Time's Up....

Time.

Dr. Seuss said it best:

How did it get so late so soon?  It's night before it's afternoon.  December is here before it's June.  My goodness how the time has flewn.  

I feel the seconds ticking past us as I write.

The school year is fixing to start, and I know time will begin to slay me once again.  I am making an attitude adjustment. Time is such a gift.  I’ve always hated the expression, “killing time” as it seems so irreverent.  When there are only 24 hours in a day, why would you want to kill any of it?  Henry David Thoreau summed it up quite well:  

I want to manage my time better this school year.  Sometimes I procrastinate, and that is just a reflection of my fear or anxiety over any given task.  Sometimes I rush through things, and whatever motivated me to get it done is gone when I realize I have to do it all again. I don’t want to have to go through any “do over’s” if I can help it.  

I want to honor the time I’m given.  Nice words, but what do they really mean?

I’m going to savor the alarm clock instead of tossing it against the wall.  That will save me time buying new clocks at Wal-Mart, and it also might save me some money.  Coco Chanel warned us: 

I’m going to make my lunch the night before. If I’m cleaning up after dinner, it kind of makes sense to just pack my PBJ at the same time.  George Carlin said we ought to sleep with our clothes on so we don’t have to get dressed in the morning.  I might try that as well.

I’m going to consolidate my errands.  Instead of making a stop a day, I’ll try to get them all over at once.  Surely that’ll save me a few hours.  I’m not sure who said it, but basically it went: Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.  Good advice.

I like Ike.  He said we should never waste a minute thinking about people we don’t like.  That seems like a great way to reclaim lost moments.   If it’s good enough for Eisenhower, it should work for me as well.

Time should be well-spent.  Carl Sandburg likened time to money:  

If that’s true, then my coin’s older than your coin, and I better treasure it. 

I’ve burned up 33 minutes just pontificating about time.  

Ridiculous.

But if you have a little leftover time one day soon, you really should listen to The Last Lecture  by Randy Pausch. He really says all there needs to be said about time.  Keep a tissue handy. 

Summer's going...going...goiiiiiinnnnng

Summer's coming to a close for teachers across America...and as much as we love what we do, it's always a huge relief to finally arrive at June, July, and August.  Some folks have the idea that teachers don't work over the summer;  but actually that's the time of year when we get some of our most productive work completed.

When I first started teaching (1976!) I took home piles of work each night--papers to grade, lessons to plan, professional articles to read, paperwork for special needs children--and spent a couple of hours every evening finishing what didn't get done during the day.  Summers were for workshops, casual time with colleagues, and a lot of serious soul searching.  You'd think after 20 years I'd get better at that, but I still carry home files, articles, lesson plans, and paperwork--most of it can be condensed on my laptop but it's still all there.  And I don't know a single teacher who leaves her laptop at school over the summer...all that information comes home with us, and we stab at it, dig in it, work at it, worry over it, and plan with it.  The good part is we can do that in our pajamas, we can plan at 2AM or 2PM, we can do it with a margarita in hand, we can use our grandchildren for guinea pigs as we practice some of our lessons, and we can just relax because we're not being "tested." We're not punching anyone's clock but our own.  But to say we have the summer "off" is just not accurate.

Teaching is an art, not a science.  It is a profession of inquiry.  We must question ourselves first and foremost, so we can make sure what we are teaching is relevant for our students.  We are our own worst enemies in that regard.  We question everything we do.  There's a great book out there called The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer, and it's all about the painful and necessary conflicts that teachers face every day.  It's all about the self-doubt and self-discovery that's part and parcel of the teaching profession. For almost every teacher I know, teaching is a mission, not a vocation.  It's what we're called to do.  Whether we're teaching in the biggest classroom on campus, the library, or the smallest classroom on campus, the principal's office...we're committed to what we do.   Summer gives us a chance for reflection and personal growth.  Don't worry, they're not paying us for those three months. We take the pay we're given for 9 months of work, and we stretch it out over twelve.

So for the next fifteen days, we're spending some time with the families we miss too much during the school year, we're hanging out with friends whom we miss too much during the school year, we're getting the rest we miss too much during the school year, and we're saying a few prayers for the children headed our way.

Sharpen those pencils, stock up on new crayons and glue, find a pair of cool shoes and a trendy backpack, and we'll see you in a few!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It' s Off to Work

When my kids were little, one of my father’s favorite expressions was, “Get a job.”  We used to laugh about that, because the kids were only 4 or 5 years old, and they told him they were too little to work.  But I’m grateful for the sentiment shared with me and my brothers and our children.  We were always taught the value of work. 

We were not taught an entitlement mentality.  God didn’t owe us anything, our government didn’t owe us anything, our community didn’t owe us anything, and our family didn’ t owe us anything.  The maxim, “A day’s work for a day’s pay,” was lived out in our household.  We were taught to work sick or well, old or young, happy or sad, grumpy or jolly.  And part of that maxim meant you worked even when you didn’t like your boss, you didn’t like the rules, you didn’t like the hours, you didn’t like your coworkers.  We understood that all of those workplace traits could be adjudicated by a simple process—choose a new career path, choose a new job, or work within the boundaries to make it all better. 

The poet, Rumi, asked, “Why should I stay at the bottom of a well, when a strong rope is in my hand?”   The rope we held onto, and hold today, is our work ethic.  We were taught the value of work.  No one needed to throw us a rope:  we held the rope our parents created in our own hands.  

I can remember my first jobs--walking the dog, cleaning the toilet, dusting the furniture, washing the dishes.  There was no pay for completion.  You did those tasks because a family and household required it.  We were gradually offered an allowance for doing “extra” family jobs, and we transferred that idea to the neighborhood, realizing that not only my mom, but my neighbors, would pay me to babysit, to mow their lawns, to pick their weeds, to rake their yards.  We equated freedom to go to the movies, buy a birthday gift, or get a new outfit to the amount of work required.  If I mow one lawn, I can buy that record.  (Records were these plastic disks that played music on a machine called a record player.)  I am so grateful for learning the value of work at a young age.  I worked at summer camps and  restaurants when I was a teenager.  I learned how to weigh a 4 oz. cone at Dairy Queen and how to center my condiments at McDonald’s.  I learned how to typeset a newspaper, operate a switchboard, and teach Red Cross swimming lessons in college.  I learned how to keep track of aviator flight hours, order aviation parts on an MS-DOS machine, and prepare executive correspondence when I could not get a teaching job.  I learned how to create arts and crafts to sell as a stay-at-home mom, and kept other people’s children so I could remain at home with my own. I taught children of all shapes and sizes for 24 years, and continue to do the same. I have a hard time planning for retirement, because the idea is foreign to me.  I admire folks who work into their eighties and nineties, because they are having so much fun.

I have little patience for those who are able but unwilling to work.  4.3 million Americans are on welfare.  Does that mean 4.3 million Americans are unable to work?  47 million Americans are on food stamps.  Does that mean 47 million Americans cannot earn enough to buy a day’s groceries?  6 million Americans collect unemployment.  Does that mean 6 million Americans want to work and can’t find jobs of ANY type?  4% of our fellow citizens are on welfare—does that mean 4% of our fellow citizens are unable or unwilling to work?

Deuteronomy spelled it out more than a few centuries ago---15:11—there will never cease to be some poor people in the land; therefore I am commanding you to make sure you open your hand to the needy and poor in your land. 

I second that emotion—the needy and poor need our hand in our land.  But I do want to clarify the definition of needy and poor.   If you cannot work, I will help you all day long.  But if you can work, and help yourself, that is YOUR obligation, and not mine. 

Did you know that in 40, I said FORTY, and I mean FOOOOOOOOORTY states in our country, welfare PAYS more than an $8.00 per hour job?  Sit with that statistic a moment.  Say what?  Say WHAT?  No wonder illegal immigrants flock to our marketplace.  They understand that $8.00 an hour is better than $0.00 an hour, and are willing to do the work to leave the ranks of the “needy and poor.”

Did you know that there are 9 states where welfare pays more than $12.00 an hour?  Some college graduates start at a lower wage.  Where is the motivation to work in those 9 states?  Did you know that in 7 states, teachers may as well stay home because they could collect more in the welfare office than in the classroom? 

These statistics, frankly, piss me off.  I’ll go to work every day of the week to pay my taxes, and will gladly agree to see those taxes help the needy and poor.  But do I want to do that for those same people forever? 

Did you know that of those 46 million folks on food stamps, more than 20% will collect those benefits for more than 5 years?  Are you telling me that in 5 years, you cannot collect the training, experience, or job development skills necessary to find work?  That is simply unbelievable.  Just walk down to the Texas Workforce Commission.  IF you want to work, they will freely teach you how ALL DAY LONG until you’re gainfully employed.  Do I think you should pass a drug test to collect welfare?  Absolutely.  Do I think the able should collect welfare indefinitely? Absolutely not. Do I think you are entitled to welfare?  No way.  It was never designed to be an entitlement, it was deemed a necessity for the few thousands who are unable to work, not the few millions who refuse to work. 

The thing that makes most working Americans angry is the same thing that has been making folks angry since benchmark biblical days.  James asks us in 4:1-8---

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

Here’s the thing:  the only thing that will get us out of this mess is to change the culture.  Let’s start valuing work, like our parents, and their parents, and the generations before this me-me-me generation.   The truly poor, needy, injured, and disabled want a hand-up, not a hand-out.  If you’re not unable to work, then work you must.  But if you cannot work, I’ll work for you.  And if you’re too old to work, we will take care of you.  If you’re too sick to work, we will take care of you.  If you’re too hurt to work, we’ll help you get better. And when you’re well, you’ll return to work, and pay it forward. 

By definition, entitlement means “the right to do or have something, to qualify, to confer a title, rank, or honor.”  It is an honor to work, and I’m grateful that I can. 

I am grateful that the lessons that were sown into me during my childhood have stayed with me.  All of my children work.  All of their children participate in this microcosm of the workplace that we call a home and family.  We attach high value to work.  My father was raised on a farm;  he understood that if he didn’t work, he didn’t eat.  He worked all his life, and over time, he learned to work smarter, not harder so that he had accrued enough money to retire on his own income. My mother was raised by a single parent;  she understood that her mother needed support to make it, and she worked after school from the time she was 14 years old until way past the point when others would have stopped working.  She enjoyed going to work every day, and grieved the day she was no longer well enough to go to work. 

Work gives us pleasure and purpose.  It’s not a chore.  Work gives us a sphere of influence;  a way to change the world one paycheck at a time. Work is where we build and refine relationships that matter.  Work is a privilege, not a punishment. 

See you later.  I gotta go to work. 

Cowards and Kings

Explosions. 

I know a man who lived through one.  It is hard to hear his words.  He sits on the edge of the bed and describes the scene. The carnage. Long pauses between recollections, the mind’s digital display a reckless mess, impossible to share.

Senses overloaded beyond repair. 

He tells me…he will always know the smell of C-4, the echo of end-of-life screams, the white-out of the blast, the grease of blood on fragments of limbs, the metallic taste of a bit-through tongue.   He has no ears left to hear…bionic replacements capture sound for him.  He has eyes unscarred from a random purchase of designer shades. His nose has been rebuilt over and over again. He has a few fingers left to touch, but skin more scarred than unscathed on a body burned from head to toe.  He knows the softness of newly grafted skin; the hardness of scar tissue over bone. He knows sour and he knows sweet.

He can tell you what an explosion does to you on the outside.  And he can tell you what an explosion does to you on the inside.  He can describe panic like a tsunami in your blood vessels. He can utter the incantations of grief. He can explain what it means to register fear with the delivery of a package, a bundle, a backpack.  He can wince at a loud noise, an unexpected backfire, fireworks.  Yet he can demonstrate what it means to live fearlessly, with a clear understanding of the grace that can grow out of mayhem.

He has met the coward and he has met the King.  He would tell us to pray right now, where ever we are, whenever we can. Because prayer changes us. Prayer changed him, and it changes me.  Prayer tells God that we need Him more every hour...every day.

And he will tell you that today is all we have.  It’s all we know.  This.

A vapor. A moment. A speck.

And he can explain that everything depends upon what we do with this millisecond of eternity, this wheelbarrow of time that we’re given.

Do we love well and kindly?

Do we share bold good news?

Do we embrace beauty and reject evil?

Do we touch, taste, hear, smell, and see His goodness?

Do we pray to a Listener who cannot be blown up, who cannot be blown away?

Do we know Him?

Do I?

Do you…

  

School Trouble

When I decided to get my master’s in library science back in 1998, I was both excited and scared of the journey.  I knew I needed to further my education to “get ahead” in the teaching profession…whether that meant becoming better equipped to work in a classroom setting or moving into a different arena of school business.  A couple of my principals talked with me about moving into administration, and I was quite decisive in believing that was not my path.  While I could handle the administrivia and I thought I might be able to handle the administrials, I knew that it would put me too far away from kids. 

So I earned my master’s at an ALA-accredited university and got myself headed in a new direction as a librarian, enjoying the challenges of working in my school’s largest classroom.  I opened a new school library, then another one, and continued to hone my skills as a teacher-librarian.  When I moved to Bryan ISD and found out librarians were being deleted from the teaching roster at each and every school at the end of my first year here, I was really in a quandary over what to do next. I felt lucky to stay in Bryan, but believed that some dangerous undercurrents were at work, dismantling our libraries and turning vibrant literacy centers into nothing more than book rooms.  I was rehired to supervise  five of Bryan ISD’s libraries and that has given me some unique challenges. I'm no longer a teacher-librarian, I'm a supervising librarian, and those roles are very different. Despite the discouraging aspects of the job,  I have discovered what others had told me is true:  the meaning of work, whatever we choose to do, is that what we do must be in service to others in order for it to have meaning to us. It’s been said that genuine, relevant service to others can heal the world.

That probably sounds like a really grandiose and arrogant idea…healing the world?  Really?  Right now, my world is libraries.  And I have always believed that change happens one child at a time.  Our kids are changing, but not in the direction I’d envisioned.  For the most part, our kids are being tested into apathy. It is hard to find a classroom where “the joy of learning” is clearly embraced. It’s rare to enter a classroom to find kids enthusiastically engaged in what they’re learning. Gone are the days when learning was supposed to be fun.  Most of our kids are motivated by fear, or they’re not motivated at all.  You might find a few kids who just flat want to do well and excel but for the most part, most of our students seem determined to meet our low expectations. The students who come into our libraries today are in a hurry.  They’ve been told…hurry, get a book.  And they don’t get to pick out just any book.  It’s hurry, get a book that you can take a test on.  They aren’t allowed to browse, to imagine, to dream, to choose.  God forbid they lose a moment of classroom time.  God forbid we characterize searching for the right book as a “learning activity.” There’s no librarian in the room to help them.  We have some great aides, but they are asked to manage thousands of dollars in assets for nearly nothing, and there are not enough hours in their day. They’re on their own for the most part.   And they still have to do all the things aides traditionally do- lunchroom duty, car duty, recess duty, classroom coverage.  It's not unusual to see a closed sign on the library doors every single day. Forget about the information literacy curriculum taught in the library.  Those days are gone.  In most schools in our district, the library has turned into a book room with a circulation desk. Our library assistants do their best to help students, but they’re asked to do a thousand things, and are paid well-below the poverty line to do it.

When I first went to teacher’s college, we were warned against “self-fulfilling prophecies” and were taught that our students would reflect our expectations.  If we expected the best, the highest, the brightest, the most creative, the most artistic, the most unique, the most respectful, the most well-read, the happiest kids…then that is what we’d see manifested in our classrooms.  “Adequate yearly progress” has given us just that…students who are adequate instead of inspired; teachers who conspire to be adequate versus exemplary.  If you want to see a beat-down profession, just walk into a few classrooms across the state today.  You will see teachers trying to wrangle learning out of restless children who are convinced that if they can just pass the test, that’s all that is really required of them.  Are there eager learners out there?  A few.  Are there exemplary teachers out there?  A few.  But most are in a kind of limbo…trying to wait out the “test” frenzy so that they can return to doing what they love and loving what they do.

We’re in trouble, folks.  If we want to heal what’s wrong, we have to recognize the malady, read the thermometer, check the culture, identify the brokenness.  We don’t need doctors in the classroom; we need educators.  We don’t need parental support, we need parent involvement.  We don’t need “adequate yearly progress”…we need inspiration…to produce eager, excited learners who aren’t afraid to fail, because it’s through trial and error that we truly achieve. 

It’s time to throw away the test.  Just get rid of the damn thing. It’s time to throw away all the obstacles to student success.  If we believe our kids will achieve, and achieve high, they will do it. If we don’t get rid of the test, the test will get rid of us.  I don’t believe public schools can survive this dogmatic approach to learning. It’s antithetical to how we all learn well and learn best.  If I thought the only way to succeed at school was to drill for a test every Friday, so I could pass a test every two weeks, so I could take a test every six weeks, so I could take a test every semester, so I could take a test every year, so someone could tell me I’d made adequate yearly progress, I would burn out and get a job as the Wal-Mart greeter. We have fourth graders who once hid gum in their pockets where they now hide Tums. We can’t defend this process because it makes no sense.  Let’s embrace sense and sensibility and sensitivity.

Teachers are leaving the profession in droves. Teachers who burned out after twenty years are burning out after two.  Kids are leaving public schools.  Just look at the home-schooling numbers, private school enrollment, charter school rosters, to see that folks are unhappy with what schools are doing. But because the mandates come from our state legislature, there is a sense of “powerlessness” in our midst. The thing is, the same representatives that we elected can be deselected. We have a voice.  We have a chance to voice our concerns every time the polls are open.  The only reason we still have the STAAR test is because we have not voted it out of operation. We can get rid of it.  Never underestimate what a group of concerned people can do.  Every worthwhile reform in schools today has occurred because committed workers implemented change where change was needed.  Do I believe in standards?  Absolutely.  Set them high; anything else is inadequate. 

Let’s get back to meaningful work, loving our days at a place called school, a place where all the magic happens. 

Charis...in other words, grace...

Time is passing. Duh. 

We started praying and planning and preparing for little Canyon about six months ago;  as soon as we learned she was formed and growing.  There were some timid and tentative moments as we gave Lauren the reassurance she needed about motherhood:  you can do this…we are here for you…she is a miracle…

We marked time with a calendar...trimesters…months…weeks.

But now it’s time to regard each moment of preparation with a clock instead.  By the end of March, we know this little girl will arrive…squirming and squalling and owned, owned by a family.  We are all so ready to love her.

I think of her father…a man whose own birth mother made a different kind of decision…a mother who decided she could not or would not be able to nurture and nourish her little infant boy.  She gave him up.  Brave. Hard.  Impossible.

A willing and able set of parents took him in, took him on…this little guy so ready to be loved, so willing to love.

As he prepares to be a father he has some reconciliation to do…some acceptance of his own upbringing, his roots, his home.  He will give this little girl what she needs most—welcome and loving arms.  We will be by his side—encouraging him, loving him, and helping him become the best father he can be. 

It’s what every child deserves.  Unmerited favor.  Unconditional love.

In a word, Grace.

Chris, just a boy

Chris,  becoming a man

Don't forget--Saturday, February 9th, the Baby-Q at Chris and Lauren's house!  Can't wait to see you all there as we "feather the nest" for this little one.

Acornucopia

Little vessels of promise, acorns litter my driveway.  When I crunch them with my tires or feet, it feels like a random act of violence, obliterating the opportunity each little seed represents.  I’m a goofball about such things. 

We have a tree at one of my schools that drops acorns on steroids.  I think someone called it a burl oak, and its acorns are the size of golfballs.  I love that tree.  I have a funny mental image of a squirrel trying to lug that nut home for dinner. The shells are a deep, burnished brown and they wear the equivalent of a ten-gallon hat.  I pick them up on my way to work and store them guiltily, wondering how many rodents I’m depriving of a winter meal.

The tree over my driveway drops millions of acorns and once smushed they stain the concrete. Some scientist at A&M is probably trying to find a way to harvest that crop in a more meaningful way.  I can imagine a green engineer finding a way to recycle them into countertops or laminate.  That’s what we do as human beings, exploit what we love in nature. 

My mom had a tree in her backyard that dropped bombs.  I don’t think it was an oak tree;  she called it a horse chestnut. The size of baseballs, the bright green nuts would litter the yard without decomposing for years. She used to pay the grandkids a dime a piece to pick them up before the lawn mower chipped a blade. It cost her a pretty penny.

When my grandchildren and I go on a walkabout, we fill our pockets with acorns.  They see what I see…little treasures that can easily be used to create acorn people or other crafty things, and as it turns out, when you forget where you put them they come through the washing machine just fine. Squeaky clean and intact.

One time I bought a bag of acorns carved from oak.  That was dumb, but they were so pretty I couldn’t resist. At Hobby Lobby I found acorns formed from resin, their hats covered with glitter in autumn colors. A shameful substitute for what falls from the trees.  I’m pretty sure the Little Red Hen knows what I mean. I could start my own club…AA… for suckers like me, powerless over our acorn impulsivity.

So many acorns...so little time.

I can't believe I ate the whole thing...

...like most 12-step programs, this AA chapter offers help for those with an identity crisis.
Who am I without acorns?

I visited a lady’s house the other night and she had a big bowl of beautiful acorns on her dining room table.  Mahogany in color with tops that looked like braided rope, they were a bountiful reflection of fall.  She said she polished them with vegetable oil.  I lusted after those acorns.  She told me she found them in the woods beside her house, so I’m on a mission.  I want my own bowl full. Sorry, squirrels.

I've proposed a unique birth announcement for the little life developing in Lauren right now...her own little creation.  I haven't convinced her that my idea is superior to others she's found on her own...but I think acorns represent a great analogy for how life begins...

A man on my street wrote a wonderful book about crawdads.  I had no idea there were so many varieties.  He’s obsessed with these mudbugs.  I have been mulling over the idea of a similar tome on acorns.  The possibilities are endless.  There are probably some really cool acorns in Micronesia or New Zealand.  What’s not fascinating about that?

My love for acorns is not obsessive, but when they start to fall in the fall, bumping me on the shoulder as they tumble from the trees or cracking underfoot when I set my pumpkins on the porch, my mind begins turning them into projects rather than simple gifts.  Better to just take notice of the season and enjoy them...it's hard to improve on their beauty anyways.

What is it that I love besides their color, texture, and shape?

I think it’s the hope hidden inside.  From that tiny green pod, a huge, sprawling, spreading oak can grow.  It’s the equivalent of a mustard seed of faith.  Without any help from us, that little acorn can roll into the dirt, take root, and develop over time into giant spreading boughs that become an oxygenated ecosystem that will regenerate ad infinitum.  I love that idea.  Our world is full of temporary and ugly things, but it’s also full of enormous beauty and possibility.

Like acorns.