Learning to Grow Every Day

There is a common saying that says, “work smarter, not harder.” I often find myself repeating this mantra to myself when I am spending too many hours on school work, whether planning or grading. Granted, I want others to think of me as a hard worker, who puts in many hours devoted to my teaching craft. However, it is so easy to go overboard because we associate long hours with hard work. What if we could do a simpler task or create a more efficient plan that would accomplish the same goal? I frequently find that the more simple lessons that I plan wind up being the most interactive, engaging, and thought-provoking, and it leaves me wondering why I spent so much mental energy and time planning a more complex lesson. This same idea applies to assistive technology in the classroom. When it comes to reading, writing, grading, and editing there are many tools at our disposal. From Read and Write Gold to Speech to Text, we have so many valuable tools that would make our lives easier. I ...

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year. There are so many reasons for this, whether it is the savory cuisine placed before us every year, or the chance to reconnect with family, it offers an unhurried reflection of life not seen in some other holidays. My wife and I have been traveling to my grandmother’s house in Florida every year since college for Thanksgiving. Now that we have our two children, it is even more special. We have the opportunity to basque in the Florida sunshine, swim in her pool, enjoy a Thanksgiving feast at her country club, and I always get at least one round of golf in with her. I cherish these moments with my family, and especially my grandmother. Even at 87 years old, she is playing golf 3 days a week and filling the remainder of her time on other pursuits. As sad as it is to say, it won’t always be this way. I am so grateful for having these moments with her now. And yes, it helps to be in Florida for this celebration every year, but there i...

The prompt I gave my English 12 classes for their end of unit assessment for Wonder was, how has this book changed or enlarged their thinking? Most students admitted to this book being very thought-provoking and moving in many ways. Many lessons can be gleaned from this beautiful novel, including not being quick to judge, being intentional about kindness, the importance of perspective, or even the seriousness of bullying in our schools. However, I equate this to hearing a rousing sermon in church or making a new years resolution; if we do not actually act on our convictions and our immediate passions and make them a habit they won’t stick. Wonder is a truly inspiring book, which has enlarged all of our thinking about how we treat people and how we judge people. We have a very divisive world, in particular in the political arena at the moment. Judging people quickly, not considering their perspective, not choosing kindness, and not standing up to bullying in the adult world is hav...

Teaching and connecting with students is one of my life’s passions. If I could teach five days a week all year and eliminate grading I would. There are always going to be aspects of our jobs or daily lives that we don’t like doing. However, they are necessary for the job. Giving your best effort no matter what the task is so important. I put everything I have into grading, even though it isn’t my favorite thing to do. I would much rather be planning how I’m going to connect with my students the next day. However, I often hear students saying that assignments are pointless or that they have senioritis, and they do not want to do an assignment. I see that as ingratitude for the opportunity you have been given, the opportunity to learn and grow as a person. Education is an incredible gift that we take for granted in the United States. Being able to teach in a job that allows me the freedom with my curriculum and the privilege of pouring into students on a daily basis is something that I s...

Would you rather always speak the truth or everything you say will end up coming true? A couple weeks ago one of my students asked me this very question. My first instinct was to say that I would always rather speak the truth. However, the more I thought about it, I began to change my mind. While it is admirable to always speak the truth, it might allow us to become better listeners if everything we said came true. Let me explain. Our precept for this month is “Listen First.” This has carried over into many of our class conversations. One of the ways I evaluate students during our “Fishbowl Discussions” is their attentiveness. Sure, talking during a discussion seems obvious, but sometimes really listening to what others have to say first can help us form our thoughts and extend compassion to others. When we take extra time to respond we are able to carefully measure what we say. If all of us took a little more time to listen rather than respond, we might say less. When i...

Even though my oldest child is only three-years-old, I have a hard time remembering what life was like before kids. Sure, it is exhausting sometimes, but it is so worth it. Not a day goes by that I don’t laugh out loud about something one of my kids does or says. Kids truly do say the darndest. My kids certainly help keep me grounded and they don’t care if I had a bad day, they love me just the same. I don’t think any of us can truly understand unconditional love until they have their own kids. Even when they mess up and do something bad, we still love them and want the best for them. I was having a conversation with my advisory the other day about their attitude toward their parents. They sometimes feel like their parents don’t love them or they treat them too harshly. I reminded them that their parents are usually acting out of love and fear. I think that teenagers begin to think of their parents as the evil empire, only to realize when they are 25 that they are actually pretty cool ...

Our society moves at breakneck speed. Although we seemingly have an endless supply of technological tools to streamline processes and make our lives easier, we are actually busier than ever. Lately, I have been feeling the stress of all of the items of my to-do list. Whether the task is lesson planning, grading, meeting with students, paying bills, doing yard work, or any number of tasks, it has become increasingly more overwhelming to fit all that in while making sure to save time for spending with family and, here is the most important part, being truly present for the things most important. We cannot pretend to spend time with family if we are not truly present and listening. But, what about all of those items on our to-do list? I find myself often thinking about those tasks when I should be more present. I also find that the more I focus and worry about those tasks, the more I don’t physically feel like myself. I began asking myself, the other day, what I can do to help center...

One of the prompts I gave my class this week was to describe your dream day if money was no object. I often think about what my dream day would look like. I always picture it including all of the things that are important or interesting to me. The hard part was figuring out how to fit it all in. I thought of so many scenarios, and I finally decided to focus on the areas outside of school. This is a day that would happen sometime in the future. It would all begin at around 6 a.m. because I’m a morning person, and if I am going to have my dream day I may as well wake up early and get started! I would start by going for a 3-mile run. A shorter run feels like it isn’t enough, and a long run would make me too tired for the other activities. I have always enjoyed the 3-mile distance. Running also helps me get in the right frame of mind. I do some of my best thinking while I am running. After my run, the entire family would hop on a plane to Scotland. Why Scotland? Scotland happen...

There is a book I love, To Be a Runner, by Martin Dugard. In the book, he described one of his life mottos, Keep Pushing...Always. He wrote, "It is a pursuit of that best possible version of ourselves, refusing to accept mediocrity, and waking up each day full of hope instead of fear. It’s having courage, taking a risk, staying focused on the important things in life. And it’s remembering that courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to press forward despite your fears" (152). When I was a teenager, my family traveled to a family resort on a small lake in Bellaire, Michigan. The weeks spent in Bellaire were some of the best weeks of my teenage life. We spent time with the same families year after year and participated in a variety of water sports. We even ate dinner together. The resort was similar to summer camp, but this was for families. The resort had a long-standing tradition of allowing vacationers to swim back across the lake (1.5 miles). It was a...

I gave my class the following prompt this week: Is it better to say the right thing or do the right thing? Or, in other words, do actions speak louder than words? Many times during our class discussions students have brought up that it is so hard to be kind and do the right thing sometimes. However, they do not give themselves enough credit. The field trip last Friday illustrated this beautifully. Last Friday, all of the seniors took a trip to Lorain County Community College for some climbing, high ropes, and team building. There were nerves, fear of heights (including yours truly), and excitement to get out of the classroom. Some students were literally shaking at the thought of climbing to high heights in front of their peers. Some resisted participation at first. Even I was not eager to give it a go. However, something magical began to happen as the students were taking on the various challenges. They began to cheer for, encourage, and motivate each other to higher heights. You coul...

In the era of standardized testing, it is so easy to get caught up in scores and grades, rather than what really matters. What matters? This question came to mind the other day as I was getting ready to talk about the importance of senior year with my English classes. Grades matter in terms of a student’s transcript and getting into college, however, there are certain skills that cannot be ignored for the sake of coverage or earning the desired grade. First, the content itself is not always the long-term effect of an academic class. I do not remember the details about some of the books I read in high school or the chemistry concepts I worked so hard to master. However, I did gain skills that have had a long-lasting impact on my life. Through these classes, I learned time management, the importance of deadlines, persistence, and how to respond to disappointment and adversity. Participating in sports, such as cross country and track also helped in these areas. Furthermore, working...

"If you have the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind" Doing a random act of kindness for someone is a noble, selfless, and admirable thing to do.  To do something nice for someone or have someone do something nice for you, with no strings attached, brings a good feeling.  I wish I did it more often.  It is a feeling of shelling out love and being loved.  We have a family that allows us to say with them Columbus when we are not staying with my parents.  When we first met them we were embarrassed by the way they showered us with dinner, tickets to football games, free babysitting for our children, you name it they wanted to do it for us.  The sooner we realized that they really wanted nothing in return and they just loved our company and wanted us to be comfortable, it became easier to accept.  We still want to pay them back in some way, but not because we feel obligated, but because we truly appreciate them.  What this family ...

How many of you wake up every day and think about what your strengths are?   Not a single hand went up when I asked this question during class yesterday.  Full disclosure, my hand would have remained down as well.  The assignment began with me asking the students what their strengths were, not just academically but in general.  This proved to be a difficult task for some, and when the students asked me to disclose my strengths, I then began to empathize with the difficulty of the assignment.   Why is it so difficult to identify and discuss our strengths?  Maybe it is because we are too busy worrying about everything that could go wrong in our day, the stresses we have, our comparisons to others, or maybe it just seems too vain to point out the great things about ourselves.  Although the lesson began slowly, students began to think outside the box and feel good about the strengths they were writing down on paper.  Then came the sharing, and ...

One of the really great benefits of being a teacher is having the ability to have the summer off to grow professionally, spend time with family, and to relax and recharge for the following school year.  While I absolutely love my job as an educator at Lawrence school, it is necessary to have that time to reflect, play, and grow personally and professionally.  This past summer was filled with opportunities to do just that.   Let’s start at the beginning.  Our first order of business was to take a trip across the country to Colorado to visit friends and then on to Phoenix, Arizona to visit family.  If you have ever traveled with very young children on an airplane, you can empathize with the challenges of packing, escorting, and most importantly feeding everyone along the way.  A hungry 3-year-old is a hangry 3-year-old.  I think some adults can relate as well.  Once we got past the logistics of traveling, we were off on a great advent...

Sometimes being vulnerable and taking a risk in front of our students is the best thing educators can do. I have decided to go on a writing journey with my students through the use of this blog. They each have a blog, and we will all post a weekly blog to tell stories, communicate ideas, make arguments, and expand our horizons. One of the questions I ask myself on a daily basis is, how can I make myself better today? No, I’m not upset with who I am as a husband, father, teacher, and friend, but it’s about being the best that I can be. It’s about embracing the process, working doggedly toward our goals and our passions and developing strong relationships along the way. My students and I will share our passions, goals, successes, and failures through our blogs. We will continue to work toward developing higher character, which means demonstrating more kindness, more gratitude, and more persistence. We will work toward developing these qualities while chasing our passions and develo...