Tag: hope

2 Jan 21 – The Long Road

The kids and I, after appropriate and vigilant isolation, went home to Illinois for Christmas. My moms have also been isolating. My sister and brother-in-law have also been isolating. This meant we got to be a big old isolated pod.

I hadn’t appreciated how cut off I’ve been from my family this year. I knew it in a logical way, but had been cordoning off grieving that separation. It lived in a box underneath all of the other detritus that took up 2020.

Here’s the thing, it’s also meant almost the entirety of my first year of parenting was spent without the physical presence of my family. Thinking back now of all the questions in my home study interview that invoked my family as my support network, it seems impossible to have made it through.

Honestly, there were moments of figuring out who we are as a family this year that also had me wondering if we would.

In those interviews, my caseworker asked me, “What do you think could change as a result of placement of children?” My answer, “Everything could change. It won’t all change, but I need to be ready to deal with anything changing.”

If I’d only known.

These two weeks, though. Watching the kids really respond to our larger family as THEIR family. Seeing them with their baby cousin, who has never known a version of our family without them. Watching them hug and receive hugs freely. Again, I appreciated logically that this would all happen – eventually. Emotionally, though, I held back hope that we’d see it this Christmas.

I’m a bit worried I might be holding back hope on a more global scale. Not all hope, mind you. More like, I’m keeping a bit of it back in situations where I’d normally be Head Optimist in Charge.

A former student posted yesterday on Facebook that a former therapist of his advised sitting and making a list of the things he’d accomplished within a year. A tool for regaining perspective. The idea has been knocking around in my brain since reading it. After 900+ miles of driving today, I don’t have it in me right now, but it feels like a good step in the pathway to claiming back more hope.

Words of Hope from the Past

The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me. If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and alone, and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors. Here, without contemplating consequences, before high heaven and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love, And who that thinks with me will not fearlessly adopt the oath that I take? Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But if, after all, we shall fail, bit it so. We still shall have the proud consolation of saying to our consciences, and to the departed share of our country’s freedom, that the cause approved of our judgement, and adored of our hearts, in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death, we never faltered in defending.

– Abraham Lincoln, December, 1839

I’ve been reading Vol. 1 of The Works of Abraham Lincoln (1903) and happened upon the above passage from a speech Lincoln delivered on the floor of the Illinois Legislature long before the events that defined his memory had begun. As the pool of political contenders deepens, I can’t help but try to imagine these words (or at least this sentiment) coming from their mouths.

69/365 I am Filled with Hope by the Future of Education

My sister Kirstie is studying to be a health teacher at SIU-E. A few weeks ago, she sent me the text message below. I am already an incredibly proud big brother. My sisters and my brother are the three most amazing people I know. That said, my pride in Kirstie’s words, her learning and her commitment to helping those coming after her has its own space in my heart. In a week where cynicism and coursework have ruled most days, returning to this text has been helpful.

Today I was teaching yoga at Glenwood middle school to a few of the girls pe classes, and I had them do an activity to help with positive thinking and so I told them to write a list of 5 things they like about themselves. A good amount of the girls didn’t have too much trouble, but there were far too many of them that thought it was difficult. The saddest piece of paper I found had only the word “none” written on it. I think that the positive reinforcement needs to start at home, but why can’t our schools help children love themselves too? I believe in what you’re doing Zachary, I hope you do make a difference for every student and help make school a better place for everyone. Middle school is tough, but it shouldn’t be so hard that a 12 year old can’t name one thing they like about him or herself.

I am sad that my little sister has to feel and build her understanding of the places where the world falls down, but I feel much better knowing she’s out there helping to pull it back up.

Things I Know 140 of 365: We’re doing some great work

In response to a post I wrote a few days ago, Debbie and Mark left comments with a similar sentiment. They claimed my classroom and/or SLA as flukes of education. I hear and read this pretty frequently about any teacher or school making exciting change or doing better things to help kids and teachers.

How many exceptions does it take to change the rule?

Anytime someone claims a classroom or school as the exception they then cite another school or teacher as proof things are bad in the educational mainstream. While progressive pedagogy has yet to read critical mass, I don’t know that naming the handful of schools or teachers into which a person has come into contact as evidence of failure rules out optimism either.

Taking off the table the rest of the faculty of SLA, I can match any “failing” educator you’ve got with one who’s doing amazing things for kids.

Think of 5.

Go ahead.

Ready?

Meenoo Rami teaches kids English here in Philly and incorporates collaboration and student choice in all sorts of ways. Not content to settle for the regular schedule of professional development, Meenoo is co-founder of #ENGCHAT and a teacher-consultant for the Philadelphia Writing Project.

Meredith Stewart makes me think more deeply about what I do every time I interact with her. A teacher of middle and high school students in North Carolina, Meredith is certainly top-notch. Her recent posts about having her students teach their peers shows a commitment to building reflective student practice that could serve as a model for teachers at any level. Howard Rheingold summed up Meredith nicely:

She is willing to experiment with new tools, understands that facilitating student collaborative learning and fostering in each student a sense of individual agency as a learner, not technology for the sake of technology, are the important goals for technology-augmented classrooms.

Mirroring Meredith’s reflective practice, George Couros is a fine example of what learning as a principal can look like. His writing on teaching and learning works to push his own understanding of the topic as well as the understandings of his readers. You want to learn with George the way teachers want their students to learn with them.

Scott Bailey teaches students in juvenile halls in California. More than many teachers I know, Scott could excuse himself from the idea of progressive practice, citing the difficulties of building authentic learning experiences given the restrictions of working with adjudicated youth. Instead, Scott engages his students in public writing that helps them to work through whatever brought them to juvenile hall while giving them voice in the outside world. On days when I think my job is difficult, I read the work of Scott’s kids.

Sefakor Amaa is a force of nature. Teaching in the Dallas-Forth Worth, Sefakor once explained her choice to buy a home in one of the more dangerous neighborhoods of her school district. “It’s where my kids live,” she said, “I want them to see that I am there, and understand where they are coming from.” No teacher martyr, Sefakor teaches agency, empowerment and self-worth by constantly monitoring them for her students through her own words and actions.

I’ve hundreds more.

I’ve been looking for them over the last few years. That’s the thing, we have to be looking for them. You see, only a fraction of the great teachers are telling their stories. Only a handful are blogging and tweeting. The rest are doing what we came here to do – helping our students be the best versions of themselves.