The Importance of Not Doing Something: Part I: The Resolution

Writing is hard sometimes. I mean, not right now. Right now, my keyboarding skills can barely keep up with my usual verbosity, and writing is like uninterrupted talking. That's blogging, I guess: Think something, try not to oversay it, mash it all out on the laptop keyboard, publish, and wait to see if it made sense to anyone but me. Easy.

But when the prompt is official and external, writing is like trying to do origami, using nothing but my elbows and big toes. The result is an excruciatingly clumsy facsimile of something other people seem able to do with ease, or fingers.

That's how it was when I had to write a teaching philosophy for one of the classes I took last year. Working on my Elementary Education degree, I was zooming through an assignment until I got to "What is your teaching philosophy?"

I could have done a better job if I had taken the 15 most frequently-used words in my courses thus far, put them on magnetic refrigerator poetry tiles, donned a blindfold, picked words off my fridge randomly, thrown them on the floor, removed my blindfold, and read them aloud. The first draft was something like, MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY IS MEANINGFUL SUPPORT STUDENT LEARNING ENGAGEMENT HUNDRED PERCENT PIAGET ACCURACY VERY LONG TIME.

Maybe not quite that bad, but none of it meant anything to me. And it was supposed to be why I do what I do for the foreseeable future of my career as an educator.

Hm, maybe I could do this thing better. I tried a trick I use sometimes, when hitting a writing block. I imagined the statement I wanted to write, in this case my teaching philosophy, as something that already existed, pre-defined. It didn't have to be a lofty goal. It could be what I've already been doing, or why I've already been doing it. The trick worked. All the jargon faded away and my real intentions stood there, clear as they always are.

My teaching philosophy is based on the assumption that the student is always my best partner in the endeavor to educate them.

Yes, it's basically "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make 'em drink." in school form. You can compel, cajole, threaten, and bribe a child to sit, and hold a pencil and paper or book, but you can't make 'em think.  They have to be down wit it, to some degree. We go together, or not at all.

Many who tried our hand at huh?-schooling our own kids read John Holt at some point in our studies. (Or, unstudies, as the case may be.) He was no fan of school, insisting that the expectations imposed by a formal learning environment destroy a kid's natural tendency to be voracious learn-o-matics. Kind of a downer if you plan to work in public education, but a real punk rocker if you've declared your home a hands-on exploration zone of anything goes.

Holtism may have gotten a little out of hand, here at the BU, during the years the kids and critters were trashing the place. I mean "discovering knowledge."

My li'l "partners" in "education," were free range freight trains at times.

 But I guess that was kind of the point.

Pro Tip: If pseudo-feral un-raising kids in a backyard petting zoo is your idea of school, prepare to live in a world of undone housework and a bramble of untamed habits. Watch out, because behaviors that soothe, in absence of other obligations, can get out of hand. Like our raging case of invasive backyard bindweed.

You know if it's true if there's a garden metaphor for it.

Maybe we had to figure it out for ourselves to really get it, but all of that unfettered freedom taught us to love limits. Seeking balance actually makes us happier than seeking happiness, but balance is a moment-by-moment accomplishment. One year, thirty minute increments of screen time are exchanged for chores, followed by an afternoon of tree-climbing. Before you know it, it's a year later and you're taking all day to write a teaching philosophy while your tree-climber spends way too much of her morning in headphones, mouth-breathing over her Kitty Kats RPG.

After an informal formative assessment, I decided to propose a New Year's Resolution.

But, but, resolutions, man. Who cares? Live your best now now, man. You don't need some stupid white man's holiday, right? Do chickens wait for an arbitrary date on the calendar to start being better chickens, man? No, they just peck the calendar to pieces. Maybe eat some of it.

Be like chickens, man.

Okay, so what if saying, On ___ Day, I'll Stop Shoulding and Start Doing is just a human construct? Man? I do happen to be a human, and kind of a constructivst, I have discovered. If we build our own reason for doing, or not doing something, then we really might do or not do it.

In that spirit, four weeks ago, we began a concerted effort to limit everyone's screen time. It has been surprisingly popular among the alums, as was the idea that I Shall Be The Enforcer Of It. For now.

Since beginning, we have had a rough aim, accomplished through my rough act of putting everybody's cell phones in a shoe box and declaring how long the break will be each week.

And sure, I can keep doing that. But, as usual, I have ulterior motives, I mean "learning objectives." Pesky ole' John Holt won't let me rest at merely training them to do less phone-staring.

      A life worth living, and work worth doing: that is what I want for children (and all people), not just, or not even, something called 'a better education.' 
         -John Holt Instead of Education:Ways to Help People Do Things Better

We can toss the cell phones in a box, do origami with our fingers for a rainy Sunday afternoon, and blog about it later. But, by the power of Bloom's Taxonomy, how can I really make this engagement more meaningful? Holt help us, how can we all learn to do life better? And then blog about that? Stay tuned.

How to Make Pie, No Matter What

It's that time of year, again!

Which is, technically, always a true statement. Whatever time of year it is, it's that time. But what time of year is it, specifically?

Pie time.

Aww yeah.

If you ask me, the holidays are just luscious reason after reason to have slice after slice of flaky, fruity, creamy, just one more bite-worthy pie. Only thing is, someone has to make one. I mean, it's not that hard. Especially if someone who has made a dizzying variety of pies over decades, decided to write a big long blog pie-prep post, explaining it all, step by step.

Wait, this is starting to seem like a recipe. Should I be writing this down?

Indeed I should, because the recipe I'm about to share for this year's most featured pie, is my original creation, though it was refined thanks to lots of helpful input from friends, and good ole' fashioned, messing up. The recipe I'm about to share with you should last the test of time, and hopefully delight some long dark winterers, for generations to come.

First, I'll tease ya, with a photo.

MMMMMMMMM, RIGHT

And it smells? Dry Erasable.

How to start? Where to begin? It starts with a goal. What difference do you feel like making in your life? It can be anything. Maybe you want to write a novel, read a novel, run a marathon, quit watching 5-minute Craft videos, start a business. Dream big. Aim high. Whatever. Just get a dream in your heart and then draw a big circle. Mouth watering yet? Just wait.

 My ambition. My goal. My fantastical pie in the ethereal sky happens to be transforming myself from a DIY blogschooler, to Certified Educator of Other People's Children.

Part of that journey included being all up in several classrooms, for months, observing masters in their field at work, and trying to take notes, provide support, and even teach a little bit of science. They call it Pre-Clinical Experiences. And so do I. Because that's what it's called. PCE for short. That's right, one letter off from PIE.

It's all connected.

Since my goal  involved 75 little slices of time, all organized to meet a variety of shifting and interlocking requirements, I divvied it up into bigger wedges, categories into which to sort those littler nibbles of ambition. It probably took a good hour to make the chart on my wall accurately reflect the dream in mind, to make sure it would provide me a good visual measure of my progress toward my goal.

Next step to making this one-of-a-kind treat?  Nothing to do but do it. Get started. Take that first jog, write that first chapter, put down the phone at flashing font promising five great ideas involving cement and bubble wrap. Do the work. Then, reward yourself everyday by coming back to the white board and coloring in that day's slice.

Once the pie reflects that day's progress, and this is very important, be sure to stare at the board for a little bit. Don't skip this step. Squint, tilt your head, and focus on where you are going, never doubting for a second that someday every inch of your pie will be encrusted in old dry erase scrawls.

Really let your belief sit and congeal for a minute. You'll thank me later.
Later, when cars (that's right, more than one now) come out of the night and smash you and your kid to pieces.
Later, when there's no more family car and the bus doesn't go where you need it to go, anytime you need it to go there.
And even later, when what was billed as a simple out-patient surgery becomes a surprise staycation of convalescence that sucks up sick time and many earnest intentions.

These, plus minor trifles like head colds, defunct appliances, and ailing pets, will try to trash your tart. They can ruin its form, rendering it incomplete, only full of doubt, which tastes just awful.

They can make you wonder if that gap-toothed  set  of uncolored spaces will mock you forever. Then it wouldn't even be a circle. It wouldn't even be pi. Unthinkable. How to avoid this result? Well, like most prized recipes, it's going to take something you might not have known you had.

How's that for a secret ingredient? Sorry to be cryptic, but how was I supposed to know that, as I progressed through my PCE, every time it seemed the fates were conspiring against my bedroom whiteboard being adorned with a full radius of scribbled slices, someone close to me would step in and close the gap? How could I have gone shopping for a warm uprise of love and generosity?

That doesn't even start out on my list. I tend to think I'm supposed to plan my pies without reliance on others that way. We are supposed to devise our goals, set our circles and make our hash marks, assuming we will get there without help, right? Yet in effect, if it had been up to me alone, the complete circle you see before you would look the pizza box under a college freshman's futon: couple of piddly dry slices that smell bad.

You probably think I'm suggesting a hefty helping of helpful friends. Well, sure, but local heroes were not in short supply during these hard months. Rather, what I found hardest to scrounge from the ole' spice rack:
Asking for Help (1 heaping cup, almost every day)
Accepting Help Without Feeling Like a Failure (2 heaping cups, daily, and hourly sometimes)
Doing Whatever Imperfect Version of  Imagined Ideal Anyway (Keep Handy and Sprinkle As Needed.)

The surgery I mentioned above, happened to me, in the face. It helped me, but also rendered me bedfast for weeks.

My pie chart, looking more like this, watched me doze under a bag of frozen peas, and I watched it back, through a bleary Vicoden-induced haze.

This is when all the staring I had already done to it before came in handy. Thanks to all that squinting, head-tilting, and the simmering self-deluding,  it didn't look unfulfilled. I could see something in it that I needed to see. What I saw in each and every filled inch of that pie, was already a result of my friends who believed there would be a complete and final product.

They delivered me to testing, work, home, and sites of observation. They rescued our pets, comforted our kids, asked if we were okay and if they could do anything. A lot. Their willingness to help and their conviction that we were worth helping, bolstered me on cold hard mornings and late dark afternoons.

My friends are mostly smart and lovely people. They could know what they are doing, believing in this pie in sky. Or, on the wall, as the case may be. When all I could do was mouth-breathe and click a mouse, that's what I did. I studied, wrote, and planned for stronger more capable days. I figured they all knew something I was still unsure about, and that they might be right.

Yesterday, I got word that I may wipe the whiteboard clean. Pre-clinical experiences have successfully been experienced, and I passed. As pie is the perfect dessert for sharing, it'd be better to say, "We passed." This is a pie I never could have made on my own. Humbly, I will wipe it away, to make room for a new realization; but not before posting a pic, sharing its secrets, and thanking those who helped make it so sweet.
Serves every 1.