My Former Students Turn Fifty

I started teaching in the spring of 1986 at a junior high school in Evanston. At the same time, I was hired at Deerfield High School and I began that fall. I had just turned twenty-two years old when school started. This year and next, the seniors from my first year at DHS turn fifty years old. 

Yes, you read that correctly; my eldest former students are fifty. It is amazing that they have not only caught up to me but now are several years older than I am. Time is relative.

I was the youngest member of the DHS faculty for my first three years. There were only about seven of us under the age of thirty! Slowly, staff members my age arrived and by the early nineties, I was dating a DHS counselor and we had colleagues who were at the same stage of life.

Then one of my former students was hired at DHS. Then another. Then some more. They were not that much younger than me, and we were hiring a lot of people who had recently graduated from college. I had plenty of former students who were out in the working world and pretending to be adults. I was doing the same thing.

I got married. We had kids. My former students did the same thing and invited me along for the ride! Right after college, I ended up going to many of my friends’ weddings. For a while, I had frequent renter points at a local tuxedo shop. Just as that wave of weddings slowed down, my former students picked up the slack and I attended their weddings.

They were always one stage of life behind me. Funny how that works.

Remember, this was before Facebook or any other digital way to stay in touch. They would call me on the telephone (which was on the wall). I would see them when they visited their parents in town or had just moved into their first house.

In 2008, things changed. After the DHS welcome session with my incoming daughter’s counselor, a woman approached me and told me I had been her teacher. Her son was also starting Deerfield High School. Oh, no, my second-generation students had arrived in the building.

But they had not arrived in my classroom. In the next few years, half a dozen of my former students’ children became my hallway friends. Seeing their parents at Open House night was like traveling in time.

Meanwhile, I attended some fortieth and forty-fifth birthday parties, a few more weddings, and other events that made these ex-teenagers feel very grown up!

As I met with a student a few years ago, we realized that his stepmother was a former student of mine. Last year, a former students’ son was in the same class that his mother and I had shared many years ago. This year, I have many more. There is no denying it: my former students are old.

I bump into former students everywhere, but now I am as likely to see them at school functions as anywhere else. I have a confession: I love it. I love seeing them all grown up. I love hearing about their lives. And there is something very special about learning with their children.

Yes, sometimes I mangle their names. I am always grateful for a reunion that comes with a reintroduction. More often than not, I recognize my former students and remember their first names. They usually recognize me. This always surprises me since they are older than I am now.

And now the class of 1987 approaches fifty. The class of 1988 will do the same thing soon. Two years later, the class with whom I entered DHS will hit the half-century mark.

Sometime, I think we will all finally realize that we’re all the same age now.

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.