Graduating to the Empty Nest

Our school parent organization hosts a special dinner for parents whose last child is graduating from the high school. Recently, it was my turn to attend.

This year has been a string of lasts: the last open house, homecoming, musical, concert, play, and now: graduation. This past week was a series of landmarks: the last day of classes, honors night, choral awards, theatre night, and soon, the big event itself.

My daughter entered high school in 2008. She graduated in 2012 and her brother took her place. His graduation means that my wife and I will be empty-nesters at home and at school. While we will attend concerts, plays, and events, I’ll leave my camera at home. We’ll only see the theatre productions once.

Life will be different.

When my daughter graduated college, she came home for the summer and then moved to Boston for graduate school. The pattern was the same even if the details were different. But that pattern is gone forever. It is unlikely that we will have another summer with the four of us at home. Even though my son will be home until late August, his job will keep him out of the house in the day, and his friends will most likely occupy much of his free time. He will teach us how to live with his empty room, just as we have grown accustomed to his sister’s absence.

I have never been good at letting go, and I don’t really want to let go now. I have loved being a father, and while my children’s launching doesn’t make me less of a father, it means I am more a long distance dad instead of the father on the line. I like being the father on the line.

I love being the teacher on the line, too. This graduation means saying farewell to students some of whom I have known since they were in elementary school. I will deeply miss my son’s classmates. Many were my students or we shared homeroom, advisory, or another activity. Although new students will fill the chairs in my classes next year, the class of 2016 has spoiled me and I am working hard to lower my expectations for the classes to come.  I am going to be pining for my former students next fall.

Right now, I am simply wishing that all of them, my own child and his wonderful friends, could do it again. I offered to home college my son, but for some reason, he didn’t take me up on it.

My son will come home once in a while. Most of his classmates I will never see again. I will bump into some throughout the years. Through Facebook or email, I will keep in touch with a few. Because they are my child’s class, I have a better chance of hearing about them through him. But graduation is the big goodbye for most of us.

My camera is out and I am capturing all these last events. I am dreading them because of their finality, but I want to enjoy and celebrate these special milestones. I am trying to negotiate both. 

Each year, I want to hang on to my students. I take photos, write cards, and try to capture the specialness of the moment. I am always partially successful. We leave an indelible mark on each other. But such marks fade.

I am so grateful that my son and his class have permitted me to share high school with them. I am so fortunate that, as a high school teacher, I got to play a unique role in my children’s lives at home and at school. I don’t want that to end. I am not sure what my new role looks like. The old role fit so well. 

So Class of 2016, bon voyage, mazel tov, and qapla’; I am looking forward to your new adventures and our new relationship – and I will miss you!

Teacher's Favorite

Something transformative happened in fourth period. While we were discussing an assembly about gender, a student noted that one of his teachers always picked on the boys, “The girls are her favorites.” Somehow, this moved us into a discussion about teacher’s favorites, and they asked me the question, “Do you have favorites, Mr. Hirsch?”

The answer was easy, “Of course, I have favorites!” I said. I asked them to raise their hands if they liked some teachers better than others. Every student raised a hand. Teachers are just like students, I told them. There are people who we connect with better than others, and there are some who press our buttons.

That was the moment. It happened right then. When I noted that teachers, like all of us, have students they don’t like as much, the entire class looked toward one boy. They all thought he was the student who fit that description.

They were wrong.

Being a teacher is improvisational. No matter how well you plan or how many years you have taught, you cannot prepare for everything.

I shook my head and told them that the boy in question was my favorite. Gasp! No one was more surprised than he was. I told them that I work hard to make sure that all students feel as though they are my favorite. It is my goal to give the teacher’s favorite treatment to every student – even the ones who may be a little challenging in class.

Of course, teachers gravitate toward some students and away from others. We are human. However, it is our job to recognize this, acknowledge it, and then consciously control it.

Yes, there are a few instances where that is not possible. In more than thirty years in the classroom, I can count on one hand the students I really wished were not in my room. They are rare. The boy in question is as far from being one of those students as I am from being an NHL quarterback.

I don’t know who started it, but the kids in fourth period started calling each other, “favorite.” We greeted each other that way for a while.

“Hello, Pat, my favorite.”  

“See you tomorrow, my favorite.”

“Do you have a question, my favorite?”

It even carried into the halls for a little while, until we agreed it was a little embarrassing to be so open about such things.

But the tone in the classroom had altered subtly. The boy who was the focus has changed substantially. His behavior since this discussion has been different. His need for my attention has diminished, although not completely. My reassurance that I liked him, that he was not one of “those” kids, that he was a favorite, has transformed our relationship and even the feeling of the class.

Should I declare that I like all my students in public this way all the time? Probably. I thought I was doing it in other ways, but perhaps I need to be more direct.

It feels good to be a favorite. It feels really good to know that someone, especially the teacher, likes you. And I do like them – all of them. It is not an act. It is a decision to make sure that I convey that to them. Some of them can read that from our day-to-day interactions. Some of them know this because of the way I greet them when they enter our room, from our hallway hellos, and the notes I write on their assignments.

Some may need more than that; some may need me to look at them and say, “you are my favorite.”

Next year, I am telling them earlier.

Twenty Years Walking

When I first started teaching in 1986, I knew that I was going to spend a great deal of time at school – and I did. For my first decade or so, I would arrive at school around 7:40am and leave sometime after 7pm. Often, I would leave at 10pm or later. One day, after a long rehearsal, I sat down on a couch and awoke at 6am!

Spending this much time at school was one thing; spending more time in a car commuting was another. My first apartment was about ten minutes from school. When my wife and I married, we lived in the center of town. In 1996, we moved to the neighborhood immediately south of our school. For the past twenty years, I have walked to school almost every day.

While I know this is not possible, practical or desirable for many people, being so close to my work has been wonderful. When we moved, we had a two-year-old who was attending the nursery school in our building, so the three of us walked together. In all kinds of weather, we would make our way down our street, through a short pass-through, and into the rear parking lot of our high school. We didn’t have to fight a car seat, traffic, or horrible early morning departures. Yes, sometimes walking with a two-year-old can be maddeningly slow. Yet the experience was significantly different than when we were in the car.

For much of my daughter’s early years, my mother-in-law was very ill, and we would make long trips to hospitals in Chicago. We sat in traffic during rush hour. She ate, cried, played, and did many other things in the backseat of our car. I drove and tried to keep her happy, but it was very difficult and uncomfortable for both of us. I thought about doing that every day, and I was thrilled to walk, even if sometimes at a beetle’s pace.

We walk in all weather. If it rainy, no big deal. It is far better to walk in the snow than to drive. First, some students and parents are terrible drivers. Second, it takes a while out in the cold to clear off and warm up a car. Many times I have left the building chatting with a colleague. I walk home, and my colleague walks to his or her car. As I put down my school bag in the kitchen, I can see my colleague driving away. 

My van just turned twelve years old. It has about 94,000 miles on it and is still in great shape. Both the savings in gasoline and wear and tear on our vehicles is another fantastic advantage of walking to school.

I know that many people’s commutes afford them time to think, catch up on the news, or decompress. I do those things too, on my walk to school. Getting into the air, walking down my street, greeting kids and their parents, and chatting with my neighbors puts my school day in perspective. It centers me on the real importance of a school.

Often my wife and I walk together. Sometimes, our son joins us. We joke that his dorm in college next year is further from his class buildings than our home is from his high school. He will miss his walk to school. I will miss walking to school with him. His absence will make my gratitude for the years of walking with him, his sister, and his mother all the more poignant.

I’ve been walking for twenty years. That little amount of exercise and short break from the stress of the day has made a big difference in my life. When I retire, it is my plan to move immediately next door to retirement!

The Tyranny of the To Do List

I confess that I am a list maker. I have a to-do list, lists for specific tasks, procedure lists, travel lists, important date lists, class lists, shopping lists, and countless other lists. I like to be organized, and I do not like to forget important things.

I use Wunderlist as my primary GTD (getting things done) tool. However, the truth is that my email is also a to-do list. My school planner is another to-do list as is my in-tray at my desk at home, my calendar, and even the open tabs on my web browser. And then there is my wife’s to-do list.  I am married to another list maker and, frequently, her list is my list.

I am very efficient. I am productive and focused much of the time. Yet, there is a downside to all these lists and this intense focus on productivity. My lists loom over my head like a sword of Damocles. Even if I finish all of today’s tasks, empty my email box, and clear all the items in my school planner, I will think to myself, “I can get a start on tomorrow’s lists!”

The list is like a never ending roll of paper. It will spool out into infinity. There is always another item on the list. There is always another task to be done. Sometimes I wonder who is in charge, me or my lists?

My joke became that I set aside every third Tuesday from 7:30 to 9pm to be spontaneous. I have it as a repeating list item. The truth is that I have to make a conscious decision to leave the lists behind. Forgetting them and just relaxing has almost become the last item on all the lists.

The lists do reduce my anxiety about forgetting things. They are a very good technique to help me manage my many roles and responsibilities. I believe they help me use my time more effectively.

But they are not the best choice for balance. Lists are addictive. We get a little dopamine kick every time we check something off our lists. I strive not to feel guilty when I open my pleasure reading book, turn on the TV, or do something off the list.

It is far easier to put things on the list than take them off. Sometimes I move things down my list until I realize that I don’t want to or cannot complete that task. Deleting a task feels like failure and probably costs ten of those little dopamine kicks.

I don’t think a “fun” list is the answer. Balance means setting the lists aside. The same strategies I use for efficiency may not be the best choice for leisure. The lists have an addictive quality and it is easy to see them as the solution for my challenges. I have tried the fun list approach. It doesn’t get me to have more fun; it gets me to make more lists. The real skill is letting go of the lists. I am still working on that.

Life is about far more than a never-ending roll of administrivia. It is unhealthy to think of the items on my list as standing between me and what I really want to do. So I hereby resolve to put all the lists in their proper place, just as soon as I get this blog post finished!

Textbooks and Sex: A Reading List for College Students, Future College Students, and the People Who Love Them

As my students (and my own child) make their decisions and plans for college, I thought it would be helpful to have some resources to help prepare. Going to college can feel overwhelming not only to newly minted college students but to their families as well.

Here are some articles to guide all of us on our paths from high school to college:

Here is a great packing list for college. It is not tailored for everyone, but use it to start a list that works for you.

Counseling Today reported about a study that says that many high school students, though academically ready for college, are not emotionally prepared. Here is a summary of what that study found. Think about discussing these issues as a family. Parents sometimes need some help in this area as well. Here is a letter to new parents that helps them get ready.

You should never pay full price for textbooks. There are many sites that sell textbooks for less. Hackcollege describes many of them.  Here is a site that compares these different sources. All you do is put in the ISBN number and comparison shop – and save money! Lifehacker also had a good article on saving money on textbooks that is worth a read.

There is a huge difference between going to high school and going to college. The expectations and schedule mean that many students need to develop much more discipline and new strategies to cope. Here is an article outlining some study tips.

Finding a major can be a big issue in college. Here is an article that describes the Hedgehog Concept to help identify a good career path. I am still a big fan of Richard Bolles’ What Color is Your Parachute as a way to explore possible interests, passions, and careers.

With or without a clear focus, registering for classes can be challenging. Hackcollege provides some ideas for how to get into classes that are already full.

The social scene on campus is as critical to the college experience as academics. However, it is fraught with challenges. Parents worry about their children’s wellbeing on campus. How do can students prepare for the prevalence of drugs and alcohol? What do we do to prevent our children from becoming victims (or perpetrators) of sexual violence? The Washington Post has a series of articles on these issues that I highly recommend. Here are five safety tips for students spelled out very clearly. Finally, NPR reported on some programs that teach students to proactively prevent sexual violence.

Students are always looking for internships and jobs. Here is a list of fifteen stories to prepare for a job or internship interview.

Did you know that, if college students go into certain fields, their college loans may be forgiven? This is certainly worth a little research and consideration when choosing a major.

Preparing for college can be overwhelming. Talking to friends and experts, speaking candidly with family, and utilizing your resources can make it more manageable.  If you have other good articles, please put the links in the comments section.

Finally, enjoy this process! It is a chance to plan and problem solve as a family. The preparations for college are an opportunity to get a good start on the bridge between childhood and adulthood. Whether this is an open discussion of finances and college costs, a laundry lesson, or agreeing about how much contact is enough, the college process opens up new discussions and can deepen and strengthen family relationships. Good luck!