Tag Archives: dad

January 15, 2014 · 10:40 am

Tech is Awesome

Sometimes it is the simplest moments that bring the greatest joy.  My second son and I jammed out to Aloe Blacc’s, “The Man,” on the way to basketball practice last night.

On the way home I thought about how technology allowed our moment to be so cool.  First, my son and I jam out all the time.  But last night just highlighted what an awesome time we are living in.

My son asked me if I had heard the new Aloe Blacc song. I asked which one and he said, “the I’m the man song.”  I said I hadn’t heard the whole song, but knew of the song because of the Kevin Garnett Beats commercial.  Now, this is when technology kicked in to foster a great father and son moment.

Our minivan has Bluetooth for our phones. So, quickly we looked up the song on Grooveshark website. Switched the radio to broadcast my phone and soon we were bobbing our heads while we sang, “Go ahead tell everybody. I’m the man. I’m the man.  I’m the man.”

You might be thinking, there is nothing special about the technology.  That is true.  In fact my son and I may have jammed out to another song.  But ten years ago, this wouldn’t have happened.  We take for granted what technology does for us everyday.  How awesome it is right now… I think Neil Pasricha would agree with me.

Have an awesome day!

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December 2, 2013 · 9:30 am

With Your Eyes

The kids ran outside, ready to stretch their legs from the five hour trip home.  I took a deep breath, stretched my arms high trying to touch the warm sun.  I turned to look at all the bags sitting in the trunk and thought it was nice to be home.  I grabbed a few bags and headed inside to dump them off.

The boys were shooting hoops.  My three year-old was trying to dribble a basketball.  I could hear my other two daughters on the playset. I grabbed a couple more bags when my daughter asked me to watch her dribble the basketball.  I took a quick look and said some dad cliché like, “Nice job” or something like that.  My three year-old wasn’t having it.

“No, dad. With your eyes.”

I set the bags back down in the trunk and walk over to her.  She dribbles a few times, then passes the ball to me telling me it was my turn.  We take turns dribbling.  I shoot a few balls with the boys (never making a single shot… I blamed it on the trip but I might just be getting old).  I watch my daughter dribble a few more moments then tell her I am going to get the bags into the house.  She says OK but that I need to come back.  I tell her I will.

“No, dad. With your eyes.”

Recently I had my psychology class take a Social Intelligence test based on identifying emotions displayed through people’s eyes. There are 36 photos; only two students got a score above thirty.  Most scored in the teens.

Police say that no one saw the gunman waving his gun before the September San Francisco shooting because everyone was looking at their phones. (CNN Article Link)

It’s not just technology that can “blind” us from the wonder of the world, or the love of a child.  If our eyes are the window to our soul, that means our soul is expressed through what our eyes see and what we do with our view of the world around us. I hope the day finds you wide-eyed and awake…

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July 25, 2012 · 8:13 am

Default

I have been working too long with technology.  As I consider deeper aspects of life, computer metaphors come to mind.  I have been working with my own default settings.

What I really mean is our basic response to life.   In coach talk it is like muscle memory for sports but for life it is those response we do without thinking.  And honestly, most of the time those responses are negative.  We get home from work and we want to relax but life challenges us with something and we become snippy.  Or we see that person, a colleague or student, we just don’t get along with and we start thinking some negative thoughts about them.  A default setting kicks in.

I am working on mine.  To be honest, I am trying to make my default settings reflect love.  Not the Care Bear, “let’s all hug” type, but the basic strong and understanding love that allows me to build strong bonds with people in this life.

As a parent I get to test this new setting out every night right now.  My youngest daughter is getting out of her bed at least three times a night.  She makes her way into our room, sometimes crying, sometimes silently until she asks for me.  Any parent will agree this is one of the toughest parts of parenting.  Being awaken when you are finally sleeping well. I have not always handled this well; especially on the third or fourth or firth time she finds her way to our room. My default setting has been negative.

But I am working on that.  I breathe in, checking my attitude, and hold my little girl as she drinks some milk.  I gently put her back into bed, cover her and check on her sister to see if she needs her blanket adjusted.  In a few minutes I am back under the blankets, still hoping that that was the last trip of the night, but knowing that I didn’t snap at her, or infuse the situation with a negative vibe.

It is not easy resetting the default.  Like a computer or iPad, you have to go into the settings and adjust things.  But if you do spend that time making the adjustments, the computer or iPad ends up working so much better for you.

So it is in life. Spending time working on our default settings can make this day work so much better for us.

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November 29, 2011 · 10:06 am

Where does the Learning go?

Photo courtesy of Centura student Angelica

What do your students do with their homework once you have handed it back?

Photo courtesy of Centura student Angelica

I battle with this issue even today, in some ways even more now that I do not have a classroom to even display some of the work my students would do.  What do my students do with their homework?  There are times that a worksheet is a great tool for a lesson, and I expect those worksheets to end up in the recycle box.  I might have used them as a note taking activity. Then using the worksheets, have a class discussion.  As a teacher I try to build assignments that intertwine or build on each other.  In the English Composition class, the students wrote two speed essays that are to be building blocks for their persuasive essay.  But are my students already condition to see their school work as disposable, and worse, unimportant?

Photo courtesy of Centura student Angelica

This morning I checked my kids’ homework, the same worksheets they have been doing all year.  My second son has a 100-math problem worksheet; he gets it right every day.  When can he do something else?  My second son also gets a ring of flash cards to study every couple of weeks.  When the unit is over, he hands that ring of cards back in.  Supposedly, never to interact with those words again (there is an app for that).

My second son has been participating in gymnastics this year.  We started him with the beginners, a 45-minute session.  He is a typical boy, knees and elbows always bruised or healing from a scrape.  He jumps, he tumbles, he would live in a jungle gym if he could.  Halfway through the first six-week session the gymnastics teachers asked us if they could move him to the next level.  He had progressed quickly through the basics.  If you have ever coached a sport, this is how it works.

Start with the basics; build on the basics to improve performance and expectations.  The basics are never forgotten; they are reinforced in different ways throughout a practice. Both the coach and the athletes also develop their expectations of performance as skills improve. Then comes game time, the reason for the basics.  The time to express the skills and expectations.  The really interesting part is that no matter if the game was a victory or loss, there will be a practice.  There will be adjustments, basics will be reinforced, and expectations set for the next game.

This morning I checked my second son’s 100-math problem worksheet.  He got it right again…

Photo courtesy of Centura student Angelica

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November 20, 2011 · 11:00 pm

Miles Davis: So What

My oldest son is learning to play the clarinet, and seems to be doing well.  He makes sure he practices every day.  Of course he learned to play a part of the Star Wars theme, which he likes to share every day.

So, I thought I would introduce him to Miles Davis.  To expand his musical interest.  To reveal to him some of the great artists, to show him how incredible music can be.  To show him the deeper part of music.

It didn’t go well.  Not that he didn’t listen with me, but he wasn’t much interested.  I tried to get him to let the music speak to him, to feel the emotion behind it.  He just wanted to be somewhere else.

I was disappointed.  Over the last month I have been sharing movies with the boys that I watched when I was growing up.  Both boys like some of my 80s music.  I thought exposing him to Miles Davis was going to be a great moment.  Why wasn’t it?

I started to wonder about all the times I tried something like this in the classroom.  Sometimes it worked, other lessons failed.  Why?  I just assumed my son would like Miles Davis because he was learning to play an instrument.  My son has no background knowledge about Miles Davis, hasn’t even heard him before.  What did I expect?  That he would just understand how great Miles Davis was.

As an English teacher I have fallen into that same trap, especially with literature.  That my students will just get how awesome a book or poem is.  I don’t want them to miss the opportunity to be moved by the literature, just like I wanted my son to feel the beauty behind Miles Davis’ music.  Ironically, I become the barrier of that moment.  Not in sharing the music, but by being the source of the selection.  And worse, like with my son, not creating an opportunity to spark their interest, or to provide a real foundation to what they will be reading or listening to.

I want to share the great works of this life with my students, with my sons.  But more importantly, I want them to decide what is great on their terms. To search out their own deeper moments.  That is when real learning happens.  And I want to be there, as a dad and as a teacher.

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November 15, 2011 · 9:02 am

Connections

The picture is my youngest daughter with an iPad.  She will turn two in late December.  I recently made folders on the iPad, and with out any instruction, she figured out where her favorite apps were.  She enjoys drawing and animal apps, the ones that make the animal noises.  And yes, we have set her down in front of the iPad when we need a minute or two to finish dinner.  But as soon as I grab a book, or flop down on the floor, she will ignore the iPad to interact with me.  But will that always be the case?

A few weeks ago the boys had their first basketball practice. The whole elementary basketball league met at the high school for this practice.  There were some high school boys helping, and a few other boys that may have been there to help but were goofing around at an open basket.

Two of the boys were on the basketball team and were dressed in practice gear.  The third boy was dressed in jeans and a too-large polo shirt.  They were shooting crazy shots, doing alley-oops, just being teenagers.  Burning off energy and having a fun time.  Honestly, I was watching them with a touch of jealousy as they jumped to see if they could touch the rim.  I remembered those younger days when my friends and I would do the same thing.  Some milestones of adolescence do not change; other aspects seem to be changing.

The three of them were lost in the moment, simply being friends, simply having fun.  Then a cell phone went off.  The boy in the jeans immediately grabbed his phone to send a quick text.  That changed everything, the simplest yet powerful connection of that moment was gone.  One of the boys went off to help a group, the boy in the jeans and the other boy tried to continue to play, but the cell phone was now the most important thing.

Technology had become the focus.  At one point the boy in the jeans was throwing an alley-oop passes to the other one.  The boy had the ball in his hands when his phone went off again.  Ball in one hand, he pulls out the phone to check the text message.  Without even looking at his friend, he simply rolls the basketball toward the basket.  His attention now fully on the phone.  His friend grabbed the ball and walked off.  It saddened me.

I love technology, but this life is about people, about relationships.  Technology allows us even greater opportunities to connect with friends and family.  It gives us a chance to make connects with people we normally would never had been able to before.  But at this time when the definition of Friend is “click accept.”  That a text message on the phone has to be answered right now, no matter what is happening. We need to make the focus on the connection to people, not on the means of making the connection.

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July 13, 2011 · 2:25 pm

Frustrated?

What does golf, starting a new lawn, having five children, and learning have in common? Frustration.

My life right now is filled with all kinds of different frustrations:

I have five children, the youngest only months away from being two… (If you are a parent that is all I need to say)

We are trying to get a yard started for our new home. Our dirt is clay based, we don’t have underground sprinklers, and we are on our second attempt of seeding. Every 30 minutes you can hear me say, “Be back, got to change the water.”

This month I started my new position and there are so many things that are different that I get overwhelmed with the changes.

Then there is golf…

Yesterday was my day to play golf in the morning. Almost every Tuesday and Wednesday I play nine holes in the morning. This week I was especially excited to get a round in because I had a good practice session last Saturday. I thought I had my swing for my irons figured out. I played the back nine and started well for me, a 5 on the par 4 tenth hole. As any golfer knows without reason things got worse.

A quick side note, I take one of my older boys with me when I play. They like to get a Gatorade and tend the flag for me. But when frustration hits, they remind me to watch my outbursts. Which was a challenge Tuesday morning.

Hole 14 par 5… I score an 8 (never once in the fairway).

Hole 15 par 4… I score a 7 (Water ball)

Hole 16 par 4 … I score an 8 (Walk off the green feeling so frustrated that I would love to throw a club)

So, I walk to the 17th hole frustrated…
Frustration is a powerful emotion. But part of its power is an illusion. When we get flooded with frustration it feels so wide and deep. It seems to filter into every aspect of that moment. Thinking, feeling, we can even feel that fate is against us. It feels like we are treading water in the middle of the ocean. But if we would put our feet down, we would see that frustration isn’t deep, that is its illusion. We can go deeper than the frustration. When we do, then we truly learn.

My son is watching me as I pull out a 5-iron for this hole. I wonder what I look like through his eyes. Does it look like I am drowning?

As a teacher and a coach I see students fight against frustration. I see them splashing around trying to find the beach. To get away from frustration. There are the excuses of not knowing what to do. Or the quiet giving up. Each student has their own way of dealing with frustration. But if we can get them to put their feet down, or even better to dive down through the frustration, the outcome will be powerful. More powerful than frustration, any frustration they will encounter in school or life.

My son stands quietly next to my golf bag. I mentally try to put my feet down, concentrating on what I worked on during practice. I swing. Not perfect, the ball starts at the flag, but then hooks. The ball lands about 20 feet from the green on an up-slope. I have to get the chip up in the air but soft because the green rolls away. I continue to think about the chip instead of the frustration, to set my feet down. My chip comes up nicely off the grass, soft and high. The frustration starts to drain away. I do two-putt for a bogey. But I am happy with that hole.

The last hole is a par 5. My son starts to talk again as we walk to the next tee box. He can feel that my frustration is fading, but it is nagging at me as I think about my drive. I haven’t hit a good drive all day, but I mentally set my feet down, trying to get past the negative voice trying to scratch at my mental state.

I slow down my swing, focus on the fundamentals, and send the ball straight down the center. Not long, about 200 yards. Second shot lands just off the right side of the fairway, but a solid hit. My third shot lands just in front of the green. I chip and two-putt. Bogey, yes. But I walk of the course feeling that I played those last two holes like I can.

Everybody feels frustrated, in all kinds of situations, but we can learn and improve when that frustration hits. It is a powerful emotion, but part of the power is an illusion. Frustration is not that deep; just below it is the opportunity to improve.

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