Harriet Tubman

Lessons Learned

The Araminta Project

Harriet “Araminta” Tubman, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, had every reason to surrender to the crushing despair of slavery that oppressed her, her family, and thousands and thousands of others, but she did not succumb. Instead, against all odds and all better judgement, she ran for her life and for her freedom and did not stop until she possessed it. Even then, in the exhilaration and bliss of freedom’s joy, Harriet was not content knowing that countless sisters and brothers still remained bound in the wretched, brutal, hopeless claws of slavery. So back she went, at inconceivable personal risk, to lead more than 300 others to freedom. Harriet made nineteen trips back, undeterred by the $40,000. bounty which was being offered for her capture dead or alive. Courage, perseverance, faith, hard work, generosity, patience, selflessness, confidence, strength, and hope are just a few of Harriet’s attributes that drove her to serve, lead, and rescue others.

This summer, we will gather 100 at-risk and special needs students from grades 3-5, and teach them Harriet’s story through script, song, poetry, dance, and spirituals, which they, then, in turn will share with parents, neighbors, and all in the community through a collection of performances. The cast of 100 will also take a field trip to an Underground Railroad(UGRR) Museum, walk through an actual UGRR tunnel, and then perform Harriet’s story on the lawn of the museum for museum guests. Learning Harriet’s story will teach them history, understanding Harriet’s heroic attributes will inspire their hearts, and performing for adoring audiences will fill their souls with confidence and gladness.  With immense anticipation and excitement, we are tweaking this original musical piece in preparation for the precious children who will learn it. The TpT Store, One Arts Infusion Collaborative, contains one of the “Araminta” songs as sheet music and as an mp4 file.

Harriet Tubman: The Underground Railroad Sheet Music

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Harriet-Tubman-The-Underground-Railroad-Sheet-Music-1659828

Harriet Tubman: The Underground Railroad Sing Along

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Harriet-Tubman-The-Underground-Railroad-Sing-Along-1675166

Can’t wait for the Araminta Project!

An Unruly Child

Lessons Learned

Tell The Truth

An unruly child. Incorrigible in many ways. Defiant. Combative. Aggressive. Befriended by other school children through fear, in their efforts to socially navigate the “walking on egg shells” feeling of coexistence with one so different from them; this was the standard and daily classroom MO in room 237. Laughing a little too loudly and often at classroom jokes that weren’t particularly humorous in order to offer affirmation and esprit de corps to one who didn’t fit; this too seemed a daily survival strategy. But this was no way to learn. And this was no way to live. It was dysfunction. Head-in-the-sand, turn-a-blind-eye, sweep-it-under-the-rug, anything-but-address-it dysfunction. What happened to the tow-the-line, call-it-what-it-is, own-it type of honesty? Can we truly improve if we do not face the problem? Can we truly grow if we do not seek to acknowledge truth? Can we be set free from the demons of defensiveness over our painful circumstances if we are unwilling to look deeply and compassionately into those very circumstances that fuel our rage and plot a path out? Hope is not found in the place where we ignore truth, but rather hope dwells in a place where we humbly recognize truth and bravely, deliberately commit to a stronger path. Hope is for every child, every student who is led by a courageous teacher, parent, grandparent, coach, or pastor who will not settle for anything short of honesty. Honesty is never the easy way, however, because honesty requires engagement and disclosure, which in turn require time, vulnerability, and trust. One child, one student, one life at a time, we must make the time for honesty, for ultimately it is the only way each one can be set on a trajectory of hope and possibility. Less than that will cripple the future and diminish dreams.  The unruly child didn’t really want to be so. The unruly child wanted normalcy and simply had no idea how to get there. The unruly child needed the honesty and compassion and strong leadership of one who wouldn’t allow any sort of settling for less. The unruly, lonely, hurting, fragile, despairing child daily struck out in the rage of accumulated pain, with actions screaming “help me” and everyone standing by saying “you’re just fine.” When did we stop telling the truth?

TpT

Lessons Learned

Teachers Pay Teachers Became An Answer

In 1981, a Master Teacher, who was my cooperating teacher, offered a thought-provoking question and subsequent challenge, that in answering and accepting, completely set the trajectory of my teaching for the next 30 years. She inquired, “What is your passion?” And immediately chased this query with the bold assertion, “Because it will take all you have and are and believe in and will sacrificially pour yourself into to reach these desperately at-risk students.” I love music. I love to write music and play music. “Perfect,” she nodded. “Then music it is. We will teach them to learn by inspiring them with music.” The children helped me write lyrics which became songs, their songs. Their songs contained their words and those words became sight words and gradually but with never-ending zeal, we learned to read their songs. In learning to read their songs, they learned to read. We sang. We learned. We reveled in the wonderment of learning. They taught me the power and the joy of using music to help students engage with content. From then on and for the next 30 years, I have seen over and over and over again, the power and the joy of sharing music to support and enhance all curricular content.  Through the years, my wonderful, courageous students have basked in the blissful and confidence evoking fun of music to learn. Even Bloom and Gardner, I believe, would have smiled broadly upon the highly creative, wildly engaging musical academics occurring day after day. Beautiful! Now, so very many years later, however,  hundreds and hundreds of songs written through all of these years to support learning have remained unscored and consequently un-sharable, inaccessible, and  stashed on a shelf, for in the flurry of  life and living as a teacher and a mom, taking precious time to learn to score music was of lowest priority. The songs remained packed in my memory with lyrics scribbled on loose sheets of paper in tattered, well-worn folders. With retirement last June came a gift of time; time to learn to score music and time to learn to share music. But where? Then came the strong suggestion of Teachers Pay Teachers, a brilliant online marketplace for the buying and selling of excellent and highly creative  educational resources, as well as a fabulous network of support, encouragement, and help for all educators. So last mid-September, Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) became the home of my new “music to learn” store called, One Arts Infusion Collaborative, and step by step, note by note, I am learning to transcribe those songs that have been swirling and dancing in my mind for an entire career.  TpT has provided a forum, a venue, a storefront, a chance for the previously inaccessible to be shared.

Quiet. Stillness. Peace. Winter.

Lessons Learned

Winter’s Lesson

Winter has arrived here. That wise, celebrity groundhog has proclaimed and affirmed what we all unquestionably know will be the case; another six weeks of wintry weather. It is winter, and our world is frozen, hushed, and cloaked in shimmering whiteness.  The snow is deep and has been swept into impassable drifts along both highways and country roads. The whistling wind sneaks into homes through unseen cracks supremely taxing even the heartiest of furnaces and demanding multiple layers of woolen sweaters and fleecy blankets for all inhabitants. It is winter. Rosy cheeks, piping hot homemade soup, and fireplaces a’blaze are the order of the day, and we smile for each delicate, unique snowflake that lands gently on a tongue.  Although the wintry conditions are certainly extreme and undeniably dangerous, there is a stillness and a peace and a wonder-filled beauty about the snow.  It’s a sparkling, chilly blanket that frosts the landscape like a fluffy dollop of butter cream frosting atop a scrumptious cupcake.  To stand outside in the snow, to walk in it, to traverse it in snowshoes or skis is to understand the stillness of it, which without the experience of it is completely indescribable. The chaos and cacophony of life at its outrageously presto pace, in its constant stereophonic dissonance, with its hyper-stimulation of lights, colors, and images can indeed numb the senses with all of its uber-overdoneness.  How can we be still? How can our children understand peace? How can we learn to quiet our hearts and rest our souls? Beneath a blanket of snow, the earth sleeps for an entire season, animals hibernate, and farmers move indoors and rest their fields.  In the stillness of the winter, the stars in the night sky seem to twinkle with greater intensity, the creaking and humming sounds of the forest are seemingly amplified, and if far enough north, the glory of the northern lights dancing across the heavens in surreal technicolor splendor is beyond breath-taking. In stillness there is infinite room for creativity and imaginative pensivity because those things that crowd and clutter our lives and bring much noise are delightfully absent. When there is stillness or peace around, it feels somehow easier to find a quiet place within. As we warm our hands during the coldness of this winter, may we be reminded to also quiet our hearts, for in the quietness, in the stillness, in the peace there is a longed for and much needed joy, comfort, rest, and restoration.

All I Want For Christmas Is Your Time

Lessons Learned

Please Read To Me This Christmas

I have always contended that reading a book is to the mind what being on vacation is to the soul; a brief, delightful, adventurous respite from the status quo and daily routine. It allows, no invites, us to disengage from the rat race pace which seems to swallow up our joy and drive up our blood pressure.  It is a place where the lockstep of life is temporarily replaced with wandering wonder of imagination and relaxation. Reading fully engages the imagination. As one journeys through the pages of a book, the encountered printed words paint vivid pictures seen clearly in the imagination and catch one completely in the creative swirl of plot, scenes, settings, and characters. Engaged. Captured. Enthralled. Have you ever been read to? Do you remember the magical feeling of being lost in a story, happily tangled in its moods and actions and relational webs? Do you remember not wanting the story to end? When did you last read to someone, whereby offering them a self-less, generous gift of a vacation to imagination? If we desire to foster imaginative development and creativity in children we must read to them. We must let them play, to be sure, but we must also read more than regularly to them. Their minds must practice the art of imagining, seeing the pictures made by words, and resting in the stillness of attentive listening. To build creativity, to stretch attention spans, to revel in the happiness of sitting side by side on the couch and sharing the adventure of a story, this is a deep and lasting treasure that costs nothing more than time. When there is not enough money for a family vacation, travel together to the library and check out a large stack of books to read together. When the busy-ness of the day has exhausted all reserve energy, sleep has been a bit sporadic, and tomorrow and the next day are looking to be more of the same, sit together on the couch and read, read, read together. When it rains the entire month of June and three little boys are longing to get outside to play, pitch a tent on the porch, bring snacks, a flashlight, a few toys, and a large stack of books, and travel imaginatively together to exotic, exciting places far and near.   Between the infusion of excessive screens and the cultivated impatience of continual demands for extreme immediate gratification, the quiet creativity of listening to a story has become desperately endangered. The gift of being read to is indeed priceless and needs to be high on everyone’s list this Christmas.

Guest Blogger- Grandpa A: Life In The Wisconsin Northwoods Beginning 1927, The Christmas Season Story Two

Lessons Learned: Guest Blogger- Grandpa A

It All Happened In A One Room Country School: The Christmas Program

The Christmas Program was the academic drama production of the year, and all of the uncles and aunts, grandparents, and friends, as well as the parents attended. Every child had a part, and every child was also a part of the choir. The children sang Christmas carols and other Christmas songs. The music was everyone’s favorite and each and every child had a chance to be a soloist. The singing was followed by the pageant. The pageant was either a humorous story celebrating the joy of the season, or it was The Christmas Story from the Bible, complete with the wisemen, the shepherds, and the manger scene including the Christ Child. There was no attempt to separate church and state; life was much simpler when I was growing up. At the end of the program, one of Santa’s helpers appeared and gave candy to everyone. We all knew that this Santa’s helper was the kind neighbor who happened to have a red Santa’s helper suit. His appearance at the conclusion of the program, and the treats he shared always brought great excitement and happiness to all. It was a much anticipated, very joy-filled event that we so enjoyed year after year.

The Lovely Busy Days Of December In An Elementary School

For thirty years, I danced in the lovely swirl of December in an elementary school. With exuberance  at an all-year high, sparkly artwork celebrating the hallways, concerts, programs, and pageants exciting the calendar, and creative gifts secretively being crafted and wrapped with an anticipatory energy that was nearly impossible to contain, we tried to continue marching through lesson planned academic curricular content, but needless to say, distraction was a fierce opponent. Creative work that supported learning, encouraged focus but fun, and still reflected the beautiful themes of December were favorite tasks of the students during these happy days. One set of five sheets that we especially loved to work on can be found at the link below at my TeacherPayTeacher Store, One Arts Infusion Collaborative.    

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Five-Christmas-Rhyme-And-Draw-Sheets-1598489

Guest Blogger- Grandpa A: Life In The Wisconsin Northwoods Beginning 1927, Janitor

Lessons Learned: Guest Blogger- Grandpa A

It All Happened In A One Room Country School: Janitor

Janitorial Service was done by students on a monthly basis; consisting of many responsibilities. The janitor was responsible for  opening the school at 7:30AM, building a fire in the stove when necessary, and keeping the wood fire going to heat the building. After school each day, the blackboards had to be washed, the waste paper baskets had to be emptied, the paper towel containers had to be filled, the drinking bubblers had to be emptied and cleaned, the floors had to be swept, and toilet paper had to be put in the outhouses as needed. The path to the school and to the outhouses had to be cleared of snow in the winter. The wood box in the school had to be kept full of wood. The water bubbler had to be kept full of water, which had to be pumped from the water pump in the pump house in front of the schoolhouse. At the end of the school day, the building had to be locked by the janitor. At the end of each month, the janitor needed to wash the floor and attend to other cleaning needs.  I served as the janitor for two years; during both fifth grade and sixth grade. The monthly compensation for the janitor was $6.00 for the spring and fall months and $8.00 for the winter months, with an additional $2.00 compensation for each end-of-the-month cleaning. This was big money in those days, and, in my case, it enabled me to buy a $21.95 red bike from Montgomery Ward. This new bike had a light on the front fender and a carrier for a passenger over the rear wheel. Nobody else had a new bike. I was a pretty lucky guy.

The Two Hundredth Blog Article: Deeply Inspired By Mom

Lessons Learned

The Two Hundredth Blog Article: Deeply Inspired By Mom

I remember hearing “no, it’s just not a great idea” probably only once when I was growing up, and that was in response to my request for a horse. I had even saved about $125 and had spoken with the neighbors down the road about renting a stall in their small barn.  I was going to help clean their barn in exchange for a portion of the rent and teach very expensive guitar lessons to my sister for the remaining rental fees. It was a perfect plan in my twelve year old mind and I felt a pinch stymied by the resistance I encountered when I laid out the details for my parents.  They encouraged instead riding lessons, saving the money, and playing guitar with my sister just for fun.  The direction of the plan shifted quickly and easily to acquiring suitable attire for riding lessons and for fun at the stable and then involved engaging my sister in riding adventures while putting on hold the guitar.

“Yes, you can!” was the response most familiar to my ears through the growing up years and as I result, I believed I could. Affirmation brings sunshine and nourishing water to a child’s growing confidence, and it was never in short supply in our home. Affirmation such as this leads to confidence which leads to a willingness to take a risk or to try something new or attempt something requiring more courage than perhaps you would ordinarily believe you possessed.  My parents modeled confidence because they had grown up affirmed.  We saw them regularly step out in faith and tackle very challenging tasks in life and, by watching them, we learned the power of affirmation, encouragement, and support.  We learned to pray and to trust and to step out boldly, laying bravely aside the fears that could paralyze and swallow up all daring efforts.  To try is not the absence of fear, but rather it is the presence of trust and a willingness to believe.  “Yes, you can.” Get up. Go on. Reach out. Speak up. Yes you can. Only your doubt can limit your possibilities. Stand up. Plunge in. Raise your hand. Keep at it. Yes you can.  I have lived this way. I have raised my children this way. I have instructed my students this way.

So two weeks ago, at 84 years of age, Mom stood before a large, lovely gathering of women and spoke on the topic of footprints we follow and footprints we leave. She spoke on the power of affirmation and the call on each of our lives to pour into those around us of the great gifts we have each been given. With an antique basin and pitcher which had belonged to her grandmother  as her props, she encouraged the women to pour into others as her dear grandmother had lavishly and continually poured into her life the priceless, powerful  gifts of patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness, selflessness, and love. All of these gifts affirm and bless and help us feel confident to reach beyond ourselves and jump a little higher. Yes you can. You can be a guest speaker at 84. You can be an affirmer, a pourer, and one who speaks encouraging words that mean yes you can into the hearts of those around you. You can. Yes you can.

Pow!

Lessons Learned

Please Remember That Kids Are Just Kids

Kids are resilient; everyone says that. They are resilient to the extent that their minds and hearts are malleable, they are willingly vulnerable and trusting until they learn otherwise, and they have little to no choice concerning their circumstances. They are, at their young age, along for the ride of life and fully at the mercy of the scruples, opinions, perspectives, insecurities, and personalities of those to whom they’ve been entrusted. Raising kids is such an incredibly humongous and significant responsibility with unbelievably long-range rippling ramifications frequently accepted with absolutely flippant and casual consideration. Kids are resilient becomes the fallback excuse for complete irresponsibility, and that is simply not good enough for these treasures known as kids who bring unique gifts to this world that no one has ever seen yet.  Although it may not clearly show, these little ones carry the burden of our incompetence, our irresponsibility, our immaturity, and all of the rest of our unresolved adolescence, and even though covered under the guise of resilience, occasionally the burden shows up unexpectedly.

  

He was just six young years old, but he had been to a war zone far too many times. He smiled and laughed and played, studied and learned alongside his classmates, but it was unmistakably evident that a rage was simmering just below the surface. With extra patience, grace, and love an intuitive teacher would serve and reach out to a child such as this one every day, every day, every day. The burning desire, the motivating hope to make a difference especially in this burdened life would be a daily over-riding mission to an intuitive teacher.  Could the rage silently consuming him and confusing him be assuaged with generous and regular doses of all things good? I hoped so.  Kneeling down one morning to help him with his backpack, I noticed he was visibly agitated. You okay? No. No. No. I am not okay. Nothing is okay. Everything is bad. Everything. Everything. Everything! The final everything was shouted as he wound up and punched me in the eye and then melted into a sobbing, remorseful puddle of tears and shame and frustration and anger and fear. I hugged him until the sobbing quieted. The class was silent and stone still, yet with deer-in-the-headlight eyes, their deep concern begged to know why. Sometimes life is just very hard and it makes your heart really hurt. That’s why we need each other.  Over the next days and weeks we gently unwrapped the paining issues and engaged the strong, necessary support to help bring healing and peace to that precious little six year old.  Children are children and their resiliency is that of a child and should never be overestimated to accommodate errors of the adults in their world.

Guest Blogger- Grandpa A: Life In The Wisconsin Northwoods Beginning 1927, Anee-I-Over

Lessons Learned: Guest Blogger- Grandpa A

It All Happened In A One Room School: Anee-I-Over

Anee-I-Over is not big in the Olympics; in fact, it’s not included in the phy ed program in any of our schools or colleges. It was big, however, in One Room Schools of yesterday because they had no gyms, no swing sets, no merry-go-rounds  or baseball diamonds, and no coaches, only a three acre field with a schoolhouse, a woodshed, a pump house, and two outdoor toilets, one for the girls and one for the boys. Who could ask for anything else?

Anee-I-Over was an outside game and could be played with as few as two people, however, the excitement heightened when you had four or five on each side. The only equipment needed was a rubber ball about the size of a tennis ball. The game started when half of the players lined up on one side of the schoolhouse building and the other half were on the other side of the building. One player would throw the ball over the roof of the building, and one of the players on the other side would catch the ball before it hit the ground or on the first bounce. The object of the game then was to run around the building and hit one of the other side’s players with the ball. Half of the catching team would run around the school building one way and the other half of the catching team would run around the school building the other way. No one on the throwing team knew who had the ball, so trickery and deception and an accurate throw served well. As a player on the throwing team was hit by the ball, he became a member of the catching team. This game was good for both recesses, the lunch hour, and before classes started in the morning.

How Do You Raise Creative Kids?

Lessons Learned

Creative Kids

How do you raise creative kids? In our highly structured, overly scheduled, and incessantly measured world, the answer to the creative kids question is one that most would rather not hear for it requires a brave leap off the lock-step treadmill upon which we and all of the Joneses ceaselessly, exhaustedly, and occasionally resentfully race each day. The dial of popular thought and status quo sets our pace, and we run and our children run because everyone runs.  We do because they do. We run because they run. We sign up because they all sign up.  Don’t  misunderstand here, though, activity is important, involvement is good, and engagement is meaningful, but we all know if we look honestly at ourselves, that we completely tend toward extremes and a distinct compulsion in the direction of obsession. Too much. Too, too, too much.  Too fast. Too much, too fast to have time to breathe, to enjoy, to think, to savor, to relax, to imagine, to play, to create is unequivocally our collective MO.  To raise creative kids, you need to give them time, margin in their schedules, to creatively play. Just as calisthenics are exercises for the body, so is play the exercise for creativity.  And play that nurtures creativity does not mean TV and movies, hand-held devices and all other screens; play that nurtures creativity means paper plates, sticks, blocks, paper, crayons, brown paper bags, wood, paint, duct tape, sugar cubes, glue, recycled materials, and an endless stream of ordinary items that undoubtedly lead to extraordinary ideas and creations with the added and very illusive ingredient of time.  The sandbox and a hose are brilliant for imaginative adventures. Blankets over chairs and end tables are brilliant for imaginative adventures. Brown paper bags for wreaths, cowboy vests, pirate hats, stuffed with newspaper for large bricks, woven for placemats, and on and on as far as an imagination can travel, these are the quintessential imagination enhancers and play exercisers. How do you raise creative, imaginative, innovative-thinking kids? Let them play. Put away the schedule for a while, and let them play.

That Day, September 11, 2001.

Lessons Learned

9-11-01

It was a Tuesday morning and, at our Lutheran Elementary School, we were in chapel preparing our hearts for a precious time of worship. I was at the piano filling the sanctuary with familiar music, drawing us together. There was a calmness. A stillness. A blessed peace. The moment was unexpectedly punctuated by a teacher hurriedly striding up the center aisle toward the piano. His face reflected grave concern and his words to me just then scalded my heart and evoked deep, incredulous, and pained shock. The Twin Towers had been attacked. Attacked! His announcement at chapel was a call to prayer for our country, for families and children, and all involved and affected by this horrific tragedy.  We prayed and prayed and prayed and wept together and alone. The air in chapel was thick with fear, anxiety, disbelief, uncertainty, anger, sadness, and questions.  It was a very vulnerable and raw time with emotions fully exposed. Pilot parents. Flight attendant parents. NY family members. Traveling family members. Friends. Neighbors…. No one was untouched. No one was unscathed by the fires of this senseless, merciless, cowardly act of terrorism. We prayed some more, much more. Together we sought refuge and comfort and peace and hope under the mighty wings of the Almighty. Our Rock. Our Redeemer.  Our shelter in the storm. When life doesn’t make sense, He makes sense. When life’s promises are broken, His promises remain.  He is faithful. Our chapel that day was unlike any other chapel, for we truly, honestly needed to lay our very real, very gripping fears at the foot of the cross of the One who understands pain and will walk with us, carry us through life’s deepest darkest valleys. The chapel became even more that ever a haven of peace and comfort during the next several weeks as whole classes and individuals would come to be still and pray. 911 changed us all.  The why’s of it we will never understand. The heroism demonstrated we will never ever forget. The images of the moment will be indelibly etched into our hearts and souls. It was the day our nation wept as one.

Guest Blogger- Grandpa A: Life In The Wisconsin Northwoods Beginning 1927

Lessons Learned: Guest Blogger- Grandpa A.

The One Room Schoolhouse

A journal is a daily record of events and observations that occur. My journal should have begun sometime around September 1, 1932 when I started first grade and I learned how to write or print.  My first grade teacher, Miss Carlson, at the Carl Von Linnea School, would not be pleased with the progress I made in writing if she were to read my writing today. That first year was a learning experience for me and my other 13 classmates. Most of the country school teachers had two years of college education, and in many cases, the teachers were not much older than some of the eighth grade students. I recall there were five in my first grade class. Four of the five graduated from college and one became an MD. The teacher taught all grades and all classes, taught music, drama, phy ed, supervised the cleaning, the heating, and was in charge of discipline. I don’t recall my problem, but I remember spending a good deal of time standing in the corner in the front of the classroom. We lived over three miles from school. One of the parents, Enoch Johnson, converted his car to a bus and transported those of us from the Minnesuing area to school.

Yearning For Relational Strength And Balance In A Culture That Casts Us Apart

Lessons Learned

Make Time, Take Time For Each Other

Twenty four hours. This is an unchanging, unbending, unrecoverable daily allotment of time given to each of us as we awaken each day, and its expenditure is fully at the mercy of our choice-making.  Certain activities need to consume certain amounts of our time; eating, sleeping, attending school or going to work, walking the dog, brushing teeth, filling the car with gas, and so on, but there remains a good deal of negotiable time available for extraneous choices. How do you choose? Or is it easier not to choose, not to be deliberate, and instead allow the minutes and hours to fritter away, unapologetically in the daily complacency of extreme over-stimulation due to bombardment of busy-ness, infiltration of obsessive amounts of technology, and infinite choices? So we throw on our headphones and retreat to our screens where there is peace in isolation albeit unstoppable loneliness.  As a teacher, I hear a great deal about screen time as the time choice of choice.  My concern is that our children, our students, and we ourselves are abandoning our desperate longing for connection, relationship, and community in exchange for something much, much less.  We are too tired for the effort of connection, for it does require a sacrificial exertion of self to become engaged in any relational process.  And although we need it more than anything, we run from it because it demands and life simply already demands too much all day long.  Twenty four hours. It’s the same twenty four hours that our parents, and their parents, and generations upon generations upon generations of parents have had, because it never changes. The problem is, I am not sure that we are getting this right. We hurry and scurry frenetically  filling our minutes and hours with all they can possibly contain and then a bit more only to find ourselves in a puddle of ill-tempered exhaustion at the end of the day, preparing to buck up for tomorrow’s agenda of the same merry-go-round ride.  Jumping off the merry-go-round to enjoy a good book with your children in the shade of a backyard tree seems somehow robbed of its peace and pleasure by the burdensome guilt of jumping off what everyone else is managing to stay on. Somehow I know that we know the error of our ways with regards to our time and our choices, yet we remain willingly paralyzed and incompetent in our truthful effort to seek relational strength and balance with our time.  Our twenty four hours are, ever so graciously, new every day and in honor of this gift we must choose to be deliberate and teach our little ones to be deliberate, investing wisely in each other and experiencing the subsequent contentment. We desperately need to make time and take time for each other because we are wired to live connected to one another. We need each other.  

To Start Strong, Breathe. To Start Strong, Smile.

Lessons Learned

First Week Of School Lists: Overwhelming!

The days just preceding as well as just following the first day of school are filled with immensely long  lists of things needing to be accomplished. Lists of things to get, things to do, and things to remember absolutely inundate these hours and days with a frenetic sort of constricting “have to” and “hurry up”  feeling. Very, very  stressful. Whether one is a parent, a student, a teacher, an administrator, or any other school staff individual, everyone is being outrageously pressed to be ready. Each one up and down the power chain is pressing, with best of intentions but very hard, on the one just below to be really ready.  Being really ready seems to mean to have more, to be more, and to know more. More information, more supplies, and more responsibilities are among the “more” list, and in a day of diminishing budgets, increasing class sizes, and highly pressure-filled expectations from every direction pressing upon each and every individual involved in the entire educational experience, this type of  “more” is beyond stressful.  It seems getting ready, chasing down the completion of lists and lists of “more” tasks and things, is fully wrapped in stress, and unfortunately, stress is completely counterproductive to true, rich, deep, meaningful learning.  How should one prepare for school? How might one best be ready to tackle all that will need to be accomplished throughout the year, whether one is a parent, a student, a teacher, an administrator, or any other school staff individual? Might I suggest that the most productive way to be ready for a new school year is to be encouraged, to be affirmed, to be emotionally built-up with kind, positive, and strengthening words.  Chasing the endless list of chores and orders builds inner turmoil when the “one more thing” that needs to be done simply cannot, leaving one to sink into the defeating mire of frustration; just not good enough.  Defeated before the day begins, this chores and orders mentality will take us nowhere strong or creative because it will crush that spirit. Administrators, to have a great day, continually encourage your teachers and other staff and do not assume that they know they are appreciated. Teachers, to have a great day, smile, breathe, and speak kind and affirming words to your students. Parents, to have a great day, remind your children/students that you love them, that you are proud of them, and that you know it’s going to be a great day for them.  Students, to have a great day, listen to your teacher, be kind to your classmates, and do your best. You see, great days have less to do with what we have and much, much  more to do with who we are and what we have been encouraged to believe we can be.  “Often in daily living, the things we need to hear and say; get lost in chores and orders, then time brushes them away.” Be an encourager, and start the school year with great strength.

Life Lessons At School

Lessons Learned

So Much More Than Book Learning

They were the sixth graders. They were the top of the school. Top dogs. Big cheeses. Willing helpers. Proud leaders.  Many of the sixth graders had started at our school in Kindergarten and for years had watched the parade of awesome sixth graders  traverse the hallways with a tiny bit of an air of nobility swirling around them; a nobility swirl established within the delicate balance between privilege and responsibility. They had now arrived and honestly wore the mantel of “big deal” very well. They gently served the younger students, provided confident leadership at all-school gatherings, behaved respectfully, most of the time, and rightly earned the position of positive role-models. They worked hard, played hard, held one another accountable, and left no sixth grader out. Then came the test. Unexpectedly, Mike’s father died.  Loss and grief and anguish and questions flooded their broken hearts and cast a deep dark sadness over the sixth grade.  Mike stayed home for a few days. The rest of the sixth graders, his school family, prayed for Mike and his family and grappled with a suitable loving, compassionate response for Mike when he returned. “Why?” remained the tormenting though unanswered question which held their hearts in a vise-grip of hurt. How do you mend a broken heart, how do you stop every tear? Then came the phone call and the request.  Mike’s mother, in making funeral preparations, asked the sixth grade teachers if the students might be willing to sing their benediction at the funeral.  How do you say no? Notes went home. Each sixth grader was to discuss this with his or her family and decide independently of the other students whether or not to participate. Funerals are hard. Many students had had no experience with funerals, and the thought was more than a bit frightening and overwhelmingly sad. There would be no judgment or shame or guilt if anyone chose not to participate, as the choice was fully up to each family. Notes from families came back the very next day. A unanimous yes was the response.  Mike’s mother was called. Plans were made.  The sixth graders, in their best clothes, arrived at the funeral, and Mike smiled to see them.  This school family, this community of friends, wrapped the gift of their tender hearts and beautiful singing around their pain-filled friend and in the glances exchanged, said without words, in the most perfect compassionate response, “We love you.”

I Miss Her.

Lessons Learned

Cancer Steals

 I miss her. She had end stage cancer. Although she had battled cancer twice before and won, this time was different and she was very tired. She was a mentor, a role-model, a light in the darkness, an endless giver, a perpetual hugger, a tireless servant, a champion for the voiceless, a babysitter for my boys, and a dear, dear change-your-life kind of friend. She was the person who, when she entered a room, all in the room were made better simply by her quiet, loving presence. She, in her vivid and brilliant imagination, constructed programs to serve those in greatest need in our community and then somehow managed to graciously sidestep the voluminous red tape of well-meaning committees and enact her loving programs, always serving up smiles, hugs, and assistance. She danced ballet. She painted beautiful pictures. She basked in God’s glorious creation all around her. She fiercely loved her family and her neighbors. She loved. She lived. And in her living and loving she taught us lessons of infinite and eternal importance without ever writing a lesson plan.  She poured more life and living into her short years, than most people do in ten lifetimes. When the end was near and exhaustion was mercilessly gaining, her husband called and asked if I had a few minutes to visit with her.  Dropping everything at the tiniest chance to give to this matchless giver, I raced over. He said she was tired and that a few minutes would be all she could muster.  Whatever she wanted. Whatever she needed. So we talked and talked and laughed and reminisced and before long, she asked her husband for an old photo album which together we wandered through with waves of emotion swinging from giggles to tears. It was precious, precious time. A deep and lasting gift from her which I will forever cherish.  We shared time, the priceless treasure. The gift had nothing to do with the right most eloquent  words to say or the loveliest purchased present; to be sure, and any thought to any of those would have diminished the true gift which was simply shared, treasured, beautiful time.  A perfect time that I was blessed forever to share.  Time. She passed and left the world much more beautiful than she found it. I am a life changed because she lived.

How Can We Learn To Be Responsible If We Refuse To Own Our Bad Choices As Well As Our Good Choices?

Lessons Learned

For Pete’s Sake. Own Your Behavior!

The knee-jerk response to most every “shouldn’t have done it” incident is I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it! Regardless of the age of the spokesperson, two to ninety-two, this response more often than not remains consistently uttered, for it represents the finest in Teflon outfitting defending one against all sorts of true or false but always uncomfortable allegations. I can be watching a student do the very thing he or she has been instructed not to do and when called on it will almost unequivocally, bordering on the brazenly, assert, I didn’t do it. Many times a day. This phenomenon is certainly not exclusive to schools and students, however, for these students have had to be carefully taught, which they absolutely have been. The I didn’t do it mentality and societal norm seems as automatic to human nature as bowing for applause.  I didn’t do it is usually followed by a bit of anemic bantering along the lines of yes you did, no I didn’t, yes, no, etc. where it then fizzles to conversational complacency, a very safe place where it quietly rests until it is needed again. It never gathers moss nor grows dusty waiting, though. In complacency it is deemed not a worthy fight, and in complacency it is perpetuated with increasing shamelessness.  But it’s a lie. A big, fat, bold-faced lie. I am not sure why we are okay with this. Over and over and over again in every walk of life and living from classrooms to legislative halls, from snarling interactions with referees, police officers, and parents to defensive exchanges with neighbors and road rage enthusiasts, we fight to abscond from the responsibility of simply owning what we do. The reality is, despite what our insecurities may shout at us, owning our actions, fessing up to our behavior, or begging the pardon of our screw-ups does not in fact really hurt that much. Mild embarrassment perhaps.  Or maybe a pinch of shame.  But honestly, bearing responsibility for our good or bad behavior strengthens integrity and is honorable. We all make mistakes with great regularity for it is in our very nature to push back a bit against the rules, even the most compliant among us. Own it. Claim it. Confess it. Apologize for it. Then be free of it. If you refuse to own it, it will in fact own you, and you will be diminished by it. The automatic I didn’t do it response is not good enough for today’s students, or yesterday’s for that matter, because it doesn’t call students forth to be strong or to be responsible, both of which they will need to become the leaders they are capable of becoming.

You've Got To Take The Leap

Lessons Learned

The Leap

The month was June and summer vacation in Wisconsin had just begun. All of the kids in our neighborhood exuberantly and together trekked seven blocks daily to the city pool. Summer paradise, unquestionably. Every minute at the pool was perfect from the first plunge to the banana popsicle we’d each buy for the drippy wet stroll home.   Something at the pool, however, had me thoroughly captivated.  It was the high dive. I was seven that particular summer.  Only the bravest of the brave ascended those metal steps leading to the bouncy plank which seemed to catapult divers first through the clouds then into the deep end of the pool. I was mesmerized. To want something so badly, yet at the same time to be so absolutely intimidated by it, left this curious youngster in a very perplexed, very conflicted place.  Come on, try it, urged the older siblings and neighbor friends. It’s not that hard, and we all will be right here. Right here? What exactly does “right here” do to help when you are ascending those steps alone, walking the plank alone, and mustering the courage for a leap through the clouds alone? Smiling to affirm their sincere encouragement with unbudging feet seemingly affixed to the poolside concrete, I continued to longingly watch the leaping. Even though just seven, I was a good YMCA-trained and competitive swimmer who understood the steely nerves required when poised on the starting block waiting for the starter’s gun to sound and the swim race to begin. I had a growing collection of swim ribbons and a strong shot at being a Junior Olympic participant. But the high dive was different. Day after glorious day with friends at the pool flew by on the wild wings of summer but with the issue of the high dive looming unrelenting on the edges of my young mind. I had to make the leap. The question was when. Gathering courage is no small or easy task, for it demands a daring charge of the will, a very deliberate choice to sidestep fear and reserve believing that the gain is worth the cost.  Watching others leap did not evoke increased bravery, it simply taunted. It was time. Without fanfare, pomp and circumstance, or any salubrious pronouncement, I crossed the poolside concrete to the metal steps, ascended them unflinchingly but with a few butterflies, and walked the bouncy plank to the end where I curved my toes around the fiberglass edge, took a deep breath and leaped. The older siblings and neighbor friends didn’t have time enough to amass a cheering section, but they all did pause in their playing to witness the splash. There. I did it. I took the leap, pierced the water’s surface with pencil straightness, submerged, and then re-emerged with a quiet victor’s grin. Life was never quite the same after the leap because there was a new confidence, a new boldness that from then on kept a bit of a bridle on those things that attempt to intimidate and subsequently paralyze action. I learned to leap that day, that summer when I was seven, and it has been a lesson of greatest significance throughout the next fifty years. Learning to leap benefits all learning as each new topic, new chapter, new unit, new school year, new skill, and on and on demands a willingness to set aside “I can’t” while reaching instead towards “yes.” With a month until the new school year begins, with a new job prospect on the horizon, with a dream itching to be chased, with a relationship whispering for more effort, with a need crying for your giftedness, with these and infinite others tickling at the edges of your awareness, perhaps it is time to practice and prepare for some life changing leaping. Take the leap. It is time.