Month: October 2016

Sharpened Pencils, Or, Our REAL teacher would never let us do that

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Since I have retired from my career in air traffic control for the FAA, I have started working as a substitute teacher.  Only part time, and only when I feel like it.  It isn’t my calling, but I truly enjoy it; kids are funny and amazing and heartbreaking and encouraging all at the same time.  One of the reasons I have so little worry about the future of our great nation is because I get to see these kids turn into the next generation of success.  Don’t bother me with “new” math or “teaching to the test” or “not enough money”for schools.  Those are all very real problems.  But I just watched a little kid who can’t tie his shoes log into a school’s website to complete homework and take a test.  The password wasn’t “password”, either.  Each kid has a unique ID and a different password for each device they are tasked to log into.  None of these kids had their passwords written on a sticky note, either.  Raise your hand if your passwords are all written down.  Yeah, me too.

Whenever I fill in for a teacher, a REAL teacher, I tell the class I only have two rules.  

  1. No tears
  2. No bloodshed

It’s usually pretty funny and lets them all drop their defenses because they know the “sub” is cool and won’t give them a hard time.  I tend to add a caveat about cell phones in the high school classes (“don’t make them a distraction and we will all pretend that you’ve left them put away the whole period”), which usually works.

I taught in an elementary school the other day.  The movie during the lunch period was “Monsters University”.  I hadn’t seen that before, but the 12 minutes I saw were great.  (Teachers get TWO pieces of pizza if you want, by the way). Pencils only get sharpened at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day.  But, as a substitute, I didn’t hear that rule until they ALL had to sharpen pencils in the MIDDLE of the day.  Big no-no, apparently.

Justice.  That makes sense to these kids.  If HE gets to sharpen his pencil (and how could I say no? His pencil clearly needed sharpening.  How can he learn letters if his pencil point is broken off?), then I should get to sharpen my pencil, too.  And so on, until everyone got a pencil sharpened.  My lyrical and cogent lecture on the critical reasons we must learn cursive may have gotten a bit diluted, shall we say, by the intermittent noise of the sharpener, but hey.  There is a price for excellence.

A few vignettes:  (I will change all the student names because they don’t need to be in the news just yet.)  Jacob poked approximately 60 holes in Daniel’s paper.  Daniel didn’t like that.  “Jacob, why did you poke holes in Daniel’s paper?”  “I don’t know.”  “Do you think you can apologize for that?”  “Sorry.”  “Can you say a whole sentence to apologize?”  “I am sorry.” (technically, a complete sentence.  But, then again, so is “Sorry.”)  “Can you say, ‘I am sorry for poking holes in your paper?'”  “I am sorry for poking holes in your paper.”  “Daniel, can you say thank you for apologizing?” “Thanks.”  I say, “Can we move forward now?”  They both nod in the affirmative.

Taten dropped the desktop on Kaitlyn’s fingers (did not know this yet).  Kaitlyn was crying (one of my 2 very simple rules!) “Kaitlyn, why are you crying?”  “Taten smashed my fingers in the desk,” she said with a hitch in her voice.  “Taten, did you do that?”  “Yes.”  “Why did you do that, Taten?”  “I don’t know.”  “Can you apologize for that?”  “Sorry.”  “Can you say a whole sentence for that?”  “I am sorry.”  Can you say, ‘I am sorry for slamming your fingers in the desk?'”  “I am sorry for slamming your fingers in the desk.”  “Kaitlyn, can you say thank you or ok to that?”  “It’s ok,” said Kaitlyn, tears gently beading down her cheeks.

Discipline is handled with clothespins.  Everyone starts at green (I think) and clips UP for being a good helper or example and clips DOWN for doing something against the rules.  Simple.  Except (and this is why so many of these kids will be good at debate or the legal profession) when one of them sees another doing something bad.  “Johnny took a drink out of someone else’s water bottle, can I move his clip down?”  “No, I don’t think you should move it because I didn’t see him do it.”  “Well, he did it.”  “Johnny, did you drink out of someone else’s water bottle?”  “No.”  “Missy says she saw you do that.  Are you telling me the truth?  Because lying about it is worse than actually drinking out of someone else’s bottle.”  I can see him gauging his response.  “Yes, I did drink out of the bottle.”  “Why did you drink out of that bottle?”  “I was thirsty.”  “Why didn’t you just ask to go get a drink?”  “I don’t know.”  “Do you think your teacher would have you clip down if you did that?”  “Probably.”  “OK, then you better clip down one.”

And, all of a sudden, I am judge and jury over a very kind-hearted, loving, energetic elementary student.  What if this is the start of a long string of crime and misbehavior?  What if he ends up in “Juvie” because I made him clip down for that behavior?  What if he moves out of his house and lives under a bridge when he’s older because of me? What if the teacher returns the next day and sees he has clipped down, asks him about it, and then he is in trouble forever because he didn’t behave for the sub???  It’s a lot of pressure – especially for a peacemaker/golden retriever like me.

All of this happened before 11 am.  I’d been there less than 3 hours.  I had 5 to go.  I was exhausted.

These students know these rules inside and out.  Occasionally, I will take time to have students explain to me what, exactly, the rules are.  We always raise our hand to speak, by the way.  A rule which I LOVE, and one that I can enforce with little worry of future criminal record.  Also, we take questions in the order that the hands went up.  Ocassionally I resort to ‘whoever is the quietest person sitting at their desk’.  (Except that has danger, too, because so MANY immediately get quiet so they can get called on and then are crestfallen when I don’t call on them and am I being fair and have I called on an equal number of boys and girls and have I ignored anyone and is the teacher’s pet getting away with something always having me call on her?)  Unless it is a bathroom emergency.  Then that student gets relief from the court.  (I know you see what I said there.)  

Clip ups lead to stamps on a card at the end of the day.  Purple means two stamps and blue means just one stamp.  The card is like a “frequent coffee” card.  You know, 10 stamps and then you get to pick a prize (at least I think that is the reward) from the teacher’s stash.  “No, you can’t pick a prize today because I don’t know where she keeps the prizes and she didn’t leave me a note about that.”  Crestfallen.  A grim acceptance of a darkened world because their normal teacher isn’t here.

A word about popsicle sticks.  Each student has one.  This is true for almost every elementary class I’ve taught.  Usually the sticks have a number corresponding to the student.  You’ve got to look at the name tag taped to their desk to find out which number stands for which student.  Sometimes you use the popsicle sticks to pick what lunch you want that day (lunch menu located on the school website; have a student help you find that web page).  Sometimes we use the sticks for the order in which we line up to go to lunch.  Or gym (actually, “PE”, not “gym”) (I’m not sure why we don’t call it “gym” anymore).  Or recess.

Encore recess is in the afternoon.  It is a privilege and not a right.  If you have school work left to do, you need to stay in during “Encore” and finish that work.  If you’ve clipped down, you have to walk a lap for each level you clipped down.  At which point, you must tell the teacher how you will do better in the future. “I promise I won’t poke holes in anyone’s paper because I know it’s wrong”.   My role is to look somber and encouraging and thank them for saying that, “Now go have a good time for the rest of recess”.  They scamper off.

One last funny thing – we take “restroom”breaks.  On the way to and from recess, music, or gym (sorry, PE) we stop at the toilets/sinks/water fountains.  A fantastic plan; everyone deserves physical comfort.  What’s FUNNY about it is the kids who go straight to the “after you are done, line up here” spot.  “You don’t need to go to the bathroom?”  Snickers ensue.  “What?”  “Use the RESTROOM, not the BATHROOM!”  “Oh, OK.  None of you needs to use the restroom?”  “No.”  And, those of you who have seen this know what’s coming when we all get back to the classroom…

“Teacher, can I go to the restroom/ get a drink?”  “Of course, will you come right back?”  “Yes.”  And off they go.  I smile.  They’ve got the system down.

Please hear me well now.  The reason I love spending time as a substitute teacher is because I see EVERY DAY the resilience of the human spirit.  I see these kids EVERY DAY work through difficult scholastic problems.  I see them negotiate with their friends and with their small group partners and with their teachers how to solve each and every problem they face.

They are SO persistent in their pursuit of understanding, knowledge, teamwork.  I cannot praise the REAL teachers enough about how successful they are in LOVING these students.  These students have bought in to their education because these fantastic teachers CARE and LOVE and EXPECT and AFFIRM.  Social contracts, written between teachers and classmates in order to lay ground rules, are all over the place.  And they WORK.  Bravo to the minds and hearts who instituted this.

Daniel and Jacob had a disagreement.  Now they don’t.  It is over and they move forward together.  Kaitlyn and Taten had a disagreement.  Now they don’t.  It is over.  Missy and Johnny had a disagreement.  It is over.

No grudges.  Just teammates.

We are going to be just fine.

Defenseless

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I had the pleasure of helping with Convoy of Hope this past summer, and I was inspired to do so by my very own daughter, Cassidy.  The church she attends was and still is the host church in Wichita for Convoy of Hope.  They have a strong youth group and their eagerness to pitch in is heartening.  Read Cassidy’s take right here: Cassidy’s Blog.
Convoy of Hope is a national mission that is carried out locally.  It reaches families who are preparing their children for school and need a boost.  It generally coincides with the beginning of a school year and attempts to provide school supplies, shoes, food, haircuts, job-finding assistance to both the children and the parents.  Dignity and grace suffuse the day – because everyone deserves dignity and love.  We thank THEM for coming to bless us.
In the pre-dawn hours of that day, I rode with Cassidy to the church grounds upon which the Convoy of Hope would take place.  Many pavilion-sized tents had been set up, a sound stage had been set up, bathrooms had been placed, pallets of foodstuffs had been arranged for dispersal.  It was probably at least 10 acres in use for all of this.  The organizers expected 10,000 people to visit.  What they didn’t expect was severe weather to strike right at the time they wanted to put the final touches on it all.  It all happened, it was just delayed about an hour.

The volunteer start times had already been set, though,  so it was early, around 6 am, when we arrived in a downpour.  Heavy rain lashed the tents.  Classic Great Plains thunderstorms energetically bragged right over us as we walked to the volunteer gathering spot.  We decided to walk on over to the spot rather than stay in the car to wait out the storm because the radar indicated 45 minutes or so of this level of weather.  I am still not convinced it was a smart move, but it doesn’t matter now, we turned out fine.  There was not one weather-related injury this day, for the record.  It’s very hard to say if that is coincidence or mercy.

Cassidy and I shared my umbrella as we walked.  We walked for between 5 and 10 minutes to get to the right place, and all the while lightning crackled all around us.  Heavy rain battered my “Amsterdam” umbrella (I actually bought it in Amsterdam for 10 Euros from a cart on the street – it was raining and we needed to stay dry).  Of course my shoes were immediately wet as were the bottoms of my pants.  Cassidy wore rain boots.  In order to fit under the umbrella, I put my right arm tightly over her shoulder, and clutched the umbrella in my left hand.  We walked with a determined stride, but it was peaceful; not afraid or desperate or worried.  Lightning split a tree about 400 yards away.  It sounded as if the sky ripped.  Like canvas rips – heavy.  I wonder if the temple veil sounded like that when torn in two?

Have you ever come upon a wild animal that hasn’t noticed your presence? An animal that continues to sip at a brook, or nibble at a leaf, or peck at a bush?  Think, now, of how you act in that moment of discovery.  It turns quickly into a game of ‘freeze tag’.  Don’t move, don’t inhale or exhale sharply, do NOT make eye contact.  Observe through semi-slitted eyes, open wide enough to record, but not so wide as to reflect light and startle your subject.  Your senses go into hyperdrive so as to remember everything about it; to not miss a thing.  Aerosmith, anyone?

My time with Cassidy was like that.  In fact, Angie and I catch ourselves glancing at each other more and more often as we watch our kids do the amazing things that make them special to the world and to us.  (We always chuckle later about “catching them in their natural habitat”, and say “Don’t make eye contact!!”)  I was walking right next to my daughter with my arm around her – we were bonding!  I didn’t dare say anything, lest we get self-conscious and step apart.  I pretended it was merely for the practicality of the weather that we were pulled so close.  She knew.  We both played it cool, but we knew.  We will always have that morning.

Being in the middle of that thunderstorm also helped me understand the meaning of “the aegis of God”, or the ‘cloak of protection’ He puts around us.  What the Bible says about judgment, “God dispenses or withholds His justice at His pleasure”.  We have zero say in the matter.  That day, God’s mighty lightning struck where it would, and we were merely bits of protoplasm existing within the confines of this physical earth.  I found myself comforted once I realized that I was powerless to control what happened with the lightning.  Yes, I prayed for safe passage.  Perhaps it was granted, but perhaps it was mere meteorology, too.  It is very hard to say.  The lesson was more than ‘the rain falls on the just and the unjust’, even though that truth was also on display.

As time passes, I realize more and more that the display contained both His grandeur (in the storm) and His intimate love (to pass peace to me and my little-tiny-baby-daughter-who-is-somehow-a-grown-woman-now).

Priceless moments.  Holy moments.

The Language of Ravens

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This essay stems from an earlier trip to Ghost Ranch, New Mexico; a place I have long loved and enjoyed.  Feel free to visit them – www.ghostranch.org.

I heard from the earth – it said this:

“What are you doing for me?”

I am in New Mexico, at my favorite spot I’ve ever known – Ghost Ranch.  My muse resides here.  God pulls me here so I can hear that muse.  The connection to the Spirit is strong and clear, like I feel nowhere else.

Here is what I mean by a clear connection.  Did you ever live in a place where shortwave radio was the only option for listening?  We spent two years in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, and we greatly enjoyed the Voice of America broadcasts every morning.  Imagine spinning the dial on an analog shortwave radio band.  Our shortwave had 6 bands to select from.  It had a dial that slowly spun through frequencies, and a switch that selected the range of frequencies.  Imagine you have spun the dial through 5 bands.  Only a few times did you hear a muted, static-filled voice chattering away in a staccato foreign language.  Upon trying to fine tune that channel, the signal faded or maybe only the hissing got louder.

On the last band, already  midway through and despairing of contact, you reach a crystal-clear, loud, english-speaking voice that is talking about exactly what is on your heart at that moment.  The topic is not important; the coincidence of FINDING a voice saying what you NEED is the important part.  When I set foot on the Ranch, after the details of camper setup, dinner arrangements, and logistics are all completed, that connection (like a radio station) tunes in.  I really don’t have to do anything other than walk, sit, listen, look around.  It may sound far too dramatic, but I say to you that the Ranch is a thin place in the fabric between God and the world.  I am not the first to say this:

  • Belden C. Lane, in writing about the Protestant Reformers, says, “Nature’s untamed beauty awakens in my own Reformed heart an atavistic need to praise, to shout back glory.  I sense this in… the desert terrain of Ghost Ranch, in New Mexico, where Georgia O’Keeffe touched a primeval mystery in the land…  These are thin places, where dread and wonder converge in an apprehension of the holy.”
  • Mindie Burgoyne, who leads tours to Ireland’s mystical sites, defines a “thin place” as “where the veil between this world and the eternal world is thin.”
  • “Truth abides in thin places; naked, raw, hard to face truth.  Yet the comfort, safety, and strength to face that truth also abides there.  Thin places captivate our imagination, yet diminish our existence.  We become very small, yet we gain connection and become part of something larger than we can perceive.  They human spirit is awakened and will grow if the mind and body will allow it”  Mindie Burgoyne.

The elusive Muse who inspires me to write, who clears my mind of chaff so I can SEE what to write, and who grants me the authority to BE the storyteller, resides there.  Our reunion is a thing of joy.  I feel a calming in me (I DO have things to say still… I DO have more to share) when my travels take me there.  Once I walked along the sandstone cliffs and heard (even, perhaps, understood) the ravens calling – ‘do you remember? do you remember where we came from?’  Their “we” meant all of us.  It reminded me of the thrush in “The Hobbit” when they got close to the back door of Smaug’s lair.  It communicated with the dwarves and Bilbo, trying to tell them the secret to opening the door.  OUR way of speaking had moved on, but they remember the days when we all spoke together.  

I have come to understand that the times that God speaks to a person may be few and far between.  It behooves me (you, too?) to hear Him well, heed His words, and burn my calories in consonance with that message.  I remember a time on a youth retreat where God found us.  We stood with 15 or 20 youth in a cold moonlight.  Simply praying and feeling His spirit.  Tristyn shouted, “I love you God!”  We all felt a little warmer after that (and I believe a deep connection remains between all who stood there that night).  Of course, God never “finds” us; it is US who must shut up long enough to rediscover Him.  I know that.

The writing seminar I attended at Ghost Ranch taught me things about how to form stories and how to tell stories.  The most important thing it taught me was that I was allowed to claim my space in the center of the room as the storyteller.  To a boy from a small town in Nebraska (which, in my head, I will always be), that sounds awfully egotistical.  The truth is that each of us gets a chance to tell our story, and only I (and you, too?) can tell my (your) story the way it needs to be told.  Movies, novels, biographies, histories – all told by the ‘teller of tales’, the ‘raconteur’, the ‘court jester’.  And during the good ones we hang on every word.

My answer to the earth is this: “I am trying.  That is all I can do.  Every day I get up and try again.  I do not know what the finished product is, will be, or looks like, but I am trying.”

Find for yourself, then, that thin place.  Hear what there is to hear.  And try.

After all, when we sit together, as at a campfire, in a place of safety yet surrounded by wild, we are comforted by friendship.  Tell your story; we’ve got plenty of time.

Bellows. Pistons. Reduced to an Engine.

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I had the pleasure of taking a few trips this past summer into the Rockies.  I tend to philosophize when I am out of breath – especially if I don’t have enough breath to speak aloud my philosophy.  I took these notes and wrestled with the following concepts this past July.  Perhaps it would be more poignant had I published right after these trips, but I didn’t.  Here, then, is why I turned into an engine.

Physical effort. The harder I work, the less awareness I have of the world around me.  When I sit in a leather chair, I am free to read books, play computer games, watch TV, debate politics, eat beef jerky, drink coffee.  When I ride my bike, a lot of those things are put on hold for later.  When I hike up a jeep road with a 40 pound pack on my back, I only lust for water, electrolytes, and the cessation of breathlessness.  When I climb a 14,064 foot mountain in Colorado, my world shrinks to the next steps, and finding the next cairn that marks the route.  I do not want to hear how many vertical feet we have left.  I do not want to look up and see the summit – because what if that is not really the top?  This is a question of mental toughness.  In ME.  I am afraid, always have been, that I am not tough enough to finish the task.

Ever since AAU track, way back in grade school, which was way back in the ’70’s, I have worried that the workout would be too tough.  I remember fearing high school cross country because the workouts might make me puke.  I remember puking during the swim season – Docker Hartfield (the coach) had us swim 100 yd repeaters.  As a freshman, I was all in and wanted to make a good impression.  So I swam until I puked.  He came into the locker room, noticed, and said, “good job”.  I readily concede that in subsequent years of swim practice, I metered my effort more carefully so I would not get sick.  Probably better.  But in many ways, I miss that innocent, determined, driven, total commitment of my new athletic field.  A true 100 % effort, with no thought left for “after”.

Dad and I rode mountain bikes in Colorado recently.  We started up a part of the Colorado Trail, which follows the Continental Divide.  The first mile includes a brutal switchback portion to gain a ridge, which then leads to the actual Divide.  We found out later that this section is called “Vomit Hill”.  Neither of us could ride the whole section; we both walked and pushed our bikes.  I panted in astonishment (Was I THAT out of shape??? Was ALL of Colorado biking this hard??? Could ALL the Colorado bikers ride up this???)

It was on Vomit Hill that my body turned into a primal bellows-fueled piston engine.  I stayed aware, in the sense that I knew I was on my bike riding uphill.  But my focus dialed down to a mere urgency to keep churning my legs – like the mighty pistons that drove the Titanic when they called for “all ahead full”.  A mindless – I had no brain space for philosophy, food, drink, people, birds, money – automaton driving full throttle into the breach.  Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs was clearly demonstrated in this instance.  All I could process was whether my legs could keep churning and whether I could steer straight up the trail.

On a different trip, with my backpack on and accompanied by Dad, brother-in-law, nephew, son, and son’s fiancee, I strode forward, my boots heavy on the ground. Declaratively taking possession of the next step on the trail (I know for SURE I have gotten THIS far), and just as quickly ceding control of the ground behind me as a conquered land (I don’t want to turn around and see how far I’ve come; what if we’ve barely started?).  My spirit turns peevish.  It refuses the offer of progress made, miles accomplished.  It only urges forward – knowing only that there IS an end, and we are not THERE yet.  When we are THERE my spirit can take a recuperative breath and seek safety in the surroundings.  Could it be like primitive man pushing through foreign forest, fearing danger? Primitive man reduced to instinct and searching for a marginally safer place to rest for the night? 

God-formed bellows; my chest heaves relentlessly.  God-shaped pistons; my legs drive endlessly.  My vision tunnels; it needs to see nothing but the path ahead.

I am prepared to repeat as long as is necessary to gain the ridge, the campsite, the peak, the checkpoint.  After the fact, I realize the reality of my effort does not match the hyperbole created by my mind.  In my mind, I have conquered worlds as Alexander the Great did.  In my mind, I rolled the rock back up the hill like Sisyphus did.  In my mind, I have gained Mt Doom in Mordor and thrown the One Ring into the fire like Frodo did.  I WAS Reinhold Messner, climbing Everest without oxygen.  I WAS the fastest cyclist up Mont Ventoux in the Tour de France.  

But hey – even if my effort did NOT measure up to those feats of strength, is it so bad to dream of, to believe in, or to revel in a day fully lived? 

I say no.

Test yourself. Take on your world. Raise your arms in triumph when you finish.