Twenty Years

Twenty years ago, I made a choice to become a long-term substitute teacher at Satellite Academy High School, where my college friend, Sonia Murrow, taught at the time.  In making the decision to accept that job, I sent my life on a certain trajectory, moving away from the path of material wealth, and towards a more modest existence.

But I also joined the ranks of the Truly Fulfilled.  We walk with a lighter step, and we sleep a more peaceful sleep.  You can see it in our faces; when we come home at night, after a difficult day at work, there's a "lightness" about us that comes from knowing we've helped another person, despite the sometimes considerable challenges it may have entailed.

I tried my hand at a potentially more lucrative position, in a different line of work, just about midway through my career.  That lasted all of about two weeks, I'd say.  I knew almost immediately that selling things to other people was something I wouldn't be very good at, and I couldn't get used to the heaviness I felt at the end of the day -- a weight to which I was unaccustomed.

I'm a buttoned-down administrator now, bald and gray-bearded.  "Seasoned" is the euphemism we tend to use in education.  I've landed at a school I love, and although the days are sometimes stressful, and people, being people, are imperfect and annoying at times, I've finished my twentieth school year filled with the same sense of purpose, and the same lightness, as ever.

To all those of you who read this with whom I've crossed paths in those twenty years -- as your teacher, co-worker, supervisor, teacher of your kid, or friend -- thank you.  Thank you for being a part of my life, and for making these twenty years so special.

Here's to the next twenty!

Just ASK Them

51 Chambers Street where Satellite Academy resided, on one dimly lit, dusty floor,  from the late 70s till 2000

“Slipping through the cracks” is a cliché; however I can tell you it is a very real phenomenon.  Kids do it every day, in hundreds, maybe thousands, of American high schools.   When I worked at a small public school in New York City, especially designed for those students, I knew first-hand of the many ways in which they had failed school, and school had failed them. they wove a common thread when they told of “feeling like a number” and not “being known” in their old schools.  Some kids told stories of being “internal cutters” in buildings so large they could be counted present at certain key moments of the day, then wander into less patrolled sections of the school and “chill” until it came time to leave each afternoon, successfully avoiding classes that bored or confounded them.

Of course back in those days, I was filled with self-satisfaction, knowing I was One of the Good Ones, helping youth find their way back to the educational path from which they had strayed.  I had the opportunity – the luxury, I realize now – to be encouraged by my school’s (and, at one time, my district's) leadership to be a leader myself, in inspiring my students using creative means.  We had approximately 200 students in our building, cared for and educated by around 20 adults.  I’d be lying if I suggested we were successful in guiding all of them, but we were good at helping a majority of them feel they had found a scholastic home – a place where they could be free to be vulnerable in that way that allows you to pick yourself up and try again. 

The school where I work is anything but small, as I have mentioned in a previous post.  In that same post, I meditate on the notion of bringing a “small school mentality” to a large campus.  I don’t know that I had a clear sense of what I meant when I wrote those words the first time, but I think I know now.

And here it is:

Just listen to them. 

It sounds absurdly like an oversimplification, and I know it probably is.  Don’t dismiss the idea, though.  What most of the people who graduated from the school where I taught in New York will tell you (and I hope they’ll read this and chime in) is that the first step comes when a student begins to seriously consider what is not working in their education.  Teachers are asked to reflect on student failure all the time, as they should be.  But rarely do we ask students to think, and talk, about what they believe has gone wrong. 

Here are some questions that a teacher might think about asking their students:

• ·      Tell me about you and school.
• ·      Tell me a about the last time you loved a class and why you think you did.
• ·      Who was the best teacher you ever had and why?
• ·      Who was the worst teacher you ever had and why?  (No names, please.)
• ·      What do you think you need in order to be successful?

There are teachers who will read this and have a negative response, dismissing me as one of those liberals who enables children, rather than challenging them.  I’d argue that these questions are challenging ones – especially to ask sincerely and in a safe atmosphere that will ensure honest results.  Some will say, “Well, when I was a student no one asked me questions like these.  They just told you to do the work, and either you did it, or you didn’t.”

What I would encourage that teacher to understand is that the self-actualization they may have had as a teenager is rare.  Yes, many of our students are capable of pushing through whatever the assignment is, with a minimum of help.  However, there are others who bring with them through our school doors myriad shackles, accumulated over years of failure and/or being passed along. 

It’s difficult for you to know every one of your students well in a school where your individual student load approaches 200 – the TOTAL number of students we worked with in our small transfer high school in New York City.  I don’t deny that.   But the teachers I see thriving, coming to work with smiles on their faces, and leaving in the afternoon looking invigorated and not depleted, tend to be the ones that try.  Keep fighting the good fight.  And if you want to take a step in the right direction, stop that one kid who keeps on failing, seemingly without a care in the world, and ask him my first question. 

“Tell me about you and school.” 

You might be amazed at what you hear, and it might just energize you at the same time. 

But one thing is for sure:

You’ll never know if you don’t just ask.

What a Drag It Is Getting Old

Judge Number One, Daniela Fuchilicious

As soon as I put in my falsies last Friday, I knew I’d made a mistake.  They were too perky for a man of my age – not to mention I’d neglected to buy a brassiere, thus allowing the gals to float around like cosmonauts in the International Space Station.  (I eventually chose to "go natural," scrapping the falsies.)  In addition, I’d failed to anticipate how hot I would be in my XXL, ankle-length dress I’d just purchased at Goodwill, so I immediately sweated through it. 

Sitting backstage, waiting to go on as Judge Number 1 in the first annual Raiders and Tiaras pageant, I did find myself having second thoughts.  I wasn’t the least attractive man in drag, sitting back there.  In fact two of the three other staff members (who I won’t name here) were downright – well, I don’t want to be unkind.  Let’s just say they looked like people you might wake up next to in the local lockup’s drunk tank, just before being called in to appear in night court. 

Many of my colleagues have given me the impression, although they were too polite to say it out loud, that they felt it was a foolish move for me to agree to appear in drag in front of three hundred students and their families.  But you know what?  I disagree, and I do so for a couple of reasons.  First and foremost, this was a charity event, raising money for a cause about which I care as an educator, our PALS program, which trains our students to mentor and otherwise work with younger kids.  I don’t have any real data to back this up, but I’ll just bet you that when students found out there was an opportunity to see one of their male assistant principals in ladies’ clothing, it caused some to shell out the five dollars that got them in the door. 

My second reason for choosing to dress up as a woman was because I am a lover of the theatre, and have always been a frustrated actor.  If you ever get an opportunity to see a video of my performance as Daniela Fuchilicious, Judge Number One of the first-annual Raiders and Tiaras pageant, (and I hope that you do) you’ll see a full-on character, start to finish.  I did work on my character, and anyone who’s ever taken an acting class knows what I’m talking about.  Indeed, those of you who have studied theatre know that there is a long, rich history of male actors appearing in female roles on stage.  The Greeks did it, and so did Shakespeare. 

So there.

Finally, I’ll let you in on a little secret:  This was not my first time.  It was my third.  The first time was when I was 20.  My girlfriend and I were living in Provincetown, Massachusetts for the summer.  Provincetown is replete with drag queens, some of them world renowned.  We did it for no other reason than pure boredom.  As I remember it, the day was rainy, and we began with an outfit, then the makeup.  Amazingly, I fit into her clothes, and, in the end, I’d say I looked, well, kind of pretty. 

Fast forward ten years, and picture a staff and student Halloween fashion show in a tiny, alternative high school in New York City.  My advisory group came up with the idea, and they collaborated on a garish costume, with huge hind quarters and breasts, and overdone makeup.  They called me Juwakateema, and I embraced the part – sprinting around our tiny lounge, my dress billowing like a multi-colored sail behind me – much to the delight of my students and horror of a couple of colleagues. 

Interesting, now that I think of it, how I’ve appeared in drag every ten years for the past thirty years.  

The first time I was “kind of pretty,” the second I was “garish,” and this time I was “not the ugliest.”  I shudder to think what 2022 may bring.  

Little Things to Like About a Big School

With 3,065 students -- the largest reported enrollment  of any high school in Central Texas -- Cedar Ridge could soon become an athletics giant.
                                                                        -- Austin American Statesman

I'm finishing off my first school year as one of five assistant principals at Cedar Ridge, and am coming to terms with not being a "small schools guy" any more.

My standard sound bite has been that I try to bring a "small schools mentality" to the big school.  Honestly, I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds good and folksy, like I'm coming from a tiny rural district in West Texas, where the principal doubles as the bus driver and the football players all play both offense and defense.

The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of little things to like about a big school. 

I love driving up to a big Texas high school in the fall, when the sun is hitting the parking lot hash marks, and casting long shadows on the marching band as they work out their formations.  The digital metronome clicks out a beat that can be heard for miles, and the amplified voice of the director, standing 50 feet up in the tower, barks out feedback. 

"Faster, Cody!  I need you to be faster than that!"

I love the sight of the choir, dressed in their formal wear of black tuxedos and dresses, loading on to cheese buses that will take them to the statewide UIL competition.

I love the SWAG.  Every new Cedar Ridge T-shirt I receive is like that Christmas present in back of the tree that I hadn't seen before, or the Easter egg that none of the other kids noticed behind the drainpipe.

Oh, and in the case of my particular large school, I love driving past the horse stables as I roll up at around 8 in the morning.  The only horses I ever saw at my small schools in New York were the mounted police who clopped by every so often, causing my students to ooh and aah and ask if they could put their horses. 

I suppose the one thing that remains the same is the attitude I try to bring through the door every day.  Humor, kindness and a positive pre-supposition that the rest of the people in the building -- adults and children alike -- are there for the right reasons are probably the three best things I bring (and have always brought) to the table.  My hope is that this will benefit the young people I work with, whether in a school of 300 or 3,000.  Only time will tell. 

Wait...is This MY Hand I'm Playing?

They say you play the hand you are dealt. This past Tuesday, I spent the day wondering whether the hand I'm currently playing makes me a sell-out.

Ridgeview Middle School feels like a pleasant place to be. It's a relatively new, clean building, and it's populated by Future Raiders -- the younger brothers and sisters of my students at Cedar Ridge High School, just a few hundred yards to the west. I'm here for a district-wide training of school administrators, and this latest one has to do with testing. . More specifically, they are giving us the information we need to successfully administer the state's standardized Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) and State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exams. I sit through the worst kind of so-called "professional development," in which they read to you in the darkness from a wordy PowerPoint slide show. The last time anyone read to me in the dark I was six years old, and the expectation was that I would eventually fall asleep.

Now, I pinch myself in the arm to avoid doing so. But I get through it, and now have yet another binder to add to my extensive collection.

I have signed my oath as a Test Administrator. I am now an officially-sanctioned Giver of Tests, working in what the Austin American Statesman reports will -- as of next year, be the largest high school in Central Texas, with over 3,000 students.

It's a far cry from those Time Out from Testing Consortium meetings I used to attend at the Julia Richman campus as a representative of Satellite Academy High School, Chambers Street (which became Midtown), where we worked with approximately 200 students at a time.

I continue to marvel at where I have landed. There are many great things about Cedar Ridge High, despite its size, and I really do think I bring a small-school mentality to my work. But all this money and all these resources being spent on standardized testing, and my complicity in it, does, I must admit, keep me up some nights, and I imagine Ted Sizer, my education guru, turning in his grave.

From Venerated to Vilified: Are We Asking Too Much of Our Teachers?

During a three-day workshop I just completed, our trainer, Chris O'Reilly at Region 13, showed us a case study classroom video. The featured teacher taught high school English in the Valley. He was the kind of teacher I loved having as a kid, and the kind I want my own children to have. His enthusiasm for his subject matter was so evident, as was his love for his students, and this is what I remember about all my best and favorite teachers -- that spark of enthusiasm, wanting to be shared and passed on. Ms. O'Donnell had that glint in her eye, as did many of my teachers.

That's what I'm looking for as I roam the classrooms of the teachers I appraise at Cedar Ridge. I want to see energy and enthusiasm. I want to see teachers helping their students open up their minds to new information. I want to see the light bulbs above the students' heads start lighting up.

I want the chill running up and down the back of my neck the way it used to when I knew all my students were fully engaged. I want the same urge to cry as I got watching the master teacher from the Valley, getting his students excited about a Walt Whitman poem.

Is this too much to ask?

I know it's the right thing to ask, but it may indeed, be too much to ask, especially during a time in our history when teachers are no longer venerated and are now vilified. We're having them open their doors and share curriculum that is less personal and humanistic every day, due to the pressure of having to cover content, and then chiding them for not going deeper. It's difficult to open a child's mind when the material you're asked to cover is so limited and so centered on where the graphite ovals fall on the next bubble sheet.

Having Something Left

It wasn't until I pulled my car out of the parking lot that I finally exhaled. That was the kind of day it was at Cedar Ridge High School.

After a good early-morning meeting with my old boss, who now serves as our external coach, I found myself in Z.J.'s annual Admission, Review, and Dismissal (ARD) meeting. Z is a complicated young man with a host of issues, and he's also the first student to latch onto me the way students sometimes do. The meeting was going well, until Z and Dad got into a disturbing verbal confrontation that included Z's father claiming Z's grandparents feared him. I don't doubt that this is true, as Z can be unpredictably explosive, but those words -- "They're afraid of you, Z" -- were like five daggers; I could almost hear them piercing the boy's heart. As often happens with Z, he began crying, and the meeting was adjourned, to be continued at a later date.

The day snowballed from there. Two Downs Syndrome students got into a physical fight in the Life Skills classroom, a girl was stumbling drunk, I busted a kid for smoking in the bathroom, and a colleague was physically threatened by a student.

In addition, I had to fit in two classroom walkthroughs, participate in a learning walk with our coaches and discipline several other students.

I suppose the good news is that the world kept turning and all of us survived -- albeit wearily -- to see another day.

The most important test I passed came after all of this was over, after the aforementioned exhalation. When I picked up the children, Jackson was beside himself, inconsolable that we'd moved him into the ACE after-school program, without informing him he'd be leaving LEAP. I inhaled again, and the breath stuck in my chest. There was a clearly defined moment when time stopped, I stepped out of my body, and made a decision. It was when I walked around to Jackson's side of the car to help him into his seat.

The burning anger, the wish to lash out made its way toward the surface, and before reaching for the door handle and yanking it open, as (I'm sorry to say) I've done before, I imagined the day's troubles rolling off me like raindrops off a newly painted automobile.

(Breathe out.)

"Jackson?" I said in a calm, measured tone that made him stop and look into my eyes. "Would you feel better about ACE if we went to look for some vampire teeth?" (He's been asking for them since Halloween.)

"Yes," he said, smiling through watery eyes. "And Daddy?"

"Yes, Jackson?"

"I'll give ACE a chance."

The three of us went on to have a pleasant, fun evening together, which helped remind me that there's much more to my life than ZJ's tears or kids getting tickets for smoking in bathrooms, or sitting with a crying boy who can't understand why he'd been hit in the temple by a bully. That simple choice to let out that deep breath and give my son the love he needs fortified me, built me back up and made it possible to come into work this morning with a smile on my face.

(And ending my evening last night with a shot of Cuervo and a cold Lone Star chaser didn't hurt either....)

A Silent Prayer for Students and Their Teachers

“ROCK ON,” states the Pepsi banner adorning the little stage at the “Asleep at the Wheel Roadhouse” at the Austin Bergstrom International Airport, where I have become a regular monthly commuter, since taking my job as Education Specialist at Region 13 in January of last year. I feel a great deal of responsibility in this job – to the students in the school I serve, their teachers and principals, not to mention their parents. We send our kids to school every day with a silent prayer, playing it on a loop inside our worried minds: “Please let this be a good experience for them. Please let them learn.”

Schools can really make you sad if you think about them in a certain way. Consider the first day of Kindergarten – all those five year olds come in, nervously clinging to their parents’ pant legs. But there’s also a sense of sheer excitement, of wanting to conquer the unknown, wanting to know new people your own age, wanting to learn new things.

Now consider the first day of teaching. For those of you who have never experienced it, I’ve done my best to describe my own first day in a previous post. In short, it’s that mix of nerves and excitement, just like Kindergarten.

I was fortunate to spend the majority of my educational career (about twelve and a half of the nearly twenty years so far) working in an extraordinary school where we managed to sustain that sense of excitement and nervous, fun energy for years. I’ve realized, in my travels to schools all around New York City and now Texas, that this by no means represents the norm. There are few things more disheartening than being in a school where that sense of joyful excitement has given way to abject boredom and drudgery.

I’m not saying my school was by any means perfect. We had some wonderful teachers and classes, but I wonder if we pushed our students hard enough; I think we could have challenged them more. Academically, I mean. On the social/emotional side of things, we were red hot. When our advisory program was firing on all cylinders, we were a sight to behold. In my next school job – whatever, and whenever, it may be – I’d like to see us use that great caring for our children as a lever with which we can build up the rigor of their intellectual work. It’s tough not to talk about this stuff in platitudes and tired “edu-speak” truisms. We can talk about “engaging” our students with “rigorous” work, but what does that mean? What does it look like?

For me it’s about aspirations and skills. If we can get our students excited about coming to school, get them feeling safe in our building, and get them to trust the adults and each other, then they will begin to share their dreams and vision. As adults, it’s our job to know to know each child, as well as his or her dream. If you’re a good teacher, you nourish that dream, and yes, to anticipate your next question, you nourish even the dreams you may perceive as unlikely – the boy who is 4’11” and 85 pounds who wants to be Lebron James, or the girl who is 5’9” and 200 pounds who wants to be a ballerina. Yes, I know, I know – you’re doing them a favor by helping them be realistic, or so you think.

School is a place where one should be allowed and encouraged to dream. And here’s something that may help you feed those unlikely dreams: If a child feels you’re helping him realize his dreams, he’s much more likely to help you to fulfill yours – namely, to open his mind to the joys of learning.

Children of the World: A Step on Stage, A Step Away from Mommy and Daddy

Yesterday morning J and I attended Diego and Jackson's weekly theatre showcase at their summer camp. Jackson was in a couple of “group stories” – The Enormous Turnip and Stone Soup. He was more than a little aware of his audience, and having his best friend Travis there with him put him over the edge as far as his excitement level was concerned. But that was fine. He did extremely well and was happy the whole time, his eyes wide and constantly darting back to us, to make sure we were paying attention to what he was doing.

And we were. As proud parents, how could we not? It’s an astounding thing to see your child up there “on the stage,” so to speak, because it’s another indication, another reminder that your children do not, ultimately, belong to you. Like all of us, they are children of the world. It’s a jarring moment to see your child up there, in front of an audience, so vulnerable and so potentially impactful.

Diego – often referred to as “the shy one” – was up there too. His group did something called “Yoga Simon Says,” in which they struck yoga poses they had learned. Diego’s face, covered with a beaming smile, betrayed the fun he was having. He also performed, in a dance number, to Willow Smith’s Whip My Hair, a song that is big with the “tween” set and that is, doggone it, I’m just gonna say it, downright catchy.

I shot video of the entire thing on my Blackberry, and was just beside myself with pride in my boy. People make assumptions about Diego because of how shy he appears to be. I know from my own experience, however, that being shy doesn’t necessarily preclude having an interest in performance. There’s something that happens when you get on stage, or on a set, that allows you to step out of yourself and into a whole different mindset.

The thing about Diego’s brand of shyness that is important for me to keep in mind is that it’s backed by high intelligence. He is always watching and always thinking. It will become more and more essential as he gets older to ask him to share what’s on his mind. He won’t always agree to it, but it will be crucial to keep on asking. J often remarks on how similar Diego is to how she was as a child. When she tells me the stories of how she felt, I often wish I could go back and ask her what she was thinking and feeling. That’s often all a quiet, sensitive child needs.

Where I Work: Taking Great Pride in "Cubicle World"

I returned to Cubicle World yesterday, after yet another three-day absence. This time it was due to two off-site training days and a day off, instead of the monthly flight to Dallas. In fact, during the summer months my travel diminishes, as one might expect, and I spend more time in Cubicle World -- one of the sadder realities of working in the service of schools (as opposed to in the schools themselves).

Don't get me wrong: I love where I work. The Education Service Center at Region 13 is, I believe, considered the flagship of the twenty regional service centers across the state. Because it sits so close to the seat of government, and houses a number of statewide initiatives, ESC 13 needs to be a cut above the rest, which we are.

The first thing one notices about our building is its physical surroundings. Nestled in the rolling hills of northeast Austin, the Service Center commands an imperial post, like a modern bastion, quite literally, of stalwart dedication to improving the educational lives of the young people of our state.

There’s a great deal of institutional pride in our organization and it hits all levels. The maintenance staff keeps the place spotless. The cafeteria and catering services are top-notch. Our Executive Director, Dr. Terry Smith, takes every opportunity to impress upon us the importance of customer service, often sharing positive words that have been passed on to him by a satisfied client.

In the local education world of Central Texas, there’s a certain amount of “cache” one holds in being able to say they work at Region 13. There’s a sense of having arrived at a good place, both figuratively and literally. I’m personally proud of being associated with the organization. It tells me I’ve been paying attention over the course of my career, and that what I’ve learned is being put to good, helpful use.

The cubicle thing, in and of itself, is not ideal, obviously. It’s nice to have a place to hang my proverbial hat in between my monthly flights to Big D. I don’t do well with the Open Concept, however, and as much as I enjoy and understand the emphasis on having access to my colleagues, I’m an easily distracted individual. I wouldn’t say I eavesdrop exactly (although being a writer does have my ears in a constant state of surveillance for an original line), but I do overhear every phone conversation and cross-cubicle chat in my immediate vicinity.

For this reason I do best sitting at my computer, my “iBuds” in my ears, plugged into my iTunes or iPod, minding my own iBusiness, and working my way down my To-Do list as best I can.

Occasionally, when the Fanny Fatigue sets in, I walk over to the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows and look out over the impressive vista. I can, literally, almost see my home from there (nod to Sarah Palin), and watch for a moment as the hawks and buzzards circle below me, and above the impressive stand of trees that stretch for acres. I’m not quite certain how I landed here, or how long it will last, but I smile and take a breath of appreciation, before getting back to the task at hand.