Seemingly Gyrating

Not everyone loves their jobs. Undoubtedly over the last several years, and especially lately, I've begun to notice this fact. You can tell the ones that do. It's the cashier at Wal-Mart who is striking up a conversation during Black Friday with a line of impatient people awaiting her. It's the salesman that knows how to direct a conversation to where your answer will never be "no". It's also in the dance of a sign-flipper on a street corner, seemingly gyrating to no song in particular, offering no more than a free month's rent or 10 dollars of an oil change.

For a teacher, loving your job means a lot of things. Keeping yourself educated, willing to change, cooperation, calling parents when you really don't want to and grading papers until midnight. It's all of those things, and none of them in particular. I love my job.

Recently I attended a Leadership Conference of principals and teaching teams derived from each school building in my district. It was an opportunity to create a vision statement to drive the year's educators towards a common goal.

I sometimes think we are fighting a losing battle on so many fronts. One of the speakers was Bill Daggett, the guru of why every teacher in America either dreads or cheers when they hear the phrase "Rigor and Relevance". At one portion of his speech, he concluded we were the crazy ones. We sign up for committees, we dive in with new instructional strategies and we create our own environment by how we live. He explained the "rest" of the teaching field is comprised of the cynical and the defiant. The cynical teacher has heard it all before but won't buy in unless someone else tries it first. They are the reluctant kid on the diving board ladder, only hoisting himself upwards because everyone else was doing it. Diving in, they know water will get in their nose. The defiant teacher is the person, who for whatever reason, wont buy into any proposal. They will do anything to sabotage the system, and sometimes they even take the reluctant kid down with them.

The more and more I spoke to my friends about this, it became evident to me that everyone is like this to a certain extent when it comes to our jobs. There are the small percentage that love their career and profession. They provoke change in their environments, don't have to be told to be there early or to stay late. Sometimes, even, they allow the job to define them! There's the rank and file person just punching a clock as well. They will complain if others around them do or will praise of that's the vibe of the office. Most of the time they do just enough. The last percentage is growing. They are the ones who call in sick, they roll their eyes in meetings, show up late, complain. They are the cancers.

A series in church recently hit home on the topic of living the American Dream. We've gone from the Protestant work ethic to entitlements and TGIF. We tie in job status with life status. We work for the weekend and the vacation, nothing in between. Do I work for God or the school district? Who do you work for?

This past year I've taken this approach a bit too gung ho. I spoke up too much in the lounge and not enough in staff meetings. I judged others first and closed doors to those I felt weren't up to my standard. I debate with my colleagues about the changes I see coming to disrupt our teachers' union and end up alienating the very people I need to collaborate with. The lawmakers want us privatized. They want 100 percent results with a never-ending amount of variables. Diane Ravitch, a blogger for Education Week, recently brought her twitter followers into our world of No Child Left Behind standards. Would a mayor demand their police force to enact a 100% crime free city and fire the police when it doesn't happen? What if the military were supposed to enforce a world where we lived 100% free from terrorist? If not, anyone could become a NAVY Seal with little or no training. I see the bad teacher down the hall passing out packets and never using her technology and wonder if we should burn the whole system down just to fire one teacher per building. What's it worth to a company to scrape the cancer from its midst?

For the ones that love their jobs, no union would probably not be that much different to what they are already doing. We already are teaching 30 kids in a cramped classroom. We already are creating learning communities within their buildings to benefit the needs of the children first. No politician can take that away. Somehow, just maybe, God can give me the better words to say to bring others along with me.

No Floaties

My daughter just returned from her Puerto Rico mission trip. This is her second trip in the span of about four months. This past week we sensed her not being around a bit more than her past trip to Alabama. My son cried when we sent her off at the airport, and more than once one of the little ones slept in her vacant bed. I tried not to notice too much but my best intentions sometimes have the opposite effect.

My little one reached a milestone of her own. A few weeks ago, she began swimming on her own without the help of her body float. Nothing in the paragon of a life-changing mission trip, but one small step into a more independent world. In her world, it's the "no floatie" era. Instead of clinging to me in the pool and directing me to stand in certain areas to catch her as she belly flops her way to me, she pretty much uses me now as a temporary buoy towards her next destination. I'm no longer needed as her life line, except for the few times water fills her nose.

When we took our eldest to the airport, we watched as the teenagers and college age kids prepared to embark. One set of kids, two sisters and a brother, were without their parents. Not unusual but of course I pointed it out to my wife. (The eldest is 24, the middle one a sophomore in college). Look at them, I wondered, they're so independent they don't even need their parents to help them. Here we are with mine, we're right beside her, telling her when the check-in lady asks, "Have you been in possession of your bags?" make sure to say yes! The middle daughter of the three we were watching works at a local coffee shop. I caught her on her very first day, wide-eyed and frustrated enough to find that placing a lid on a large coffee was a daunting task. After briefly talking about having first job jitters, she replied, "My dad cut me off now that I'm in college." Who even uses the phrase "cuts me off"? It sounds like she stepped out of a Great Gatsby-esque novel.

I grew somewhat envious. Who are these brave parents? Who "cuts off" their kids to find jobs on their own? Who sends off their kids to the airport without a wave or goodbye (now, I'm being biased here, maybe they were dropped off)? Were these parents of envy or parents of scorn?

From the beginning it's been a tug and pull relationship with my eldest daughter. I know God is preparing me for what lies ahead, when she is fully entrenched in college and living on her own, married, with a family to take care of. There have been preparations for this moment before. As a fifth and sixth grader, we began to share much of her time with her many several friends, and we haven't really looked back. We just ate dinner with one of her softball teammates. It's a minute gripe, sharing time, but over the course of years you wonder where all the time has gone. School functions, softball, church, we've watched our daughter transform into this amazing young woman. Her trip to Puerto Rico pretty much summed up her life with us. She found herself in some minor scrapes, fell into a bed of sea urchins, was stung by a jellyfish and probably almost drowned. She also cliff dived, read devotions on the beach, and fell in love. She had the life of a movie. She also had her life, without my intervention. She's swimming without her floatie.

My little one still needs me. She clings to me in bed and warrants a but wiping every trip to the bathroom. She sometimes gets her arms tangled in the straps of her blouse and she always needs me to pour her a cup of chocolate milk. But this is where I have it all wrong. My eldest needs me too, just in a different way. She doesn't need me for study help or coaching. She does value me as an observer, someone who will challenge her decisions and to help her when her back tire gets flat. I'm in the realization that Lisa has never been mine to begin with--she's God's. I've just been put here to nurture her growth. The same is with my little one. I should be happy she's jumping into her pool of life, never once looking back at the dad who just wants to swim with her.

The Complaint Coach

I've always been an avid people watcher. From as long as I can remember, I've always marveled at the complexities of the human face. Not one person looks alike (well, it is said we all have one twin) and the millions of shades and shapes of a face can create so many distinct looks. That said, people's personalities and actions in public have always been intriguing as well.

My very first job I worked as a bagger and runner for a inner city grocery store. With me never really learning Spanish, I really worked on learning body cues, eyes and body language. Moms frustrated with kids, the various staff that ranged from retired grandmas who returned to the working field and young kids in college who were already living on their own. I was used to catching people's glances, the eyes of a man watching a woman walk down an aisle, a flirtatious look between co-workers, the late-night redness of eyes after a few too many. The hardest face ever for me to read was that of Mr. Lao, one of my supervisors. The Vietnamese man never showed any type of emotion. He would have won the lottery and you would have thought he dropped a kidney stone.

After a few other service jobs that had more to deal with behind the scenes work, I began a long "career" of sorts with the county Toll Road. All I did was see faces! Morning faces, business faces, drunks, the police behind large aviator sunglass faces (too many viewings of "Cool Hand Luke"!), the looks of confused people driving the wrong way, the astonished look of people after an accident.

Being able to read faces (or at least the luxury of trying) has served me well as a teacher. I know the look of a kid who is confused and the kid too cocky to have even looked for his answer within the text. I know the looks of kids who probably were getting the business from their moms before they rode the bus, only to hear it from the bully or the one kid in class who can't read but is always talking trash about how smart they are.

Of course, reading kids is only half the fun. Working with fellow teachers is another sub category of people watching. As a cut-up myself, I had to know which teachers were prime for ridicule, sarcasm or nothing whatsoever. Now being on the other side, teachers are so fun to watch. I love the looks across the room when a principal spouts a philosophy they're not buying into. Or the look down onto a phone when looking for a volunteer. I especially love the looks of teachers in the summer.

My wife and I signed up for a development day, but were moved along to the side as everyone storms in at 9 (we want kids to be there on time, but we are allowed to show up whenever we want). One lady was not "registered" and was having a hard time being told to wait and wasn't convinced she was going to get her stipend. This was the moment when she decided to look around the hall at the many of us waiting alongside. She needed some support for her frustration and surely her teacher brethren would stand by her side and ease her frustration by agreeing with her. All she saw from my wife and I were shrugs and smiles. It's like the guy in line at a fast food restaurant who just had cheese on his hamburger and didn't ask for it and has to look around the entire place for someone else who was wronged. Dude, if I wanted someone to spit in my food, I'd ask, otherwise take your grievance elsewhere!

Once we entered the room, I was struck more with the decor of the building. Old pictures adorned the walls (one frame showcased scholars that suspiciously ceased in 2006) and the library windows were postered with reading campaigns from the early 90's. The heat was no better. Since the building had AC in only some of the rooms, it seemed fitting we were pitted in room without. The sound of box fans whirled around the room. Everyone had sweat on their foreheads. One large man sat in the high school sized chair and sweated profusely. His arms seems almost too small for his body. We never saw him after lunch.

One group of teachers were from the same building. I loved their camaraderie and conversations, he sharing of a pack of gum, the same destination for lunch and hair tied back in a pony. I loved the look of the guy in the Darth Vader rolling chair, his Charlie Sheen shirt sweating along with him. Even the lady with the perpetual smirk drew my attention. She too was like the registration lady in that she wanted some confirmation from the room on the day's dynamics--the heat, the computer problems, the stalling of the professional staff. I never once smiled at her as I didn't want her to somehow influence me into her worldview. People in complaint mode, teachers or otherwise, always someone in their camp. They are like prize boxers who cannot walk into a ring without an entourage. They are surrounded by back-patters and towel wavers. Even when their faces are being pummeled, they can sit next to their complaint coach and fight another round.

How did I stay cool? I teased my wife with "I hate yous" and drawing in her book. I wiped sweat on her arm and judged her choice of lecture snacks. I dozed off. Tomorrow we go back. I'm wondering how many will return (knowing that we are getting a stipend will mean they will come back, if anything, they will complain more because they feel entitled to being paid). My wife and I will be there. Nothing to complain about that.

Finding the King

There's something to be said about a proper ending. Movies used to get them right before the age of the sequel. The killer keeps being resurrected by the dollar, the monster leaves a nest somewhere hidden by the screenwriter and the hero's 50 foot fall was only an illusion. TV shows are more problematic. Sometimes they get cancelled halfway through a season. Some you invest your time in only to realize you'll never know how their stories end. The only season of "Freaks and Geeks" is a prime example. I'll never know what happened to those kids after their summer.

In life, you hardly ever get to have the right ending. People move, people die. Most of are lucky to have that "Shane" movie ending where the kid calls out our name as we lay slumped over a horse riding into the sunset. Better yet, we don't even die a anti-hero's death like in "The Wild Bunch," in slow motion glory while we take 50 mexicans to hell along the way. Ask Steve McQueen how he felt about his ending, as he traveled to Ohio for treatment of cancer that wouldn't quit. Cancer loves matinee idols, heroes, cowboys, moms and even kids.

Today my daughter played her final game of the summer. For about 15 minutes or so, the girls stood in a circle and simply stared at one another. Some of the girls will never play with their high schools again, or travel softball. They are moving on to college where the game will be more like a job. Their tears are not tears of fear. Perhaps it was a simple innocence. They know the next time they will see each other it will be under different circumstances.

Amid their ending, parents too stood in a wavy line around them, shaking hands, hugging, and crying too. To many of us, it was an ideal ending. Another chapter in the volume of parenting. My book has yet to be written, so to speak, or has found its ending.

Characters have come and gone, resurfaced and changed. Some remain static. I don't remember the literary term for them in my mind, but my writing teacher warned they were only needed to further to make the main character grow. Too many and your novel was doomed. A friend told me this weekend that the static players in my life are there simply because, as a teacher, I'm used to seeing results. I expect change, I demand it, perhaps.

So I find myself in the middle chapters. There's so many characters in my book. I'm not privy to who will remain or who will change. One thing I do know, it is not my responsibility to "make" them grow along with me. Leading a bible study, praying or inviting them over for wings or barbecue will not suddenly transform anyone and my epiphany is simply this: It's okay. I have to release the teacher in me.

I've been reading about the cheating scandal in Atlanta. Teachers changing answers, erasing furiously in locked rooms. Placing poor performing students next to the smart ones so reading their answers would be easier (hell, we already do that in non-testing situations!). I don't want to be that person. I cannot move people along a chess board with hopes they will find their King. I cannot erase anyone's mistakes, simply to bubble in their next step with a #2 pencil.

I do want that perfect ending. It's the human part of all of us. We want to fly around the earth like Christopher Reeves after he saves the planet from leather-clad villains. I want to stand on the podium as Princess Leia places the medal around my neck, barking like Chewbacca. I want to stand in the circle like my daughter and her teammates, shedding a tear with the ones I love, our uniforms dirty from life, but alive and willing to see what is next.

Chuck

His name was Chuck. I will tell you upon seeing him that I judged him. He opened the door for my family as we walked into Waffle House this morning. He was kind enough, and I didn't think about him because of his kindness. I judged him only in the sense that I was a coward for not going up to him and introducing myself. Why? It was his look from the counter on my family and the one next to me. It was his smile. It was more because of his eyes.

I've always been an observer. I spent more time in school sitting in the back because I wanted to see everyone in front of me. I wanted to see the glances across the room when the teacher turned around. I wanted to see the yawns and leans over the desk when pencils fell. Still to this day, I normally sit facing the door in restaurants. I love to see couples come in, the dads struggling with rambunctious boys, single women who look like more concerned with their phones than their meal. Delcina and I, waiting to catch a flight to Houston sat in the airport once and just watched people. We made stories about them. We chuckled at the reunions of couples that didn't match and kids who didn't seem appreciative of the person walking down the runway.

In one of my writing courses, probably my freshman or sophomore year in college, our professor gave us these well-glossed photographs of people. A woman sitting on a bench, a homeless man, kids running through a sprinkler. We were to write compositions about those pictures, an essay about these people's lives. I'm sure then the professor, upon reading our papers, found this a futile exercise in just how naive and immature we were as people and especially as writers. I don't remember what I wrote or the photograph I used, but when I used to write fiction I frequently tried to place myself in other people's shoes. I wanted to wear their lines on my face. I wanted to feel their pain and love and depression.

On my first night of my Emmaus walk, I brought this imagery and the deconstruction of people's faces into that church. I sat among the 30 or so men, most of them white and silently judged them. I pegged them as country boys, white trash, biker trash and hillbillies. I saw them as stuffy button-shirts and academia snobs. I firmly felt I had nothing in common with these men and they surely saw me as that minority guy they don't want moving in their neighborhoods.

And I've always felt this way. When I moved to Ohio, I moved into a small town where just about every business was located on, where else, main street. I would pull beside people on the road and they'd wave. I wasn't used to that. You pull up next to someone in Houston, they give you the finger. I would routinely go along with the misconception that I was from the Middle East (typically Libya for whatever reason) or that I somehow actually celebrated Cinco de Mayo by doing something other than drinking a Dos Equis.

And so I'm back to Chuck. The couple next to us brought in three boys. I too was amused by the high-chaired lad whose cheeks were covered in pudding, and the one son who was eyeing the kitchen. While I looked on at them, at my own kids, so was Chuck. Now I knew his name form the work uniform he was wearing. And it's here that I started my inner story, that judgement.

I took the work clothes and grimy hands that he was a hands-on, mans man. I don't know if it's a deep down resentment of these blue jean clad men who can erect houses in hours or the guy who can repair a motor with a wrench. I am not the working mans man.

I took the expression on his face as something wholeheartedly more. Was this a man who raised his own children? Did Chuck ever have these sit-down moments with his own kids? So here I am answering these questions and painting the picture of a lonely grandpa without anyone share breakfast with. By the end of the meal, all I wanted to do, was shake the guys hand and talk about his life. I wanted to know if his son ever talked to him, or how many wives he had (there goes my judgement again). But I didn't.

I'm thankful I get to share my meals with my loved ones, worship with friends and my nights with my loving wife. One thing my dad and step dad both possess is that willingness to be secluded. My dad is perpetually alone in the house he was raised in. I wonder if the walls ever seem smaller to him. Do the sounds of the past ever keep him awake? My step-dad has remarried. We talk infrequently but when we do I hear the voice of the man who raised me. I know both men's efforts have resulted in me. Their like the Chucks who follow me around even when I don't know it, holding the doors for me, smiling down on my kids.

Fishing

Summer is two weeks gone, and it's feeling like an entirely new year. Delcina nor I received summer school opportunities, so we pretty much thought we'd be twiddling our thumbs and wondering what to do. For me, this meant I would get the chance, perhaps, to serve more at church, to actually attend church consistently and to live within our means.

Living within our means will be the toughest hurdle to leap. We have active/busy lives that lead to poor eating choices, late nights and an entertainment bill that sometimes soars. We like our movies, our favorite restaurants and taking the kids somewhere to play.

The serving part has been easier. This was supposed to be the week we started school. Instead, I volunteered for Vacation Bible School. And I went in full force by becoming a large group leader, which means I rotate with two others and teach the lesson of the day. I get to dress up like a cowboy (well, one who wears funny looking chaps made out of bathroom rugs), and be silly. It's pretty much me doing a monologue, reading lines and playing games. Aside from Emmaus, it has to be one of the most fun experiences I've been a part of.

Being a teacher, I guess it's not a stretch to teach the same lesson to 4 different groups, ranging from pre-K to fifth grade. However I have been blessed by their intelligence, patience and willingness to allow a grown man to be silly in front of them. This past week has led a lots of reflection of where I am and where I am going.

Recently, it seems as if God has been pin pointing me for something I am not too sure I can handle. You know, it is said that he will give you only what you can handle, but sometimes the earthly, worldly living wants to take over. It wasn't too many years ago that I was doing things my way. Avoiding church, seeking out selfish endeavors and basically trying to be the biggest ass in the room. Now, this is not saying I don't still do these things! I'd like to think I do them with less frequency, with more forethought and reflection afterwards and with a feeling of becoming everyone's best friend.

Recently too I've been receiving challenges to do even more. Friends that are dealing with pornography issues, marriage issues, running bible studies and coordinating life groups. This is from the same guy who would seek out the foulest video store just to view their curtained back room where the XXX tapes awaited. The person who has thrown countless hundreds, perhaps thousands down the drain on websites and videos. The same person who used to think shows like "Two and a Half Men" didn't quite get foul enough.

So this is me, the guy who isn't being asked to hang out at bars during the week. The guy that my wife says the kids "love" at VBS. The guy running life groups and being asked to speak. Lately, I've shrugged off the pressure, but when I sit alone with the computer in front of me at night, that computer that would offer me anything within one click of a mouse, I get to fishing. Fishing my brain for that past self to resurface. Was that one tantrum I had with my wife earlier the start of something? Was my lack of patience with the kids going to continue? I literally have to close the laptop, and it's not that those thoughts and desires wont follow me to bed, but it's a point in my favor when I can resist.

And the next day, I greet the day, do some reading and head to church (this week, with a slight congestion!). I clap and smile and sigh at getting as close to winning as I can possibly do. The smiles of those around me tell me more about where I am than what I think. Jesus is proud, I see it in the smiles of my friends, and those kids. What else is there to do but accept those looks and smile back, right?

Time-lined Confessional

Tomorrow marks the last day of this 2011 school year, my ninth year as a fourth grade teacher. It's been a special year. Not discounting the other ones, but they were in order:

2001: My first year, the one where I went into team meetings feeling like I had nothing to offer. The year a colleague was forcibly transferred during Christmas and by the end of the year, I ran myself into a verbal confrontation with another partner. This was the year of 9/11, when I walked past the hallways where kids were watching cartoons for indoor recess on a crisp, sunny day while the teachers were huddled in an empty room watching people fall from the sky.

2002: I took most of my third graders to fourth grade this year, moved hallways, found new partners and made bonds that have lasted me throughout my teaching career. All my point systems and discipline models worked. I felt accomplished. The fifth graders down the hall scared me. The boys had facial hair and the girls all wore tight pants and smiled suggestively. The entire wing smelled of bathroom, spoiled milk from the dumpster and recess sweat.

2003: My second year in fourth grade was a team-teaching year with two of my best friends. We raised test scores, took kids to Kings Island at the end of the year and I started to get this crazy idea of starting a soccer team. I started to recognize most of the kids in the building and they knew who I was. No more strange looks when i told a kid to line up. High fives in the cafeteria. We would joke in the teachers' lounge on how many kids were named after alcoholic drinks.

2004: This began the "golden era" at my old school. I started my soccer team with zero funds and plenty of passion. I drove those kids to practice, home and their games. We scuffed up the floors and wore our uniforms on game days. We would kick soccer balls on the roof during recess so I would make periodic walks up this thin air chute/ladder and wave at kids from the roof as school released. This is ironic in how I viewed the entire neighborhood and my role as a staff member. I started thinking of myself as a prima donna. I acted like the school needed me instead of the other way around.

2005: A tumultuous year for me. I had my largest class size to day, about 31-32 students. Most of them did not get along with anyone, much less me. I yelled a lot. I grew cocky with administration. Soccer was rocketing forward. In my personal life, my wife had been pregnant and miscarried twice that year. It was this summer that we began to foster care. Lisa came to live with us.

2006: I moved to the very last room on that back hallway, which was another indicator of how I felt within that school. My attitude only grew worse, more from burnout in running the soccer team everywhere, home, a lack of spiritual life and lots of other issues that were something then but nothing now. I think I was probably the most sarcastic I had ever been, and I began to draw battle lines.

2007: My last year. I dropped all soccer commitments that summer as Cruz was getting older and Milly had just been born. I needed to become more of a father but had no idea what that role was to be. I had a great group of kids. Two girls who fought constantly, a kid from Africa who made proved that our own American kids just didn't have much of an educational priority. I sat on my ass a lot that year. The heat of the building was both literal and figurative, and it burned a hole through the middle of me.

2008: My first year at Shady Lane. I was teaching with my wife, a new school, a new principal. It was a brand new start. I was given 20 something fifth graders who tested my patience and ran the batteries from all my timers because I was always giving them ultimatums and prisoning them with deadlines. I thought I was a horrible teacher and no one was going to tell me the truth because my wife worked there and telling me so would hurt their friendship with her. I grew paranoid, but by October I took on a 4/5 split class and enjoyed the fruits of probably the highest class I have ever taught.

2009: My most polite class. Loved these guys. I went on my Emmaus walk in the winter of this year and it has since propelled me into looking back and appreciating where I am, where I've been and where I am going. I wanted to bring those qualities out in my kids, and it just has given many of them a safe place to act like how they have been raised to act.

And cut to now. My old arrogance hasn't completely diminished. Being the only man in the building gives me the idea that if I just had more men with me, we'd have this school-thing down pat. I keep having to apologize for things I say, and I realize that I rarely tolerate apologies in my classroom--"You wouldn't need to say sorry if you were doing the right thing" I would say, or "Show me your apology in your actions." I haven't found the thin line between encouraging the adults around me and being discouraging with my own complaints. Same goes for my kids. I read some old letters today, and more than one noted that I would get angry, or that I would "get" those that don't do their work. I look through cumulative folders and see a drop in someone's grades and wonder if it was me. I have high expectations as my neighbors surely do, no more, no less. Surely I haven't been as sarcastic as Mrs. Such-n-such? Was it a wasted year for that kid? Did I reach them or push them away.

Tomorrow, I'll be playing games with my kids and enjoying their company. I'm giving hugs and being hugged. I might even tear up a little. Not because of missing them over the summer, but for the work that is yet to be done. I cry for their futures. And I cry for mine sometimes too.