Twenty Years Ago: June 2003

January may be the official beginning of the calendar, but for a teacher, it really starts in August and ends in June. Teaching is a profession that has clear cycles. As a young parent and teacher in June of 2003, cycle was the operative word.  

As we get to the end of the school year, all of the conflicts and issues of the semester move to the foreground. I hate grades. I hate the effect they have on students, their families, and what they do to relationships. It is one of the reasons why I have never used an averaged grading system. 

In 2003, I was using a portfolio grading system. Students would demonstrate their growth by analyzing their work throughout the semester and evaluating it on our skill-based rubrics. Of course, this meant that they had to complete that work. 

There was one student in particular who had failed to turn in so many assignments that demonstrating growth was nearly impossible because there was so little to see. I met with him almost every day on his free period and helped him with missing work. My goal was not a “good” grade by a passing one! I noted in my journal, “It is amazing that this boy is not sick of me yet nor has he become mad at me. It is clear that he needs attention. I have given him opportunities to tell me to stop supervising him so closely but he does not say it. He wants this kind of close attention.” Throughout my career, I met many students like this young man. 

Grades weigh heavily on me. I err on the side of the higher grade if a student is on a bubble. Students used my evaluations and their own and their work to demonstrate what grade they thought they deserved. Most students are surprisingly accurate. Many are harder on themselves than I am. 

For some students, grades are critically important – but not for all. But they were ALL important to me, “I am spending too much time thinking about these kids’ grades and what they want, and how they’ll feel and react. I need to move to a grading system that takes it out of their and my hands more – a more objective system. That will be helpful.” That is why so many teachers use a purely numeric system: it is easier when it is cut and dry. It is also inaccurate and unfair. So, for my entire teaching career, grading was a process, conversation, and a pain in the mind.

If you are related to a teacher, you know that the end of the year is the busiest and most stressful time of the year. That spills into all parts of my life. I developed another cold. I had to close down websites so people would not think we were in school to reply to their requests. At the time, in addition to my own teacher website, I was also “webmaster” for the English Department, the Counseling Department, Peer Helping, StageWrite, and recommended reading websites. I was also putting together a new website for my new class: Humanities. 

June is also a time to say goodbye to retiring colleagues. I have attended every retirement celebration that the school has thrown while I worked there. At the time, the school retirement party was held after graduation. Thus, it was never particularly well attended. People from the retirees’ departments and older teachers would attend, but many people had just spent a day teaching, an afternoon at graduation, and needed to get home to their families. It was certainly one of our most challenging daycare days. Thankfully, my parents had our kids and we celebrated three wonderful careers. 

I was delighted at how our principal talked about each of the three retirees warmly and in great detail with few notes. There was a stark contrast between the two classroom teachers, one of whom was in my department, and the retiring department chair. I wrote about how narrow the teachers’ scope of influence. Neither had sponsored clubs or coached sports. Neither was that involved in building committees or projects. They were very focused on their classrooms, kids, and courses. This was not the case for the department chair, whose influence was far-reaching.

If the year ends in June and starts again in August, then the time in-between is not a “break,” it is project season. Every year I taught I had a list of things that got pushed into summer. I start trying to hit this list as soon as the last bell rings: everyone has their yearly doctor and dentist appointments, all home improvement projects are scheduled, and preparations begin for the next school year. 

My kids were keeping doctors in business that spring. I worked on my new course preparation a few hours every day. We had a new roof and siding put on the house and remodeled a bathroom. Summer was a blur! I wrote, “I don’t feel like I am on break. I worked at the building most of the day yesterday. I straightened out the English website. I think I have a handle on that now. I worked on putting my computer back in order and doing a few other bits and pieces.” I even served on an interview team to fill a spot in our department. 

Speaking of cycles, my son learned to ride a bicycle without training wheels! My brother and aunt visited and it was good to see them. The kids started day camps. We had workmen at the house six days a week! I had a planning session with the Sunday School faculty. Each day was very busy and I noted that I was falling asleep quickly and sleeping soundly. Consequently, my journal entries were often short. I talked about a great deal -but briefly.  

I was planning a summer vacation; my wife and I always took an “annual honeymoon” and the kids stayed with my parents. It was almost always in July. I took a school workshop learning to use Adobe Illustrator. I used it to improve graphics on my websites and to create some functional and fun posters for my classrooms. 

In the wider world, a new musical called Wicked premiered. The Mars rover was launched. I put our car phone, cell phone, and home numbers in the brand-new National Do Not Call List from the Federal Trade Commission. 

But like that list, June was a long parade of all the things that didn’t fit well during the school year. I suppose a teacher’s two seasons are not winter and road construction but the school year and everything else you need to get done! 

Reading for Treasure: February

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction! Here are some articles to read discussing how we can both mentally and physically protect our children and ourselves:

10 Reasons Teens Have So Much Anxiety Today: This quick article from Psychology Today lists specific reasons that teens today may be much more anxious than we were at their age. It is a good checklist for parents!

Teach Your Kids To Value Empathy Over Tenacity: Years ago, my congregational rabbi’s High Holiday sermon asked, “Would you rather your children be successful or good?” Kids know what we really value by our behavior, even if our actions don’t always match. This short Lifehacker article provides a good example of why empathy should be higher on most parents’ lists.

Encourage Teens to ‘Speak Before You Send’: This Lifehacker article is a great companion to the one above. I think we hear language very differently than we see it. When I just read my text or email in my head, it sounds fine. When I read it aloud, I hear it very differently. This is makes reading aloud a great editing tool – not only for writing skills but for empathy as well.

Bicyclists Should Be Shamed Into Wearing Helmets: This Chicago Tribune column takes a humorous angle on a very simple message: wear a helmet when riding a bike. I love the old man voice in this article. When my kids were growing up, we always said that you only needed to wear a helmet if you had something to protect…

10 quick thoughts on mobile phones in schools: This quick list from Dangerously Irrelevant really says that the problem is not phones. There are other issues and classroom phone struggles are really about teaching, the structure of schools, and the use of technology for learning. I agree!

I’m currently reading The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal

Street Smart or Street Stupid?

When we say, “street smarts,” we are usually talking about practical knowledge. People who are street smart, as opposed to book smart, have practical knowledge and can handle themselves in rough and tumble situations.

I want to talk about street smarts in a more literal way. I am concerned that people are not smart in the street. In other words, that their behavior as the drive and bicycle makes me wonder if we need a new term: street stupid. My daughter is a brand new driver and is often shocked at how poorly many people drive. I told her, “Not all people are poor drivers, but most of them are.” I think too many of us are street stupid and it could be deadly.

Yesterday, I saw a dad riding bicycles with his two children. Both children were wearing helmets but Dad was not. I can see the situation: Dad hits one of the many potholes in our streets and is incapacitated. Now what do the kids do? Perhaps dad is either so hardheaded or stupid that a helmet won’t make a difference. If we want our children to take proper safety precautions, what message do we send them when we fail to take those precautions ourselves? Unless there is nothing in your head worth protecting, why not wear a helmet? We need to model street smarts for our kids!

As I continue to teach my daughter to drive, I instructed her to always assume a bicycle will ignore the traffic rules. It is such a wonderful and rare exception when a bike stops at a stop sign. It is my experience that many bikes don’t even stop at traffic lights. Forget about riding in a single file line, many bikes are all over the road. Too many times, I come around a curve or turn a corner to find a bicycle heading directly toward me. Usually that rider has no helmet. Duh!

Street stupidity by bikers is liable to get them hurt or killed. When car drivers are street stupid, they are more likely to kill innocent people. How hard is it to turn on the headlights of your car? The car creates electric power, so there is no cost. The bulbs last for a long time. In my state, the law requires motorists to use their headlights if they have their windshield wipers on. Wait a minute. Isn’t that common sense? Next time it is raining or there is fog, count the number of cars without headlights on. Stupidity is rampant.

However, the place where street stupidity is an epidemic is the use of cell phones while driving. There has been a great deal of coverage of this issue in the popular press - using a cell phone, even if it is with some kind of hands-free device, is a driving distraction akin to drunk driving. How many times have you passed a driver going too slowly, driving dangerously, or not paying attention only to see that driver talking on a phone? But of course, we are better than that. We can talk on our phones and drive safely. Can we? Really? Always?

Driving while texting boggles my mind. It is in another universe from any of the other forms of street stupidity. According to the New York Times, people sending text messages will look away from the road for as much as five seconds. Think about how far a car going only thirty miles an hour can travel in five seconds. Think about the damage it can do. According to a Pew Research Center report, 27 percent of all adults and 26 percent of teens report sending text messages while driving! That means that one or more of the drivers near you on the road is probably looking at the phone and not the road.

So here is the gambit: is the cell phone call or text message worth an accident? Is it worth someone’s life? That is a loaded question. I thought about starting this posting with a quiz on each of these issues. But everyone knows the right answers. No sane, reasonable person would say that a text message or phone call was worth the pain an accident, even a minor one, would cause. Then why are so many people street stupid?

We can only hope that they don’t hurt people close to us.