Snoozy, Bee and Me and No Lunch at Updown School - Part One

Based on a true story with supplemental moments...


By my mother’s recollection, I only ever smacked her once.  I was four years old, or possibly five, somewhere in the early seventies.

She had taken me to visit a new school.  I hated my old one.  They didn’t teach me anything.  I was ahead of the class in reading and was therefore directed to read in silence by myself.  No further instruction necessary. The less work I did, the more bored I got. And the more bored I got, the more trouble I got into. My parents were apparently no longer willing to put up with any more phone calls detailing flying spit wads and the pulling of ponytails. Besides, the uniforms were scratchy, my teachers were spiteful, and the lunch counter served liver and spotted dick.

Visiting a new school represented new hope, a way out.  My mother had heard about this school from her friend Snoozy.  Not her real name, just the best I could manage when I was first learning to talk.  Snoozy’s daughter went there.  Her daughter was learning her times tables, Snoozy said, and reading Tolstoy, or something like that, and her calligraphy was up for nomination to the museum for perfect five year olds.  This was the school for me, Snoozy said, a place where I could be challenged, and where I could bring my own lunch.

I did not care about my times tables.  I was only four, or possibly five. Beautiful letters did not excite me. But I could bring my own lunch.  I had had my fill of indestructible bangers and mash and rhubarb crumble.  Most importantly I had a massive crush on Bee, Snoozy’s daughter. I was sold.

My mother set up the visit. It was for the following Tuesday.  I wore my special brown and orange striped shirt, my cobalt blue shorts, and I got to choose my very own lunch, a Cheddar cheese sandwich on white bread (was there any other?), a bag of Golden Wonder ready salted potato crisps, and an apple.  This last one was to make me strong, my mother said. I planned on sharing my potato crisps, and quite possibly even my apple, with Bee. It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The school was in a village a few miles away. Its official name was Updown School, but it was known throughout the universe as Mrs. Brown’s school.  Mrs. Brown was the head teacher.  My mother informed me that Mrs. Brown was completely in charge and I was to be extra especially nice to her.  She had been at the school a long time and it was her decision as to whether I would get in or not.  The stakes were high.

Snoozy came to pick me up in her cream-colored Morris Marina coupe. I sidled close to Bee in the back seat. No seatbelts when I was four, or possibly five, somewhere in the early seventies. Bee was wearing a plaid dress in a gorgeous mélange of green, blue, yellow and red.  She had a red ribbon tied in her golden hair.  My palms moistened. There could be no more perfect start to my new life.

We drove to school, Snoozy chattering on about her new formica countertops and the demise of the shilling and half crown. I snuck furtive glances over at Bee, but she was absorbed in Enid Blyton, an author I would learn to hate.  We pulled up at a moss-covered flint wall, interrupted by grey stone steps.  We alighted. I grabbed my brown paper bag lunch (the much coveted green plastic lunch box adorned by the highly popular Wombles of Wimbledon Common would have to wait until unconditional admission), and climbed the damp stairway. What awaited at the top was a pleasant looking pre-war schoolhouse at the end of a rich English lawn against a backdrop of tall chestnuts.  A pathway wound quaintly to the front door.

Mrs. Brown was waiting. I’m not sure what I had been expecting, but a wrinkly stooped reptilian lady in calico was surely not it.  She looked like she was a hundred and forty years old. She told me to sit down, far far away from Bee, and next to a boy called Kevin. Kevin told me his dad was a fireman.  I had never met a real fireman before.  I didn’t even own a T-shirt with a fire engine on it.  Kevin had three.  My parents didn’t mingle with people who climbed ladders for a living.

Kevin and I were sitting on wooden chairs at a long table, with four other kids next to us.  It was one of four similar tables in the room, all one behind the other facing the front.  Mine was the third one. The walls were covered in maps, a collection of children’s artwork, some writing (all in perfect penmanship), and a poster that listed the school’s agreements about kindness, safety, respect, and responsibility.

Mrs. Brown conferred with the other teacher, a rather rotund Mrs. Boyd, and then came and sat herself next to me, armed with a small collection of books.  She had me read to her from a couple of them and that seemed to satisfy her.  She gave me some math problems which I managed to do without terrible trouble, and then it was time for milk.

This was a time in England when the government provided free milk to all school children under the age of eleven.  It made our bones strong, even if it didn’t make our teeth straight.  It must have been good policy, because a couple of years later when then Secretary of Education Margaret Thatcher eliminated the practice in a cost saving maneuver (thus becoming for a while affectionately known as Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher), the energy crisis hit, the unions rose to power, and the Empire collapsed.  It took her a decade of premiership to sort it all out.

The milk was delivered every morning to the school in one-third-of-a-pint-sized bottles.  Presumably because Mrs. Brown feared spillage, the oldest students in the school were given the job of piercing the little metal bottle tops with straws and parceling the bottles out to each child.  I got my bottle, sucked down the milk, and watched all the children head outside to play.

Mrs. Brown would not let me go.  We had work to do, young man.  She explained that I wasn’t staying for the whole day, that my mother would be here soon, and she wanted to get a sense of my writing.  Oh, the injustice! While Bee and Kevin and a couple of dozen potential new friends were kicking around a football, I was inside being made to write about my summer holiday.  And I had just been informed that I would be going home soon.  I wouldn’t even get to share my crisps with Bee.  This was unfair!  How could my mother have packed me a lunch and not known that she would be picking me up before I had a chance to eat it, denying me a chance to enjoy the gastronomic delights of the paper bag, a school lunch not manufactured by the proletariat classes of industrial postwar Britain?  I began to sulk.

           

To the sounds of children playing joyfully outside the window, I begrudgingly refilled my fountain pen at the inkwell (even in the early seventies, this was clearly a practice whose time had come and gone several decades before) and sat down at the wooden table, noticing for the first time generations of etchings in its surface. I harrumphed. I wanted to be outside.  I did not want to be sitting here waxing not particularly lyrically about what I had done that summer.  Mrs. Brown shuffled by every few minutes, a faint smell of onion emanating from her print frock, and made slightly worrisome clicking noises.

After twenty minutes, the bell rang outside, signaling the re-entry of a playground-load of happy, rosy-cheeked children back into the school.  Mrs. Brown bade me write on.  I had not finished.  At that moment, catching me fully off guard, into the school walked my mother.  She had arrived at my moment of maximum frustration. While Kevin and several others were clattering the chairs in an effort sit down, Mrs. Brown summoned me to the door.  I threw my chair back, stomped over to pick up my brown paper bag, ignored the friendly “Hello, darling, how was your morning?” from my mum, swung my lunch bag as hard as I could against her legs, and stormed outside.  The bag split. The brown paper failed me, catapulting its contents across the room, the apple rolling to a gentle stop up against Mrs. Brown’s feet.

           

“Well,” I heard Mrs. Brown exclaim as I headed across the lawn, “we certainly don’t tolerate that sort of behavior at Updown School.”

“But…but…” my mother stammered, “he really is a very nice boy…” which is all I heard as I made my way down the steps to the car, sniveling and sad.  After all, I was only four, or possibly five.

Afterword: 

Mrs. Brown informed my mother that my presence at the school was not welcome.  It took a phone call from Snoozy to persuade Mrs. Brown that I really was a very nice boy and would not only benefit from an education at Updown School, but that quite frankly I needed the challenge. Mrs. Brown relented and I was admitted the following week. 

Part Two to follow…..

In Search of Exploration

9:16 a.m. on a chilly October morning in Denver. A class of elementary school children is nervously awaiting the arrival of the city bus. The bright sunshine has them squinting on the southbound side of the street. A few attempt, without success, to get a passing truck driver to sound his horn. They hold bus tickets in their hands and on their young backs, backpacks filled with all the supplies they are going to need this day.

Today’s the day they’ve been waiting for, the grand adventure. They have been planning this for weeks. They know what is expected of them. They know their responsibilities. For they are Explorers and they are setting off into the unknown.

Back in the classroom, they have studied some of the great explorers of the past – Leif Erikson, Christopher Columbus, Henry Hudson, Ferdinand Magellan. They learned the facts but greater questions arose. What was it like for these stouthearted men and their crews? Did they know where they were going? What would happen if their supplies ran out? Why was there mutiny? Could they find their way home again? Outstanding questions from a group of eight to eleven year olds. Today they are going to find out some of the answers for themselves.

Their teacher has not told them where they are headed or how long they’re going to be. He has told them that they will be traveling to a new place, a place where they will find a different environment. They will be seeking the unfamiliar. They might stumble upon a new species of plant or animal or, if they are lucky, native peoples. They will be searching for clues, evidence that life has been there before them, and might still be there now.

The children are arranged in groups of four. They have picked names for their group – The Almighty Explorers, The Dodo Birds, The Exploring Rocks, and more. They have decided which task they are going to pursue out in the field – looking for plant, animal, or human life, or making maps. They have determined what materials they might need for their pursuit, and they have packed accordingly – home-made bug catchers, affectionately known as pooters, magnifying glasses, nets, cameras, clipboards, and all manner of recording equipment and writing tools. And lunch.

Lunch has been a big deal, a point of negotiation for some time. The teacher gave each group $9.48 and set them loose in the neighborhood grocery store. This wasn’t the time to go for the pre-packaged Lunchable. No one could afford it. This was a time for debate and dispute, for concession and compromise. Lively discussions ensued about the number of slices in a loaf, the number of ways you can split an orange, and whether the bakery department would hand out free cookies to cute kids from the school next door. (They did.)

The bus pulls up in a fit of hydraulics, a look of disbelief on the face of the driver and despair on the faces of the listless passengers. The children take up every available seat. This is a first ride for many of them. Most arrive at school each day by car.

They’re off. Some are amazed to see familiar places fly past the window from this higher vantage point. One or two easygoing commuters engage the kids in friendly banter. “Where are you all going?” They don’t understand why the children don’t know. “We’re going exploring!” and the passengers sense the excitement around them.

The bus threads its way out of the neighborhood and into new territory. Some kids are taking bets on where it will stop. Natural questions arise. “Will we have enough to eat? What will we find? Are we there yet?” Some kids nervously watch the landscape rush by. Others engage in carefree conversation about last night’s Dancing With The Stars. One or two pull out books and read.

After twenty-five minutes or so, the teacher asks one young boy to tug on the rope. This is their stop. This is a new part of town. The kids don’t recognize the place. The bus pulls up and the class piles out with shining eyes and wagging tongues. They wait for the bus to pull away with a mighty snort. They cross the street, and head down the hill for three hundred yards to their destination.

A vast array of early spring green awaits them. Trees snake along a stream awakened with fresh water from nearby melting snow. Open grass areas give way to manicured baseball fields. A jogging path winds around a children’s playground, following the stream, crossing it at a couple of points, forking into two and re-uniting far off into the distance. This is one of the larger parks in the city park system well removed from the usual stomping grounds of these children and their families. The perfect place to Explore.

The separate groups meet to strategize. Where are the best places to find animals and plants? Where is the optimal spot to begin making maps? Is our teacher really going to make us interview complete strangers?

Yes, yes he is.

A couple of groups head down to the stream. They immediately launch their nets into the shallow water. Great shouts of joy reach those on the banks. Creepy crawlies are being sucked up into pooters and scooped up into jars. Critters who live in, on, and under the water abound. “Look! Look what I caught! Wow! That’s amazing. Look at this one! Ugh! Gross!” Tennis shoes sink in the mud. Someone accidentally nudges a friend into the water above her ankles.

Another group tramps through long grass in search of bigger animals. Will they find a rodent or a nesting bird? They’re looking for new and interesting plants, species they haven’t ever found in their own backyard or playground. The small stream winding its way through this park should provide plenty of opportunity. Armed with clipboards and colored pencils, they settle in to draw what they see, to document, to create a record they can bring back to school without taking what they find.

One intrepid band sets off to talk to the natives, local people using the park for recreation. They find dog walkers, joggers, tennis players, mothers of young children at the playground. They approach and are pleasantly surprised at the natives’ friendly and open manner. They learn about the neighborhood and how frequently the park is used. They whip out measuring tools and graph paper and begin to map the area to scale. They plot exactly where the encounters occur.

After an hour or so, the teacher calls the class together. Children emerge in small clusters from the long grass, from behind the playground, from the clump of trees in the far distance. Classmates greet each other and share their adventures with passion, no one group waiting long enough to hear another without jumping in and interrupting. There is the story of the lady who has walked her twin Scottish terriers in the park every day for a decade. There is a tale of the curious black and white ducks who fled into deeper water at the approach of The Dodo Birds. There is the disbelief and debate whether the distance across the park from east to west is greater than the perimeter of the baseball field. And there is lunch.

Backpacks are opened. Provisions are divided out. Portions are controlled. “If we each have two slices of turkey in our sandwiches, there’ll be one slice left that we can split up. Let’s feed our crusts to the ducks. Hey, do you want to trade half my apple for a cookie? You didn’t even pay for that cookie, it was free!” There is even a suggestion from one of the kids to pick up trash after lunch, to leave the place even better than they found it. Motion carried.

The teacher eventually glances at his watch and calls his adventurers to gather together . He is proud of his gallant party of Explorers. Mission accomplished.

There was no mutiny. No one went hungry or abandoned ship. Throughout the day he heard the questions of scientists in search of knowledge, “Why, what if, how, what do you think, let’s try?” He heard the language of cooperation, “Come on, let’s go, do you want to try, let’s do it together!” He witnessed writing and reading and math and social studies and science and thinking and collaboration and trial and error and pushing out of the comfort zone and laughter and teamwork and success.

The band of explorers winds its way back up the hill to the bus stop. The children climb slowly aboard and flop into their seats. And they wonder, “What does tomorrow have in store?”

Speech to the Graduating Class of Stanley British Primary School

(to listen to a recording of this speech, click here)

May 27, 2011

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, a particularly great morning to the graduating class of 2011 and good morning to an enormous sea of former students and parents who are here today.

Before I start I was thinking last night how eloquently David Marais thanked all of us as 8th grade parents for helping so much with all the graduation festivities and I thought I would take the opportunity, from all of us as 8th grade parents, a round of applause, to thank David Marais and all he’s done for our 8th grade class.

Thank you for giving me this podium on this important day. A couple of years ago, when David asked me to give this speech today, there were mixed emotions in my household. I felt some joy and pride that for the first time we were going to hear from a graduation speaker who represented a section of the school other than the middle school, and who was also the parent of a graduating student. My daughter Emma, on the other hand, was mortified that I might take this opportunity to embarrass her publicly. As if I’ve ever done that before! You need not worry, Em. You have my word. And even though David knew that this would be the last day as Stanley students for Emma and her 8th grade friends, what none of us could have possibly known then was that this was the day that I would also be saying goodbye to this school.

So here we all are, at a day that perhaps many of us thought would never come. For some of you graduating, it’s only been a couple of years or so, since you started middle school at Stanley. For others, who began their Stanley careers in 345, it’s been maybe 4 or 5 years that you’ve been at the school. We learned at the Rose Ceremony on Wednesday, that for twenty of these graduating students, you’ve had nine full and happy years on our campus. And for some of us graduating from Stanley today, it’s been twenty-one years.

We’ve all seen many changes in our time here at Stanley. In the last month, we’ve broken ground on a new entrance to the school. In the last couple of years, we’ve seen Matt and Kathy’s and Katie Boston’s classes move into their own building. We’ve got a new elevator in the middle school and a bell system so that Alexandra will get you to your next class on time. We’ve started Family Groups and we’ve finally got cool new uniforms for the sports teams.

For many of us, in the last five or six years, we’ve said goodbye to a founding head of school and welcomed a new one. He’s taller and plays the banjo better than the old one. And when I say ‘old’, even though you seem to have carelessly left Carolyn behind at the Little White House in Brockenhurst, I mean ‘old’ with only affection and gratitude. We’ve got to know wonderful new teachers and we’ve said goodbye to others. Today, we say goodbye to a few more.

Back in 2002, when this class began their illustrious careers in kindergarten, important events were shaping our world. The Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake City. The US invaded Afghanistan. The body of Hall of Fame baseball player Ted Williams was frozen cryogenically in two separate pieces and a little TV show called American Idol debuted, leading Kelly Clarkson to break a record held for 38 years by the Beatles when her smash hit A Moment Like This leapt 51 places to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Here at Stanley in 2002, Sara Stern graduated from the intern program and was hired to teach 345, the school broke ground on the construction of the gym, Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated and ESPN fame was coaching our basketball teams, and at the Holiday Program, Ted’s class performed The Grinch Who Stole Christmas - again.

Before that, in a time we used to call the nineties, some of you started at Paddington Station as two year olds here on an abandoned air force base at Lowry in what are now our K12 classrooms – when they were much smaller and not connected by a hallway. To get to the classroom at the end, you had to go through all the preceding classrooms, probably tripping over great piles of asbestos as you went.

I distinctly remember meeting several of you, kids, parents and even grandparents, at that first ice cream social for our two year old class. That was the time I distinguished myself in my naivete as a parent who clearly only had girls. The two year olds had taken a trip to the local fire station and everyone was excited to dress up and act like firefighters. I took it upon myself to provide a little realism to the make-believe, cutting up an old garden hose into four foot long strips, knowing that Addie and Jade and Lily and others would love putting out pretend fires with the mini-hoses. I hadn’t taken into account two year old boys, kids like Niall and Cole and Jack Longenecker, who proceeded to snatch the hoses and beat the living daylights out of each other. The teacher had to remove the weapons forthwith.

Those of you who are graduating your second or third child from Stanley today, and you’ve been here a decade or more, will remember the days when we had a split campus and all the challenges that that represented. Staggered start and finish times to the school day. For many staff members, much driving between the two sites. Two phone numbers, two receptionists, two places where we could lose your information, your tuition checks, and quite possibly even your children. I’m kidding, we never lost your tuition checks.

Before that, we were dealing with getting onto our Lowry campus through barbed wire fences, over parts of runways, and through plenty of mud. Tim remembers those days, sixteen years ago, when we spent a few years developing a middle school curriculum and taking out all kinds of debris that the US Air Force left behind – red velvet bar stools that we removed from the room we still call the pub, cast iron desks that weighed more than a small car, and plenty of bedroom furniture from the duplex houses that are now these classrooms.

For those of us who taught in the old building up the street at 1301 Quebec, we got excited when we built an addition which housed, three new classrooms, an extended day room and a giant multi-purpose room. That thing was massive. Compared to the gym today, that room was like, as big, as a small part of it, maybe the size of the music room if you pull Jill and all the instruments out of there. We played basketball in there. I directed my first ever play Black Ships Before Troy. Heck, we had the whole Holiday Program in that room. We were crammed in, we were hot, but we were happy. Hm, I guess some things don’t change.

Before that addition, we were four little classrooms and a basement. I taught down there, in the basement, for 2 years and mastered completely the art of pipe-dodging. The pipes down there in that basement are five feet eleven inches off the ground and I’m six feet one By the end of those two years, all my head wounds healed and I was able to teach math and give spelling tests, wandering around my classroom looking like someone out of Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks.

Back then, in 1990, when I began teaching at Stanley, fresh out of college, fresh off the plane from England, when my accent sounded more like Prince William’s and I still knew how to spell properly, leaving the “u” in words like “colour” and “flavour”, we were a tiny school. We had about 85 students, K-3, and a staff of less than 20. Everyone knew everyone else. We were just thinking about offering health insurance to full-time staff members, we offered French and a writing class we called language lab, and a third of everyone’s day was spent on choice time. Some of our current teaching staff were students back in those days. Some of them hadn’t even started kindergarten then.

And of those twenty staff members or so who were at the school when I began, half of them are still here today. I think that’s remarkable. And I’d like us to acknowledge them: Carolyn Hambidge, Chris Lewis, Betsy Lewis, Leneta Jones, Ida Daniel, Joanna Hambidge, Barbara Guynn, Mary Aandahl, and Debbie Montgomery; and several other current colleagues had already been involved in the school in significant ways: Kim Hartsen, Lynne Forstot, Mary Ammons, Jane Hile, Martha Markson, and Lloyd Slevc.

We have to acknowledge them and give them our deepest gratitude and here’s why. You see, when teachers and staff members leave, they get a canvas bag with the Stanley BPS logo, the Stanley bag. You know how many people I’ve watched over the years get that darned bag? Twenty years I’ve watched friends and colleagues score with that bag, and I never got one. Not until this year. This is mine! And here are these folks giving their blood sweat and tears to this school for a quarter of a century or more, and no bag. They deserve our thanks and our appreciation.

Because when you have people who have been around an organization for two or even three decades, you get something that you can’t buy anywhere. You get institutional memory. And that’s important. You get deep-rooted knowledge of the values and principles on which a school is founded.

It’s why these 8th graders who’ve been at the school all these years make such terrific tour guides to prospective families. You remember choice time. You remember taking apart motorbikes with Chris and building giant, potentially dangerous, playground structures out of junk. You remember singing your way around Star K Ranch with Mary Jo, (and please allow me to take a moment here to thank Mary Jo who has been a wonderful, creative, amazing teacher for my own children for six years – thank you, Mary Jo) or learning about yourselves by building life-size body dolls with Lynne. You remember fully integrated days, when in 345 we didn’t clean-up from one period to the next because we were just so absorbed in everything we were studying. Days when math and science, reading and writing, social studies and the arts, all collided and the result was giant, occasionally messy, projects, that sometimes went on for weeks because that’s what we were into and we wanted to know more. You remember getting dressed up for Colonial Day and having to pay taxes to King George in order to use a pencil or go to lunch and you remember leaping on the RTD bus with no idea where we were going and ending up across town on some grand writing adventure or scientific exploration.

And now, here we all are at the end of the road. What have we learned? So much. So much we didn’t know before. For me, in all my roles here at Stanley, as intern, teacher, mentor, theater director, scheduler, parent, division head, director of programs and of operations, and, as I was once referred to, “that gal who runs the Coffeehouse”, what have I not learned? It’s been twenty-one years. That’s the length of a childhood and more. We’ve all done a lot of growing up in that time. Especially me. I started out in a traditional English family, sent away to traditional English boarding schools. About as different from Stanley as you can imagine.

This school, and the people here, have taught us all well. It has taught us how to watch and listen to children. It has taught us what a joyful place school can be. It has shown us that the process is more important than the product. It has taught us the importance of play. It has helped us understand what it means to be a lifelong learner. It has surrounded us with color and creativity, laughter and friendships.

And I’ve got to know one other thing here.

You remember the Jack Palance character in the movie City Slickers? The grizzled wise old cowboy, Curly, who asks Billy Crystal: “Do you know what the secret of life is?” and he holds up his finger and says “This”. Billy Crystal says “Your finger?” and Curly says “One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean sh…”. And Billy Crystal asks him, “But what is that one thing?” and Curly just smiles and says “That’s what you have to figure out.”

Twenty one years at Stanley, and I think I’ve finally got that one thing figured out. It’s something Carolyn told me when I first got here as a cherubic-faced twenty three year old. She recites it often, her favorite quotation from the inscription in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in Greece, the Oracle at Delphi. I didn’t fully understand it back then, but I do now. It’s this. “Know thyself”. That’s the one thing. “Know thyself” Twenty one years at this school and I’ve got to know that one thing here.

I know myself. This school does an amazing, sensational, inspirational job of helping people know who they are. It’s worked for me and it’s worked for my students over the years and it’s worked for my own children. And I think it’s worked for you, graduates of the class of 2011. The schools I attended when I was a kid did a lousy job of helping me figure out who I was. They taught me what to think, where to stand, how to fit into the crowd. I’m thrilled that you have been given this opportunity to know yourself and take your own place in your world.

We are all scattering to different schools– you to high schools in Denver, Aurora, Highlands Ranch, Englewood, Erie, Santa Barbara, me to an elementary and pre-school in Boulder.

As we head away from Stanley, I challenge all of us to keep with us everything we’ve learned at this school. We hope that we’ve not only educated you as kids, we have helped to develop you into amazing people. I hope you’ve learned what you need to help yourselves succeed. I challenge you, when you leave this place, to be kind and stand up for yourselves and others. I challenge you to self-advocate and be great team-builders. I challenge you to be outstanding contributors to your community. I challenge you to see the beauty in our world and to use your talents and skills to add to it. Whatever your passion, whether it’s music or computers, sports or photography, theatre or painting or advanced calculus, or anything else, I challenge you to pursue it with energy and spirit and enthusiasm. Go out there and be the best that you can be. And do it with love.

So, it’s the last day. You’ve got your diplomas. And I’ve got my bag. One colleague, Joan, wrote something on it from Dr Seuss, himself a wise grizzled old cowboy in his own way. It says:

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

Thank you, graduating class of 2011 for all of your gifts you’ve shared with us at Stanley. Thank you for allowing me to be part of the journey. Be well, do good, and keep in touch.

Thank you very much.

(photo credit: Jim Thomas)

Choice Time

Sheena Iyengar is a professor at the Business School of Columbia University and the author of The Art of Choosing. I heard her speak last week and came away highly impressed by both her delivery and her topic. She spoke at length about her research on choice and about her book in which she aims to help us become better choosers. I was one of almost 4,000 people in the audience who listened to her fluid and eloquent presentation, given with no notes and in complete synchronicity to a slide show that played behind her. There is nothing remarkable about that for a gifted professional speaker who has clearly done her homework and knows her stuff. Except for the fact that Sheena Iyengar is blind.

Diagnosed as a toddler with a rare form of retinal degeneration, this superbly intelligent woman was completely blind at the age of 14. I wonder if she has a strong sense of what an audience of 4,000 might look like. That might be a plus as a public speaker. It might calm the nerves. I found it remarkable how she was able to regale us with stories, quote exact figures from her research, and show both amusing and informative examples to illustrate her point, all in perfect order with the powerpoint she had created. As a budding public speaker who still relies on cue cards highlighted by keywords, I found her talk to be an exquisite paragon of the art.

Iyengar’s talk was about the relationship between leadership and choice. Some leaders are literally born into the role. Others are simply born with bucket loads of charisma and naturally rise to the top, while most of us in leadership positions have arrived there because we have developed the ability to choose well and to enhance the power of good choices for transformative good.

Her book begins with the story of Steven Callahan who, in 1982, was shipwrecked and became one of the first people ever to survive on the high seas for more than a month. He drifted in a small raft, finding his own food and drinking water, for 76 days, ending up on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from where he started. He says he overcame almost certain death by choosing “to pilot myself to a new life or to give up and watch myself die.” It was the power of his own choice that saved him.

I am proud that the school where I work, and where my daughters attend, teaches children how to make good choices. This is such an important part of our educational philosophy that we actually have a period of the day called “choice time”. And it is exactly what it says it is – a time of the school day when students get to choose what activities they would like to partake in. Teachers put out different types of materials, quite often art supplies, items to build with or glue together, thingamajigs where scientific discoveries can be made. And if a child does not choose to spend time doing one of the choices set out by the teacher, he or she may choose to do something else. Quite often the choices presented are connected to the current area of curriculum study, but sometimes not.

Children who have recently arrived at our school and who have not been exposed to having this much choice in the classroom sometimes struggle to pick an activity and to focus. But soon they learn how to make good choices, how to collaborate and negotiate with their classmates, and how to trust their own judgment. Some of our students come to us from traditional classrooms where they have been told where to sit, when to talk, whom to talk to, when to get up, where to go, and what to do. They are not used to making choices of their own. At our school, we have discovered that, at choice time, children actively engage in the process of defining themselves. They are given the opportunity to make decisions and think for themselves, and they shine.

Isn’t this what we want from our college graduates, from our work force for the 21st century? Don’t we seek collaborators and team players who know themselves, think for themselves, and have great ideas? That’s what I want for my own children.

Iyengar spoke of the vast differences in how certain cultures perceive choice. For example, Anglo-Americans crave individuality and feel empowered from having more choice, while Asian-Americans tend to value choice less and have deeper trust of group norms. She also warned that too much choice, as all parents can attest to, can be detrimental. Have you ever taken a small child to a good-sized grocery store and asked them to pick out a snack?

However, she highlighted one study that she had done, in which two groups of children were given anagrams to solve. One group was given the choice of several topics that the mixed-up words were about. They were also allowed to choose which pen, out of five different colored markers, they wanted to write the answers with. A second group was given no choices – they were assigned the topic and the pen. Not surprisingly, Anglo-American kids who were given the choices performed two and a half times better on the test than their peers with no choice. Interestingly, Asian-American children performed significantly better when told that their topic and pen color had been chosen by their mother. All great evidence of the power of choice.

It is clear that effective leaders today have to be dedicated practitioners of the art of choice. They have to understand the people they lead and work with them to give them the right amount of choice to empower them. Sheena Iyengar herself was dealt a rough hand in the game of life, a disease that robbed her of her eyesight. She chose to rise above it, to become an expert in her chosen field, and she chose to shine.


The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar, published by Twelve, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, 2010. A link to her website appears in the left column of this blog.

Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic

I’m one of those people who feels flummoxed when a button pops off. I have no idea what to do. I know the theory behind the needle and thread, but my hands barely fit in men’s extra large gloves and my fingers certainly aren’t up to the task of threading a flimsy piece of cotton through the eye of a needle. Even as an agnostic, I probably have a better shot at entering the kingdom of heaven on the hump of a camel than getting a thread through that absurdly tiny hole. And even if I could, once threaded, I have no idea about how to sew the button or tie the knot at the end, limited again by gargantuan fingers.

Such is the handicap for my vocation as a director of children’s theater. Unlike the well-paid professionals on either coast, my lot is to be in charge of the whole kit and caboodle – set design, set building, lighting, sound, special effects, music and yes, I’m sorry to say, costumes.

For the first three productions I ever directed, my assistant director and I tried to coordinate costumes ourselves. The result was a mismatched collection of ill-fitting clothes: suits too long, shirts too wide, dresses too big. The costumes were a mess.

For production number four – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – I began to learn from experience. I fired myself from costumes, fired my assistant director entirely and hired my friend Jane.

Jane sees the world differently from me. She’s lived with dyslexia for more than fifty years. She sees the world in pictures and gets muddled when she’s tired. It’s easy for her to mix up the names of cast members, especially those with similar names. Jack and Jake confuse her. She would never be a big money winner on Jeopardy where the kings of quick-fire rule.

She has raised three children, almost exclusively on her own, and all three are excelling in the creative arts – Lisa in dance, Reed in theatrical lighting design, Mark in the culinary arts. Jane understands children with learning differences better than any teacher I know. On an instructional level, she simply gets what they need. Yet she drives certain colleagues batty because she communicates erratically and wanders in late to staff meetings, often dragging a large messy bag along with her.

And she has transformed my stage. She has hand-made fat costumes out of hula- hoops for Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee. She has dressed a full cast of nearly forty kids in historically accurate period costumes. She handcrafted both the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion, breaking a few sewing machine needles along the way. Over the last five years, she has been responsible for over one thousand costumes, each one exceptional and coordinated with its stage mates.

But more importantly than how each costume looks, Jane has made a personal connection with each young actor and made sure that each and every cast member feels good in their attire, is comfortable, and knows the character he is portraying. Jane knows that a child who has had a say in her costume, who has been heard, who feels at ease, will be a better more confident performer. That child will feel successful and will raise the levels of children around her. He will be proud of his work and will naturally go on to greater and better things. Confidence and success are powerful tools in the education of young minds.

With needle and thread, hot glue guns, machines that attach beading and sequins, buttons and zippers, Jane has brought my stage to life. More traditional minds don’t always understand her value and don’t always speak her language. But if they take the time to look past the baggage and the mess, they will get her. Jane has made an enormous difference in the lives of hundreds of children. She is a master educator and a gift.

A New Appointment

I am honored and grateful to have been appointed Head of School at Friends’ School in Boulder. The announcement was made last month. I am thrilled to have been given this opportunity and I am excited to be joining a school community which is such a caring, supportive, challenging place for children and adults to learn.

Friends’ School is committed to educating the whole child – “head, hand, and heart”. It has an educational philosophy that is wonderfully aligned with my own. Although I have known the school for a number of years through my work for the Teacher Preparation Program, my visits this fall truly helped me to see the amazing work being done at the school by gifted educators and committed parents. I am so impressed at how everyone at the school believes in the vision and mission that they have laid out. I am happy to be in a place where together we will continue to uphold that vision and mission and where we will work to meet the challenges set out in the school’s five year strategic plan and to build a school that is financially sustainable while losing none of the personality and charm that makes it what it is today.

I am thankful to Community Board Chair Fred Marienthal, all of the Search Committee members and the entire Friends’ community of Board members, teachers, staff, parents, students, and alumni, as well Jim Bonney and Jean Lamont of Educators’ Collaborative who participated in the national search. They dug deep, thought hard, and, I believe, trusted their gut. I am also profoundly grateful to retiring Head of School Polly Donald, whom I’ve known and respected for years, who is committed to teaching me and helping to make this transition as smooth as possible.

In addition, it would be remiss of me not to thank my ‘family’, friends and colleagues, at Stanley British Primary School, the school I’ve known and loved for twenty years. They have taught me well, supported me in this process, and prepared me for this next phase of the journey. Lastly, I am so grateful to my own family for walking every step of the way – to Laura, to my parents, to my daughters Emma and Leah, and to my loving partner, Steph.

To my new community at Friends’, I am looking forward to getting to know you all, working alongside you, and continuing to create a school that is like no other - one where children are challenged to know themselves, where subjects are taught in experiential, fully integrated ways, where creative and critical thinking and children’s natural curiosity are celebrated, where we all become an integral part of a caring community, where everyone is challenged and honored in a lifelong journey of learning.

I’m posting the letter that the Search Committee sent out to the Friends’ community. It is truly a privilege to be here. Thank you.

Steve


ANNOUNCING OUR NEW HEAD OF SCHOOL


The Community Board is thrilled to announce that Steve de Beer will be our next Head of Friends’ School.

As a well-organized master teacher with administrative responsibilities at a progressive independent school, Steve has an excellent foundation to become our next Head of School.

Steve brings many qualities to our community as a Head of School, including:

• A deep understanding and commitment to the vision, mission, and educational philosophy of Friends’ School;
• Engaging and collaborative leadership skills
• Strong working relationships with parents, faculty and administrators;
• Direct involvement in our Teacher Preparation Program and respect of those who worked with him;
• Enthusiastic support of the arts, plus experience directing and producing children’s theater; and
• A wonderful sense of play, meeting children at eye level, supported by 20 years in the classroom and comprehensive knowledge of child development.

While visiting Friends’ School, the children were openly excited about Steve. Not surprisingly, they met him with great enthusiasm during his time in the classrooms.

Steve is very enthusiastic about the opportunity to lead our school. Please help us welcome Steve to our community!
We will continue to keep you updated with news regarding our new Head of School.

The Friends’ School Community Board

A quandary of left vs right

“You better not never tell nobody but God…” is a prompt with which the members of my writing group challenged each other. Four minutes to write on whatever this quote brought up for each of us. My group, creative souls all, explored childhood memories and secrets held only between themselves and their deity. Not me. I had a problem.

You see the quotation is a triple negative.

I spend my days proofreading the written work of my students, those whom I can correct, and getting frustrated at published writers, those whom I cannot correct, on precise grammar – double negatives, split infinitives, misuse of apostrophes, the list goes on. And now they give me this, a triple negative, the product of some philistine dialect, or perhaps an attempt at the re-creation of the voice of what I assume to be a down-trodden yet winsome child from an unknown distant backwater, far removed from the pillars of a classical education.

Does this mean “only tell God”, or “never tell God”, or “tell everyone including God”, or “tell no one except God”? My logical rational left brain deduces the last of these. My free-flowing creative right brain is screaming at me to end this pompous nonsensical drivel and to get myself in the mind of this God-fearing secretive child’s voice and to bare his or her innermost turmoil to share with my ever-patient group.

That would be a better plan. Next time, I’m going to let my right brain prevail, split infinitives and all.

Announcing a change...

After teaching third, fourth, and fifth graders for twenty years, I have decided to leave the classroom. On the one hand, I am very sad about this because I love teaching and I love being around children every day. On the other hand, I'm excited to be staying at Stanley in a different capacity and I am looking forward to new challenges. What follows is the letter I sent out to the parents in my class. I've also included excerpts from a letter that Tim Barrier, Head of School, sent to the parents. The most frequent question I got from the children after I told them was, of course, "Why?" I hope this helps to answer their question:

Dear Parents,

It is with very mixed feelings that I announce to you that I will not be teaching this class next year.

After twenty years as a classroom teacher, the time has come for me to turn the reins of this class over to someone new. I want you to know that I have not taken this decision lightly and it is a decision born out of a desire to take on new challenges on behalf of the school.

For two decades, I have come to school every day filled with excitement and passion for what I do. The energy of the children, the parents and my colleagues feed me daily. There has not been a day when I have not learned something new and not retired at the end of the day grateful for what I am able to do every day. I have been blessed with an incredible community of families over the years and this current class is especially dear to me.

I wrote an essay recently, titled Seven Thousand Miles which some of you may have read, in which I outlined how important teaching at this school has been not only for my professional development, but also for my personal growth. I could not imagine a better place to teach, and a more loving supportive group of children and families with which to work.

I am excited to move to a new role within the school, one that Tim discusses in his attached letter. Among other things, I will be combining two of my great loves – theater and writing – in a new position which will help support the school, particularly the arts, in a way which I hope will benefit all children, families and staff here at Stanley.

I am excited to keep my connection to the 3-4-5 team and students through weekly drama and spelling classes and by continuing to co-direct the 3-4-5 musical.

Part of me cannot believe that, once fall arrives, for the first time in a very long time, I will not be running a class, laughing with students, building with math manipulatives, putting on bandaids, helping kids navigate the choppy waters of friendship, sharing my love of writing and reading, dressing up as historical characters, planning field trips, telling jokes, meeting with parents, training an intern, giving hugs. There is a huge part of me that is sad to no longer be enjoying the daily interactions with an amazing close-knit classroom community. There is also another part of me that is anticipating the new challenges that await, knowing that I will be making a difference to the life of the school, and all our students, in another way.

We will continue this semester in the way we always have – filled with excitement for learning, great ideas and projects, and making sure this classroom is the best it can be. Now is not the time for thank yous or goodbyes. I’m sure you will be hearing a lot of those from me in the future. I am sharing this news with the children today as well.

With great love, appreciation and respect,

Steve


and this from Tim:

I am writing to add my thoughts to the letter Steve shared with you. On behalf of Stanley BPS and the many families Steve has touched, I am grateful for all that he has given to our school in twenty years of teaching.

As you certainly know, Steve is a person of many talents, and he will continue to serve Stanley BPS in a number of teaching and administrative roles. Steve will continue his role in 3,4,5 Afternoon of the Arts, including directing the spring musical, and also will continue leading a spelling group. His administrative work will add to what he currently does with scheduling, assemblies, programs, and family groups. Some of his new responsibilities will include coordinating the Performing Arts department and managing program and space needs, overseeing school Safety procedures- including carpool routines and emergency drills, coordinating and communicating the master school calendar of events, providing staff support to campus parent jobs- including the Auction, and coordinating the administrative sections of our ACIS Self- Study. Steve will also apply his writing skills in capturing some elements of our program for use in Development/PR communications for internal and external community audiences.

We have begun the process of finding a replacement for Steve. Literally and figuratively, his will be big shoes to fill. The teacher we hire won’t be just like Steve, and he or she will bring unique ideas and talents. But we will be looking for someone who shares Steve’s passion for bringing out the best in all his students, his ability to implement a dynamic curriculum, and someone who at least approaches Steve’s creative energy and good humor.

Later this spring, we will find suitable ways to recognize Steve for his service to your family. In the meantime, I know this change will be a significant one in the lives of your children. I know you join me in expressing appreciation for what Steve has done for your children and for what he will continue to contribute to our school.

Tim Barrier,
Head of School

Seven Thousand Miles

April 1975. Summer term at a traditional English boarding school. A former mansion, tucked away into the thick woodlands of the southeast. The greystone edifice perched atop a hill casting a foreboding eye on all it sees. A small and sensitive seven year old is left for the first time at the grand front portal as his parents, young and unknowing in the ways of child development, drive away. He would see them every other weekend while school was in session - for the next eleven years. He is trying hard not to let others see the fear and hurt in his eyes.

It is a school where rote learning is standard; where good study habits mean copying pages off the board verbatim; where the art teacher gets angry if the boy doesn’t do it her way; where he is told to stand facing the wall for two hours after getting caught talking after lights out; where he must wear shorts even on the most biting of winter days; where no one knows his first name, only his last; where bullying is regarded as an acceptable form of character building; where missing chapel results in a beating; where untrained teachers rely on the pedagogy of their own post-war school experiences. The small and sensitive seven year old has no opportunity to find out who he is. He simply hides himself away.

That same April 1975. Seven thousand miles away, at a small school attached to Montview Church in Denver, Colorado. A teacher, trained in that same post-war England, is watching and listening to children. They are just returning from spring break. The sun warms their faces. All around her there is joy and laughter. A few of the children are seven, small, and sensitive.

These children, however, are painting glorious pictures; they are pouring water and digging in the sand; they are reading and writing - anything they want; they are sewing, building and gluing; they are playing dress-up and make-believe; they are learning math with blocks and color; they are learning how to give and take and share; they are celebrating each other’s successes; they are hugging and being hugged. The English woman does everything in her power to help these seven year olds find out who they are. And they sparkle.

The teacher’s name is Carolyn. She has recently arrived in Colorado, from England, with a young family of her own. She is in the process, although she doesn’t know it at present, of founding a school that would later grow into a beloved institution, educating thousands of children. All of them touched personally by her strong principles, her guiding hand, and her love.

The boy’s first name is Steve. Me.

Everyone calls me that now, even my students.

Fifteen years after those humble beginnings, I stumbled upon Carolyn’s school. She hired me and I have learned. I have been a teacher and theatre director here for almost twenty years, the length of a childhood. Her school, now known as the Stanley British Primary School, has taught me well.

I invite you to walk into my classroom. I am proud of the joy to be found. Children feel safe, knowing there are clearly defined limits and high expectations. They are free to be themselves, to explore while learning, and to find success. They are encouraged to take risks and they are guided as they learn from their mistakes. We work together to find out more each day about what kind of learners they are. They learn to articulate their strengths and they work to strengthen their weaknesses. They know they can make a positive difference in numerous ways. They are supported, trusted and loved. They are on the pathway to discover who they are.

I think of John, a third grader who has been diagnosed with a severe form of dyslexia. Reading is an immense struggle, as he meets familiar words for the first time again and again and again. His writing is almost impossible to read. Letters are misshapen or reversed. He occasionally forms entire sentences in mirror image from right to left. Expressing himself on paper is the hardest thing anyone has ever asked him to do.

The class is studying pre-Revolutionary War America. One group decides to make a dramatic presentation of the events surrounding the Boston Tea Party. John is one of the kids volunteering to play the part of Sam Adams. This needs to be improvised. They have been given ten minutes to produce a skit. There is no time for further study. To my surprise, his peers pick John for the role. I am unsure of what he knows. The kids know better.

With barely any practice, John gives a fluent and knowledgeable oration, recounting all the reasons that taxation without representation is unjust, why the tea on the ships floating out in Boston Harbor represents all that the colonists found so wrong with British rule, and what steps the American militia should take to unseat the occupational forces. It is an extraordinary moment. John has since gone on to star in theater in high school. Learning lines is still hard for him, but he has figured out that if he records his part and plays it back, he can memorize without too much trouble. He knows who he is as a learner.

My classroom is a place where parents feel welcome, included and appreciated, where they are free to give opinions, ask questions and participate fully in the education of their child. Their questions are answered honestly. Knowledge about child development is dispensed freely and without judgment.

I think of Lisa, the parent of an only child, a librarian by training. She grew up in San Francisco with a deep-seated phobia of math and no confidence in her mathematic ability. She mentions to me that she is struggling to help her daughter with her homework on subtraction and borrowing. She knows how to do it, just not how to explain it. She and I spend a delightful hour, one afternoon after school, playing with base ten blocks, looking at subtraction from various conceptual angles, and talking about the differences in experience and learning style between herself and her daughter. Homework now breathes more easily in Lisa’s house.

I invite you to come to a play rehearsal or to see children performing in one of my productions. Anywhere from thirty to one hundred and thirty kids working in harmony towards a common goal. As in the classroom, I am proud of the joy dancing through the theatre. Children are encouraged to reach outside their comfort zone, to strive for something they did not know they had inside them. Humour and delight abound.

I think of Katie who, a few short years ago, squeaked out a couple of barely audible lines in Peter Pan. She later starred in a major role as Alice in Wonderland, to rave reviews. I think of Will, who in the past has lacked confidence and brought a slight awkwardness to social situations. He recently played the lead, all 400 lines of it, as Sheridan Whiteside, the outlandish curmudgeon, in The Man Who Came To Dinner, and emerged as a true leader among the cast.

There is a unique spirit at Carolyn’s school. It recently hosted a statewide meeting of independent schools heads. Administrators from some of the finest schools in Colorado entered the front lobby of the school and the reaction was universal: “There is such a feeling of warmth.” Later, they toured our campus. More comments were heard: “What a delightful place this is; how happy the children are; look how the children’s work is everywhere; there is such a relaxed atmosphere; the campus is beautiful; the students are so comfortable in their environment; there is a spirit here I haven’t experienced elsewhere.”

I am overjoyed to have been a part of growing that spirit. Yet, more importantly, I am overjoyed at how the school has been part of my growing spirit.

It has taught me how to watch and listen to children. It has taught me what a joyful place school can be. It has shown me that the process is more important than the product. It has helped me understand what it means to be a lifelong learner. It has surrounded me with color and creativity, laughter and friendships.

While my formal schooling in England taught me dates and facts, Latin and Greek, competition and one-upmanship, there was so much I did not learn. I never learned about support, justice, cooperation or trust. I never learned joy, gratitude or love. I never learned the importance of play. I have learned these things at the Stanley British Primary School. I have learned them from Carolyn, from colleagues, and from parents. But most of all, I have learned them from the children. I watch them and listen to them and they teach me. Every one of them. My first class of five year olds as an intern twenty years ago, my current class of third, fourth and fifth graders, and the middle and high schoolers, many of them former students, whom I direct in theatrical productions at the school each summer.

I now know that I did not stumble upon Carolyn’s school. I was guided here for a reason. Within this safe, warm and inviting space, I have at last experienced everything that Carolyn’s kids were participating in, and that I was missing out on, all those years ago. This school has quite simply allowed me to experience my childhood.

It has brought me out of hiding.

I have finally discovered who I am.

Past Present Future

If you’re on Facebook, you know all about “25 Random Things About Me”. It’s become such a phenomenon that the New York Times recently wrote a feature about it. If you’re not, allow me to explain. Someone, anyone, writes 25 statements about him or herself: childhood memories, current beliefs, high school crushes, favorite books or movies, quirky information. He or she posts it on their Facebook profile for all their friends to see.

When I first saw one, I was amazed at the openness. I loved learning about a small slice of my friend’s background. It was fun, thought-provoking, and enlightening. Over the last few weeks, more and more friends have bared their souls. Never feeling like I was reading TMI, too much information, I have been pleasantly surprised at how carefully I’ve been taking them in. Windows have been opened and wonderful discussions have followed. I have learned things that I would never have discovered over coffee.

Inspired by my friends, I have just finished writing my own. It has been a fascinating process. What information would people want to read? How can I narrow it down to 25 things? Is this supposed to be a summary of my life or of my current thinking about the world? Should I be sincere, humorous, vulnerable? What would people think? What I discovered in the course of writing is that one ‘fact' flowed into the next. It doesn’t matter what people think and it’s not a résumé. It is simply an exercise in taking a little time, going inside for a short while, checking in with me, and seeing how I am doing.

I also discovered that looking backwards and looking inside isn’t enough. My random things are about my past and my present. As I wrote, I realized that where I really want to go is my future. So I have also generated some thoughts about where I’m headed. I have spent some time dwelling on where I want my life to go, and creating a vision for myself. I’ve called it Living My Vision.

Both my 25 Random Things About Me and Living My Vision are posted here. I have written them for me. But I post them here because I hope someone, maybe you, will enjoy them enough to be inspired. Perhaps inspired enough to go inside for a moment or to create a vision of your own. It has been a wonderful pause in my journey. Enjoy.

25 Random Things About Me

1. Being sent away to a traditional English boarding school at the age of seven has affected my adult life in more ways than I have previously cared to admit….

2. Negative impact: child abuse is never ever ever okay under any circumstance. Intimacy and trust are damn hard. But I’m working assiduously on both.

3. Positive impact: it has become very clear that my entire life has been and will always be about creating safe, happy spaces in which kids are free to grow.

4. Emma and Leah are the essential elements in my life. When I watch them sleep, I understand what is meant by ‘love hurts’.

5. Laughing with them brings me my single greatest joy.

6. I’ve never taken a class in theater in my life. I’ve acted in three plays, one in elementary school, two in college. All three were terrible. I was the only native English speaker in one – The Importance of Being Earnest – it was hilarious, but still terrible.

7. I am passionate about directing. Bringing a story from script to production is an awesome experience.

8. But not as awesome as seeing the light go on for one child.

9. I’m directing four plays this summer, bringing my total to 27 full-scale productions in the last ten years. My theater colleagues are among the most creative people I know.

10. I am an artist. I think I’ve always been one but nobody told me until a couple of years ago. I see the world in pictures. Books on tape are really hard for me.

11. I am grateful for those who see my artistry. You know who you are.

12. Writing is my thing. When the newspaper published my first essay, I wept. I plan on getting out there more. I know more about blogging than I ever thought I would. When I sit down to write an essay, I rarely know where I’m going. I believe that the Creative Spirit works through those who let her in.

13. I believe in Spirit. I am beginning to trust. I am learning to get out of the way. I’ve been here before and I know I’ll be back.

14. I believe religion is the root of much that is wrong with this world.

15. I love water – drinking it, listening to it, floating on it, walking through it, watching it, crossing it, standing under it, swimming in it. My best ideas come in the pool.

16. I am not a fan of movies or TV. I’ll go see live theater as many times as the budget will allow. Though I watch and know more about sports than anyone thinks.

17. I fantasize that one day I’ll still be teaching but earning the salary of a profession I value less.

18. Every year, I take the stage in Stanley’s Annual Deadbeat Coffeehouse. It is an amazing event involving the most incredible people. Every organization deserves such a night, a boost to the community spirit. I feel like an amateur compared to other performers. I am in awe of my musician friends. I wish I could sing like that.

19. I’ve played a lot of rugby, squash and water polo in my time, but I find it almost impossible to button the cuff on the right arm of my shirts.

20. At one point I was fluent in French and reasonably useful in Russian, Italian, Greek, Swahili and Latin. I have discovered that Colorado is not the place for honing those skills.

21. When I was small, my father owned the toy shop in our village. It was heaven for a little boy. I still feel guilty for stealing a plastic miniature Greek soldier. Sorry, Dad.

22. Some likes: Newcastle Brown, Brussel sprouts, Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, beach vacations, kind people, Wings Seminars in Eugene, baseball.

23. Some dislikes: celery, beets, peanut butter, traffic, thoughtless and/or mean people, crowded places, shopping malls.

24. I don’t consider myself a material person, but I know that one day I will be the proud owner of a Mini Cooper S, a red one with a sunroof.

25. I didn’t plan on writing these, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how wonderful it’s been reading those of my friends. However writing what’s been before will never be as relevant as creating a vision of what’s to come. See below.

26. I’m not very good with rules (see #1), so I just had to write a 26th random fact – just to be difficult.

Living My Vision

I know who I am. I am grateful for the past and I know where I am going. I trust that I have everything I need for the journey. I am energetic, playful, humorous and kind. I am fully present and I dream big. I am courageous and adventurous and I take action, even when I am fearful, creating the results I want.

I am abundantly healthy, exercising at least twice a week and choosing a nutritious and balanced diet. I feel great in mind body and spirit. I always have choice and I am living a life of integrity. I am honest and joyous, celebrating my openness and vulnerability. I am emotionally connected to those I love. I am in a loving, supportive, mutually respectful relationship and I enjoy a close caring relationship with my girls, at all ages.

I work in a creative environment where I feel valued. I celebrate the artist in myself. I am writing and publishing, with positive reviews and strong sales. I am passionately involved in theater. I am assisting others to know and trust themselves, and I support them in pursuing their dreams. I am growing my wealth, investing in myself, my family, and for the good of the planet. I have enough money. I live in a warm and cozy house, where simplicity and comfort reign. I drive a car I love. I enjoy relaxing and exciting vacations at least twice a year.

I am a lifelong learner, seizing and embracing opportunities to grow. I trust the process of intention. I recognize the uniqueness and sacred in everyone. I know in my heart that each of us is capable, lovable, whole, and magnificent. I am building a culture which celebrates and honors children. I embrace service to my world and the people in it. I live in gratitude and bring joy and passion into my life and the lives of others.

I celebrate the happy carefree child and the wise guiding adult.

History starts now….

Strength

I know a little girl, ten years old. She bounces when she’s excited. No mild bobbing, Aliza clears the ground by several feet when she’s got good news to tell me. She is a student in my class. She greets me in the mornings with a bright-eyed smile and a spirited hello. She loves school! Loves working hard, loves helping others. This is a kid who has a total zest for life. Every new thing is an adventure. She exudes a passion which rubs off on her classmates. You should see Aliza on stage, performing improv. This kid can light it up. You know when Aliza is in the room. You feel her presence.

She’s a mighty package in a little body. In fifth grade, I bet she’s barely pushing sixty pounds. But the hair, you can’t miss the hair. Aliza is blessed with a shock of red locks. Picture little orphan Annie given free rein with a bottle of spritzer. Aliza’s is all natural. It’s wild hair and it bounces with her, giving her the look of a giant pom-pom on a pogo stick.

In every way, she’s the epitome of a normal kid, a fun-loving, creative, singing, dancing, fort-building, regular little girl. Except she wears a small device on her torso and is rarely seen without a green purse embossed with ornamental flowers.

In October 2007, Aliza was diagnosed with Type 1 or Juvenile Diabetes. Her body's immune system malfunctioned, destroying the cells in her pancreas which normally produce insulin. Insulin helps the body move the glucose from her food into cells throughout the body, which need it for energy. When her pancreatic cells were destroyed, she could no longer produce insulin. So the glucose stays in her blood, where it has the potential to cause major damage to all the organ systems of the body. Like all diabetics, she must receive insulin from another source.

Aliza lives with this disease continuously. She won’t grow out of it. It won’t go away. Every day, several times a day, Aliza uses a small spring-loaded needle to poke through the skin at the ends of her fingertips. She measures her blood glucose levels constantly. At any moment, if she were not keeping an eye on her body, her blood could contain too little or too much glucose, resulting in serious complications.

She has to think about what she eats and how much she exercises in relation to the insulin levels in her body. A mini-computer, which is part of the pump attached around her middle, controls the amount of insulin entering her body. She has to think about her disease all the time: before she starts her day, before a snack, before a meal, before recess, before P.E. class, before a shower, before bedtime, during the night. And it all starts all over again the next day.

I talked to her parents on the day she was diagnosed. Imagine the shock, the fear, the overwhelming task of trying to come to terms with how this disease was about to affect her family’s daily existence and their future. Aged nine at the time, it was hard to imagine this new life for Aliza. How would she manage to do everything she needed to do, learn everything about the disease she needed to know, get through her school days, get through the night?

As her teacher, I wasn’t sure how we were going to incorporate all of the new routines into our day. How were we going to manage if her glucose levels fell outside of the normal range? I figured we’d figure it out as we went along. None of us counted on the one thing that has been clear from the start – the strength of Aliza.

This little girl does it all. She knows her body – she knows when she feels low or high. She tests her levels by herself, she knows how to work the pump and adjust her insulin delivery. She is fully aware of the carbohydrate and sugar contents of everything she eats. She is calm and masterful talking to both kids and adults about the disease.

In fourth grade, before she got the pump, when she was still receiving twice daily insulin shots, I took my class on an overnight trip to the mountains. This was the first time that she was to receive insulin without her parents’ direct involvement. I learned everything I could about how to administer the shots. I wasn’t needed. Aliza had it down pat.

Aliza recently attended a dinner for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. She came home that night armed with awards. Aliza had put together a team to walk in the annual JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes. More than fifty people walked with her. Her infectious joy helped make the walk a fabulous success. Together her team raised more than $16,000. The organization recognized her as an outstanding first-time participant.

15,000 new cases of Type I Diabetes are diagnosed every year in Americans under the age of 20. There is no confirmed reason why the disease strikes one person over another. People with diabetes succeed in every walk of life, from corporate boardrooms, to professional sports arenas, from the halls of Congress to the ivory towers of academia. The history of diabetes is filled with incredible stories of people managing their disease and living out their dreams.

Aliza is doing the same. Pound for pound, her strength is remarkable.

Photo - Aliza at the JDRF Awards Dinner with former NFL star and fellow diabetic Jay Leeuwenberg.

What I Needed to Know I Learned In My Child’s Kindergarten

You know those quintessential kindergarten teachers you meet in picture books? They are always ready with a hug and a song, an endless supply of delightfully messy projects and deliciously nutritious snacks. They have a block area, a dress-up area, a big bucket of junk, and a welcoming lap. They have a reading corner crammed with colorful overstuffed pillows. They understand the importance of play. Mary Jo is one of those teachers, and then some. Her reading corner is a refinished antique claw foot bathtub which overflows with the comfiest pillows anyone’s ever snuggled into. That tub is where my daughters learned to love reading.

Because my girls attend a school with multi-age classrooms, their kindergarten teacher stayed with them for first and second grade as well. My daughters were born just over three years apart. Three years, three weeks, and two days to be exact. There isn’t any correct period of time between having children. Every age has its advantages and disadvantages, but the particular gap separating my daughters came with one unforeseen bonus. It allowed each of them to have the incomparable Mary Jo for three years straight. It presented me with six consecutive years to count my children’s blessings.

The result was six years of essential development in which my daughters built dynamic structures out of blocks, painted sensational pictures, created mysterious potions involving borax (mysterious because I am still not clear what borax is ever used for outside of potion-making), learned how to cooperate with others, and went on nature walks to discover the greatest joys in the simplest things. The ultimate result is that my girls love learning and, even in their relative advanced ages of twelve and nine, can’t wait to get to school every day.

Shortly after my youngest said her tearful goodbyes to Mary Jo at the end of second grade, she received a sweet letter from her teacher conveying beautiful wishes written personally for my daughter’s future, wishes which expressed knowledge of who my child is as no one else could have articulated. Truly touching sentiments which brought tears to my eyes that I will treasure forever.

Accompanying the letter was a newspaper article Mary Jo had found. It was about kids and summer time, how middle-class children today are formally scheduled for such a giant portion of their summer vacations – swim team, camps, classes on every subject under the sun. When they are home, they spend an inordinate amount of time on the internet and with video games instead of playing baseball in the sandlot. The author mourned the carefree days of her youth, playing in the street until nightfall and being allowed to get bored. This is a tricky issue.

I live in a large city but it is not just urban dwelling parents who worry about our children if we let them out of our sight. We know instinctively that they need to have the freedom to run and make their own mistakes and figure out the pecking order in the neighborhood. We also know that very real dangers may be lurking around the corner. I have a hard time allowing my children to walk the dog for more than a couple of blocks without taking a cellphone with them. That is not the world I grew up in, nor the one I want to live in.

I have rarely seen my children more happy than on a family vacation to Siesta Key, on Florida’s west coast. The beach was wide and mostly empty, of people and obstacles. We all loved time on the sands before sunset. My wife and I strolled and enjoyed the time to connect that only vacations can bring. Our girls ran wild for what seemed like miles. Naturally, or perhaps environmentally cautious, they would turn to check in once in a while, but essentially they had the freedom of the whole beach. It was a magical time and one we find hard to duplicate at home. The story serves as a good reminder to take more vacations, but also brings up an important question. How can we find a balance between protecting our kids and giving them space to grow up to become independent thinkers and adventurers?

A wise friend once told me that she thought it was important that children learn an essential lesson in life: how to be bored. The last time we moved house, while my wife and I were packing and organizing in the weeks leading up to the move, the kids got into the habit of watching more television than they were used to. From our point of view, it kept them quiet and out of the way. For them, it gave them some respite from the chaos.

After we moved to the new house, we didn’t get around to plugging in the TV for a few weeks. We were all busy creating our new spaces. Something else unexpected happened. My daughters re-discovered the joys of finding their way out of boredom without a television. They made a city out of moving boxes, they played cards together, they painted, they got to know the new kids in the neighborhood, they read books, they spent their time doing all the wholesome things we imagine kids did before the dawn of TV. When we eventually did connect the television, they were already in the habit of finding other things to do. They still don’t watch too often. They have discovered some child-friendly websites which keep their attention on the computer screen more than I would like, however they continue to create, to play, to read, and to run in the sprinklers.

In the summertime, my family tries to find a balance for the girls between camps, classes, and pure unadulterated downtime. Even I wouldn’t expect my children to entertain themselves for three whole months, time that was once set aside for them to help me bring in the harvest. However I do think they need to learn how to pull themselves up out of the well of boredom.

In the article that Mary Jo sent me, the author made a great point about how unstructured downtime allows the creative spirit to flow. Neale Donald Walsch makes the same point in his popular book Conversations with God. If we’re always busy, or spending our free time in front of a screen, how can we let the underlying seeds of our creativity begin to poke their heads into the light? Are we raising a generation devoid of poets, writers, actors and songwriters if we deny our children the space to find their way out of boredom?

As a part-time writer who has a full-time teaching job and a family, both of which require great chunks of my time, I struggle with these very questions. It’s not that I cannot make the time to write, but I find myself with very little downtime in which to simply cogitate, to let the ideas flow. If I structure my life so that I am continually busy, constantly keeping occupied by the list of things I have to do, I will never learn to find my way out of boredom. I will minimize the development of my creative abilities. The artist in me yearns for that kind of time. The responsible adult hates to give it up.

There is infinite wisdom in Robert Fulghum’s famous essay All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. One of his recommendations goes like this: “Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.” I know Mary Jo agrees with this sentiment.

As teachers, she and I have talked about the difference between the work we are paid to do and the work done by our friends and relatives in the so-called ‘rat race’. My work was once dismissed by someone close to me who claimed that “those who can do, and those who can’t teach.” Baloney. Not only have I worked alongside incredibly talented teachers who could be outstanding artists, managers, engineers, and stockbrokers, I have personally trained former architects, lawyers, soldiers, and salespeople to become teachers. They wanted to contribute to the common good. The way Mary Jo describes it, those of us who teach may not be turning a profit, but we are affecting the future by molding young minds.

I know that Mary Jo has been instrumental in teaching my girls to live what Fulghum calls a balanced life. Under her guidance and tutelage, they learned some and thought some and drew some and painted some and sang some and danced some and played some and worked some every single day. They continue to do so. With the tragic cultural shift towards standardized testing and away from arts programs in our public schools, much of what Mary Jo teaches every day has been tossed by the wayside. It shouldn’t be. It is through the kind of learning that goes on in Mary Jo’s kindergarten, first, and second grade class that our collective future lies.

I want my children to know facts. I want them to know how to balance a checkbook, read the smallprint, speak a foreign language, and learn the lessons of history. I also want them to exist in the world as artists. I want them to create their way out of boredom, out of a problem, and out of the box. I want them to be independent thinkers and adventurers. I want them to work well with others, to find the joy in learning, and to love life.

I know that they have received an outstanding start at the hands of an unbelievably talented educator and friend. I am filled with awe and gratitude.