What If Your Computer Crashed And You Could Not Recover What Was On It?

Last Sunday, my computer froze and showed me nothing but a beach ball. I waited. I restarted the computer. I looked online and tried several techniques to boot in safe mode, recovery, and off an external disk. Nothing worked. I called Apple and we spent several hours trying to reinstall the operating system, repair disks, and get the machine to start. It refused.

I eventually took the very large computer to the Apple Store, and I await a repair. Yet, as you can see I am still writing this blog. In fact, using my work computer, an old computer at home, and my iPad, I can do almost everything. My solution is imperfect; for some important functions, I am waiting for my computer to come back from the shop.

One thing I am not worried about is the recovery of my data. My photos, music, documents, home records, and other valuable files are backed up to both an external hard drive and through a backup cloud service.  I am confident that, when I get my computer back, I will be able to restore it such that I will be able to function as I did before it broke.

That wasn’t always the case. This is not the first time a computer has crashed on me. Since that first painful lesson, I have instituted a system by which I back up files in multiple ways to different sources.

What if your computer were to crash, be stolen, or destroyed? What would you lose? What might make life more difficult for you? What would be irreplaceable?

The easiest way to back up your computer is to automate it. I use the Apple Time Machine system, but almost every hard drive has a program to create backups on a schedule. Every platform has a variety of options to backup once a day, hour, week, or whatever makes sense for your needs. You can purchase an external drive and use the program that comes on it or one that is connected to your computer’s operating system.

My children have laptops. They do not leave their computers on desks connected to external drives. For that reason, I subscribe to a cloud backup service that backs up automatically from the cloud. There are several companies offering this service. If you are interested in which one I use and why, reach out to me and I’m happy to tell you about it. I don’t want this to be a commercial.

Unfortunately, the service I used for many years just ended their consumer backup plan and I have recently moved to a new service. Thus my children are not protected by this way right now. That is an issue.

Another solution to the laptop problem is to purchase a micro SD card. These cards are small memory cards that can hold as many files as some phones, tablets, or computers. Most computers have a slot to read them. You can purchase cards in many sizes. My plan is to purchase 200-gigabyte cards and let my kids either automate or manually copy their important files as they see fit. I use a similar method with my school computer. Once a week, I copy all my important files to a flash drive.

Of course, for many of us, much of our digital life is online anyway. Between Google Drive, DropBox, iCloud, and other services, we can keep a great deal of our important data online. I don’t do that with the scans of my tax returns or old photos. My financial files are on an old version of Quicken that I have intentionally prevented from connecting to the internet. And I have a ton of music and videos that would take up far too much space to store online. Thus, I back them up on a drive that sits next to my computer. 

I am hopeful that when I get my computer back (which I am assured will be any day now) that I will be able to reload my digital life and be back to normal quickly and painlessly. Thinking about backing up is not fun, but it is far better than the problem of losing everything that was on your computer.

So again, I ask: what have you done to protect yourself if your computer were no longer functional? What will you do now?

My Voyage Home: Star Trek IV and Me

Star Trek IV premiered shortly after my half birthday in 1986, just before Thanksgiving. I was 22 and one half years old. A newly minted Northwestern graduate, I had just taken a job in Deerfield teaching theatre and English. I had moved to a little apartment off of Route 176 behind the Silo Pizzeria. I didn’t know that Spock’s voyage home, his reunion with himself and his family would be an apt metaphor for the start of a long fulfilling journey, although not into space, but into school.

My experience as a middle school student had been difficult. A late arrival into a small class with highly defined cliques, I struggled to find my place. I struggled to find my self as well. High school was a wonderful release from the difficulties and provided the opportunities to explore in new ways. Then, my senior year, my high school merged with the other school in the district and everything changed. It was as if my home had been destroyed and my friends dispersed. The Enterprise exploded.

College was a great experience and a completely new universe. I boldly went where I had never gone before. I performed in musicals. I tried directing television. It was high school on steroids and things were wonderful.

At the end of my college career, I had the privilege of student teaching at Niles North High School. There I found nurturing and wonderful mentors and students willing to teach a very young and green teacher. I accidentally graduated early and taught briefly at a middle school in Evanston before being hired at Deerfield.

My brief stint as a middle school teacher had been challenging, and as students filed into my first high school theatre class, I felt something I had almost forgotten. Deerfield was about the size of my high school before the merger. It was demographically similar, too. I was the youngest staff member in the building, and I discovered that I had inherited a bevy of aunts, uncles, and surrogate parents. And the students were as welcoming and understanding as those I had met at Niles.

I had come home. I didn’t even know it.

I had not died saving my best friend. I had not left my soul in another person, and Dame Judith Anderson hadn’t put her hands all over my face. It just felt that way.

I worked hard at Deerfield. I still do. I averaged work weeks that were easily fifty or more hours in the building. I went home, ate, slept, and came back. And then, during my third year at DHS, I met my a very special person, and we began a relationship. Shortly thereafter, I was offered a job teaching at my alma mater. A friend from Northwestern called me and suggested that I apply, and on a whim, I did. After a series of difficult and odd interviews, I was offered the position, which would have been new territory for me, and a chance to use some of the skills I had developed while earning my new degree.

But Deerfield had become home. I was now engaged to that special person. I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else. Soon, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. My wife and I found a little home in Deerfield, and soon after, decided our children would make our high school theirs.

Now, we didn’t sing “Row Row Row Your Boat” or go on a journey to find God. While my brother did have a unique way of doing things, he was not looking for my pain. I hope that Star Trek V is never a metaphor for my life.

And like, in late 1987, as I ran around the auditorium, getting ready for a performance of the student variety show, watching a tiny TV in a corner so I could watch the premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I had journeyed home and now it was time for my next generation.

So as we move from Thanksgiving into the winter holidays, I am so grateful to have found my home, my family, and been able to bring my next generation to DHS. And as my mission starts to close, I am forever grateful for how all the pieces of my life have so wonderfully come together.

Deerfield continues to be my home, and will be, even after my retirement – my adventure continues. 

Making the Lasts Last

Have you visited your old elementary school? Have you returned to your middle or high school and said hello to the ghosts in the hall? As you waxed nostalgic and remembered yourself as a child, did you wish you could try again and relive some of those moments? Perhaps you were relieved they were solidly in the past. Yet, both the challenging and the beautiful experiences reach forward in time to grab and engage us. We do not live wholly in the present.

It is so tempting to wish away the days so we can arrive at an anticipated time. We can’t wait for our birthday, vacation, or a holiday. I tell my seniors not to look past their last year of high school.

As I look forward to retirement, I don’t want to wish away my last year of teaching high school either. I want to savor it. I want to fully experience and appreciate my year of lasts. Of course, I have never done this before. I have graduated from high school and college. I have experienced “last” moments, but none with this kind of weight.

Our jobs do more than keep us busy. We are so consumed with the to-do list and getting the job done (and done well) that we may not be aware of the moment. Time really does fly, not just when we are having fun, but when we are consumed by activity. There is nothing wrong with this. However, that is not the way I want to spend this year.

I don’t want to do a countdown. I don’t want to scratch each “last” off the list like barriers to the final reward. Rather, like a delicious meal, I want to fully enjoy each morsel. I want to make each course last.

I will not miss grading papers, but I will miss the intellectual challenge of engaging with students’ ideas. I will seek that kind of stimulation and conversation in retirement. I am very aware of how challenging it can be to help a student formulate an argument, assemble evidence for it, and develop and structure all of these. After conferencing with a child, I sometimes feel like I have run a marathon. I am out of mental breath and need a moment before the next student sits beside me and we run again. I think that kind of  “exercise” keeps me mentally fit. How will I find it in retirement?

One way I am slowing down time is with photographs. I am taking a photo every day to capture this last year. Sometimes, I am carrying my camera with me.  Sometimes, I use my phone. I know that being the photographer pulls me out of the scene sometimes. I am hoping to be able to be both the painter and painting, the subject and the object.

The primary way I want to slow down my last year is by spending time with the people who are so important to me: my colleagues, my students, and the many people that make being in a school so vital and wonderful. As with most endeavors, it is about the relationships – and I don’t want to retire the relationships when I retire from the job.

I am like a senior, but I am not a senior. Am I a super-senior. I didn’t take five years to complete high school, I took more than thirty! Yet, I do identify with my class of 19 peers, both the group retiring with me and the students who will walk across the stage at graduation. But I am not ready to visualize that moment yet. 

Writing is a good way to reflect and slow things down, too. Just as I learned how to teach, parent, partner, and many other important parts of life, this year, I am taking my time and learning how to retire.

The Solace of the Classroom

October was a challenging month. Both personally and nationally, the end of October has been almost overwhelming. My stomach has been in knots, and I have had trouble sleeping. Yet, life goes on, the bell rings, and the kids come in: time for class.

I have learned that when I walk into a classroom, whatever emotions and attitude I convey will be reflected back at me and magnified by my students. While some kids will empathize with a teacher who is having a bad day, more often class doesn’t help. I have learned to put on an actor’s face and pretend during times like this. This week, it was both a challenge and a comfort to put on that mask.

But once I had my class face on, I found that a beautiful transformation occurred. As I worked with students and explored the lesson, I forgot my troubles. The kids are far more immediate than any of my issues. My stomach settles down. My anxiety takes an intermission, and I feel good. I am purposeful and focused – and those wonderful classroom moments remind me why I chose to do what I do.

As a student’s eyes light up with understanding, or one student kindly assists another, or I watch as a student become immersed in the literature, I borrow some of their wonder and joy. Every day doesn’t look like this, but when I am fighting that darkness, my students’ positivity is a powerful antidote to the troubles beyond the schoolhouse walls.

I am a realist. Escaping into a classroom and playing theatre games or analyzing a novel does not make the problems go away. It does make me more able to face them. It does put things in perspective and helps me see the real importance of teaching.

Could it be that the reflection of emotion and attitude works both ways? Could it be that, when I put on that game face, I am really reflecting my students’ feelings and engagement? While the teen world is full of drama and angst, for most kids, I am grateful that it pales in comparison with this past month. I borrow a little of their positive energy. They help heal me, and I teach them! What superb gifts we give each other!

Throughout these past difficult and challenging days, many of the moments that have felt the most normal and wonderful have been in the classroom with my students. What will I do next year? I will live from the memories and reach out to my friends and alumni. The moments may be fleeting, but I can store up some of these moments and benefit from them later- and I can share them.

What a blessing it is to be a teacher! 

I Am Finally Graduating From High School

I spent the conventional four years in high school and then another four in college. Then I went back to high school and stayed for thirty-three years. I can now tell the world that, at the end of this school year, I am finally going to graduate. It is a strange feeling.

Of course, I have been anticipating my retirement for a long time. When I first started teaching, many of my colleagues were on the verge of retirement and their discussion of it seemed banal and boring. The younger teachers would kick each other under the table and laugh at the constant retirement talk. “Get on with it and retire already,” we’d joke. I hope I have kept my retirement comments to a minimum.

A friend had a retirement countdown clock that sat on her desk. She knew exactly how many weeks, days, and hours until her retirement arrived. I have a confession: I do have an app that does that on my phone. I look at it every so often. But I promise you, I am not reciting my countdown to anyone. and I want to see if I can slow down that clock, not speed it up.

This year is a series of “lasts.” My last first day of school. My last open house night. My last set of new students – and so on. Not that I needed a way to understand my seniors, but I am certainly identifying with them. Like first semester seniors, my post-high school plans are still in flux and I have not nailed down all the details. Unlike the seniors, I don’t see myself moving from one school to another. I don’t think I will pick up and teach at a private school or substitutes teach at mine.

I don’t know what is it like to NOT be a teacher. A great deal of my identity is wrapped up in school, and soon that will change. I have a long list of retirement goals, activities, and ideas. I have committed to giving myself at least a year (or maybe two) to try out retirement. It is different things to different people, and I want to find out who I am as a retired teacher before I grab a new identity as a something else.

Because my wife is a counselor, we did not discuss our retirement plans publically for a while. Our colleagues knew our plans. When another teacher told his students that he was retiring, kids who knew me began to put the pieces together, but I refused to confirm the rumors. Now I can tell the world!  

I am still working hard to make sure that my students learn the skills and content they need. I still want class to be fun, rewarding, and engaging for all of us. I am not becoming a different teacher or person because the end of my career is in sight, but my appreciation for the beauty of school, and of our school in particular, has been enhanced. I feel like I am having a many “It’s a Wonderful School” moments without an angel coming to guide me on the journey.

There is no doubt that I am going to miss school, my wonderful friends, and my fantastic students. There will be moments when I will long for the comfort and cycle of school. I want to boldly go into this new adventure. I will look back – a lot! It is my deep hope to stay in touch with the many people who made and continue to make my high school teaching career so rich and wonderful. That is one of the reasons I am a fervent fan of Facebook (and now Instagram). I love staying connected.

So now I will chronicle this new process. I will still be a Sunday school teacher. I will still be an educator, even if retired. And school will go on without me. How comforting and appropriate.

Your Behavior in High School Matters: The Past is Never Really Past

This week’s Supreme Court hearings are appropriately the subject of a great deal of discussion. They should be. The issues are weighty and important. One of the smaller lessons to take from this event is that what happens in high school does not stay in high school. What happens in college does not get forgotten.

Whether it is “boys will be boys” or “the best years of your life” or “you only live once” or any other rationalization for problematic choices – or worse – being young does not give you a free pass.

It should not.

I am not the person I was in high school or college, and I am happy about that. It is my strong belief that, as people age, they get better. However, that doesn’t mean that high schoolers’ decisions are without weight or should be casually excused.

Parents are concerned about academic behavior and place great importance on them. I have heard ad nauseam that a single B in a class could be a life sentence. Not getting into a college, earning a poor test score, or being closed out of a course are often viewed as life-altering.

There are many other choices that are life-altering. Sometimes, these choices are the means of discovering and creating our senses of self. Some choices reveal ourselves. This process of navigating decision-making is critical to the process of becoming adult. 

I have written about the car crash on October 13. While such events are many feel extreme, they are no more extreme than what happened to Dr. Ford. Attempts to minimize the power of teenage misbehavior may be an attempt to excuse or explain away its weight. This fails to recognize that, once we have some degree of independence, we must accept some degree of responsibility.

When I was in high school, very few people were carrying cameras all the time. Certainly, the photographic records of my classmate’s deeds and misdeeds were not posted publically. Social media makes this lesson all the more critical. What if Brett Kavanagh’s high school experience was chronicled by more than his calendar and yearbook?

I want my students to hear clearly: what you do today affects your future and the future of people around you, some of whom you may not even know. No one has a “get out of responsibility free card.” Or no one should.

I want my students to understand that the choices they make today, for better or for worse, will ride with (and within) them forever. What they choose to do about those choices, how they deal with them, confront them, or address them is a critical test of their maturity.

I want my students to be able to recognize problematic behavior in themselves and others and deal with it in a healthy way. When they make mistakes, I want them to learn to own those errors, and then recognize and repair what they have done to the fullest degree possible – and to work to make sure such things do not happen again to them or anyone else.

Teenage drug use, pregnancy, sexual assault, and other adolescent issues are not minor because those doing them are young. We often debate if individuals under eighteen should be “charged as adults.” When the crime is serious, we often argue that youthfulness does not save them from adult accountability. It certainly doesn’t save those whom they have hurt.

Hopefully, a small positive effect of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings is that it helps kids recognize their power and responsibility. I hope they hear the message the past is never really past. The choices we make  - and how we grow up and deal with them – become the substance of ourselves. 

My Daughter in Africa - Five Years Later

Groggily, I answered my cell phone from my bed. It was 6am on a Saturday morning and the ringing had abruptly awakened me. I knew who was calling. Only one person’s ringtone was set to be audible at all hours. It was my nineteen-year-old daughter calling from Nairobi, Kenya. It was not a scheduled call.

Her first words were, “Daddy, I’m fine.” I shook off sleep and snapped to clear thinking. She told me that there was a shooting at the big mall near her apartment, but she and her classmates were all safe. She had called early because she knew it would be all over the American media soon and she wanted to talk to her mother and me before we saw news reports.

That was five years ago today. I have written about what it was like to send her to Africa. When she finally got back, I wrote about being finally able to breathe again. Even as I reflected on her time in Africa and how we felt when we heard about the terrorist attack (it was far more than a shooting), my heart starts to race and I must blink back the tears. It was one of the most stressful and difficult times I have ever experienced; my child was in a foreign land where bad things were happening and I was helpless to assist her. All I could do was occasionally talk to her and wait.

As I reflect on this anniversary, two things come to mind: the easier and more straightforward is also the most obvious: our children must be able to take care of themselves. I knew my daughter was savvy and capable, but her skills were developed even further, and my faith in them was tested. While every instinct in me was telling me to fly to Africa, I could not do that, and I had to let my child take care of the situation.

We all grew from this experience. It was far more than an exercise in letting go, it was an empathy experience. This taught me how so many other family members feel when they cannot help their loved ones. Whether in a hospital, worrying about a child in the military, or watching someone fumble in horrible darkness, I got a small taste of the limits and pain of crisis parenting.

So I imagine the parents at the border, whose children have been taken from them, living in that crisis mode. My nineteen-year-old took care of me as the crisis began. She stayed in touch and reassured us, back home! These parents are separated from far younger children and most have no way to communicate with them at all.

Like my daughter, they are caught in a terrible political storm in a foreign place. Like me, they must wait and are powerless. While I am so grateful to the many individuals and organizations that are helping them, I feel helpless to help them.

And this makes me angry, furious!

Terrorists in Africa used my child’s well being as a political power play. She was not a player in their game, but merely a tool for achieving their ends.

And now, this administration and my country are similarly terrorizing children and their families for political gain. They have turned families into pawns of their power. My daughter was nineteen! These children are infants, toddlers, and far younger than my college student!

It takes my breath away. How could anyone use children in such a way?

They must not understand. They must not have had an experience of having a child lost or in jeopardy. This must be a failure of empathy, of compassion, of vision.

I was reunited with my child on December 24, a little more than two months after the attack on the Westgate Mall. I can feel that moment as if it was happening now.

When will the parents on the border hug their children again? When will they be reunited?

Now is not soon enough!

Finals Before Broken

After not enough debate, my school has decided to move final exams to the end of December, before the winter break. However, unlike many schools in our area, we are not altering the start or end of our school year. Instead, our semesters will be uneven. The second semester, starting in January, will be two weeks longer than first semester.

I am concerned that we have not fully explored the ramifications of this decision.

I fully endorse that school breaks should be homework free. They should be real breaks. That is clearly why so many members of our community supported this change. However, as I have written before if the problem is studying for finals over break, the answer is not to change the timing of finals, but the nature of finals. Finals are the issue, moving them doesn’t change the problem.

Nonetheless, here we are. We are going down this path and our map is incomplete. I have some concerns and questions about what will happen at the end of December.

Since the first semester will be two weeks shorter than in past years, students will have less time to master the content and become proficient in the skills. The end of the semester assessment will catch them earlier than it has in the past, meaning their grades may be lower.

In addition, the tests themselves may be different. I have already heard talk about changing the nature of first semester tests so that they are easier to grade. Teachers don’t want work over winter break either. While some areas already give a great deal of objective, multiple choice, and scantron based tests, we may see more of this. So, instead of a written exam allowing students to actively demonstrate their understanding, we may see more tests that are quicker and easier to grade, but more difficult for students.

Another option may be that we’ll see more finals due before the actual finals week. This has been happening more and more with our old calendar. This gives students more stress and work and teachers more time to grade. Currently, many students have final “projects” that must be turned in as early as two weeks before the scheduled exam date. I am willing to bet we’ll see many more of these.

Of course, with almost two additional weeks in second semester, we might see more content being taught after winter break. This might mean that second-semester finals are longer and include more material. Instead of an even split between semesters, first semester exams might be easier on teachers and harder on students and second-semester exams might just include more material.

The main reason for this shift was that teachers gave homework over break. Some students also used winter break as a time to get ready for finals and start studying. I have not seen this happen often. My experience is that students do very little or no work over the holiday. Finals used to be scheduled the third week of January, and I have not seen many students work on them before January. While I have seen students deal with homework over break, the solution is one that Lane Tech High School in Chicago recently implemented: make a rule that there is no homework over break!

If students are starting to study for tests over winter break, which used to begin four weeks before the start of the testing week, won’t they do this regardless of the calendar? Finals are now the third week of December. Four weeks before that is Thanksgiving! If students are stressed about finals and homework over winter break, that stress will now move to Thanksgiving, a shorter time off from school.

Finals are scheduled as three periods a day for three days. Each test is seventy-five minutes with a seventy-five-minute break between tests. Most students only come to school for one or two tests a day. The Friday is a day when students do not attend. I’ll bet that airline tickets to nice locations are cheaper if one leaves before the crowded winter break rush. They are probably even cheaper the earlier one leaves. What will we do with the students whose parents decide to pull them out of all or part of finals week to get out of town more quickly and less expensively? Will we have more students missing final exams with this calendar?

Is the rest of the world changing for finals? We will still have sports events, holidays, and everything that comes at the end of December. The school will move our events. We are moving one of the largest, our school charity drive to just before Thanksgiving! However, the outside world’s calendar will remain the same. For example, the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah will end exactly one week before finals.

So we may have lower grades, harder tests, stress over Thanksgiving, more absences (and thus even more stress) and the regular stressors that come with this time of year.

Can we talk about finals?

Take Your Senior English Teacher To College

As a Freshman English teacher, it was easy to know what students needed to be able to do to be prepared for Sophomore English since I taught that course! The same was true when I taught Junior English.

Senior English is a different animal: not all of my students are going to college. Some will not take a freshman composition class. Some will never write another literary analysis essay again.

So when alumni visit, I ask them, “What does your Senior English teacher need to know?” I ask how the reading and writing is going? I asked what surprised them and for what they felt prepared. I ask them to give me their top four things about college, and it is always nice when classes are on that list.

But this summer, as I think about my wonderful former-seniors heading off to college in the fall and those who preceded them, I have a different idea. What if I just rode along with you? How about taking your Senior English teacher to college?

And while I am eager to meet my new students, I would love to hang on to the old ones! Once I proposed that we reconstitute one of my Freshman English classes when the students became seniors. There was no way to do it. The kids and I loved the idea, but it was impossible – just like this one, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it.

I get quick glimpses of my former students in the summer. There are photos on social media, and conversations in town. I see them at the farmers market, coaching little league, counseling camp, or at other summer jobs. Summer is a mere preamble for them and I want to say, “Take me with you!”

I know I will feel the same way about the students who are about to enter my class in the fall, but right now, my mind is on those whom I may never see again. Wasn’t there some TV show where, when the main characters grew too old, the high school teachers just moved up to college with them? That seems so civilized and appropriate.

Here is the plan: we will all go to the same college together. How’s that?

I treasure the students who connect on social media, return for visits at breaks, or email to let me know that how they are doing and give me a peek into their post-high school lives.

I joke about the opposite as my students near graduation: how about flunking something senior year, I ask them, and then you can have one more year of high school? I tempt them with promises of favorite books, units or good grades, but we both know it is just my way of saying that I will miss you when you leave – and you’ll be far too engaged in your new world to think much about your former teacher in the old one.

That is the way it should be. It is the natural order that children grow up and move on. Yet, how many non-teachers have their co-workers move through their lives like that? I know, they aren’t my co-workers, but I spend as much time with my students as I do with my fellow teachers!

One of my former students sent me a beautiful email recently telling me that he had placed out of the Freshman English course at his university. He thanked me for my very small part in that. Knowing this young man, he will explore and read and learn in wonderful ways that I hope I get to see. I have faith that he will let me know about some of them.

So, in a sense, he has acknowledged that he is taking me to college. He is taking the skills he learned in our class to college in the fall. That is going to have to be enough.

The Price of Parking

In 1999, a parent of a Barrington High School student purchased a home next to the school. This parent had no intention of living in the house. The family already lived in the district. The only reason for this huge expenditure was to purchase the driveway. The parent had bought a parking spot for their child, a very expensive parking spot.

Setting aside the cost of the car, what does this choice mean? For most schools, including my own, there is either free or inexpensive bussing service available to anyone who lives more than a mile from the school. No child should HAVE to drive to school. Even those who live close form carpools.

What does it mean to spend thousands of dollars for a car and parking spot for a sixteen-year-old?

First, it means you are living well. This is an issue for affluent families.

Second, it says that convenience is important. Some parents don’t want the child to take another means to school. The bus is not a good choice for them. Why? What is wrong with carpools? They seem like a great way to share the cost. But financial cost is clearly not the key factor in these decisions.

We haven’t even thought about environmental considerations.

And what about safety?

Young drivers make mistakes. Young drivers are more likely to make mistakes when they are in a hurry. One hopes these errors are benign and easily repaired. Sometimes, young drivers are using devices or otherwise distracted. “Good” and “responsible” kids are still inexperienced drivers. Young drivers and teenagers in general need supervised practice. We must help them develop good habits.

If you were going to visit a high school and would be staying beyond the end of the class day, would you choose to park in the student lot or the faculty lot? Why? What about on a snowy day?

Having a group of inexperienced drivers in one place can be dangerous. The student lot at the high school is only one example. I live in a neighborhood that abuts our high school. Some of my neighbors allow students to park in their driveways. Many of these kids pay for that privilege. Of course, they are not charging Barrington prices, but again, between the cost of the car (and gas and upkeep) and the price of parking, this option is only available to families with means.

The high school allows most senior students to park for a fee in the student lot. Therefore, the parkers at my neighbors’ homes are most often younger, less experienced drivers. There are 152 homes in my subdivision. I don’t know how many kids are parking, but judging from the kids walking down my street after school, it must be more than twenty-five.

So, around 3:30, we have many young experienced drivers moving through our neighborhood. At just about the same time, the bus from the middle school drops off. Kids who are walking or biking are leaving the high school at that time, too. We are close enough to the elementary school that we do not qualify for free busing, so on nice days, we might also have younger students going home, as well.

A few years ago, a student of mine was riding his bicycle home. As he rode away from the school and down one of the streets in my neighborhood, a student driver who was “renting” a neighbor’s driveway pulled out a little faster than was safe. She cut off the cyclist and he hit her car. He was thrown over the car and landed on the street. When the EMTs arrived and treated him, they told him that, had he not been wearing a helmet, he might have had severe injuries  - or worse.

Most of the kids I see riding bikes to school are not wearing helmets.

I have been told by my lawyer friends that a homeowner would not be liable for actions of the student driver using their driveway. That doesn’t matter to me. If a child who was parking on my driveway hurt someone  - or worse – I would be very upset. I might not be legally liable, but I might see myself as at least partially responsible.

Kids make poor choices. Good and smart kids make mistakes. New drivers do dangerous things, not because they are foolhardy (although some are) but because they don’t know better.

There is no ignominy in taking the bus. Time with your child in the car (and their friends) is time to talk and get the news. It may be less convenient, but it is safer and healthier.

To my neighbors: please take these ideas into consideration if you are thinking about letting students park at your home. Please don’t sell out our safety. To parents: the way your child gets to school is more than a matter of convenience and affects more than just your child.

The Guns Are Going to Get Your Babies

It is time to face the facts:  those running the government do not care about our children or most of us.

We have had more school shootings than any other first world country and this administration has done nothing to stop them.

We have had more mass shootings in public places like offices, movie theaters, and concerts than any other first world country and this administration does nothing to stop them.

Their policy which allowed for the separating of children from their parents at our border is indicative of what they think about children in general.

Their policy which allowed for the separating of children from their parents at our border is indicative of what they think about children in general.

This administration shows no empathy for children separated from their parents. 

Their policy at the border shows that they are fine using children as hostages for political ends.

They are gutting public schools and the structures that support them.

They are undermining accessibility to college for all but the most wealthy.

Speaking of wealthy, the tax reform bill passed earlier this year was supposed to provide breaks for companies and wealthy individuals that would be shared (think trickled down) to average folks.

Have you seen any relief? Most companies have not shared this bounty with their employees. 

This administration has enacted trade tariffs with some of our most valued trading partners. These countries have reacted by increasing tariffs on incoming goods from the United States.

Once again, the American worker is hurt: the goods they produce will not be as able to be sold overseas, and the goods they purchase at home will cost more.

They are trying to reduce the benefits of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

So if you do not have private independently financed insurance, you and your family’s access to health care and retirement benefits are in jeopardy.

They are making friends with countries that have been problematic in the past and alienating our traditional friends.

Despite concerns about election tampering and nuclear weapons, this administration is reaching out to Russia and North Korea. How has this made us safer?

This administration has made it clear that it treasures its connection to White Nationalist, racist, and misogynistic groups and individuals.

This administration has defended individuals who have committed acts of hate, abuse, and assault. They have given these individuals key roles in the government.

This administration has defended hate groups and applauded their racist choices.

This administration has called people of color, women, and others animals and other derogatory terms.

To review:

·      You and your children’s safety is in jeopardy from a policy that does not protect the public from shootings.

·      Public education, the road to success for many of us, is under attack.

·      Taxes are lower only for the wealthiest.

·      Tariffs are hurting our jobs and our pocketbooks.

·      Access to insurance and retirement is being threatened.

·      Our leaders are fonder of people who have tried to hurt us than those who have helped us.

·      This administration is closely connected to racists, sexist, and others who have an extremist agenda.

We haven’t even talked about environmental and food safety, privacy on the internet, or several other issues that will make life less safe and more expensive for all of us!

None of this is “fake news.” None of this is even in dispute.

The shocking truth is that some of us are fine with this situation.

I am not.
Please vote.