2020 to 2021

Oh, 2020. You little rascal. You got us all with your little surprises. I wrote about my hopes for you on January 1, in an essay called Peeping into 2020.


I’ve not been one to make resolutions, but my Twitter profile has become a place that sums me and my efforts in 160 characters or less. Revising it annually has become a fun practice. Here are my 2018 and 2019 ones:






And here’s my 2020.



It’s evolved a bit over the year- which is not something I’ve done before- all thanks to what 2020 ended up being and how I responded to it. I added the she/her. I switched my photo a couple of times- at one point I was so upset at the US political landscape I changed my photo to a picture of a tree stump roughly cut by a chainsaw. My pinned tweet became not a plug to sell my books, but to remind myself and others of my involvement in this country’s problems (more on that to follow).


In 2020, I had hoped to write about and learn new ways to present information on how we humans are amazingly linked to each other and to our natural surroundings. I had visions of officially studying and exploring first-hand in my own life and environment the types of connections I had read about in Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees or Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass in 2019. I pictured filling myself and those I was privileged enough to teach with wondrous examples of these amazing truths and being inspired to project that new understanding into imagining and building a more unified and beautiful future for us all. I imagined bringing people together in closer harmony and understanding to both each other and all the green spaces.

Sometimes, our connections can threaten us or take us down unplanned paths.

Then, a new-to-us microbe living in China leaped into that web of connections and threw our globe into chaos. On top of that, the simmering racial inequities in the US blew up as more Black lives met early deaths at the hands of police. As each country in the world reacted to SARS-CoV2, we learned so many things about worldwide medical and science preparedness and how leaders can cultivate or destroy hope and direction. I saw political affiliation eat away at things I thought everyone could agree upon.

The US’s gutted interest in and means to provide communal needs like public health were dramatically exposed to the world this year.

Some might say this microbe is simply another facet of the world’s connections that we need to adjust to- that some individuals will perish but a new balance will eventually be found overall. Some might say that the loss of certain people or peoples is simply part of that every changing balancing act, too.


Those notions seem way too easy for me to accept. They free us from any responsibility for our choices and actions and that's not right. Cain’s story reminds us we are each other’s keepers. We are, or can be, stewards of all we touch. I think I spoke to that in my Twitter profile when I said “everyone has outside burdens”: we should try to HELP each other because we ALL have burdens. COVID19 became a universally shared one.


2020 hammered home to me that I need to be even more inclusive- my long-term belief in us being stronger together? For all my unity fervor (how many times have I typed "we're stronger together"?), I could do way more thinking, speaking, and writing to promote and argue for that truth. I will do so in 2021. Learning of historian Heather Cox Richardson this year has been an incredibly positive thing for me as she is able to wonderfully describe where we are politically and how we got here. Her social media and others have opened my view on how many people are on this path to understanding. Folks like Robert Reich and Stacey Abrams give pointers on what we can do about it all.

It’s ALL connected. WE are all connected. And NONE of us is more or less “human”.

Political sectarianism has settled into the US and I struggle against siloing or vilifying myself. In 2021, I pledge to speak up and stand up, but to also gut-check. Am I shaming or finding commonalities? Am I escalating a situation or cultivating space for us all to work through some stuff? I’m looking back at my experience with PlayWorks and places like tolerance.org for inspiration.


What could that look like?


“I hear you say…” Truly listen.

“I see you…” Validate.

“I also like…” Connect.

“What are your three favorite foods?” De-escalate.

“I’m interested in our success together…” Extend that hand.

“What if we…” Collaborate.

“Let’s table this for now.” Walk away from conflict.

What exactly do I hope for in 2021?

Here's my 2021 Twitter:

ONE BOAT: Nationally, we need massive efforts on multiple fronts: public health, social justice, green economy, education, infrastructure, and health care. Covid is top, but the others are vitally connected. By the end of 2021, I just want to see some progress on all these. We didn’t get here overnight. We won’t get out of it overnight, either. Dr. Richardson was a reminder to me of that truth and I hope to read one of her books this year to further my understanding.REAL PEOPLE AND THE PLANET: We need to show we care about both. That we need to care for both. It's not about years old customs and stock prices. 

STAY ENGAGED: To that end, I want to see an expanding political/societal participation by all the people at all levels- especially state and local. Volunteering somewhere. Supporting candidates. Talking with family and friends. Attending meetings as a citizenry. It’s important. Unfortunately, our problems are so big, many can’t do much more than try to survive. Those who can, should.


Personally, I just want us all to feel a little safer- to not feel like everything's hanging by a thread. That's #1. Then, I’d love to work with others and earn some sort of reward in return- money, food, other? Keeping busy would also help me shed some of those pandemic pounds. I’d love my kids to get back into society and the oldest to get a job and his driver’s license. A nature-based retreat sounds delightful: I want stars, water, and living stuff. And a bustling gathering of friends with great food, music, and drinks would be a dream come true. That's it. Well, that and finally see BTS again live. 


Here’s to a 2021 that sustains us. May we find ourselves more grounded by what we do and experience in the next 12 months. May we be open to fully experiencing all of it, but also able to not cling to any of it. It's the breathing of life that's crucial to our growth and development. 



Peace!

Not Fun and Games

My husband was playing a quick round of Clash Royale this morning. He’s a serious gamer, but his face folded into even deeper creases than usual as he tapped the screen. Then he growled, “I’m playing against someone who’s screen name is a Nazi’s name.”

I confess that I’m paraphrasing him. He said the name, along with some colorful adjectives. We both knew the name. We knew the name was intentionally chosen. I choose not to put it down in print yet again.

I’ve written before about the importance and weight our words have, in The Word Soup We’re Living In.  I also went into the concept of constructive or destructive words back in January, with Are We Cultivators or Killers. That piece, in retrospect, is child-like in the examples I shared of destructive words. I think the overall validity of its message remains true, however.

Where we let our minds linger affects us all.

All too often, we hear excuses such as, “I was just joking.” or “I didn’t do anything.”. In this world with more information at our fingertips than ever before, we also repeatedly hear “I didn’t know.” and “It wasn’t *that* bad.”. There is a real or perceived disconnect between self, one’s actions and others.

Excuses. Feigned Ignorance. Self-Preservation. Anger. Fear.

It doesn’t matter which one it is, we have to stop. It’s possible to change and imperative to do so. I’m still a firm believer in the potential good that each individual human can cultivate, despite the vast array of examples on the opposite side of the spectrum. I believe our potential altitude goes both positive or negative: for however far down someone falls, I bet there’s someone somewhere doing something that much better than was done before.

Positive messages are out there.

Organizations such as Playworks bring inclusive play and social skill development to playgrounds and schools. Restorative justice systems exist that bring victims and their offenders together for real healing and growth. Grist magazine publishes a list of 50 Fixers who are putting their skills and passions in building better ways around the world. Musicians are stepping up to improve the lives of diabetics (Nick Jonas’s BeyondType1) and children worldwide (BTS’s campaign Love-myself.org with UNICEF).

We all can participate. Every time someone helps a neighbor or volunteers at a school- no matter how insignificant it may seem- they are exemplifying the idea of constructive living.

Constructive lives don’t have space for destructive ideas and ways.

Teachers around the world are working hard to create environments that offer opportunities for personal growth for their students. Increasingly, there are pushes for students to create products during their learning that can be offered to their world at large. Whether large scale like Design Learning's problem-solving competitions, or in more homegrown projects, I believe we need much more of this. We need to embrace this as an expectation of our youth: you try and you give. Don’t do something for grades. Do something to help and connect.

When youth connect with their communities and our communities see the talents and energy our youth can provide the whole, real change and improvement can occur. We can teach each other. We can learn from each other. Working together, we’ll have far less time and temptation to “joke” about (or, let’s face it, not joke, and emulate) such horrifying people and times as was exemplified by the Nazis and the other groups who seek to divide and belittle the “other” to this day.

The more purpose we feel, the more optimistic we feel. With optimism, dark times & people will lose their appeal and they will go back to what they should be: painfully acquired lessons on what NOT to do and be.

How We Heal: Play, Laughter & Joy

My time on Twitter this summer has led me to some amazing individuals, groups and ideas. Growing Bolder is one such organization and this selection caused me to pause particularly. It quickly expresses my own ideas on life and the reasons why we should do certain things while leaving the specifics to our own discretion.

We can look at ourselves in 3 parts.

I find great connection and value with this notion that we are composed of a body, mind and spirit. I wrote about this in a piece titled Summer Soliloquy, in a March piece titled Boxes and back in 2016 in relation to a great organization called Playworks. It really helps me deal with what I sense as reality. I have a physical body, a mind inside of it and a connection with the outside (other people, our world and perhaps beyond that) that I define as this intangible thing called spirit.

We each have a unique relationship with our 3 parts.

I could have a great body but not consider things much and therefore get in trouble. I could have a great connection with others and serve them but be dealing with mental or physical pain. The health of our parts changes over time and as we grow. If we’re not open to growth, those relationships can become stuck. Also, outside forces affect our parts positively and negatively.

We can heal (and grow) our parts with certain things.

As this proverb describes, our parts can be nourished. If we look at the entire proverb’s action plan, I see an overriding theme: Play. Laughter. Joy. These 3 things are intimately connected.

Play, by definition, is something “fun”. Because it’s “fun”, it should fill us with joy and that joy will trigger a response: laughter.

You may want to argue that “play” is for children and wish to scoff at the whole notion. I’m going to argue that the intent of this proverb is more broad, even though I would also argue that we would all do well with a bit of real play with kids on a regular basis. Here’s the thing: we can all do something fun. Examples include golf, dance, lacrosse, swimming, running, gardening, carpentry...there are adults out there who think one or more of these things is enjoyable and doing them builds our bodies. Not convinced yet?

We add “spirit” and “mind” into the physical action to make it more fun.

We put our minds to it and come up with missions for the action. Learning a trade to expand our minds. Habitat for Humanity construction. Runs for cures. Volunteer garden work at city parks. Roadside cleanup events for community beautification. We make something fun by connecting the action with the other 2 parts of self.

Another big concept comes out when we think of it in these terms. It’s all leading to pulling together. As individuals, pulling our 3 parts together into action leads us to more success. When we then ALL pull together, we ALL become even MORE successful.

Layer upon layer, pulling together.

What do we have to lose? Let’s play. Let’s laugh. Let’s be filled with joy. Together.

Some folks are already heading back to school or will do so soon. There is still time to order yourself a copy of my guided journal, Dear Teachers from Amazon (Prime eligible!). In addition, I have signed copies available by contacting me at DearTeachers2017@gmail.com. Of those, I am offering readers of my blog a CHANCE TO WIN one free copy for yourself AND one Dear Teacher whom you nominate by going to a Google form here.

Grit. Revisited.

The following is an essay I wrote a year ago. At that point, I was writing short newsletters to our teaching staff every Sunday, reviewing what was happening on the Playworks playground and offering stories I hoped would make them smile and feel joined to something beyond their own classrooms.

This experience helped launch what I have accomplished a year later: the publication of my first book, Dear Teachers. You might say I demonstrated some grit! I’ve always enjoyed writing. This time, I kept writing and rewriting until I had crafted 40 essays I believed would interest a broad range of educators on topics from finding niches to finding sweetness.

My intentions remain the same: I hope to initiate some smiles and remind educators that they are connected far beyond their classrooms. I relied on Marlene Oswald’s photographs to give me a comfortable and approachable starting point. Her images lend themselves to relaxed study. I placed writing prompts to help readers remember ideas stirred by their time spent with the book. The Facebook group for readers will be another opportunity to unite and encourage.

I hope our book brings us all a little bit closer and a little further down our paths.

In re-reading this essay, I smiled at its roughness. I’ve already grown in my writing style since then. It was written in the craziness of the last weeks of a school year, as we find ourselves in once again, to encourage everyone to forge ahead and not give up.

Another example of the power of sticking to something. Here’s to grit!

May 1, 2016

Grit: (noun) Courage and resolve; passion and interest over time.

Heard a discussion on NPR this morning about grit. Angela Duckworth, psychology professor from the University of Pennsylvania, has written a book about it, called Grit. I loved how Dr. Duckworth had great ideas about grit and related traits like empathy and curiosity but also fights the notion we can/should test for it, or grade it or decide how effective a teacher is by how much grit his/her students have.

I had a few cases this past week out on the playground where grit came into play (word fun!):

“I don’t want to coach that game.”
“It’s so cold.”
“But she’s doing it, too.”
“I want to try, but I’m not good enough.”
“Ugh! It’s only Wednesday!”

That last one was me. :-) Anyway, each one of these quotes is either an opportunity to show grit or to give up. We can help each other out by how we respond:

“How about you cover that game for 10 minutes and then switch at the bell.”
“Let’s run some relays!”
“I have some 3rd graders who would love to show you how to play RoShamBo relay instead.”
“Stand right here and I’ll be your partner- we’ll do it together.”
“But you made it!”

Sometimes, it’s the tiniest of things from deep inside ourselves and those around us that help us make it to the end.

Let’s do this!!!

Let's Play!

Student A:
“I’ve never played this game.”

Playground Leader Student B:
“That’s OK, we’ll teach you!”

Student C: “Great job trying to make that shot!”

Student D: “You got me- I’ll try again next time!”

Student E: “Mrs. B! Let’s play kickball!”

Playground Staff: “I’d love to! Let’s go!”

Sophia Boyd wrote a great article for NPR this month on recess in US schools. The organization that brings us Jump Rope for Heart, SHAPE America, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have released new recommendations on how schools across the country can implement high-quality recesses.

I knew that different schools have different means to offer recess activities but I was unaware of this fact expressed by Ms. Boyd: only eight states currently have written policies requiring recess.

The January 2017 report, Strategies for Recess in Schools, gives new recommendations of fact-based ways to achieve positive recesses for K-12th grade. One of the contributing organizations to this report is one that I have personal experience with: Playworks. I have written regularly on the intense struggles one kids can experience on today’s playgrounds, which carry into the classrooms and beyond. I’ve described the successes I have witnessed using Playworks strategies. The spirit of programs like this is to teach what I call “bridging skills”. Bridging skills help connect people. On the playground, the 3 critical portions are: involvement, inclusion and explicit expectations.

Involvement

Students, teachers, other school staff, parent and community volunteers are all encouraged to actively participate in the initial design, long term maintenance and daily practice of the program. No one sits on the sidelines, watching like predatory birds, waiting to swoop in when a problem arises. It’s all ages at all levels: working and playing together and if problems arise, dealing with them together.

Inclusion

Recess is a time for EVERYONE to participate. Whatever recess is put in place should allow for the entire population to be involved. There are no “good” players and “bad” players- only TRYING players and SUPPORTIVE players. This part can be really tough to accept initially with a traditional winner/loser mindset. It’s essential, however. We all have a right to try and we benefit for experiencing the opportunity to encourage others to do so.

Explicit Expectations and Enforcement

Everyone needs to have and understand the same recess rules and they should be tailored for each age’s abilities. Physical activity should be performed in a safe environment with known consequences for not doing so. Other than restrictions like these, each school can (and should) tailor their programs to fit their community.

But...Why Bother?

There is much talk today about cutting back our national involvement in the education of our youth. Let’s make no mistake. If we want vibrant opportunities for a majority of our future Americans, we need to spend some time and money today on building bridging skills like these.

Bridging skills are rarely taught in video games, where a majority of today’s youth spend  significant time. Even today’s youth sports programs struggle to find balance- there’s an extremely strong emphasis on winning in many programs. There is a time and place for competition but children should be allowed to just play for play’s sake as well. Elisha Goldstein, PhD, wrote this of play and aging in 2011 in his Huffington Post article The Joy of Play: “Youth is a matter of mind and attitude.” If our children don’t even have this first chance of joy, what will their aging look like?

Bridging skills will help us throughout our lives. Our children need to learn how to, and practice, interacting with others just as much as to exercise, read and do math. These social and emotional skills aren’t just picked up by all children naturally or in the course of their everyday lives or from a lesson in class. These skills need to be presented to and then practiced by students to be absorbed for use in all the other situations they find themselves. As adults with modern-day problems, we should see this for the reality that we all face. We probably all could do with some reminder lessons on helpful ways to handle situations with others.

Those quotes at the beginning of this piece? They are what you’ll hear on a playground that’s living the recommendations outlined by folks like SHAPE America. Along with genuine laughter and the other sounds of healthy active living.

That’s the kind of research we can all benefit from!

Team Humanity: Post-Truth Playing out on our Playgrounds

It’s tough for us adults to attempt living in a world described as “post-truth”. What about the little ones who will soon inherit this world we’re creating? A philosopher took a stab at the big picture in an education & family BBC article this week.

I’d like to ask: “How does a post-truth world playout on the playground?” I wrote about it once already, but I’d like to revisit the idea with a story.

Set Scene:

You’re a recess supervisor. Your job is to walk the school playground, eyes forever swiveling back and forth, up and down, ensuring all the students are getting some play into their busy days within the structure of a safe and inclusive system. Playworks is a great example. You see a student pull another student off the monkey bars by the back of their shirt and take their place. The pulled student lays on the ground in the wood chips, silently looking up and surrounding students continue on.

You approach and attempt a teaching moment on how one should behave on the playground. You are met with an exclamation:

“What did I do!? I didn’t do anything wrong!”

You press your point and describe again what you observed and try to get the student to come up with another, more helpful, series of actions. You’re ready to offer them ideas to do that.

You are met with: a blank stare into the distance. Eventually the student responds hotly with, “They pushed me before. Whatever!” They move to get back on the monkey bars. By now, the student on the ground is standing back up, complaining loudly about how the other child always does this, and even worse, stuff. Other students start congregating, chiming in agreement, listing events while others yell that they should be able to do whatever they want.

You feel a rising sense of frustration and you may grimace as you tell them to go play nicely. You’ve heard a shout of alarm from another part of the playground and you excuse yourself to check on that.

End Scene.

Firstly, what were you originally looking for when you approached the situation? Ideally, everyone has a right to be out there playing. Everyone should have a turn. Anyone can make a mistake, apologize and correct themselves.

Next, what is missing in the participants’ responses- even your own? Answer: Team Spirit. There was an overall avoidance of facts and and over-reliance upon personal beliefs and emotional response. All of it was aimed at one thing: self-preservation. In addition to the pusher’s choices, the pushed person should have made different choices, as should the crowd. The pushed child and crowd should stand up and both should speak calmly and with clarity of what is expected of the team we all call our own: humanity.

How to move forward? How to step ABOVE and BEYOND post-truth?

The beauty of living is that you always have another chance as long as you’re breathing. The situation can get away from you but the teaching moment is not lost forever. In this story, the adult needs to continue to promote effort, compromise, sharing and helping every single day. They need to catch those students making strong, positive choices and with genuineness, applaud loudly for all to see and feel. The squeaky wheel (the shouts of outrage and pain) should not be the only thing that gets greased. During a quiet moment, the adult should talk again about the painful situations- we all have them and we can learn from them.

Sports need rules and teamwork. Humanity needs them as well.

Each Other's Fire

Back in January, I wrote about some of the things that I and my co-workers should be grateful for and why. Here’s a look back:

We have a lot to be grateful for. Grateful for Playworks Coach Jena with her energy and persistence. Grateful for students who play Playworks games like Unfreeze Tag and give each other praise. Grateful for student Junior Coaches who want to learn and work. Grateful for assistant staffing that covers the playground with more than bare-minimums. Grateful for a principal who goes to meetings and who steps in to fill-in any position that needs filling. Grateful for teachers and other staff who embrace ideas like Playworks in their daily activities and who go outside to play.

Inevitably, we sometimes crash. Times change. What interested us previously, becomes tedious or hopeless or even painful. However, there are those people and those moments that touch us in a way that the fire inside is fed a burst of oxygen and WOOMPH! our imaginations are ignited and we again see potential for new and wonderful things.

I can’t order up a dose of rekindling online. In fact, when we need it most, we probably don’t even see the point in looking for flint and tinder. That’s why we always need to be open to being that firestarter! You have no idea when the spark of your smile, hug, text, call or positive comment in line at Starbucks will fall on the waiting kindling of another’s soul to flame up into something beautiful. Remember: you are a part of a great big web of people.

I am your fire when yours flickers.

You are my fire when mine flickers.

Choose Your Battles

I liked Prince Ea on Facebook earlier this year, and if you haven’t checked him out yourself, you might want to because he has a strong message and voice.

This one smacked me in the middle of the forehead. It reminded me of a moment in my first full-time job out of college back in Ohio. My direct superior was frustrated with me when I came in from the field one day. He asked me why something happened.  I began explaining with: “Well, I thought-” he cut me off with:

“You’re not paid to think.”

Now, imagine that scene. I’m a 22 year old, fresh out of college, naive version of myself today- a nervous bookworm filled with little more than youthful exuberance and good intentions- and I hear THAT. For someone who is supposed to be my teacher and leader.

There were a few other red flags within the overall company and within 18 months of graduating, I decided to quit that profession without prospects. There were fights there that I was unable to fight.

Now that I’m waaaay older than that boss was at the time, I can look back and think that maybe he was having a bad day. Maybe, he had some pressures that I didn’t know about. Maybe, that conversation never even registered in his mind as having adversely affected my perspective of him and the company. Or, maybe he was just an ill-prepared person in middle management who should have stuck with a job that didn’t affect the welfare of a whole bunch of people looking for proper mentoring and support.

I quit. I failed. However...

If I hadn’t have quit, I never would have gotten a job in an insurance agency, which started teaching me how to work with and enjoy people. If I hadn’t had taken a business trip at that insurance agency, I never would have come to Wisconsin, where I ended up getting recruited by John Deere. If I hadn’t have made the decision to move to Wisconsin with my husband, we never would have met all the amazing people and done all the awesome things we have since 1998. I could go on with this chain of events but you understand that a TON of choices and people have entered my life after that shattering moment. A battle lost won me who I am today.

Kids literally or figuratively run off on the playground, in the lunchroom or in the classroom on a daily basis howling “I CAN’T DO THIS!!! I QUIT!!!!”. We battle every day to say the right and constructive thing in response- to not be like that former boss. We use tools like Playworks (remember- adults need to play as much as the students!) to keep our spirits up, our hopes alive and to make everyone feel empowered and a part of the team.

That’s the important battle- the one we cannot fail to win.

Thank you for reading.

Next time...Hibernating.