A Year of Ten Thousand Steps

I have been counting my steps with my phone for a few years. It has been a fun fitness measure. I am aware that the accuracy is questionable, although I have found that I get a similar number to my fellow walkers who are counting with their Fitbits, Misfits, and other fancy devices.

Counting steps seemed a simple and effective way to measure my daily movement. My exercise has never been about “bulking up.” It is more about preventing me from bulking up in a different way.

At first, counting steps was a novelty. Then I focused on my weekly or monthly average. However, looking at the aggregated number meant that I could walk a great deal one day and then have a holiday the next.

So in January last year, I committed to trying to walk at least 10,000 steps a day - every day. I would still pay attention to the average, but my goal was to hit that 10,000-step number as often as possible.

As of today, I have walked at least 10,000 steps every day this past year.

I don’t like exercising. I sweat – a lot. I am not a sports person, so I need my stationary bike or treadmill. It is boring and repetitive, and I make myself do it. I watch TV while I working out. I am assured that all this exercise will improve both the quality and length of my life. I have certainly seen a bit of TV because of it.

Getting 10,000 steps in a day can be challenging. Most days, I get a few thousand steps walking to school. I walk to school almost every day.

I prefer to talk to people face to face rather than phone or send an email, so I walk the building to go to classrooms and offices whenever I can. As I say to my students, “I don’t do sitting well.”

Weekends can be difficult. Often, I increase my time on the treadmill on Saturdays and Sundays. Yes, I use the treadmill to meet my goal. I don’t need it as much on weekdays, but without it, I would not have hit 10,000 steps when I wasn’t at school. Is that cheating?

I realize that, if it were not for my job, I would spend way too much time in front of the computer. Many of my tasks, both school and non-school related, can be done on the computer. Working on the computer is more fun than working out.

So I make it a point to get up and do physical tasks that cannot be completed digitally. I have done a lot of reorganizing, cleaning, and sorting over this past year. More is in my future.

Winter is a tough time to walk. In nicer weather, I walk around my neighborhood and community. I greet people or listen to music or podcasts. It is nice being outdoors.

And yes, I do the usual stuff. I park further from the door. I choose the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator. I go the long way around most of the time. It only looks like I am lost.

For 2018, I am not increasing my daily step goal. However, I am going to add an average to it. This year, I am going to try to walk at least 10,000 steps daily and have an average of at least 11,000 per week or month.

Yes, I could have a knee, foot, or leg issue that would slow me down. I have had a few days where it took a long time to slowly get the steps. I can’t plan for accidents.

I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, through leaves, over bridges. Step by step. And it has brought me here.

Standing In Line – Making Fun Of Myself

I want my class to be playful. My students may be teenagers, but my hope is that there is still plenty of space for play in our classroom.  To that end, many of my lines are self-deprecating. I make fun of myself a great deal. The teacher isn’t perfect, I say. We all make mistakes and we can all laugh at them: see, I can do it, too.

The joke everyone knows is my inability to understand sports. I get them confused all the time, “Baseball? Is that the sport with the little white ball and the stick?” After the student nods, I add, “Right, and they hit it into a small hole and wear lots of plaid.” Well, both sports do have small white balls and sticks, right? “Is that the sport with the nets and they can use their hands but not their feet or their feet but not their hands?” Isn’t soccer just upside down basketball?

It is a special treat if I get a student playing water polo: “How do they get the horses in the water? What happens when they poop? I know you can lead a horse to water, but will it swim?”

Yes, there is a little bit of snobbery and geekiness in this. I have never been a sports person. It also says that I am not an expert in everything and that there are many things about which students know way more than I do.

I claim that I could never play sports because I was just not coordinated enough. I tell kids that I am fork in the forehead, pencil in the eye kind of guy. When they ask for a pair of scissors, I tell them I am not permitted sharp objects or fire by court order.

At holiday time, when students give me treats, I frequently tell them that I am the amazing expanding English teacher.    When they give me the ubiquitous Starbucks gift card, I let them know that I will be using it for hot chocolate because you don’t really want someone with my temperament taking caffeine. Yes, I know that chocolate has caffeine, too. It’s a joke!

Frequently, I open the door for kids (or anyone) and, as they go in, say, “Age before beauty – no wait, I think I have that backward. I love school dress-up days when kids are in outlandish outfits. I will nearly bump into kids wearing fatigues and tell them that I just didn’t see them. If they are wearing dance outfits, I’ll sigh and say that I couldn’t get into a tutu, I needed a four-four.

I know that Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences have fallen out of favor, but someone in our building is still giving kids some kind of inventory that tells them if they are auditory or visual learners or if they learn best through movement or music. Every child can recite his or her learning style. I tell them that I am a gustatory-olfactory learner and that no one ever taught to my learning style! I need scratch and sniff handouts or edible lessons!

As we are preparing for finals and talking about strategies for short answer questions, I advise kids to follow the North Shore motto. They look at me quizzically, “I have lived my entire life on Chicago’s North Shore. You know the main rule here: More is better!”

When people find out that I work in the same building with my wife, it is only a mild exaggeration when I tell them that, “I break ‘em, she fixes ‘em!” I joke that they run to her and say, “I know he’s your husband, but do you know what he DID?”

When the eye rolls appear. When I am accused of telling dad jokes (I am a dad!), I shake my head and tell them, “You got the weird English teacher and you are just going to have to cope.” Almost all of my students survived class with me and went on to lead mostly normal lives.

Mostly normal, whatever that is!