Tag: care

Things I Know 175 of 365: They gave me music

If music be the food of love, play on.

– William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night I.i.1

“I listen to different music now.”

At the end of my first year at SLA, this was the answer from one student to my question of how my students had changed in their freshman year.

She explained she’d come to the school listening to a mix of emo and pop and was leaving her first year with an appreciation of rock, R&B, Hip Hop and oldies. She even admitted to not hating some classical music. (That one was my fault.)

Other students commented on their changes during their first year of high school too. Four years later, only the music comment sticks in the attic of my brain. I’ve packed it away in the box labeled, “Things Will Be Okay.”

I come from a family of musicians. If they don’t play, they appreciate those who can. Music was everywhere as I grew up. From Tomé to Presley to Tears for Fears to Manhattan Transfer – depending on where I was and whom I was with, anyone could have been providing the soundtrack to my day.

It’s what led to the giddiness when Myspace first asked me to include what song I was listening to when writing a blog post. It always seemed silly they asked about the song and asked how I was feeling. To me, they were one and the same.

When I write, I listen to anything by Hans Zimmer, Balmorhea or Rachel’s. Lately, an album called Cocktail Mix: 4 has started to work its way onto that list.

Music is how I feel.

Rather than wading through the murky waters of a Secret Santa this year, SLA teachers had the chance to opt in to a mixtape exchange. Pick a name, compile a mixtape of at least 15 songs for that person and exchange burned CDs at the staff holiday party. It was better than any $5-limit tchotchke I’ve ever received. Try it.

I drove away from Philly yesterday morning.

As I did, I put a CD in my car’s stereo – Mr. Chase, <3 MUD.

On one of the last days of school, two students appeared in my room and presented the disk to me.

“These are songs that remind us of you,” one of the students explained.

Both of my G11 classes collaborated on the project to suggest songs which were then curated. The result was a disc I kept myself from listening to until I was safely alone, in my car, driving away from Philadelphia.

To say I was touched by such thoughtfulness would be an amazing understatement. They were caring for me.

The mix is a collection of songs I played mercilessly in class, songs we connected over and songs I’d never heard but am honored they connect with me.

I am humbled.

This mix has been added to that box in the attic of my brain.

I share it here because I hope it makes you smile the way it made me smile.

Thank you.

Things I Know 135 of 365: Processing matters

Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.

– Peter F. Drucker

My friend Darlene earned her master’s in counseling. Never one to do things in a small way, Darlene’s degree is in Adventure-Based Counseling.

In the two years we worked in the same school and the eight years we’ve been friends, Darlene’s made one point about ABC over and over again: The activities are only only useful if you process them with the kids.

Darlene’s processing mantra of choice was, “What? So what? Now what?” asking the kids what they noticed about the activity, the implications of what they noticed on their success during the activity and what they would do to move this new knowledge into practice in their daily lives.

At SLA, we introduce students to inquiry thinking by taking them along a similar line of questioning: “I noticed…Iwonder…What if?”

As I’ve been considering caring lately, these questions and other iterations thereof have been striking me as increasingly important from both an academic and socio-emotional point of view.

On a recent flight, I sat next to a grandmother who was flying home after watching one of her grandsons graduate. I confessed to being a teacher and we felt silent again as often happens with the edd and flow of airline conversation.

“You know, every child needs at least one good and important teacher in their life,” she said, pulling me back to the conversation.

“More than one if they’re lucky,” I said.

“Mine was in ninth grade,” she said, “He told me, ‘I’m going to transfer you out of my class because it’s not quite what you need,’ but he also took the time to explain why.”

We talked for a while about how much it meant to her that the teacher explained to her why another class would be a better fit.

Now in her 70s, it is the processing she carries with her as the memory from both of those math classes. The processing of the why of it all turned out to be the greater moment of learning for her.

I suspect it influenced how she interacted with her own children – taking the time to explain when they asked the omnipresent, “Why?”

Darlene is right, what we do is only as useful as our effort to process it with our students. The processing takes many forms such as giving a response more detailed than “Good answer” in class or providing words rather than numbers when filling out a rubric.

Not only is processing in this way helpful to my practice as a teacher, it’s helpful to my students in their acquisition of the language of learning.

I’m a little cagey on the idea of teaching students to learn. Teaching students the language of learning and how to express the ideas and progress inherent in their learning – that I can get behind.

Things I Know 59 of 365: I want to be Mr. Curry

I never realized I had that much influence on anyone. I hope you enjoy your teaching career as much as I did mine.

– John Curry

My senior year of high school, I took AP Calculus. In my rural school of fewer than 400 students, 5 of us took the class.

When spring arrived, we sat in the conference room, #2 pencils in hand, and attacked the AP A/B Calculus exam.

Well, 4 of us attacked it.

I held on as long as I could. Through the bubble and grid section, I played it cool.

Arriving at the open answer section, I froze.

My mind was a blank. Not a blank as in something had been their and was erased by anxiety, but blank in the sense that I had no idea what was being asked of me.

I looked around the room and surmised I was the only one. Throughout the room, pencils were scribbling.

In that moment, I wanted to quit even more than I had wanted to quit when my third grade T-Ball team lost every game. Every. Game.

John Curry taught me math each year from eighth through twelfth grade, save one.

He wasn’t looping with my class. It was a small school with two math teachers.

If, on my best days, I am half the teacher Mr. Curry was, I have made something of myself.

He was as traditional and by-the-book a teacher as you’re likely to meet. It is entirely possible our pedagogies are somewhat divergent at this point. We are products of different eras.

Still, I remember he cared.

When a student earned a B or above on a test, Mr. Curry would place a sticker on the paper before handing it back. As we moved to higher math, got our driver’s licenses and first jobs, we continued to treasure those stickers. The covers of our TI-83s were laden with stickers like fighter pilots noting our kills.

For a score of 90% or above, students received certificates congratulating them on showing their ability to master the content of the chapter. Mine hung in my locker.

Perhaps best were the letters. At the close of each unit, after the tests and quizzes were graded, Mr. Curry would send letters to the parents of those students earning Bs or higher, congratulating them on their students’ successes.

I remember seeing the letters as I pulled the mail from the mailbox. It wasn’t the handwriting which gave it away (Mr. Curry was mail merging before it was cool). It was the stationary. Out of his own pocket, Mr. Curry purchased stationary in our school colors watermarked with our mascot. When a Kelly green envelope showed up in the mail, you knew what was inside.

The letters did more than offer congratulations to my parents, they also explained what concepts and material I had shown mastery of. Dinner on letter nights was always interesting, “So, Zachary, explain the slope-intercept formula to me.”

Mr. Curry made me care about math because he showed he cared about me.

Sitting in the conference room, my blank drawn with amazing detail, I knew I could not quit. I could not fail Mr. Curry.

Realizing any attempt at calculus would be a mockery of the mathematics he held so dear, I played to my strengths.

I remember the first lines of the essay I wrote, “If you saw my answers in the previous section of the test, you know I’ve been holding on by a thread. Rather than waste both of our time, let me tell you why I needed to take this test and how great my math teacher is. No matter what you think of my math skills, please, don’t take them as a reflection of his teaching.”

Though I’d struggle if you put a factorial in front of me today, I learned the value of more than I can ever say from Mr. Curry.

Things I Know 41 of 365: Caring is reciprocal

Want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge.

– Benjamin Franklin

It should be said, I was ready to go home.

On my way out of school today, I stopped by one of the tables in the hallway near my classroom. Gathering my things, I’d heard some students using their outdoor voices at the table.

I stopped not to tell them to move or repremand them. I started with a simple observation, “You are all sitting within 2 feet of one another.”

A slight smile from one of the students. I went on to bemoan the fact that it was the end of the day and we were all full up on crazy for the time being in that lesser referenced teacher voice that says, “I’m kidding around with you, but truly making a point at the same time.”

My message delivered, one of the students said they’d keep it down. I started to walk away when one of the students who’d been quiet since I’d stopped by said something ugly to another student at the table.

It was one of those moments of stupid. One of those adolescent powerplays meant to show his peers he was grown enough to spit ugly words in front of a teacher. As a former assistant principal of mine once said, he was feeling himself.

In that moment, my simple stop to ask the table to quiet down became something else.

In that moment, I needed to be present. I needed to be caring.

My coat, bag and water bottle in hand, I suggested he and I go for a walk. It took a few suggestions and the encouragment of one of the other students present before aquiesced to my invitation. This was not before he let fly a flurry of words that made a verbal cocktail with the rare quality of being profane without including any profanity.

He would leave, but not without assuring all present that he was the one wielding the power.

We walked a ways down the hall and turned the corner. I’d hoped to make it to another floor, but he had a good 50 lbs and a few inches on me, so I knew not to push my luck.

In these moments, when our students choose not to or are incapable of being the better versions of themselves, we must be the best versions of ourselves.

Standing there, in the hall with the lint of the day stuck to my brain and adored with the accessories of my walk home, I needed to be someone other than a teacher ready to go home.

My tone was soft. My sentences were largely questions. My goal diffusion.

He would have none of it.

“See, she says all of that, and I’m the one in trouble.”

“Who said anything about anyone being in trouble?”

And it continued like that – he intent on being angry and me intent on not.

And, I get this is the role adults must play when they choose to spend their days modeling life for those children in their charge.

We must be present. We must care…even when it’s a drag.

Thus was the internal conversation myself and I were having as sentences like, “What would you expect me to do when two students I love deeply are saying hurtful and ugly things to one another.”

He was having none of it.

Indignation fueled by righteousness can be an intoxicating thing.

One thing he failed to take into consideration, I care for all my students.

In a moment of reciprocity I’m certain Nel Noddings heard wherever she is, one of my students, Lenea, turned at the end of the hall.

The student I was listening to had  let loose a particularly baited and patronizing sentence as Lenea passed by.

I’d barely noticed her passing.

That is, until I heard, “You don’t talk to Mr. Chase that way,” in a tone, to that point, I was certain only my mother knew.

Appreciative of the vote of confidence, I kept on, “If someone said something like that about you in my presence, you know I’d take issue with it.”

He was mid-rebuttal when I heard Lenea’s voice, “I’ll talk to him, Mr. Chase.”

I turned to look at her.

She was staring at me with that look that says, “Go along now. Get. I’ve got this covered.” And, I knew she did.

I turned and walked down the hall to attempt to diffuse the other side of the argument.

A few minutes later, I walked back down the hall. Turning the corner, I was ready to re-engage. I couldn’t. They weren’t there.

Lenea had moved him physically (and I’m guessing emotionally) farther than I’d been able.

I’ve been mulling that idea tonight. I’ve considered the ninth grader I met when Lenea first entered my room nearly four years ago. I’m uncertain how many times I’ve hugged her, told her how much I’m proud to teach her and made a point to assure her I see the good she’s created.

What I’m certain of, though, is that all those moments, those pieces of mental and emotional investment, those moments of caring, were worth it.

What I’m certain of is caring is reciprocal.