting" at the end of the year sacrosanct.  This is why.  I cannot let the year end without you knowing the impact you are having on the people around you, especially me.  This lost opportunity raised my attention level, seeking out awareness of being in "the good old days" while I am still in them.

An Even Better Feeling
While I was preparing to introduce and thank another former teacher with my colleagues on Wednesday (read that story here), I knew that this was an opportunity most people don't get in their lives.  I rehearsed it a lot because I wanted it to be exactly right.  As I stood on the stage, I realized that I was having a feeling that is even better than nostalgia.    I didn't have to wait until the experience was over and look back on it to realize it was special.  I could take in every aspect of the moment and appreciate it because I was aware of how special it was as I was doing it.  I had so many feelings that it was like my heart wasn't big enough to hold them all.  I don't know the name for the feeling, so I'm going to call it "instant nostalgia."  This is my new favorite feeling, and all it takes is the discipline to pay attention.