Tag Archives: life

March 16, 2012 · 9:17 am

The Butterfly Effect

Coutesy of State Library and Archives of Florida

As life would have it, I have been reading about the “Butterfly Effect” in a number of different types of books.  None of them actually about the true nature of the Butterfly Effect which is connected to chaos theory (even though I feel like I am living out chaos theory at times).  My reading material has been about the philosophy behind the idea, the power of a small action to create big effects somewhere else.

I bet life has shown you this effect.  Whether it was an interaction at the store with a grumpy employee that ruined your day, or receiving a letter from a former student revealing that one moment that helped them later in life.  The small moments make a difference.

To the chagrin of my wife, at the checkout stand I have been making up crazy answers to the ever present, “Did you find everything you we looking for today?”  What I find so interesting is not the normal everyday conversation we engage in after my response, but that moment when the employee actually stops and stares at me… and then the smile appears.

Let’s say a butterfly’s wings can cause a tornado, but which flap of the wing caused it?  Which moment set everything in motion?  Why didn’t the butterfly’s wings cause a tornado five minutes earlier?  We cannot predict life; we cannot predict which moment will cause the difference.  And maybe that is why we forget the power of our everyday life.

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February 8, 2012 · 10:10 pm

24 hours

In the last 24 hours I got a real look at what technology can do for us in our lives.  I will try not to bore you with an extensive look at my day, but I think it is important to share with you how technology can be a great tool for us.

24 hours ago I posted a blog on shoveling snow.  The weather didn’t improve and I decided to work from home and that started a great 24 hours.

The Scratch Cat

I needed to communicate with the teachers for both of my class responsibilities, which meant email.  But that was not the only email I wrote (as I watched Storage Wars).  I sent an email to a TECH student who is interested in app development.  I also sent an email to a teacher about the Scratch program she was interested in teaching.

I then had to revamp some assignments for class.  The TECHS class wasn’t too much trouble because we were watching informational videos on Java Script that were already posted on Angel.  American Lit had to be changed to a purely online assignment.

I was then going to grade assignments for American Lit but got into two conversations about life.  One conversation on Facebook and one conversation on Twitter.  Both were with former students. The kind of conversations that energize you because they go beyond the basic; “Hey, what are you doing? Nothing. What are you doing?” routine. The conversations covered deep aspects of life (Fatherhood, Highs and Lows of Life).

I finally got to bed just before midnight.  I got a little extra sleep because the kids’ school

The Blue Moon Coffee Shop

had a late start because of the weather.  I got to drop off my two little girls at day care and then headed to my other office, The Blue Moon coffee shop.

As I drank coffee I was involved in a Twitter conversation about connecting with students on social media sites, sending information about Symbaloo for someone and read a couple of powerful articles.

I headed home so I could Skype into a Social Studies Teachers meeting a colleague (Deanna Stall) was hosting.  I demonstrated Socrative to them (a cloud based clicker tool for the classroom).

When my time was up I noticed a friend and colleague (Mr. Badura) was on Skype, so I shared Socrative with him.

I ate lunch (but didn’t tweet about it). 😉

Then I called each of the schools individually in my American Lit course with my iPad using the Polycom app.  I spent about 15 minutes with each school covering the guidelines of the assignments, answering questions about upcoming essays, and a few classes got a small tour of the house.

And now I am posting another blog.  To build on yesterday’s post, what technology did in the last 24 hours for me was to make small meaningful connections.  To share, to laugh, to help, and to make real personal connections with a wide range of people.  Now, I will take face-to-face conversations any day, but honestly, what happen in the last 24 hours could not have happen without technology.

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January 26, 2012 · 9:56 pm

Sometimes…

Sometimes…

We need to watch the stars, to remind ourselves that there is a beauty to life we forget about.

Sometimes…

We need to hold our loved ones a couple of more seconds, to remind ourselves to feel the depths of love.

Sometimes…

We need to open our hearts a little more, to remind ourselves that risk takes us to deeper aspects of life.

Sometimes…

We need to be silent, to remind ourselves that life is filled with more than we know.

Sometimes…

Sometimes…

we just need to know that life is good even with the tears.

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January 10, 2012 · 8:53 am

Quicksand

We have all been there…

The biggest step in surviving quicksand is to stay calm, breathe, and slowly make your way out of the quicksand.  Most deaths associated with quicksand come from exhaustion, from fighting so hard against the quicksand a person has no energy left.

Surviving emotional quicksand is no different. Stay calm, breathe and understand that it is going to take time for the situation to change.  It is this aspect, time, that may be the hardest component for us to work with.  Because there is another aspect about emotional quicksand that the movie The Replacements and the character Falco, speaking in the clip, works through, confidence.

Because it takes time to work through emotional quicksand, doubts set in, and they set in fast.  Unlike sports, there is no post-game celebrations, wild-card game, or double elimination tournaments.  There is life. There is only this season, this record that we set now.  So doubt can raise its voice in our daily life, driving our need to change things quickly. Which then backfires on us and doubt gains influence and we can become exhausted.

Breathe, stay calm, and understand that it takes time.

The most important thing to remember though is, like sports, life gives us teammates…

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January 2, 2012 · 10:56 pm

Power of a T-Shirt

With the extra time over break I spent time organizing my closet.  While I was working on my t-shirts I realized something… t-shirts are wearable scrapbooks, that bring back powerful moments in our lives.

Senior Year Swim Team

This is the front of my senior swim team shirt.  I was a diver.  I had high expectations my senior year.  I placed ninth at state my junior year, my first year diving.  But, I placed fourteenth, last, my senior year.  My best friend, who was a state champion, tried to console me after prelims (top 10 continue to finals the next day). This provided one of those friendship bonding lines; after I had finally told him what place I finished at he sincerely said, “I don’t know how you feel.”

The next shirt is the shirt from my first head coaching opportunity and represents one of my hardest decision as a father.

Pawnee City Team Shirt

This shirt was worn by every player on the team during warm-ups.  I was blessed to get the chance to be a head coach in my second year of teaching.  Even as I write this, I am flooded by the memories of the two seasons I coached.  Our first win, having a player crack his vertebrae during a homecoming game, running a crazy 2-3-3 defense (8 man) that allowed us to win a game.  But I made the decision to leave Pawnee City for my family and other reasons. I miss those players everyday.

Sometimes change comes from other people’s choices.

Centura Football

After Pawnee City, I was an assistant coach for the Centura football team.  Those eight years were filled with so many moments as a team, and for me as a coach.  A playoff game in freezing weather, a running back doing the spin move to make the touchdown after we had practiced that move that week, to not being apart of the team after eight years.

But there is something about being a head coach that fills or breaks your heart like nothing else.

Centura Track Team

I was again blessed to be a head coach for the Centura track team from 2009 to 2011.  Life has a funny way of presenting hard choices to you.  Again for family I would have to give up the opportunity to be a part a great team.  I miss wearing the fluorescent shirt to practice; it meant a killer practice for the athletes.  I miss building a season, the beauty and tragedy that track presents for athletes…one shot at performing at their best. Like life, the three years as head coach was filled with both heartbreak and incredible success.

But it isn’t all about sports.

Psychology

This shirt is from a year end project a student did for psychology class.  I have t-shirts from concerts, t-shirts of bands, t-shirts that represents all different types of moments from life.  So, what moment of life will you wear today?

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December 21, 2011 · 9:23 am

Failure

“Fight on, my men,” says Sir Andrew Barton,
“I am hurt, but I am not slain;
I’ll lay me down and bleed a while,
And then I’ll rise and fight again. – “Sir Andrew Barton”

As many football fans know, the Buffalo Bills would fight back to the Super Bowl the next three years (and coming up short in their goal to win it).  In their third appearance they were a wild card team. What an example of strength and heart.

Sometimes it seems that life is filled with failure.  It feels like a streak of bad luck hits us.  Stress, unexpected situations, any number of things can be viewed as a negative in our lives.  Everybody has failure.  But how do we respond?  That is the important key to success.

I know that I am not writing anything new, not presenting a breakthrough in life for anyone.  But we sometimes need to be reminded why it is important to “rise and fight again.”

Failure can distort our view of ourselves; it can cripple our resolve and sabotage the true joy of life around us.  We must feel the pain of failure, let it touch our heart and spark a tear or two.  That is the bitter sweetness of truly living.  Success is learning from that pain and “moving forward” toward our goals.  As the New Year approaches it gives us a chance to reflect and refocus. I can promise you that failure will occur next year, and I hope you will move forward through it.  In fact, I dare you to.

Have a great 2012!

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December 12, 2011 · 10:21 am

PicLit Poem: These Hands

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December 6, 2011 · 9:45 am

Your Own

We have a hard rule in our house; you can’t say you dislike anything until you have tried it.  Yes, it helps us to get the kids to eat their vegetables at dinner (there are some vegetables that are not served in our house, but it is because we have at least tried them), but the rule stands also for other issues.  From Justin Beiber to reading The Chronicles of Narnia.  We don’t let the kids just spat out other peoples’ opinions.  Or to just dismiss something without at least knowing something about it so that they can form their own opinion.

This approach isn’t always easy, even as elementary students the playground conversation can get negative and degrading.  I am amazed at times with the negative opinions my children express at the dinner table and the range of topics these opinions cover, from songs about Barney the Dinosaur (not happy songs!) to political issues.  With just a couple of questions, I discover that the opinion comes from the playground.  My wife and I then lead the discussion for them to express what they know of the topic.  We help them to formulate what their opinion is based off what they actually know.  Other times, sadly, we have to simply say, no that is not appropriate.  Usually with songs they learn, but it still expresses an opinion.

As a dad, this saddens me in a number of ways.  I actually enjoy helping them learn about the world.  To discuss issues, to question them and yes, sometimes I over analyze things (did you know how many different themes are present in Disney’s Beauty and The Beast?).  But when did this all become so negative?  What is wrong with liking something?  Why do we have to fight so hard to have our own ideas?

Why is our first reaction to something negative? As an English teacher this attitude is almost a cliché.

Courtesy of Flickr user piper caldwell

“I hate reading.”

“I hate poetry.”

“I hate English.”

I have no problem when a student says they dislike a poem, after they have read it.  In fact, it means the poem actually affected them and gives me something to discuss with them.

What sadness me the most, and not just for my kids but for my students too, is the lost opportunities because of this attitude.  The depth of our life is not created by others’ attitudes but through our experiences.  And those experiences have to be both positive and negative.  Those opposites give us the parameters to build our own views. To make this life our own.

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December 3, 2011 · 8:45 pm

Snowy Day

The snow cancelled basketball.  The girls stayed in pajamas.  I shoveled the driveway.  It was one of those relaxing snowy Saturdays when you eat too much, we made sugar cookies, and you get the chance to spend serious family time.  We had a great moment at the dinner table where we all were laughing so hard we were crying.

We read stories; a few of us took naps (yes, I was one of them).  But technology allowed us to do some creative things.

My oldest son wrote a song, “There ain’t room for both of us” as a Christmas gift for his grandparents.

He is learning to play the clarinet.  If you remember a past blog (“Miles Davis: So What”) you will recognize the similarities of the beginning of his song.

This day gave my other son the chance to make his first Lego movie, “ARC Troopers: Ambushed”

I helped with technical parts, but he was the director and producer.  He had the script done, a staging map for the Lego men, and ideas for the sound effects.

These projects are not earth shattering, but allowed my sons to pursue things they are interested in or working on.  This day gave us the opportunity to build memories that we can experience for along time.

I can’t wait for the next snow day…

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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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