Failure.

Check mark, X, X, check mark, X, X, X.  Enter.

X, X, X, X, X, check mark, X, X, X...

The grades are on the screen in an excel spreadsheet.  

A sea of red with lonely islands of green in the mastery tracker screams failure in my face.

You are not good enough.  They did not learn what they needed to.  How do you feel about your effort now?  Are you happy?  Are you glad you took that night for yourself, or went out to that event just to talk to people?  Was your lesson plan really worthy of your name?

A shiver moves down my shoulders into the pit in my stomach, like the Grim Reaper just gave me a tap to tell me it was time.  Is it my time to rethink things?

Will the kids give up?  They were so happy some days learning (I thought it was learning) the material, and now it is like their memory and skills blew away with the wind.  I can't blame them, I was the one giving them the knowledge.  I was the one responsible for them wanting and achieving success.

Will the students revolt?  Will I be the teacher they say messed up?  The teacher they tell others to avoid?  It's ok to be tough when it helps them, am I just now the person who is strict to make up for his own weakness as a teacher?  I have no leverage of effectiveness to get engagement.

Will I beat myself up?  I have sometimes had a flagellant tendency when it comes to regrets.

Two things pop into my mind:

The famous quotation, as recited in Coach Carter:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people don't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

On iTunes is Lupe Fiasco's Beautiful Lasers (2 ways), rapping how there are two ways out of every situation.

This is not an unworthy activity or a sidetracked project that can be put to the wayside.  These are 30 kids who need the power to take on the world that will be theirs in less than a decade.  

I've said a challenge is either a lesson learned or an obstacle overcome.  Screw it, this will not be my year at the end.  #1 down, #2 to go.

My sea of red is going to be a color copy posted on my wall from now on.  No, you cannot go to bed just because you feel a little bit sleepy.  No, this cannot be a "we'll see" day.

Any Given Sunday comes to mind right now: 

Heal as a team, or crumble as individuals.  There are inches everywhere to be had, who's going to fight for that extra inch?

What do I want to feel as I look back upon this moment, pride for a turning point, or shame for the beginning of stagnancy.

Hard work = good memories.

I remember the one time I broke down during the summer.  A kid felt unknown in class. Unhelped.  Unserved for what he needed.

I felt in need once.  People responded and I always felt like I had a net.

No kid can fall because of this.  They will rise.

The thoughts begin to transform from a storm to a calmness.  Is this the eye or the edge of it?

Tonight- go home, grade, plan for a better day tomorrow.   Every day is a new day, right?

Setting the tone.

Last week, I did a personal experiment on how teaching personality affects tone of my classroom.  

Up until this point, I had been a very high energy, managerial, positive-pushy-pseudo dictatorial teacher in my classroom.  Many students were compliant and on task, and a few of my students were reacting adversely.  (Slight non-compliance, strong reaction to negative consequences.)

Last weekend, in grad school class, I heard a fellow teacher talk about how she tried to imitate the unfathomably calm tone of a colleague, and saw surprisingly successful results.  Why not? I figured.

I decided that I would be the calmest teacher my students had seen.  Nothing would phase me.  Bad behavior would still not be acceptable, but I would calmly ask the loud child to take his voice down a few notches, rather than make him stay with me during lunch.

It was like someone had slipped a sedative into the drinking water.  My students began to calm themselves, with more smiling and less fear of consequences.  Some students were asking me why I was so happy, yet they unconsciously found themselves in a better mood in my class as well.

I learned two lessons from this:

1) It is better to be the sun than the wind.  My students might do what I need them to do if I were managerial, but I do not naturally have the managerial personality.  I like to be positive, and I think that my students will want to work harder in a positive (and high expectations) environment, especially in the long term.  Which kind of class would you want to be in?

2) Students will feed off of your energy.  If you respond to behavior by getting annoyed, raising your voice, and confronting the behavior with contest, they will too.  If you emphasize calmness in your words, and soft voices when reasoning out troubles, what you do think they will do?

In the ocean.

The Fish

Is there just one person for each person?  That singular person, who is everything that you want, you everything they need?

I would not say there are singular soul mates.  Part of me wants to know how many people exist in the world that have all or nearly all of the qualities I look for.  (A curiosity for life and desire for growth, a quick mind, a deep thoughtfulness, and a positive energy are important for me, to name a few.)  In the game of odds, how many women live like that?

Swim, don't fish.

I often wonder, how married couples felt about their partner when they met and over the course of them falling in love.  Were they seeking each other?  Was it a random meeting?

For the years since I first became interested in the attraction of others (a relatively recent experience, college was the first time I spent much time during the day in the presence of girls.), I was searching.  Waiting for a connection.  When I felt a spark, I went in with a net, aggressively pursuing.  Fish swim away fast when you chase them.

When I decided to simply swim in the water, I found that the other fish were more open to swimming nearby.  The closest I've come to something, came from a simple conversation, without a pursuit or goal in mind.  Just the presence of another.

In any ocean.

I've learned over the past year that when you are fishing for anything, the fish rarely bite.  When you want to spend time with someone, don't act like you are fishing.  You are swimming, and they are welcome to join.  When you want the respect of your kids, don't fish for it.  Swim along, do what you need to do, and they will come along.  If you need them, they will know it.

Even in networking.  I remember a time when a U.S. ambassador came to our college, and attended a dinner afterwards.  Someone came up to him, and after about three minutes of conversation, handed him her business card for a media group.

Too much fishing.  I hated the idea of networking after that.

Then I saw others who understood.  They sought to support others, never fishing for their support.  They sought the interesting ideas and stories others wanted to share.  They did not fish for connections.

When you seek anything, keep in mind what you might be doing that comes off as fishing.  Don't chase them all away.

Do Tiggers create Eeyors?

2 characters from the children's classic, Winnie the Pooh.  Eeyor is the ever-sullen donkey, Tigger the always energetic and peppy Tiger with a curled tail he bounced on like a spring.

When I was younger, my Dad used to describe me as a Tigger.  I loved singing in the hallways, and had a little extra energy for life on a normal day.  It seemed accurate to me.  I'm a singer to this day, and try to keep smiling whenever I can.

The question of the day: What do Tiggers do to people who are not at the Tigger level?  If one is either in between the two, or in an Eeyor mood, what is the affect of seeing a Tigger?

I always thought that positive energy breeds more positive energy.  That seeing someone smile brought that out in you.

But someone recently suggested that similarity might be what is needed for positivity to radiate.  It might be that what makes us feel good is to see that someone is like us, that they are going through the same thing, that they understand us and our experience.  Simply, that they are a human like us.

Through significantly challenging experiences, I have tried to keep my spirits high by holding things lightly, allowing myself to psychologically flow with what happened.  On a bad day, "It's never boring," with a light, floating smile.  As a first year teacher, I've been told this is not the norm.  Am I not being real?  Perhaps not expressing everything I could.  But I am expressing what I need to so I can push towards the next day with joy.

I don't think these two are necessarily mutually exclusive, though.  Tiggers don't have to create Eeyors.  What is key is whether they understand each other.

If we see someone smiling in a tough situation, we feel separated from them, like they are understanding only their own world that moves with them from place to place like a personal quarantine inflated bubble.

But if the smile can reach out and connect, an understanding, an I get it smile, maybe that bubble can be broken and we can all breath the same air together.  Smiles can be good, if they connect.  Now the next step is to keep smiling while developing the I get itness.

I'll always be a Tigger.  Will I get you to start bouncing on your tails?  We'll see.

Sponges and the self in the pursuit of excellence.

Sponges

I walk through the streets every day, watching people going about their lives.  They have their own style to doing things in and outside of work.  Routines, relaxation, personal organization permeate what they do and how well they do it.

How do we learn to do something in our lives, ever?  We see, watch, or hear how it is done by someone else.  How to talk, say please and thank you, shake hands like a pro.

How do we learn to something better?  We see it done better.  We learn to speak like a President, give praise like a, well, teacher, and shake hands like a salesman, because we see them done in our lives.

Let's say that every person is working at 90% of their potential, in terms of how awesomely they can do the things in their lives that matter.  We all have weaknesses that we can improve.  (If there is a perfect person out there, please do let me know.)

Maybe for half of what they do well, it is 100%, and for the other half, they are doing things at 80% of what it could be.  These are not going to be the same things for everyone.  So what if we took the something done at 100% from each person we see?

If we do it until we have a way of doing nearly each thing at 100%.  Suddenly, moving from 90% (if you are great from the start), or 80% (if you are average at the start of something) to body temperature (98.6%) or even higher does not seem so hard.

I am a sponge.  When I see someone doing something better than me, I like to remember it and make it my own.  How to speak, how to organize my free time.  At school, I ask if I can take photos of every teacher's classroom- they have years of experience on me and do things a lot better.  Whether it is celebratory student exhibitions or progress tracking charts, why wait until I get more experience to do them too?

Move down the learning curve fast, and you get closer to excellence.  Learn to do better when you are younger.

The Self


"But you're just copying everyone else.  Where's the originality?"

What is truly you? As I've discussed before, there is rarely something that organically grows from within ourself, independent of outside influence.  It is simply a continuum on which the degree of explicit outside influence shows in what we do.

Where is the me in it?

Nietzche described the self not as a pearl of something original in ourselves, but rather the molding of all the things that we are and have been into a continuously coherent self.  Not a pearl, but rather a balloon that encapsulates everything that can float around on its own.

Our balloons of life fill with a bit more air of experience every day, allowing us to reach even greater heights.  Yes, my balloon has patches of others'.  I'm making a big balloon.

The secret society.

We carry two bags.

We have special titles that nobody but those in our domain would use.

We have signals for groups, unique to our location but common in purpose.

We carry chart paper.

We carry red pens or highlighter's wherever we go.

We sit in the subway at 6:30 in the morning, iPod in and dressed for a wonderful but lengthy day.

We have purpose in our eyes, intention in our walk, seriousness in our stance.

We shop at our own stores.

We are teachers.

It is strange how much being a teacher reminds me of a secret society.  Every day, we walk amongst the others, cognizant that we are all something slightly different.

Whenever I meet another person, be it at a coffee shop, outside a street vendor, or on the subway, there is something in our demeanors- perhaps a special hormone that the profession forces us to develop- that we recognize in each other.  A special openness to others, a keenness for explanation, or a love of learning something new.

And when we see that we are both teachers, it is as if we understand the depth of each other at a new level, without saying a word.  

It feels like a fraternity.  (I cannot speak for veterans, but I wonder if they have a similar feeling.)  It provides the joy of community, the solace of not being alone, the energy of a greater purpose.

What would happen if we could bring that feeling to every person as an American, or as a human?  How could the world change if we felt that community with every person we met?

Jack of all trades...

but a master of none, they say.  That's bogus.

There is something to be said for spreading ourselves too thinly, such that we're never able to develop any meaningful understanding of anything.

I have seen too many specialists, however, that in the narrowness of their expertise are unable to really do great things.  I think that no longer does excellence come from knowing one thing well, but rather from being able to synthesize something different from a wide variety of sources.

I spread my studies in college.  I did not maintain a singular focus.  I saw econ majors not understand the value of individual people and what they needed to understand to make our society work correctly.  I saw policy analysts not understand the intricacies of markets or personal interaction.  I saw educators not know how to scale their new ideas into the next world-changing ventures.

Do your trade.  Become an expert at it.  But I have not ever seen a reality in our world that can be seen through a single lens, or a problem that can be solved with a single-faceted solution.

It's all connected.  Why don't we practice making the connections?

Why I want to be bored.

Inspirational credit to Seth Godin, again.  As I work on my writing, I also want to work on my individuality, but for now I will allow expressive practice to take precedence over individuality.

(Stand on the shoulders of giants, and you will see farther, one might say.)

When do we think of new thoughts?  When we are on our iPhone, texting busily away to twenty different people?  When we are at work, checking off to-do's and completing projects?

When we are bored.

When our minds wander in the space of our thoughts like runaway balloons.

When we are not yet awake- after our dream is over, before the next day arrives to occupy our thoughts.

This is when I create anew.  If experience is the material of creativity, I believe boredom or  frustration of the mind is the playground.

Every day, we find new ways to occupy ourselves in every minute, because efficiency is productivity.

But that does not equate to creativity.  While you answer e-mails, I will leave my inbox a little more full, and my mind a little lighter.

I think a flying balloon travels farther than a good runner.

The Wind or the Sun?

THE WIND and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger You begin.” So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

Kindness, gentleness, and persuasion win over force in this fable.  (Mad Men, Episode 47). Does this work in teaching? I am in a classroom of sixth graders every day, and I am unsure which route to take with them.  In the world outside of my classroom, my friends say I am a positive, upbeat person with a boyish energy and smile. In the class, I am a stern (but fair) perfectionist who expects the best of every student and will accept nothing less. Which will win out?  I am fearful whenever I am not leading the class that students will act out in response.  I want them to be engaged for themselves, but how do I cross over the hot coals of giving them more responsibility and self-agency without losing order in the class? This is the transition I must make over the next month, because otherwise, I will have to be the ever-present guard, rather than the ever-supportive coach.

Original Creativity (Inspirational and creative credit to Seth Godin).

Where does that come from?

As a teacher, I see every day that new thoughts come from what we already have learned, experienced, or thought about previously.

There are, on occasion, times when a new thought comes to our head, something that did not exist before, for us or our world.

But I do not think it common that this is organic- that there is not a single part of our past that has an influence on what we create in our minds.

I believe that we set ourselves up for creativity by priming the pumps in our head with information, experience, and reflection.  It is synthesis and augmentation of the old into the new that is the source for much of our creativity in life.

A friend of mine from back in college told us that it is the most random thoughts that come together to form new thinking at his job.  The adage from economics, the sight of an interaction of people on the train, the disappointment looking at a new idea of someone else, with the knowing that something was missing.

We set ourselves up for creation, by actively considering what has happened before and molding it in our brains.  Like the laws of science dictate for the physical world, in the creative world, we don't ever create or destroy matter, we simply modify its form and structure.

This matter must come from somewhere.

We need our mental Play-Doh.

The top three things we do better because of Tetris:

1.) Pack our entire lives into a single car.
2.) Fit the cures to our appetite into a single fridge.
3.) Cram everything thing we might have a mind to do on vacation into a single bag.

But, what does this cause us to do?

We pack it in, but all that leaves us is a dense, impenetrable mass of what we are and what we enjoy.  We when pack it away, it is easy to forget.

Tetris is blocks that we want to get rid of.  Shouldn't our lives be all that we want to hold on to?

The problem with regrets

Is that they might just hold us back from what we want to do now.

I used to make a list of all the things that I wish I had done better in the past.  I realize, these just made me feel guilty, painfully nostalgic, and uninspired.  It felt more like a debt that I owed myself than a promise to continually grow.

We shouldn't forget our mistakes.  But we should think about how to frame them as an opportunity for being the person we want to be in the future.  I no longer want to write down my regrets.

Don't make a list of regrets, make a list of things you want to do in the future.

"For year 2, I want to think about how to invest my students into specific ways to improve themselves."
"I want to read books I want to read, so I can learn what I want to learn."
"I want to reach out to my friends as much as I can, so I can stay connected to them for the long term."

Who cares what I messed up in the past, as long as I am doing what I need to from here on out?

Control

When the to-do list gets too big, I feel the river getting deeper and moving faster.

When the needs are too great, and time too little, the currents pick up force.

When efficiency is too slow, and my maturity to sacrifice short-term pain for long-term gain weakens, I feel the water begin to splash against my face, and the pressure on my chest begin to build.

I grab a branch to pull myself out of the water completely- video games, movies, friends, non-relevant busywork that doesn't matter.

Only to realize that now the river just looks like it is moving even faster, because I am no longer moving with.  The change in pace becomes even more stark.

How do I swim downstream and remain calm in the moving water?  How does one not fear drowning?

The Teaching Song.

Adapted from The Lazy Song, by Bruno Mars.

The Teaching Song,
By Mr. MacCombie

Today I just feel like teaching everything (Do do do do do do)
I just want to get in their heads (Do do do do do do)
Don't feel like hearing them say no
I'll show them how far they can go
'Cause today I just feel like teaching everything
So that they'll know

They're gonna pick their heads up I'll stare 'til they can
Turn their brains on so they throw up their hands
Nobody's gon' tell them they can't

If they start feeling down they shouldn't ask me to be fluffy
They'll learn to help themselves, if I need to be a toughy
Cause in my classes I'm the freaking man

Oh yes, I said it, I said it
I said it 'cause I can

Today I just feel like teaching everything

I just want to get in their heads

Don't feel like hearing them say no

I'll show them how far they can go

'Cause today I just feel like teaching everything

So that they'll know.

Tomorrow I'll wake up, do some P90X
Teach all the students there, how to solve for any X
And they'll realize
This is great
(Oh my gosh, it equals 8!)

Nah they won't mess around
They need their college degrees
When I got mine my old man was so proud of me
Sorry prisons you'll just have to wait

Oh yes, I said it, I said it
I said it 'cause I can

Today I just feel like teaching everything

I just want to get in their heads

Don't feel like hearing them say no

I'll show them how far they can go

'Cause today I just feel like teaching everything

So that they'll know

No I won't let them have any fear
Each voice I will need to hear
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes

I'll just strut in my three-piece suit
And let no single kid hang loose
No, no, no, no, no
No, no, no, no, no, no

Oh, today I just feel like teaching everything

I just want to get in their heads

Don't feel like hearing them say no

I'll show them how far they can go

'Cause today I just feel like teaching everything

So that they'll know

It's all about framing.

I don't want you to sit next to her.  It's because I want you to learn.  (You are being rude when you talk in front of me).

I have 19 scholars sitting, showing me that they are ready to get going! (One of you is not paying attention right now.  Focus.)

I prefer to not be tied down by my script.  I speak from the heart.  (I don't like to write my thoughts down.)

For kids, friends, and yourself, it's much less about what is happening than about how you paint the picture for them.  It matters more than you think.  (Stop worrying about what happens, as long as you can come up with a good excuse.)

The three most important things we can say to someone.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

A compliment.

When was the last time that you did not appreciate someone saying these to you?  

In a persuasive communication class, a friend of mine asked each one of us to imagine someone to whom we most deeply wanted to say each one to, and then say so to a stand-in friend who didn't know what we were sorry about or thankful for.  The emotions that arose amazed us.  Relief, soothing, appreciation.

If there is one thing I appreciate in someone, it is thoughtfulness.  I don't think I am alone in valuing this.

What if every person sought to say each thing to a different person once a day?

I'm sorry to all who I am slow to respond to by e-mail.  It is not that I don't care, it's that I am so obsessive about writing the perfect e-mail that I stress myself out and avoid failure by avoiding communication.  I am working on this.  To Dan, Shruti, Bill, Jon, and my students' parents, I am sorry, and I will get better.  

Thank you to those who saw that I want to learn and get better.  Your encouragement and support means more to me than I could yet express in words.  Jeremy, Drew, Danny, Dad, Bill, and John, you have made the difference for me.

Fretty, you have the rare ability to make any person feel cared for, no matter who they are.  I noticed it from the start, and will always appreciate it.

When It's Us vs. Time...

Time always wins.

For much of my life, I felt like I was not in control of my surroundings.  In my mind, it was as if I was navigating a canoe in the middle of a river during a deluge, and fell overboard.  No branch on the bank to grab, no feet on the bottom, just helplessness as the current of time and circumstance carried me along.

Some of us deal with time by refusing change.  Some of us hold on to the past with a choking grip.  Some of us fret about the future, risk-averse and needing absolute control of what's to come.

I did it all.

Time passed as always, and I faced an experience that forced my grip open and made me look inside.

I saw that time was not still, and never would be.  I could either forever seek something to hold on to, or I could swim forward, with the river, accepting it's motion and navigating it lightly.  Time will always move.  All anchors in our live are at risk of floating away.  It is up to us to move ourselves along, and live at the same speed as the world around us.  When we realize that movement is the norm, we take a completely different viewpoint on life.

Delete five of those e-mails you have been wanting to read, but never seem to find the time to.  Just do it.  Don't worry, you'll never get to it, and another five will show up as soon as you do.

La vida continua.

To Get Better

Every day, I teach my students that to get better in class, we need to practice.  Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes 10,000 hours to become expert at anything.

This blog is hopefully not only a test of the veracity of this statement, but also a chance for me to be the change that I expect to see in my children- by practicing the things that I want to improve for myself.

A recent blog post by Seth Godin inspired me to start my own- we become strong speakers, he says, because we do it every day.  Why not become better writers in the same fashion?

So, here this is.  The first post, on what is hopefully a journey towards better expression with the written word, on the new realizations ("Teachers Lessons Learned") of a new teacher as he explores life in the big city.

Here's to living life, learning something new every day, and making great memories along the way.