Good Riddence to the 2021-2022 School Year

I dreamed last night that I was visiting my old school on the last day of the year. I dreamed that I was going through offices and classrooms, wishing people well, and meeting new staff members. We joked and hugged and laughed and were all dressed in Halloween costumes. I dreamed that things were just as I left them, but different and better.

But that isn’t the school at which my friends and former co-workers teach. That isn’t the reality of education at the end of the 2021-2022 school year. That was my dream (really), but the truth is that my friends are survivors of a disaster. They end this year with anxiety, anger, frustration, grief, pain, and lots of tears. 

And it shouldn’t be this way. 

Teachers, Counselors, and other school staff are asked to carry it all. They are simultaneously hailed as heroes who will save, protect, and sacrifice for their students with opportunities and weapons and love and knowledge, and then derided as groomers and political opportunists, lazy slackers, and self-serving conspiracy puppets. When it serves the sound bite, they are the saviors of society and when it fits the narrative, they are taking our children into an uncomfortable world of race, gender, and masks. 

And it is too much. 

My colleagues have been carrying the pandemic. Their mantra has been “We’ll make it work,” and “We do what’s best for kids.” They have been performing a high wire acrobatic juggling. Sometimes, their administrators and school boards, and communities have stood by their sides and provided a net. But just as often, those who should be their allies have turned on them and thrown them flaming torches and shaken the tent, threatening to bring the entire circus crashing to the ground in flames and flesh. 

And teachers are exhausted. 

So as the end of the school year approaches, as summer rounds the corner, kids are fidgeting in their seats, and classrooms start to smell of sweat and cut grass, as the looming grading deadlines feel like Kuber-Ross’s stages, let us bid a not so fond goodbye bye to this disaster of a school year. 

Of course, we wish you a relaxing and rejuvenating summer, time with your family, and time to yourself. We wish you health, which has been Sisyphean these past two years.

And we thank you. 

I am not sure I know how to do this. As a retired teacher who left just before the sky fell, I can only half imagine what these years have felt like. For the first time, I have heard several school friends say to me, "I hate working here." As a supporter on the side, I have seen the disrespect and destruction, heard the yelling, and unbelievable thoughtlessness. Alice had it far easier. I felt both guilty that it was you and relief that it wasn’t me and anguish it was happening. People say to me every day – every.single.day – that I “got out at the right time.” I wish you could join me. Right now. 

And we should be concerned that you will. 

Teachers are leaving in droves. They watch their friends and colleagues of decades marching toward the cliff’s edge and feel the pull of gravity. Wonderful, inspiring, passionate professionals are packing their classrooms for the last time right now. As the lockers slam and the sneakers squeak down the hall, they are crying with relief and shame. Accountants are not asked to kill themselves for taxes, but sometimes healthcare folks are. 

And our teachers. 

This is not an exaggeration. I have heard a call for a student strike in the fall. What if students said, “We aren’t going back to our classrooms until it we are safe from gun terrorists.” What if parents said that?  What if teachers, across this nation, said, we will not conduct another active shooter drill until lawmakers stop the senseless stream of school shootings! 

So hear me clearly. Hear it from a retired veteran teacher: Teachers, you have been outstanding. You have made critical differences in children’s lives. You have nurtured, challenged, enriched, advocated – and educated. You have fought the good fight – over and over and over and over. What you have done matters and will continue to matter, even if you are no longer doing it. 

And now it is your time. 

Some of you will return to the classroom in the fall. Some of you will retire. Some of you will watch the stream of buses and kids with backpacks and step out of the line. Some of you will place your own children at the front and focus there. 

And that is okay.

The last bell is ringing. It brings relief and intense sorrow. Set down the load. Rest. Hold yourself and your loved ones. You have been through a war and, although it is not over, we are hoping for a few months of cease-fire. Go to your bunker. Hug your people. Cry. Unload. Recover. 

And this summer – and all that comes after it – do what heals and helps you. 

Uncommon Sense: Parenting Pointers: Suggestions from Thirty-Three Years of Teaching: Part 3

Perhaps because I worked with teenagers (and their families) for all of my adult life, I became attuned to how parental choices shaped a child’s behavior. I remember being shocked after a conversation with a parent during which the parent berated her child and told me, his teacher, exactly how she felt about him. During another conversation, a parent made it clear that she didn’t have any influence on her daughter. Her daughter ran the show. She was the mom, but the daughter had the real power. More often, I remember hanging up the phone and thinking, “I just learned how good parents function.” Parents who problem solved with their children, held their children accountable for their actions, modeled functional and ethical behavior, and enlisted me, their child’s teacher, to be their ally in raising a competent, compassionate, and ethical person!

My students’ parents helped me be a better parent to my own children and to help coach parents who were struggling. I kept notes and here is the third (and final) list of things that I have noted over more than thirty years of working with teens and their families:

Make the present as or more important than the future. How many times have you heard someone say, “this will be important for your future,” or “You will need this in high school,” or “This will help you get into college?” Yes, we must make sure our children are prepared for the road ahead, but not at the price of the present. And there is a second piece to this: what does it communicate to kids if we are constantly trying to get them fixed up for the future? What message do they hear when we push them to do things for some intangible future reward? Start the college process at the very end of sophomore year of high school and no sooner. Thinking of college prior to then also communicates that you are not enough now. You need to be more. How depressing.

Make sure you are a positive partner with those who teach your child. Work hard to build bridges with your children’s teachers, both at their day schools as well as their coaches, directors, and religious educators. They see your child in a way that could help you parent more effectively. They can benefit from your understanding of your child. One of my students’ parents gave me a letter entitled, “Our Child” at the beginning of the year that succinctly and poignantly communicated their perceptions about their son to me, his teacher. It gave me insight that helped me meet his needs and create a strong relationship more quickly and strongly.

Yes, we all pick our battles with our children. There are battles worth fighting and battles that should never be battles.  Can we talk about why there are battles? Some kids are more confrontational. Some parents have a personal style that invites conflict. Yet, we are the parents, they are the children. As a teacher, I have found that one of the most dangerous and problematic family dynamics is when the child runs the show. The parent chooses not to pick any battles. There are none because the child wins with or without a fight. The real battle is to avoid the battle. The child learns that the parent does not want conflict and therefore the threat of confrontation or a little yelling and the parent melts. There are alternatives to yelling and screaming. Threats, grounding, and restrictions only go so far. Shared decision-making, family councils, and sometimes the use of a third party are all means of teaching children how to share power. By the way, this starts before a child can walk! Ultimately, the adults must be in charge. If the child is in charge, we are all in trouble.

Many of us would prefer not to pay taxes. We must pay taxes, not only because bad things will happen to us if we don’t, but also because our taxes support things we value. Sometimes, going to family gatherings, church, synagogue, mosque, or temple, or completing chores is not something we want to do. But we are obligated to do so. We have a duty, a responsibly, that we must fulfill. Children have these obligations, too. It is just as important that they learn what it means to live up to them. Don’t let kids off the hook for this “don’t want to, but just have to” type of obligation. Don’t bribe them to do them. A spoonful of sugar teaches us that medicine needs to be sweet.  Instead, teach children that when we have an obligation, we live up to it even if it is unpleasant or if there are tempting alternatives. As a child, a member of a family, a member of a religious community, a student in a school, we must play our role and that often entails giving of ourselves. Teach kids to value this and to understand how this is much more than medicine but critical to the workings of our family and community.

Be very aware of your child’s use of the internet. Stay up to date on the latest apps and trends and discuss them with your child. Watch social media use, especially after the lights go out and you believe your child to be asleep. Have a discussion about when and how we use screens. Many families now have a recharging bank in a commonplace and all the phones land there (including the parents’ phones). In our house, all computers were in public rooms, not in bedrooms.

Read to them. Read with them. Read yourself. Read as a family. Join book clubs as a group. The research is totally clear: children who enjoy reading and regularly read for pleasure have an advantage in and out of school. Both their academic and emotional skills are improved dramatically (and drama activities have similar benefits). If you aren’t a reader, become one. I mean it. Then help your child become one.

Weave a web of supportive and important people around them. Even if family lives miles away, keep your children in touch. Have regular family events. If members of the family are in other places, call them together. Foster your child’s relationship with cousins, neighbors, and other people who will support their growth. When our son entered high school, someone asked why he needed a counselor when his mother was a counselor at the school. My wife answered, “He needs to have someone to talk to when we are the problem.” Your children may not always come to you with issues. Provide them with strong relationships from whom they can learn and to whom they can turn.

These three lists are not comprehensive. Different parents both need coaching and can coach different skills. That is why teachers, grandparents, neighbors, aunts and uncles, coaches, and others share some parenting tasks with moms and dads. The key is our willingness to reflect and improve. Just as our children are never really done growing up, we are never done learning how to be the best parents we can.

Uncommon Sense: Parenting Pointers: Suggestions from Thirty-Three Years of Teaching: Part 2

We sometimes call them butt wipers; parents who do everything for their children except (or including) wiping their behinds. I am not talking about toddlers, by the way. I am talking about high school and college kids. These smother mothers and do-it-for-them dads rob their children of autonomy and agency. Don’t they know what they are doing? Why aren’t they aware of the effect their over-parenting has on their children?

We must approach parenting as a skill. We must learn from each other and make a conscious effort to be reflective and critical of our own parenting.

I started a list of parenting ideas in an earlier post (put link her). Here is a second list of things that people who work with children wished that parents of middle, high school and perhaps even college kids knew:

Don't lie, and don’t lie for them. This is critically important. Lying is a quick and cheap way of dealing with problems, but it doesn’t solve problems: it creates new problems. It is not an effective or ethical means of meeting life’s challenges, but it is easier. If you provide them with the example and thus the permission to solve problems through deceit, beware: they will use it.

Don't take them out of school. As I have written before, parents who take students out of school for vacations, appointments, special events, and other reasons are clearly demonstrating the value of school. In addition, this creates significant stress when students need to make up what they have missed. Sometimes, the easiest way to deal with that stress is avoidance or deceit. I have seen students who otherwise perform well in school, spiral downwards when faced with what they perceive as an insurmountable amount of work due to absences. Keep them in class!

One sign that a student has an overpowering parent is entitlement behavior. When a parent lays down the red carpet before a child, the child rightfully gets the message that they are super special and should be treated like royalty. Don’t make their lunches. Don’t make their beds. Don’t arrange their social calendars, and don’t do their homework!

These rarified stars often cannot control simple impulses: they cannot take turns in a conversation; they blurt out in the classroom and demand their questions be answered immediately. They are, after all, the real important people in the classroom. The rest of these kids are just there to help them learn. Don’t scoff at this: I have heard students say as much in class. Sometimes they are aware that they just told the class that they matter more than anyone else. More often, they are so used to being center stage that they can’t see outside their spotlight.

An extension of this is parents who believe that the rules do not apply to them. Deadlines are not really deadlines. Due dates can be negotiated, and laws are “guidelines for idiots,” as one person told me. Your kids are watching. If you drive dangerously, allow them to get around curfew, circumvent the system, and treat rules as suggestions at best, beware: they will do the same.

Treat people like people and not like servants. How you relate to your child’s teacher, the secretary at school, the guard as you enter, and other people whom you meet will set the tone for your child’s sense of respect. Be aware of your tone in emails and phone conversations. Kids understand this on a gut level and often in a way they cannot articulate until you hear it from them later.  And the school staff will remember you, but not fondly. Do you want that reputation?

This is only part two of this series. There is more to come; I am finishing a third part. Do you have suggestions that should be included? Please send them to me!

Uncommon Sense: Parenting Pointers from Thirty Years Teaching: Part 1

How do we become good parents? Is it enough to just imitate our own parents? If we had perfect parents and our partner had perfect parents, won’t we be perfect parents, too? Parenting is difficult. No one parents in the same world as their parents. How do we help each other to grow as parents?

Think of the other important roles in your life. As a professional, I have colleagues and coaches and plenty of opportunities for development and learning. In my non-professional activities, I take lessons, go to events, and read to improve my skills.

But parenting is supposed to be somehow automatic. Don’t tell me how to parent because I have always known how. In fact, I was a fantastic parent before I even had kids!

I vividly remember a visit to my Aunt Paula’s house when my daughter was around eighteen months old. She watched me interact with my child and pulled me aside and suggested another way to handle the situation. She gently taught me, in the moment, how to improve my parenting.

We must be as aware of our parenting as we are of our other roles. We must work to be reflective and sensitively help our partners and friends. This doesn’t make us parent critics or shamers. This means that we must be conscious parents who are self-critical and recognize that we will make mistakes that need to be addressed. We understand that we have a web of support that includes our partners, parents, friends and even our own children.

It also means that we must have the humility to admit that we don’t know it all, we will make mistakes, and we are never done developing.

With that in mind, here are a few of the lessons I have been taught as a parent and teacher over the past thirty-some years working in the classroom. I brainstormed some of these with my wife, family, and friends. I asked the question: what are some of the most important things you wish the families with whom you worked knew? This is the beginning of this list:

Don’t prevent consequences – even for mistakes. If your child forgets an assignment, they must deal with that. If the lunch didn’t make it to school, let them problem solve. If they got a bad score on a test, coach but don’t direct them to assistance. When the stakes are higher (and the consequences more severe), think long and hard before stepping between your children and the effect of their actions. These tougher moments may be the most important to allow kids to feel the impact of their power.

This leads us directly to the idea that your children must be the primary actors in their own plays. Don’t write the script for them. Don’t call the teacher; instead coach your child to talk to the teacher. Don’t jump in; help your child to learn the skills to be their own advocate!

Don’t make excuses: But he has baseball, she is so busy, this is not something they do well, the teacher is scary, the coach will retaliate, that boy is just difficult, and on and on and on. There are a ton of rationalizations why our children shouldn’t be problem solvers. And while there are exceptions to most rules, be honest about when you are making an exception and when it is easier or more in our interest to take action rather than let the child do the job.

Be honest with yourself: is this for you or is this for the child. It is almost always easier to do something ourselves. It is almost always more effective to play talent agent, stage parent, or social director. We are more skilled than our children and will probably do better taking care of their needs. However, they must learn how to do what we do. Coach them, yes – do it for them, no! Knowing the difference is not difficult, but being honest about it can be.

It is okay to struggle. It is okay to be frustrated. Dealing with obstacles, difficult people, and challenging problems makes us more capable people. From competence comes confidence. Rob the child of the problem-solving pain and you handicap their true adult capability.

“We” are not filling out college applications. “We” don’t have a test tomorrow. “We” are not moving into the dorm. Our language reveals us. When I hear a parent use a collective that should be reserved for royalty (We are not amused), wait staff (What are we having?) or doctors (how do we feel?), it means only one thing: a child’s boundaries are being crossed and then, truly, we have a problem.

Model the behavior you want them to learn. Be on time. Use organizational strategies. Make them an audience to your mature problem solving behavior and show them how adults function. And let them see how your process when you struggle and how you seek help when you need it.

Help your children to see that planning matters. Children live in the here and now (even when they are on their devices) and have trouble understanding how what they do today affects tomorrow. Teach them to think ahead and plan for tomorrow. Show them how what we do now can open or close doors later on.

As parents, we need to coach each other. It is extremely difficult to take feedback on one’s parenting. We don’t have benchmarks or classes or objective ways to measure our effectiveness. This makes it all the more important that we cultivate reflectiveness, work collaboratively with our partners and the important people in our children’s lives (like their teachers), and actively work on improving our prowess as parents.