Category Archives: Life

April 30, 2015 · 9:50 am

Two Year (but actually more) Anniversary Post

It is all Connected. Everything Matters.

This is not just the name of my blog; it is foundation to the way I live. I get slack, even from my own family, about how deep everything is to me. One student this year blurted out, “Sometimes a song is just a song!”

Even in the early entry college course the students complain about how their heads hurt after lessons because of the depth I try to take them. And I understand why, but Ralph Emerson said it best in his speech “The American Scholar.”

To the young mind, every thing is individual, stands by itself. By and by, it finds how to join two things, and see in them one nature; then three, then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, discovering roots running under ground, whereby contrary and remote things cohere, and flower out from one stem.

I like the line, “…how to join two things, and see in them one nature, then three, then three thousand…” It is all connected. Everything we do matters in some way. I try to live and teach with this idea, on a deeper level. Why, you might ask. What is the alternative? That things and moments in our life have no meaning, no value? I don’t believe that. Our lives are built everyday, in every small moment.

It is all connected, and I am glad to have connected with you, reader, through this blog. Have a great day!

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April 22, 2015 · 10:43 am

Thoughts on School Culture

deskThis post will not have any answers, in fact I hope it raises questions and ideas for you.  The idea for this post comes from reading the article “What psychology tells us about student achievement — and how it is ignored” from The Washington Post. I will come back to this article later. When discussing a complex idea like school culture, there are no quick fixes, no magic spell to change the hallway behavior over night, no t-shirt slogan that will bring a faculty together. But a school culture can be changed, for the better or the worse.

First, my definition of school culture: The decisions of each individual in the everyday functioning of a school to achieve the school’s vision.

A school’s vision is an important part of culture.  It is the WHY of the school. Some may say that the vision of the school is the mission statement.  But I see too many school cultures that are disconnected from that mission statement.  In fact, most teachers and students don’t even know their school’s mission statement.  And sadly, they don’t why their school exists except to get through the day and get seniors graduated.  I have another post in the works on developing the WHY for a school (I also have a workshop centered around this idea).  Until then a great book to read on the topic is Simon Sinek’s, Start With Why.

Let’s get back to how a school’s vision connects to culture. The school’s vision is the compass that everyone involved can use to direct their choices.  From the students’ behavior on a bus to the administration deciding on new classes to add to the schedule. When a school has a strong vision it makes decisions easier, there is a direction, or focus, in place to help make decisions that reflect the school’s culture. Sounds simple, but I know it is not so easy. Especially when we deal with the everyday life of a school, and the best way to see what a school’s culture is like everyday is to look at the students.

“Children reproduce the character of their schools and the society around them.”  This line comes from the article mentioned above. This is what spurred my idea for this post. This also highlights the reality of the challenge for a school to create and maintain a culture that connects to the school’s vision. A school does not stand alone in the development of a student, or even the teachers and administrators. But a school’s advantage is that the everyday routine is directed by a deeper meaning, or should be. The hallways, the buses, the locker rooms, and the student section at a game will reveal the true culture of a school. When we can develop a clear vision for students to connect to we will see a culture that reflects a school’s vision and produce a deep and enriching everyday experience for all involved in the school.
Not easy, I understand, but worth it.  It affects us all.

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April 8, 2015 · 10:10 am

What it Takes

The First Step

So, my first novel is done. And do you know what it took to get it done? I had to write it. Such a simple step, but so difficult to do. Under the Lights was a novel I completed for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)… three years ago. So what took so long?

First, fear. It is so easy to say you are doing something instead of actually doing it. I wasted years talking about being a writer, about working on a novel without really putting the time or effort into it. I was afraid to actually write it, to put my heart and soul into it, knowing that readers might not like the story. It was easy to hide behind excuses of time and family. And to simply give into the fear.

I am going to be honest; I am still feeling fear and doubt as each copy of the book is sold. I wonder if the themes are clear, if the characters come alive for the reader. Time will tell. I am excited to see where this book will lead me. So how did I actually get the book ready? Work.

Achieving Something Takes Work

For the last year I have scraped together time to produce my novel. I don’t know how many times I have read the story, checking for errors, adding a line, and deciding to remove parts. To achieve any goal, it takes work. But it is worth it. I am now a writer. I like the sound of it. But I have to give my family the credit in helping me overcome my fear. How can I expect my sons and daughters to work hard for their goals if I don’t set the example?

While working at ESU 10 I discovered the TED Talk below by Larry Smith, “Why you will fail to have a great career” (Yes, I was working at ESU 10 when I actually finished the novel for NaNoWriMo). Like many things in life, a seed takes time to grow. Larry Smith’s honest insight on why going after a great career is important inspired me. My family inspires me. Their talents and life journeys inspire me to go after this goal that I have shied away from for too long.

Achieving anything takes work. Takes a lot of work. You will have to conquer your fear. But it is worth it. Believe me, I’m a writer.

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March 29, 2015 · 11:20 am

Blueberry Muffins 2015

The last time I talked about blueberry muffins was 2013. A lot has changed since then. This morning I made the muffins while the rest of the family was still asleep. It has been a rough couple of years, for many different reasons. As I reflected on different aspects of life, fatherhood kept coming to the forefront of my mind.Muffin Mix

The teenage years are hard. I know all about the chemical changes my sons are going through. I know they are facing peer pressure. I know they face issues with people calling them names, or asking them to compromise their values (I do think this generation is meaner and angrier then when I grew up, but that is for another post).

Then throw in social media, girls, and just discovering their own path in this world to create a confusing time for them and for me and my wife. I don’t know when they will be silently moody or sit and talk to me for half an hour about their frustrations (as highlighted by my second son who didn’t speak a word to me when he first got up this morning).

But it is Sunday morning and I am making blueberry muffins.

Like many parents, we have dealt with dishonesty, the heavy sighs when we ask them to clean their room, the issues all parents have dealt with. But as I mixed in the blueberries in the batter, I thought about how I cannot actually control my children. I cannot make them think, or feel, or believe anything. As teenagers they are in the hard process of deciding who they are. What they stand for. What future they will create. This is knowledge that is hard for me to deal with. Some lessons do not need to be learned the hard way.

As I put the muffins in the oven I understood one thing. What I could do is make blueberry muffins every Sunday morning. As a family we will sit around the table and talk, or at least nod our heads in agreement if we didn’t feel like talking. What I can control is the example I set for my family. The lessons they learn about life come from our home; this is their foundation. I know there will be rough spots to come. I know my heart will ache with the decisions they make, but my wife and I will be here to love them and to show them the right way.

Got to go, the timer just went off. The blueberry muffins are done. Time to gather the family.

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March 16, 2015 · 9:08 am

Greatness is an Everyday Thing

Greatness is an everyday thing.

This is on of my own quotes. I used it as a theme one year for my track team. But the idea behind my quote comes from a story in the speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., “What is Your Life’s Blueprint?” Yes, it is the street sweeper story.

“Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.”

I read this speech in high school. If you didn’t know this speech was actually presented to students at Barratt Middle School in Philadelphia. Maybe that is why it planted a seed in my mind at that time. This was a speech for students. It was a speech that didn’t call for us to chase dreams. It called us to find greatness in our life, no matter the path.

Greatness is an everyday thing.

I think we have lost sight of this concept. Our society, even our own dreams have us chasing greatness, chasing money, chasing something. Now, I believe in goals, but the general idea is that we will be great once we achieve that goal. But that idea is wrong. We can’t be average today, and the next day, and the next day, and then expect to suddenly be ready to seize an opportunity. However, that is the mindset I see in society and sadly, in the classroom.

Greatness is an everyday thing.

If we can be average everyday, we can be great everyday. Greatness is a mindset mixed with effort. Simple. The payoff comes when life presents an opportunity to be great; we are ready. We can accomplish our goals because we have been great everyday.

Interestingly, we sent the most athletes to state track the year I used the quote as our theme. I think it proves what Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his speech, “For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.”

Greatness is an everyday thing.

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February 25, 2015 · 10:44 pm

Why do we have walls?

While I was washing dishes, my third daughter, now five years old, peppered me with questions.

“Why do we have toothbrushes?” she asked.

“To help keep our teeth clean,” I said.

“Why do we have a nose?” she asked.

“To smell things,” I said.

“Why do we have chairs?” she asked.

“So we can sit down,” I said.

Junk Drawer

She even went to one of our junk drawers and drilled me on why we needed everything in the drawer. I was having fun coming up with answers while she kept asking why we needed things, even asking why we needed walls. That took me a second or two to come up with an answer, “So, that we have rooms.” She seemed content with my answers. But she hit me with a question that made me pause.

She was on a roll asking about the body. Why we needed elbows, knees, and why we had a tummy.

 

Then she asked, “Why do we live?”

I couldn’t think of a quick fun answer. I did think of a deep philosophical answer, but knew it wasn’t right for the moment. How could I provide an answer that she would appreciate?

Without a clear answer in my head I said, “We are alive because it is a gift, an opportunity for us to see what we can do with our lives.”

“To go to the zoo?” she asked.

“Yes,” I chuckled, “but to do other things, too.”

“Like make brownies,” she asked, “or to be a dad?”

I turned from the sink to look at her as she sat at the island playing with her My Little Ponies. He finger still in a splint. And a smile that made her eyes shine.

“Yes, like being a dad,” I said.

What is your answer to the question, “Why do we live?”

 

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January 22, 2015 · 8:38 am

My Son’s View of Life

At the dinner table last night my second son said he had a blog post for me. I said, “OK, what is it?”

“We are balloons.”

Balloons

He continued to explain that most of life we are held onto by someone. But we can be let go and float up into the sky. When we are up in the sky we feel lost and just wander around. He moves his hand to emphasize how random we move through the air.

He continues to explain that after awhile we start to fall back to earth because we lose air. At this moment my first son asks what happens then.

My second son explains that hopefully we find another person that will fill us back up and hold onto us.

I told him I would write the blog. If you have a moment would you share a comment for him on his idea? Thank you.

I did ask him if he had seen the film The Red Balloon. My son said no, so I thought I would share it with his blog so he could watch it.

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January 14, 2015 · 12:21 pm

Rock Bottom

Rockbottom

The picture above is from the game, Minecraft Pocket Edition. What you see is bedrock. The site Minecraft Info describes the block this way, “Bedrock can not be picked up or placed by the player. It marks the edges of the map and is an invincible block designed to prevent the player from falling out of the world.” It means I hit rock bottom.

We Need a Rock Bottom

I like the last part of Mincraft Info’s description, “designed to prevent the player from falling out of the world.” In real life rock bottom is a hard place to be. Getting there feels like you are spinning out of control, falling through life, and getting hit with bad luck along the way. But, unlike Mincraft, rock bottom is hard to recognize in our everyday life. Unless we have a drastic fall (which does happen), one day we are sitting in the car wondering how life got so bad.   And we start to change, but that is for another blog post. This is about rock bottom.

We tolerate a lot in our lives, from going to a job we hate to participating in habits that destroy relationships and even our own life. Even with all the inspirational material around us, we can continue to be unhappy, stressed; or whatever adjective that comes to mind to describe living life below our potential. That’s what rock bottom does, it tells us it is time to climb our way back.

Life is not Minecraft

In the game it is easy to know when you can’t go any lower. The only options are to mine at that level, or start moving up. But life is actually simpler. At anytime we can start making progress back to the top. We do not have to hit rock bottom to make a change. To be honest, we know what rock bottom would look like anyway. So, why continue on that path?

Many of you have seen the Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech. In the speech Steve Jobs has some advice on not letting life hit rock bottom.


Asking the question, Would I want to do what I’m doing today? and being honest about the answer gives us real life bedrock. Whether it is a job, a relationship, or a habit, the question and answer let’s us know where we are in this world. The sad reality, as stated before, is that we will live with a NO answer for a long time. But we do not have to.

Hitting rock bottom, or seeing that what we are doing will lead to rock bottom is a powerful moment for us. It is not easy, it is painful, but it can lead us to the life we always wanted to live.

TheTopWe have All been There

Through the pain, the confusion and frustration, let the rock bottom be the start of a great chapter in your life.  Life may not be Minecraft but both of them are meant to be explored. See you at the top.

 

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December 12, 2014 · 3:30 pm

Do you see them?

Students

Over the last week the sophomores have been writing a narrative essay for my class. Much of the writing has been done in class. I read sections, give suggestions, and remind them to check for the use of “and” with Word’s search option. I try to help them generate ideas for introductions or conclusions without telling them what to write. During down time we talk. This is my first year with them, so I am still a new teacher and they are new students for me. In some ways it has been a good week to learn more about my students as people through the stories they share.

The whole week got me thinking about how hard it is in a typical high school setting to build relationships with students.  To see them as more than a student. I see about 100 students in a normal day (some on a TV for distance learning classes).  As a coach I get to see some of them in a different environment, but for many students I see them for 46 minutes a day.  And in that 46 minutes I have standards to think about, lesson plans to follow, test to prepare for.  To be honest, I know that I don’t know many of my students well.  I understand it takes time, but maybe that is the problem… there isn’t any left because the bell just rang.

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December 4, 2014 · 8:14 am

Stories

Yesterday I attended the funeral of my sister-in-law’s father. The main theme of the service was “stories.”   There was a moment in the service for family and friends to share stories of him. One of the interesting aspects was the range of people who shared a story about him. From a granddaughter whose story was from the time she was eight (I think she is 10 now), to a childhood friend, who would be in their seventies, that had been a there during the during the last days, but more importantly been a friend for all those years.

Funerals always force us to consider our own mortality. To wonder who would show up, who would not. To consider what dreams we have accomplished and which ones we let slide. With such a strong theme of stories during the service I started to remember different moments in my life and all the different people that I shared those stories with. Some of them are still a part of my daily life; others have faded away. Only because life and time have a way of moving people away from us. I wondered who would come to my funeral, what story they might share because most of the stories really wouldn’t make much sense to anyone else besides us, the characters in the story. Only my best friend, Scott, would get the pop can theory story or the chocolate milk bombs. Only family will understand the power of a waffle iron. My family would only appreciate the Lemurs at the zoo story, or the attack of the goats. My wife is the only one who smiles when I mention the dollar menu at Wendy’s.

Our stories are important for a number of reasons. The first is because the stories make connections for us to people, places, and times. Holden, from Catcher in the Rye, might reveal this the best when he explains that he couldn’t leave Percy Prep until he could remember a story so he could say goodbye.

“What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of good-by. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it.”

Holden remembers an evening where he and some other boys stayed out throwing a football until it was so dark they couldn’t see the ball. Knowing that those boys might someday remember the same story gave Holden a sense that he mattered, that someone would remember him. That he was there. Something all of us strive for.

The second reason stories matter is because they developed depth to our lives. From laughing at the dinner table to packing a minivan with six kids to stay at a hotel in South Dakota, a life that has stories to tell is a life that is lived. That includes the stories of our challenges, of the moments when we failed. Stories like that are just as important for building connections with people and developing a life that is rich with experiences.

No matter who shows up to my funeral, I hope reading this post today spurred a story that we shared. But more importantly, I hope I spurred a desire to create even more stories… because at some moment in time, all of our stories will have an ending.

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