The Power and the Person in the Post

Why do we choose to share what we post on Facebook, Twitter or other forms of social media? While it is evident why people share good news announcements like births, engagements, and graduations, why do we see pictures of food, pets, and home improvement projects?

I started thinking of this question when my daughter began to show me a young person’s Facebook page that focused on highly materialistic things. The page in question was filled with pictures of purchases, status symbol items (cars, jewelry, etc.), and “don’t I look good” statements. Although it was easy to condemn and criticize, it made me think about my choices of posts.

Clearly, the young person in question wants us to admire her. She wants us to see her the way she wants to see herself: attractive, pretty, wealthy, and successful. She is self-esteem building by status statement. The posts that I saw had comments that reinforced the image she was working so hard to project.

Posts are very difficult for me. Sometimes, I believe I overthink what I am posting. I ask myself if what I put on Facebook and Twitter is something worthy of the people with whom I am sharing it. I worry about what it says about me.

I know someone else whose posts are liberal bait. She puts forth an extremely conservative message and then reels in the outraged and passionate arguments that inevitably follow. It is all about the fight with this person. She wants the conflict. She likes stirring it up. Her conservative persona is less about political ideology and more about attention. If I say something that will get you all riled up, you will engage with me.

Certainly, many people use social media as a means of sharing personal news. Posts relay the same things we used to share before the PTA meeting, or while waiting for the religious service to start, or standing in line at the farmers market. These posts are combinations of the “wish you were here” postcard and the cute holiday photo. They say I’m still here. We’re doing okay. Don’t forget about us.

Some posts are dramatic: breakups, illnesses, disasters, and downers. These posts are vents and commiserations. By sharing the bad news, the poster receives sympathy and even offers of assistance. The alarm is sounded and, hopefully, the cavalry arrives.

Some posts are questions and community connections. They ask if we can recommend services or relay issues faced by the community. My homeowners association has benefited by creating a Facebook page where neighbors can have digital conversations.

We want to be heard. We want to express ourselves. We want to communicate. We want to discover who we are and who we can become – and we are a little curious if what we see in the mirror matches what others see through the window.

Although there are occasional discussions, most responses to Facebook posts are affirmations, confirmations, or exclamations. They reflect the feelings and message of the post rather than challenge or add to it. So like so many other forms of communication, these posts are really about us. They are expressions of self.

I wonder if our posts could be more. As I read posts about important social issues, I wonder if social media could be a stronger force for discussion and dialog. I have read about how people in other countries have used social media to reform governments and create social justice.

My views have changed, and my eyes opened by what my Facebook friends have shared. Recent events have proven that ideas shared on social media can have real impact on politics and policy.

Our posts are about us as individuals and, more and more, us as a society. We are advertising our values and our view of ourselves. Are my posts a good snapshot of me? Is that picture complete or correct? Does it match how I see myself? Now you see why I perseverate before I post! 

Four Graduation Speeches

My favorite season is fall because it is a time of beginnings. Spring brings graduations and goodbyes. Yet, this year has been different. My spring has been framed by four graduation speeches.

The first of these was delivered by my own daughter at her college graduation at the beginning of May. Months before, she had been invited to submit a written speech and compete to be the student commencement speaker. She called her English and theatre teacher dad, and we brainstormed possible topics. She settled on the idea that, since she was a tour guide, her speech could be one final tour. She submitted her speech, auditioned, and was selected.

She wrote a speech that used her experiences as a college tour guide to explore where the class of 2015 had been and where they were going. It was a last tour on the way out of college.

The metaphor worked well. Her speech took her classmates from being tourists to becoming guides to transforming the world as agents of change. She reviewed the past as a means of bringing us into the future. It was the ideal way to look at both graduation and this season of transition.

Her speech captured what I was feeling as I watched her talk in a huge athletic arena filled with about 6000 people. How did I get here? How could I have a child graduating from college? What happens now? My children and students are growing up. I must be really old!

Meanwhile, back in Deerfield, a similar process was taking place. My Senior English students had written their own graduation speeches as a means of both practicing their speaking and listening skills and reflecting on their high school careers.

As they delivered their speeches to the class, they took listening notes on the various aspects of their speeches. Two students made a special note about one of their classmates; they said that they hoped he would be the real graduation speaker.

This student’s speech was moving and eloquent. He did not fit the mold of the traditional choice for our graduation speaker. He was a transfer student. He was not a native English speaker. His parents were still in Japan, and he spent much of his high school career having to figure things out for himself. He shared the lessons he had learned from his experience, and my students and I were moved.

Our high school’s process of choosing a student speaker is similar to my daughter’s college. I am delighted that our speaker is not automatically a student who has earned an academic honor or been elected to an office. Students submit their speeches and then some of those students are invited to deliver them in an audition. My student submitted his speech, auditioned, and, like my daughter, was selected.

He and I rehearsed together in one of the large lecture halls a day or two before graduation. Like my daughter, he was both confident and nervous. His message was one of going (and growing) beyond your limiting perceptions and of demonstrating gratitude for those who have helped you. His delivery was personal and powerful.

Like my response to my daughter’s speech, his speech captured my feelings at that ceremony. I was grateful for these wonderful kids and their families – and I didn’t want to let them go. But that isn’t the way it works in my business. Fortunately, the next two graduation speeches let me look to the promising future.

I delivered two graduation speeches in the past few weeks. I served as the high school representative at two local middle school graduations. For the first one, my message was the same one I delivered when my son left junior high: say “hi” in the halls. I talked about how relationships are the foundation of a positive high school experience.

Two nights ago, my colleague and dear friend Michelle and I spoke to the graduates of Shepard Middle School. We took the relationships idea one step further and asked our newly minted freshmen to choose kindness. Extending on the message we had delivered together a few years before (and that I had echoed at my earlier speech), we said to them, “While grades, activities, and all that stuff is important, what you will discover about Deerfield High School is that the quality of your time here will be measured by the depth and quality of your relationships. And relationships are built on kindness. It isn’t about your transcript, test scores, or preparing for college. That’s a trick and a trap. Those things are icing – not cake. The cake is the people. Grades, scores, and successes are meaningless without the folks who come together to make them happen. You join a family when you come to DHS. The DHS family is the ground on which all of our achievements are built.”

At the end of the speech, Michelle said to our future students (and her own daughter), “Acts of kindness should not be random. Make your acts of kindness deliberate and thoughtful.”

That statement capped my four speech graduation experience. I began with a review of the process: the past that brings us into the life changing future.  I moved into a speech that asked me to let go of my concepts and be grateful. Finally, I welcomed the future with kindness and the promise of a special family relationship.
I love our DHS graduation, but I hate saying goodbye. This year, my four graduation speeches reminded me of where we have been and got me ready to step into the future. What a wonderful way to end the school year!

Alumni Gifts

Last week, three Deerfield High School graduates dropped by school. They told me about their lives since we had last met, their summer and future plans, and reminisced about their time at DHS. They made my day – and my week. They gave me a gift for which I am so very grateful: a relationship after they have left my classroom and the school.

I have taught several thousand students in my many years at Deerfield. A vast majority of them say, “hello” in the hall after our class ends. Some I am able to catch for a handshake or a hug at graduation. Most vanish. What they don’t realize is how present they are for me.

I think about my former students a great deal. While they have moved on, I am still in the same place where we learned together. There are reminders of them everywhere and every day.  I pass their lockers and teach in the rooms where we learned together. And while I am curious about what has become of them, I accept that this is the way it works for teachers and students. Our relationship has a shelf life, and when it is over, most of the time, it ends.

Yet, when a student chooses to stay in touch after graduation, it is a gift beyond measure. For years, this meant students who would visit, often before or after winter break or as the school year was ending. It meant students who would send college graduation announcements, notes, or would suggest going out to coffee or lunch. I treasure these visits and moments.

Now, students have greater choice about how to stay in touch. Thanks to email and Facebook, staying in contact can be as involved as they want –and that is perfect and wonderful! Now, there are lots of degrees of contact.

This past month, I was treated with graduation pictures from colleges all over the world. I heard about former students getting jobs, getting married, having babies, traveling, and figuring out their futures. We didn’t need to meet, although several of us did.

Some of the students with whom I am in touch never shared class with me. Maybe we were in a club or perhaps spent time together in the resource center. Maybe we found each other in the hallways. Our time together at DHS, no matter what that time looked like, is chapter one. With most students, I only get chapter one.

Chapter two is beautiful. It has no homework and no grades. No attendance is taken, and no rules can be broken. This doesn’t mean it is perfect. Former students have struggled and needed help. We have worked on graduate school applications and found job contacts. Former students have come to my assistance, too – they have even helped me teach my current students!

Some alumni are now more my friends than my former students. I cannot imagine a student giving me a gift greater than a friendship that started in the classroom.

In the next few weeks, I will speak at two middle school graduations. The message I will deliver to the newly minted high school students is that, when they come to Deerfield High School, they are joining a family. Although grades, activities, and classes are important, the real foundation of everything that happens in school is the relationships they will form.

I have wonderful relationships with my colleagues. This is critical to my being able to do my job well. The relationships with students, especially after they leave the building, is a precious gift for which I am appreciative every time I see their posts on Facebook, when they call or email, or as we chat around town.

As I swing back into graduation season, my joy is renewed and my sadness softened by the community of alumni who remind me, even after they leave our classroom and school, that they are okay, still learning, and that they have saved a corner of their lives for their former teacher from which I can see their futures.

Graduation Time

Time can be measured in bars of soap or changed light bulbs. I am told for coffee drinkers, spoons mark time. I know time has passed when I need to change that pesky refrigerator filter.

Yet, as we celebrate the college graduation of our eldest child, the passage of time feels even more real. How could this be? I won’t start singing, “Is this the little girl I carried….?” but it is a question I keep asking myself.

How on earth did I go from being the at-home dad with two young children to the old man at school with one child about to be in graduate school and the other about to be a senior? Did I miss something? What happened?

A mantra in our family is that the days are long, but the years are short. This has certainly been true for us. Weeks and days seem endless, and then I look up and years have flown by. I often advise young parents to take lots of pictures, journal, and cherish the time. Blink twice and your children are taller than you – or don’t blink at all.

We are always blinking! We have jobs, responsibilities, meetings, chores, goals, and on and on. My life is far from boring. Time may fly when I am having fun, but it speeds past when life is full. Having children has filled my life with so many wonderful things, and that fullness has accentuated my shock when we arrive at these landmarks.

It is shocking to see the little child as a young adult, twenty-one years old! Often, my mental image of my children does not match the reality before me. We are all changing and growing, whatever our age. Yet, sometimes I forget and think of our family as static and unchanging. Then I have to adjust that mental picture to fit the times – and then it changes again!

Much as I love the challenge of change, it is tiring and surprising. All of a sudden, my son is shaving, driving, and doing other things he couldn’t do six seconds ago. My daughter lives far away and I am so eager for our weekly video chats that I take screen shots so I can savor them until the next week.

Yes, this means that I am getting older. We are all getting older, and that is a good thing. However, it is shocking, surprising, and challenging. I watch the parents of the daycare children come into the high school, and I long for those days. Then their children start screaming or crying or otherwise behaving like preschool children and the feeling passes.

There are new challenges to parenting children who are twenty-one and seventeen. There are new joys, too. Our relationship has changed and deepened in a way I could never have imagined when they were younger. It really does get better as they get older! 

I can’t generalize. I don’t know how this works for other people. I am still learning to embrace the process, and there are no viable alternatives. Fighting it doesn’t get me anywhere. Neither my children nor I will stay the same, and landmarks like graduation are great opportunities to celebrate and embrace time’s passage and our growth. 

Social Reading: Part II

My use of social annotation is the subject of Deerfield High School's Director of Instruction Technology's blog this week. In addition, our principal interviewed me about it. 

Social Reading

For the past twenty-some years, I have tried to find ways to help students become more active and engaged readers. Recently, I have been experimenting with some technological tools that have not only helped students to become better readers, but have helped them enjoy the process.

The most challenging text in Freshman English is Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. The language is rich, the plot complex, and the pace slow. I have tried many techniques to help students appreciate and comprehend this novel. One of the best ways was I created podcasts in which I taught the text as they read with me. Listening to the text and using their computer, phone, or mp3 player has been a real game changer to help students understand the text and provide an alternative to the many summary websites on the web.

For teenagers, it is all about the people. They like social networks, social events, but perhaps not social studies – or English. So a solitary activity, like reading, might be more attractive if it involved their friends.

A technique I have used that creates a social component to their reading is to take the pages of the novel, enlarge them, and put them on giant pieces of paper and have the students collaboratively annotate them. When using the “big paper,” I asked students to be completely silent and communicate only through their written comments on the page. Students would make the usual annotations; they would note characters, make connections, identify literary devices, and so on. But they were also able to answer each other’s questions and respond to each other’s comments. The big paper sessions not only provided a critical second reading, but also created a silent and social discussion of the text, a kind of low-tech chat board!

Last fall, I attended the National Council of Teachers of English’s convention in Washington, D.C. In a session on reading and writing digital texts, I was introduced to an iPad app called Subtext. Subtext allowed students to do what I was doing with the big paper with any text – and it could do more than that.

The problem was that my students don’t use iPads; they have Chromebooks. Rats! However, I found a way to take one of the main features of Subtext and provide it to my kids using our equipment and software.

While reading Romeo and Juliet, and A Tale of Two Cities, texts that are in the public domain and are freely available online, I copied the night’s reading assignment into a Google doc. I then invited my students to annotate the text using the comment function; our online collaborative social annotating experiment was born!

Students have responded very positively to this new way of reading! Sometimes, students read the work at home, and then come to class and annotate the collaborative documents together in class. Sometimes, they read and collaborate as homework.

Several months ago, I read an article by Grant Wiggins’ daughter, Alexis. When she shadowed a student at her new school, she realized how passive students are in class. At the end of the article, she reflects on how she would change her teaching given what she observed. She says that she would, “[a]sk every class to start with students’ Essential Questions or just general questions born of confusion from the previous night’s reading or the previous class’s discussion. I would ask them to come in to class and write them all on the board, and then, as a group, ask them to choose which one we start with and which ones need to be addressed.”

The collaborative reading document gave me a perfect opportunity to do what Ms. Wiggins was recommending. When students come to class, they review the collaborative annotations and use a second group document to write questions, claims, note quotations and start the discussion. We then let those responses guide and shape our conversation about the text. This process also provides my students with a chance to read complex texts a second time guided by their peers’ annotations. I struggle with the expectation that young readers will have the insight and inferential ability to glean great meaning from texts they have read after soccer practice or between math and science homework. This process lets them help each other to more fully explore and understand the literature – and they do it socially!

Students get to teach each other. They see each other’s annotations, answer each other’s questions, and respond to each other’s claims. My job is to give them the tools to do this – and then stand back and let them read and discuss - together!