Losing Recess

“Until whoever wrote on the supply cabinet comes forward, the entire class will be staying in from recess!”

Remember how unfair that felt! Remember how angry you were when you had to pay the price for someone else’s misdeeds! Of course, most (or all) of the class knew who had done the deed (it was Veronica, it was always Veronica), but they wouldn’t tell on someone. So you stayed in and sulked until Susan’s mother called the next day and got everyone, including Veronica, out of jail. That also felt unfair. Veronica should pay for her crimes and you shouldn’t.

You struggled to pay for college. You worked a job in addition to the work-study and it took you ages to pay off your debt. With bitterness, you remember Sandy, who was dropped off in a Lexus, was getting more aid than you! Sandy had all the trappings of a rich kid: fancy cars, clothes, vacations, and toys. If Sandy had all that, why the full ride?

People game the system. People pay for others’ crimes. It is wrong, but it happens all the time. Why should we have to bear the burden for this kind of unfairness?

If people commit crimes, they should be punished. If people cheat, they should not succeed. If people lie or misrepresent themselves, they should have to confess and tell the truth and bear the consequences.

I wish it were that simple.

How much is it worth to catch the cheaters? Should no one get financial aid to college because some people abuse it? Should it be distributed evenly so that the very wealthy and the barely making ends meet get the same assistance? Should everyone pay the price for the misdeeds of a few people?  

Let’s put this another way:

Due to water issues, my town only permits us to water our lawns every other day. But I have a neighbor who waters every day anyway. Should watering be forbidden for everyone? Should all of our plants die because one neighbor uses too much water and has beautiful landscaping?

The answer is clearly no! Just the offender should be punished!

What about systems of social support? There are people who scam insurance, welfare, food stamps, and other programs that help those who are struggling. If one person really doesn’t want to work and is just being lazy, should the single mom working two jobs also be cut out of the program? What if it is a small percentage of those getting assistance? At what point do you take away everyone’s recess because some of the class is being naughty?

Should we create tight rules to catch the person who cuts in line, goes through the red light, or has eleven items in the “Ten or Fewer” line at the grocery store? Should we shame them? Should we eliminate the express lines and build pop-up walls at intersections?

                                           

Of course not!

So how do we deal with the cheats and freeloaders?

I am not sure. But I know this: they shouldn’t ruin it for the rest of us. They shouldn’t make all of us stay in from recess nor should we eliminate systems that help struggling people in our community because a few people behave badly.

Although we may think we have the full picture, it is rarely true. We may think that someone is cheating or scamming the system. We must acknowledge that many times, we only have parts of their story. We might be right. We might be wrong.

I would love to live in a world where lightning strikes down every wrongdoer automatically. If you are using a phone while driving, POOF, you are suddenly sitting on the side of the road and your car is gone. If you steal, POOF, you are suddenly transported to jail! If you lie, POOF, the truth is automatically revealed and you are punished.

It doesn’t work that way. Here and now there is just us to make justice, and human justice is as fallible and uneven as the human beings dispensing it.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t make the attempt. It certainly doesn’t mean that we let the bad eggs spoil it for everyone. We may have the impulse to say that, if one or some of us can’t treat things well, then none of us should get them. We know that is wrong and unfair.

Must we let the cheaters slide? Sometimes. Can we create systems that catch the cheaters? Sometimes. Should we create systems that sacrifice doing good things because some people cheat?

I don’t know if this makes me a liberal or a conservative. I know that the argument against many forms of social support is that they are either distributed poorly or that people take advantage of them. That doesn’t mean that a majority of the class isn’t doing the right thing and should be held in for recess!  

Here is the trade-off: Is it worth it to suffer some wrong doers to help more good folks? Is that the price we must pay? It may bug us to know that there are kids on the playfield who don’t belong there, but it is more wrong to keep the whole class inside.  

Lines for the Bathroom

A student’s arm goes up in the air. I am excited! We are in the middle of a discussion and I am thrilled that this student is about to contribute. The class is engaged and listening to each other. Learning is happening!

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

The entire momentum of the conversation is destroyed. The direction of the discussion is changed. There are giggles. Any discussion of potty brings some level of laughter. One of my regular lines is that all humor comes from body fluids and especially with younger students this is very true.

Although some teachers may leave the classroom to go to the bathroom, I cannot justify this. Aside from the liability issue, what if something should happen while I was gone, our time together is simply too precious to waste (on waste  - another line).

There is no doubt that there are times when a student (or an adult) has to leave the room to go to the bathroom. I tell students not to ask permission to leave if they have an emergency. If they are about to throw up, get to the bathroom quickly!

Which raises the question of why should they ask permission to leave at all? The last few years students may simply leave when they want without any announcements. I lay some simple ground rules: if you need to go, go. Do not disrupt the class activities; don’t make a regular habit of going to the bathroom during class. Leaving class, for any reason, should be an usual occurrence.

Yet, it doesn’t work this way. I can predict both who will leave for the bathroom and often when. Students don’t go to the “bathroom.” Many of them go elsewhere. They make calls on their phones. On a few occasion, I have used the school’s cameras to find out where they really went and what really happened.

Students leave the room because they are bored, or they have a need to call home, or want to get a snack, or have actually made a plan to meet someone. There are many, perhaps a majority, who really do need to go to the bathroom or get a sip of water.

I have never worked in the corporate world, but I can’t imagine someone stopping a meeting or work activity to go to the bathroom. If such a thing occurs, I would hope it would be unusual; I am expecting an important call, I am ill, or there are special issues.

In their defense, students have limited time to go to the bathroom. They have short lunch periods and only five minutes to go from class to another. However, teachers are in a similar position. A little planning goes a long way. While one can’t always plan ahead, again, hopefully, that is the exception.

So perhaps my bathroom lines are a little passive aggressive. I don’t want students to leave. I use one of the oldest ones in the book, “Can I go to the bathroom?” I hope you can. What if you couldn’t! Eww! That would be uncomfortable!

Students ask if they can go to the bathroom quickly. I often reply that I will not time them so I won’t know how fast they go. I think about the old Monty Python Silly Olympics sketch with the marathon for the incontinent.

When the student who leaves regularly requests to leave the room, I sometimes respond that I was just about to suggest that they go or I say, “you are full of it.” Yup, that is what I am saying.

Sometimes, the request to go to the bathroom is simply answered with a shocked, “Not here!”

My favorite moment like this was when a student raised his hand, stopped the discussion and said, “May I go to the bathroom and fill my water bottle.” The whole class took a pause and then several people went, “Yuck!”

When you have to go, you have to go, no doubt about that. When I am a student in class or when I am in a meeting, I wait. I don’t disrupt or derail an activity by making a dramatic exit to the bathroom – and I really don’t want to miss anything.

This is probably an issue as old as schools, teachers, and students themselves: the perpetual problem of kids on the can! 

Name Blame

It is completely my fault. My memory is not what I wish it would be. I would like to have every student’s name at the tip of my mind. When I bump into a former student or see a student from a few years ago in the hall, I want to be able to call them by the correct name immediately.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen all the time. I used to be proud of how often I could get students’ names right. Now, I am starting to struggle. I usually remember the student – or parent or classmate or neighbor – but my mouth doesn’t always keep pace with my memory. I know the person, but the name lags behind.

To make it worse, if I mixed up two students’ names when they were in class, that confusion sticks forever. The mix up may have nothing to do with looks. If I was not able to cure myself of saying Sarah when I met Carrie or saying Carrie when I meant Sarah when we shared class, I am going to take this bad habit with me.

And I don’t think that Sarah IS Carrie! I know the difference! This is not about knowing the person; this is about slipping and calling them the wrong name. I often know that I have blown it immediately. My memory is late.

There were two boys in one of my classes last year and I worked hard to not mix them up. But in the hall a few weeks ago, I blew it. Later, the one whose name I used (incorrectly) said to me, “I heard you called Brett my name.” Yup! I did! I knew it wasn’t you. I can tell you and Brett apart. It wasn’t that I get the two of you confused, I had a memory glitch!

Unfortunately, the problem is getting worse. The more names in my head, the more likely I am going to mess them up. The other night, I went to a restaurant and a recent graduate was there. I couldn’t remember her name. I was only moderately consoled that my wife couldn’t remember her name either. You guessed it; I remembered her name moment she left.

Maybe this is just a slowing down of mental agility. As I am getting older, I am struggling to get the name from my brain to my tongue fast enough. Maybe it is a volume problem. I have taught several thousand students and met even more parents. Add my own classmates and the numbers are staggering.

Which is why I am so grateful for Facebook and Instagram. Former students, parents, and classmates with whom I am connected via social media help me get ready for these meetings. Of course, I am not friends with current students, but once they are out of my current class, I could use the help. I have about 140 students in class right now, but I have more than 300 former students roaming the halls! Keeping all that in my head is task enough!

I have thirty-two yearbooks on my shelf at home and every so often I use them. I went to a gathering and caught a glimpse of a former student. I knew what class he was in. I remembered his senior project. I recalled the room in which we studied together. I just couldn’t come up with his name! I went back to the yearbook and found him instantly. In fact, I had his first name before I had his photograph. I was just a day late.  

I apologize. I blush! I hate getting names wrong! I wish I had a big yearbook of just my people. Perhaps I should rehearse and review names on a daily basis. Would that be enough to keep my old mind in shape?

Excuses aside, I am coming to terms with saying, “You are going to have to help me with your name.” I am so grateful for the reconnections that start with, “I’m so-in-so.” Of course, you are. The blame is mine. Nonetheless, I am so glad to see you!

Out of Line: Education in the Halls

While I see hundreds of kids in class each year, I may see just as many in the halls, cafeteria, and other common areas of the building. While my relationship with kids who are not sharing class with me is quite different from those in class, I take it just as seriously. Some of my favorites students and those with whom I have wonderful (and sometimes long-lasting) relationships have never received a grade from me – and that’s just fine!

I make a point to greet people in the hallways. I say good morning or afternoon. I wish people a happy Wednesday or ask if a good Monday is even possible. When I am supervising the library, cafeteria, or other space, I work hard to get to know the students around me.

This is not just because everything works better when we know each other. It is also because learning and education take place all the time in school. The classroom may be the primary and most important learning location, but it far from the only one. Real learning is occurring every moment and, as educators, we must be aware of that and integrate experiences in non-classroom spaces into the general curriculum.

Often, I try to be just as playful outside the classroom as I am in the classroom. I will create spontaneous tag games and very lightly tap a student on the backpack and say, “you’re it!” While I am not really starting a game, it is a way to get a smile, help a student to look up from his or her phone, or to initiate a conversation. I have had a few kids who have made that tag game the basis of a long-term relationship, and that’s great! 

I joke with the kids in the hall who are engaged in a little public display of affection or clogging the halls during passing period that, “there’s no hugging in the halls, no happiness in halls!” By joking about what is going on, I get a smile more than a confrontation.

My own children often roll their eyes when I moo like a cow when caught in long lines. Yet, that is what I feel like when the stream of humanity has slowed to a trickle and we are lumbering along wondering if whatever is at the end of this long line is going to be worth the hassle.

I make it a point to check in with former students and other students in the hallways. I ask them if they are behaving themselves, and when they always say that they are, I act disappointed and say, “You never did for me!”

When they note that they saw me earlier, I point out that there are two of me so it might have been the other me that they saw earlier. This has two meanings. There is another teacher who resembles me enough that we are often confused with each other. On my free periods, I do run around the halls a great deal looking for teachers I need to talk to, making copies, checking in with counselors and social workers and others. So it is not unusual for people to see me several times. I joke that they saw my clone earlier and then I sing a variation on that song from Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, “Send in the clones, there ought to be clones, don’t bother they’re here.”

A student recently pointed out that I frequently ask kids in the hall, “how goes it?” For some reason, that phrasing was new to her. When they ask it back to me, I frequently answer, “It goes.”

When, during that moment in the hall, the student says, “I’ll see you later, “ my answer (with an ironic grin, of course) might be, “Don’t threaten me!” I joke with students who are eating lollipops that they are suckers and Mr. Barnum says that there is one born every minute.

When nearly running into someone coming around a corner a little too closely, I say, “Knock, knock” hoping we don’t knock each other over. I try not to take those right-hand corners too tightly, but people with phones are often unaware of their place in space. So I will steer right into the path of a student looking down at a phone and, when they look up at me, remind them that texting and walking can be dangerous!

I check in with students carrying bags of ice on their wounded arms and legs by appearing shocked and telling them that they killed their goldfish, “You aren't supposed to put ice in there when you win!”

What happens in the halls spills into the classroom and vice versa. A little joy, a little playfulness, a little connection in the hall is important. It makes a big place smaller and gives students one more friendly adult face.

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?