The Americans Fight Back

A couple of months ago on this site, I posted an Open Letter to All Americans on the Subject of Beer and lovingly signed it from your friends, the British.  While it was completely tongue-in-cheek and chock full of untruths and assumptions, I was pleased that it elicited a few chuckles from my readers on both sides of the pond.

The best reaction of all was from a small group of American beer lovers, most notably my partner Steph and our friend Rita, who decided to fight back.

They organized a beer tasting event at my house.  I was to provide a sampling of the finest British beer (subject to availability on these shores) and friends were invited to bring along their favorite non-British beer, American preferred, but alternative nationalities accepted.

Game on!  On this final weekend of the London Olympics, let the tasting begin.

Representing Her Majesty’s people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as procured from the import section of the off-licence (as we Brits like to call our liquor stores) near my house, some of my favorites - see picture above.  Mostly ales, some organic, the assembled crowd agreed that these were frightfully jolly good brews, created in the northern climes of England: Sam Smiths, Boddingtons, Tetley’s, and Newcastle Brown.

Representing a few of the smaller breweries of the United States, here we have beers from Deschutes Brewery in Oregon, New Belgium Brewing in Colorado, and Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City, Missouri.  Mighty fine beers all, and evidence of the grand improvements made in American brewing over the last twenty years.  Not a bad one among the bunch.  Well done, Americans!

Rounding up the pack, a few friends brought beers from the Euro Zone (let’s all say Euro Zone while we still can, eh?) from Belgium and from Bavaria in Germany.  All three came from breweries that had their humble origins in the monasteries and abbeys of the dark ages.  Despite the fairly safe assumptions that the goodly monks and friars didn’t wash their hands and had relatively filthy habits, these beers went down smoothly and were enjoyed by all.

And then there was James. 

Somebody had to invite James.  James too, it is told, enjoyed a few laughs at my Open Letter. The great wag that he is, James decided to stop by his local convenience store and contribute the following to the beer tasting event: Miller, Coors, Budweiser.  Please note (as highlighted in my original post) the spelling of Lite and the on-the-can indicator of whether the beer is merely cold or super cold (whatever that is).  Not surprisingly, most of these beers went unopened during the event.

(Note, if anyone wants free “beer” and is willing to cart off these heinous 24 fl. oz. cans that are currently taking up valuable space in my refrigerator, let me know – first come, first served!)

James’ pièce de resistance was a delightful little number, whose very existence I was joyfully oblivious to, until it showed up in James’ shopping bag, accompanied by a gleeful cheesy American grin on his face.  Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, I kid you not, Bud Light & Clamato.  For those of you as blissfully uninitiated as I was, Clamato is tomato juice mixed with clam broth and unnamed spices.  Not quite believing what I was seeing, I later stopped by the Clamato website, whereupon I was duly informed that….

”using a top-secret process for mollusk reanimation, our engineers add a small amount of clam broth at just the right moment to give Clamato its unique taste.”

This is what happens, people, when an entire nation is left to its own devices without proper grown-up supervision.  A small minority spoils it for everyone.  They mix shellfish with fruit (or is a tomato a vegetable?) If that is not bad enough, they mix that concoction with beer.  And, it must be asked, what the hell is “mollusk reanimation”?

This is a picture of James drinking Bud Light & Clamato.  Natural consequences if ever there were any.  Needless to say, in our informal poll, this vile hybrid came in last place.

The winners were as follows:

Gold Medal:    Boddingtons

Silver Medal:   Sam Smith’s Organic Best Ale

Bronze Medal: Boulevard’s Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale

Proving conclusively that, while American beer should be commended for trying hard and for most improved, the remaining skeletons in the closet cannot be ignored - and British beer still comes out on top.

Author's note: Despite his faults, James is to be commended on two levels: firstly, for putting his mouth where his money is and drinking most of the whole can of Bud Light & Clamato; secondly, for his excellent taste in girlfriend - the lovely Bernadette brought us delicious peaches from her garden which made it all better.

Believe It Or Not!

One of the great joys of my career in education is having a few weeks off in the summer for vacations and other pursuits.  I love spending some of that time directing high school students in theater productions.  Each summer I find myself back at the theater program I founded ten years ago, working with a talented and motivated group of kids, putting on a play.  We have developed a tradition of creating fictional biographies of each other – cast and crew – for the program.

Our most recent play, this July, was No Crime Like The Present. These are some of my favorite bios – some were written by me, some by the kids.  Great creativity and silliness.

(I’ve removed names to protect the innocent.  You know who you are!)

Steve de Beer was originally born under a dark cloud in the mountains of Afghanistan, but at age 17, he dug a tunnel under the Indian and Pacific oceans to the United States with a plastic spoon. He surfaced at Broadway, breaking through the stage during a performance of Les Miserables, and thus his love of theater was born. He began touring New York City, discovering his love for theatre at every turn. Once atop the Empire State Building an oversized bird snatched him up and dropped him in Denver where he found his passion for fire breathing. 

EB was born in New Orleans, but was separated from her family during a rowdy Mardi Gras parade when a dancer tripped over her. The man who found her, Enrique “Big John” Sanchez, owned a Tex-Mex restaurant and raised her as a worker. He renamed her Emilia Tocino, after his favorite slaughtered pig on a childhood TV show. One day, a casting director came for a breakfast burrito and was astounded by EB’s raw talent for entertainment. He whisked her away to New Zealand, where she played a flatulent princess in a sci-fi film that never showed in theaters and was instantly catapulted to stardom. After years of movie roles and worldwide fame, EB sought normalcy while visiting her aunt in Denver. While she was hiding from paparazzi in Aunt Lucille’s cellar, EB found a flyer for Stanley’s Theater Camp. She bribed Steve to allow her to participate by offering him unlimited access to her professional makeup stylist, as his deepest desire has always been to be a clown.

JB first uncovered his love for the arts as a professional ballet dancer in northern British Columbia. Once he realized he was sick of tights, JB twirled his way all the way to Denver, where he was discovered, years later, living under a rock in Cheesman Park. It was his time coexisting with moss that made JB find his passion for the performing arts again, but this time, wearing tights while acting.  JB is the only male cast member in this show and appreciates all the backstage chatter about whether he should perform the whole show in just his boxers.  When asked about the lack of boys in the cast, JB was heard uttering, in a high-pitched voice, “Uh, OMG, that’s a lie!” and running out of the room.  He would like to point out that his feet are bigger than everyone’s, even Steve’s.

ZN is an Olympic bronze medal winning synchronized swimmer.  She thinks she looks particularly hot in a tight plastic swimcap and noseplugs.  After auditioning for and getting the part of the sealion in Cirque du Soleil’s aquatic extravaganza, “O”, ZN lived the high life in Vegas until she was way into her 30s.  There she developed an unfortunate addiction to playing nickel slot machines and, on her therapist’s insistence, was transferred to Theater Camp in Denver.  Bending to pressure from ZN’s agent, Steve regularly floods the ballroom so she can perform her best roles. ZN has won the acclaim of the critics, starring in several underwater roles at Theater Camp, including Ursula in The Little Mermaid, Bruce in Finding Nemo, and the pregnant reporter in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

JP was born in Tennessee to a very happily married couple – a rusty trailer and an antique guitar. She spent her youth raising cows, eventually learning to chase them with a bubble machine if they acted up. This fed JP’s naturally bubbly personality, and she soon sang and danced her way across the country as a famous bubbleologist. After years of blowing bubbles, she got tired. She stumbled upon Theater Camp and fell asleep in the costume rack in the library. She was discovered after she screamed because she saw a moth in the clothing.  Steve held her prisoner as a theater slave.  One late afternoon, he heard her muttering to herself, pretending to be the Sorting Hat. Steve was so entranced by her performance that he begged her to join a Theater Camp cast.

CS No one will ever forget CS’s stunning Theater Camp debut as an eight year old when she starred in the role of Neville Longbottom in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  She has been grateful to Steve for this casting decision ever since. It was nearly as good as the time she was cast as the lady who got locked up in a coffin or the fat guy with the mustache. As Sarah Palin’s 3rd daughter, CS did her first eleven Theater Camp plays in Alaska, right across the street from Russia. She rarely likes to indulge in politics, so she focuses more on her artistic life, most notably knitting. As a notorious communist, she always takes hair ties from the rich and gives them to the poor. She is Robin Hood in her spare time. CS’s most notable achievements are her numerous awards in interpretive dance, spelling, and Brazilian cooking.

OT was born on a miniature giraffe farm in the middle of Kansas. Her first sounds were those of a giraffe, as that was the only life she knew. After departing from her giraffe family, she backpacked across America to Nebraska. There she became a hippie where she learned the art of braiding armpit hair. From there she was adopted to a traveling circus, where she was the lead clown. After touring the world, the circus came to Denver, Colorado, where OT discovered Theater Camp. She left the circus and decided to pursue a life of theatre. OT currently resides in the little bookshelves of the library at Stanley. Look for a book and maybe you’ll see her.

CH never thought she would be in theater production.  She began her career at a pet store in Ogallala, Nebraska, counting dry food pellets for Chihuahuas but was soon fired for getting kibbles confused with bits.  After bussing tables on trains, training tables on planes, and planing tables on buses, CH tried her hand at performing acrobatics for Barnum and Bailey circus, doing rocket science for NASA, and acting as Mitt Romney’s face double.  She drives a different Honda each day of the week.

GH migrated from Bruges to Denver on Dumbo, the flying elephant. His ginger curls and obsession with Disney whisked him away under the sea to Ariel. When she washed up onto the beach, Ariel dumped GH for a brown haired beach boy. While heartbroken, he walked hundreds of miles until he reached the home of Steve de Beer. Steve, feeling sorry for GH, welcomed him into his home and employed him as a technical lackey. GH has been serving Steve as a live-in slave for seven years now and he could not be happier.

AW cannot believe she still has to hang out with her fourth grade teacher, Steve.  It sucks.  While living in Southern California, AW was a bodyguard and stand-in double for Lady Ga-Ga.  However AW became disillusioned with Ga-Ga’s conservative fashion sense and overall lack of creativity and she moved back to Colorado to pursue her dream of raising baby dragons and pitching alternative dance shows weekly to 9News.  After 9News turned her down for the 57^th time, AW finally got her big break on Fox News, where she stars as Attila the Hun’s 4^th wife in the show Designing Cupcakes with Rush Limbaugh.

WS was once the size of Stan Van the Weatherman’s marble and was plucked from a berry bush and planted in a box where he grew into a small boy.  With careful watering and force feeding of Miracle Grow, he is now a bigger boy.  He has been a translator for both William Penn and William ‘the  Refrigerator’ Perry.  WS’s hobbies include gilded picture framing, scrapbooking in pastel colors, and free running. Run free, WS, run free.

EH enjoys performing magic tricks, riding donkeys, and winning hotdog eating contests. On one of her longer donkey rides, the donkey veered out of control, panicked and sprinted all the way from EH’s home in coastal Uruguay to Denver, Colorado.  It was the fastest ass in South America. She took the donkey to a feed store in search of hay. There a family of dormice took pity on her and offered her a home in exchange for nightly magic shows. Her love of performing was born.  EH loves to manage props for the high school shows because she gets to play with wine bottles, cigars, and cigarettes.

An Open Letter to all Americans

An Open Letter to all Americans 

on the Subject of Beer 

from your old friends the British

Dear Americans,

We are here to help.  That yellow bubbly substance that you affectionately call “lite beer” is not beer. Not at all.

Beer, real ale, is crafted using water, malted barley, hops and yeast, creating a brown, delicious bubble-free nectar of the gods.  It should be capped with a white frothy head at least an inch tall.

That stuff that you like to drink too late at night on your holiday weekends in the back of your pick-up trucks upsetting the peace and quiet at the campgrounds of your National Parks (which are very lovely by the way), is nothing more than 7-Up with a wee bit of food coloring thrown in.  It looks like horse urine and doesn’t taste a whole lot better.

Beer is supposed to be stored at room temperature which, where we live, is a tepid 57° on most days.  It is drawn - or draught, hence the name - from a cask by means of a wooden handle.  Please note the spelling of draught, not draft which is what your government employed to make you fight in the Vietnam War against your will.

While we’re on the subject of spelling, please note that the word light is spelled L-I-G-H-T, the same as bright or fright. Lite is not actually a word and should not be allowed.  Look it up.  We invented the language.

After beer is pulled from the cask (that’s a wooden hand-crafted barrel in case you’re not sure), it is to be poured slowly at precisely a 60° angle into a beer mug, one made of pewter or glass, equipped with a handle.  This exact measurement will procure the desired one inch head. Real beer in casks should never be artificially pressurized. Adding a combination of carbon dioxide and nitrogen to pressurize your kegs is neither funny nor clever.

We disapprove that you have now invented labels that change color to tell you that your “beer” is cold.  Apparently it’s becoming too difficult a task for you to pick up the bottle and feel the temperature against your clammy hand.  We have been informed that you can now go to a “liquor store” (whatever that is) and buy “lite beer” bottles in boxes that are already built as coolers.  Is it really that hard to open a box and transfer the bottles yourself into a cooler, one that you can store in your over-sized garage and use again next time?

Please be advised that Her Majesty’s Government has issued a proclamation declaring that “lite beer” is no longer to be referred to as “beer” at all.  Please refrain from all usage of the term immediately.  You may choose an alternate name from among the following:

“lemonade”

“gnat’s piss”

“yellowy water with bubbles in it”

or

“oh my gracious what is this foul-tasting sack?”

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

love,

The British

Gratitude from the Third Grade

Last day of school today.  The third graders at Friends’ School sent me home with a collection of thank you notes they had written after I helped them with their end-of-year play, Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach.

As a head of school, I don’t have as much contact with students as I once did during my twenty years in the classroom, so I cherished my time in rehearsals with the third grade.  They did an outstanding job and the play turned out wonderfully.  The thank you notes contained some great lines:

“Thank you for helping me with the play.  I learned a lot about being loud!”

“Steve, you really can direct.  You showed me how to change in my costume really fast.”

“Thank you so much for hepping me with all my lines and were to stand and when to talk. You heped make me a akter.”  (We’re still working on spelling in 3^rd grade.)

“Thank you for helping me with my accent.”

“I learned what stage left and stage right is.”

“Dear Steve, Hey Steve, Thank you for making me the best silkworm ever.”

“What I learned is that you don’t want to talk too fast because the audience won’t understand you.”

“Thank you soooo much.  It was my favorite play ever.”

And my two favorites:

“Thank you for being a good person.” (Wow!)

And this one from a girl who was at a different school last year:


“Dear Steve, you rock.  Sorry I just HAD to say that.  Thank you so so much for helping us with the play!  You the best directer and your way nicer than my old princable Mr Neil.  He’s all gloomy but your all nice and chill.”

So now you know - I’m one chill princable.  Happy summer, kids!

Are We Raising Teacups? (or How Not To Land Your Kid In Therapy)

As parents we have all kinds of goals for our kids.  The more ambitious among us may want our children to grow up to be President or a superstar athlete.  Some may want their kids to make a ton of money.  Others may want their offspring simply to be happy.  How many of you want to make sure your kid ends up in therapy?

I don’t see many hands raised.  And it’s not that counseling isn’t necessarily a useful tool.  It’s just that we would prefer that our kids don’t find themselves in situations where getting psychological help is needed or justified.

You can imagine my intrigue when a friend sent me an article entitled: How To Land Your Kid in Therapy, published in last summer’s The Atlantic magazine. 

As an educator and a parent I was hooked immediately. The article is long but well worth sitting down for 20 minutes and absorbing, and discussing with your spouse or a similarly minded group of parents.  And don’t be put off by the f-bomb dropped in the opening lines.  As I mentioned, it goes for the early hook.

Written by renowned author, therapist, and mother, Lori Gottlieb, the article’s central tenet is this:  we want to raise our children to be productive, happy adults.  It’s what parenting has always been about – what our parents wanted for us, what our grandparents wanted for them, and back into eternity.  But how we are going about it may be different.  According to psychologists, many parents will do anything to avoid having their kids experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment - “anything less than pleasant,” - with the result that when, as adults, they experience the normal frustrations of life, they think something must be terribly wrong.

Gottlieb asks us to “consider a toddler who’s running in the park and trips on a rock. Some parents swoop in immediately, pick up the toddler, and comfort her in that moment of shock, before she even starts crying. But this actually prevents her from feeling secure—not just on the playground, but in life. If you don’t let her experience that momentary confusion, give her the space to figure out what just happened (Oh, I tripped), and then briefly let her grapple with the frustration of having fallen and perhaps even try to pick herself up, she has no idea what discomfort feels like, and will have no framework for how to recover when she feels discomfort later in life. These toddlers become the college kids who text their parents with an SOS if the slightest thing goes wrong, instead of attempting to figure out how to deal with it themselves. If, on the other hand, the child trips on the rock, and the parents let her try to reorient for a second before going over to comfort her, the child learns: That was scary for a second, but I’m okay now. If something unpleasant happens, I can get through it. In many cases the child recovers fine on her own—but parents never learn this, because they’re too busy protecting their kid when she doesn’t need protection.”

As a parent, this is hard stuff to consider, because every ounce of our being wants to go and scoop up our child and not have him suffer.   Those same toddlers grow up and go to college where a growing number of college deans have dubbed them  “teacups” because they’re so fragile that they break down anytime things don’t go their way.  According to parenting expert Wendy Mogel, who spoke in Colorado recently (see my earlier blog entry), “Well-intentioned parents have been metabolizing their anxiety for them their entire childhoods so they don’t know how to deal with it when they grow up,”

The good news is that most of us are doing a great job of parenting.  We don’t have to be perfect, just good enough not to screw up our kids.  We should give them confidence, but not over-praise; protect them from real danger, but allow them to fall and to fail; or in the words of Wendy Mogel, “Please let them be devastated at age 6 and not have their first devastation be in college!” 

Sounds reasonable enough to me.

(This article originally appeared in a slightly different form in Among Friends'.)

Facebook Made Me Think....

A friend of mine posted on Facebook today. He was at an occasion down in San Antonio, Texas, at the Cathedral of San Fernando .  It's the oldest cathedral in the United States.

As Facebook is apt to do, it gave me a direct link to the Cathedral's own Facebook page.  I clicked through and was drawn to the button up in the top right corner of the Cathedral's page.



There's a theological question for you.  Who knew Facebook tested our faith?

A Man Walks Into a Bar and Encounters a Pirate

An Entirely True Story

This Yuletide past, a tall Englishman, visiting the former colonies, was wandering in New Orleans through the French Quarter.  It was mid-morning and he was in search of a small pick-me-up. With ne’er a Starbucks in sight, he stumbled upon a small hotel bar.

Entering the gloomy interior, he spied two people already in residence. The barmaid, whose back was turned as she towel-dried a collection of glassware, and a pirate downing a mug of grog. 

Seating himself on a stool next to the pirate, the Englishman surveyed him.  Stocky individual, perhaps 30 years of age, looking like he’d been up swabbing the decks all night.  Full pirate garb, puffed sleeves, striped breeches, blue bandana, tall black boots, gold hoop earrings, enormous belt buckle, his belt displaying his arms of cutlass and dagger.

For the Englishman, this was a new experience.  He had never before encountered a real-life pirate, particularly at 10:30 on a sunny morning in the year 2011.  I wonder, he thought to himself, what does one say to such a fellow.

“I say,” he began, “are you in for some swashbuckling today?” 

The pirate turned to him, a hard glint of steel in his eye, and responded. “Swashbucklin’  just be another word for a pirate, ye know.”

“Ah, not true,” the Englishman exclaimed, for he took pride in his language and knew an error when he saw one. “Swashbuckling is a verb, and could never be substituted for the words a pirate which are exclusively an indefinite article followed by a noun.”

He had thrown down the gauntlet and would not be challenged to a linguistic feud by a trifling buccaneer, cutlass or no cutlass at his belt.  For he, the Englishman, knew the very definition of swashbuckling, that it meant engaging in daring and romantic adventures with ostentatious flamboyance, and this pirate had the look about him that suggested he had never done anything of the kind.

“Yarr,” retorted the pirate, “I’d not be fully graspin’ o’ the origins of swashbucklin’, but I know it’s somethin’ that pirates do.”

Aha, the Englishman thought, an etymological confusion.  He could set this blaggard straight and explain the sixteenth century roots of the word, but there was something spiteful and foul in the pirate’s expression.  And the fact that the rogue was reaching for his dagger did not make him any further at ease.

“Ah yes, quite so,” the Englishman searched for the right words. “Well, this has been lovely, but I must be getting on.  Tally ho!”

The Snow Day: An Insider’s Viewpoint

If you have ever lived in the same place as winter and you have attended school, you know all about the great gift of the Snow Day.  School children in northern climes eagerly follow impending snow forecasts and go to bed praying for enough snow that the buses won’t run, the carpool won’t make it out of the garage, and school will be closed.  Enough snow and the magical word “CANCELED” scrolls next to the school’s name under TV images of the morning news. Hallelujah!  The gods of winter shine down on students everywhere.

In Colorado, a snow day is most likely to occur between the months of November and March, but is possible as early as September and as late as May.  Some winters our school may close for snow two or three times, and sometimes not at all.  School kids view any large amount of snow falling over a weekend or during school vacations as a colossal waste.  Because I live in a state that is accustomed to copious amounts of snow, it generally takes a sizeable storm to persuade school officials to cancel.  Probably 8”-10” or more. And even with that much snow, it’s all a matter of timing.  Snowfall that starts in the late afternoon and wraps up before the morning commute will likely not result in a snow day, only in student anguish.  The more the snow falls during the night and throughout the morning, the higher the chances of a day away from the books.

In the south of England, where I grew up, it’s a different story for two reasons.  Firstly, they’re not used to much snow and they don’t have the plows to cope with a whole lot more than a dusting.  They get a few inches on the ground, and the whole place screeches to a grinding halt.  Schools close, businesses too, and the airports start canceling flights. Your holiday to Spain gets delayed by a week or your mother-in-law takes up residence in your guest room until the daffodils appear.  The second difference is the unfortunate fact that, when I was at boarding school in England, most of the teachers lived on campus.  We were all stuck together and no one needed to drive. A decent amount of snow resulted in the added pain of learning Latin conjugations while watching the world turn to white outside the window, too much discipline enforced to enjoy it.

For kids, the best kind of snow day is the one that falls on the day of the big math test, or the dreaded sex ed talk.  Miss something you never wanted to do in the first place, and it’s a double bonus.  Reason to celebrate, to sleep in, and spend a cozy day at home in your pajamas watching movies and drinking hot chocolate. Maybe, if you’re feeling lively, hitting the sledding hill. Life never felt so good.  And even if your dad insists that you shovel the driveway or pick the little balls of ice out of the feet of the dog, it’s all a whole lot better than 7^th period English or canned peaches in the school cafeteria.

But, kids, here’s a little secret that you may not have considered.  As much as you love a snow day, rest assured that your teachers love it more.  Sons and daughters of teachers know this already.  They’ve witnessed the happy dance performed in bathrobes by their mom or dad the teacher, otherwise known by hundreds of miserable former students as Mr or Mrs Harvey.  When I became a teacher, any visions I may have had of my teachers grumpily plowing through the snowdrifts, sitting dejectedly at their desks in front of an empty classroom swiftly disappeared.  There was nothing more pleasurable than receiving that early morning phone call and heading back to bed safe in the knowledge that I didn’t have to face the little reprobates that day and there was one less day of lesson planning I had to do.

Now I’m the head of school in an independent school.  It’s my job to call the snow day.  My decision entirely.  Could there be a better job on earth?  In my hands rests the fate (for at least one day) of all the students at my school, all the teachers and their families, and all the parents.  This is big stuff.  This might quite possibly have been the sole reason why I wanted to be a headmaster in the first place.  How many times, as a student or as a teacher, was my glorious day-off completely dependent on someone else? I remember one time, during a big snow storm, when schools were announcing closures left and right. My school stayed open because the head of school had taken a sleep-aid pill and no amount of phone calls by her desperate staff could raise her from her slumber.

Now I keep a close eye on the weather forecast.  I’m sensitive to barometric pressure drops and darkening skies to the west.  Any sniff of the white stuff, and I’m up at 5 a.m. tuned in to the weather reports like a hawk.

It’s a giant responsibility.  Make the wrong decision and I’m guaranteed to enrage huge numbers of people.  Miscalculate and no one’s my friend.  Too much snow and I choose to keep school open: the teachers who drive fair distances are irate, parents are mad because they had to take their darling cargo out in dangerous conditions, and the kids hate me because we all know what they’d rather be doing.  Not as much snow as forecast and I elect to close: the parents are seething because they still have to go to work and now what are they going to do with their kids home all day, the more fastidious teachers are upset because this would have been the perfect day to start that new curriculum unit they’ve been planning for months, and even the occasional child is upset because they would rather hang out at school with their friends than be bored at home. (Who am I kidding, that last one was just a lie!)

It’s a huge test of my authority, wisdom, and judgment.  Closing school for snow is one of the more public decisions I make.  In addition, there’s an unwritten rule, as head of a small independent school in a decent-sized city, that I follow the lead of the local public school district.  That’s what the leaders of other private schools in the area have advised me.  Is this wise, I ask myself?  One of the joys of running an independent school is our ability and willingness to be nimble, to base our decisions quickly and efficiently on the needs of our students.  Do I really want to be making decisions on the collective wisdom of a giant bureaucracy, an animal whose kind has proven indefatigably that decisions are hard to come by and are as often as not based on matters of politics and finance rather than what’s best for children?  And do I want to be following their lead at five o’clock in the morning when my own ability to make sound decisions has been called into question by anyone who’s ever seen me in a sleepy state, despite the bed head.

The public schools have more complex issues than I do.  They have fleets of buses to consider and children waiting on street corners in frozen conditions.  They have high school students who drive themselves to school, which I do not, and test-taking schedules so complex and frequent that they frighten the corduroys off any half-respectable college professor.  They have thousands of employees and almost as many students (or is it the other way around?) whereas I am catering to a couple of hundred families.

My friend Meg photoshopped this picture of me (in my terrible
Halloween costume) dancing in front of my school, celebrating
calling my first snow day.

And so the day I had been anticipating arrived soon enough in my first year as a head of school. Early in the winter we had had a couple of close calls, a few inches of powder here and there, but not enough to cancel.  Now in early February, just as we were getting ready to celebrate the hundredth day of school, the forecast looked promising.  On Monday the weather men talked about snow coming at the end of the week.  On Tuesday, they were making noises that it could be a significant storm.  On Wednesday, they were getting more specific about timing of the snow – arriving Thursday evening, likely to snow all through Thursday night, all day Friday, and ending some time on Saturday morning.  On Thursday morning, they were still hedging their bets.  If the cold front stayed more to the south, we would see 8-10” of snow.  If it came a little bit further, we might see 12-14”.  By the time I drove home on Thursday at the end of a long afternoon, the temperature dropped significantly.

Thursday evening, I took the light-rail downtown to meet my partner Steph for dinner.  By the time I got to the restaurant, the first flakes were falling.  By the time we ordered dessert, the snow was coming down hard in the downtown street lights and settling on the roads.  As we drove home, it was clear that this storm had arrived, kicked off its boots, and settled in for the long haul.

I flipped on the weather forecast.  The predicted totals were on the increase.  Anywhere from 12-24”.  That’s a school-closing kind of forecast.  As I continued to watch, a number of major school districts and independent schools to the south of where I live were beginning to announce closures.  My school is a 45 minute drive to the northwest.  The public school district there was silent.  I called a couple of my administrative staff who live near the school.  Snow was falling heavily and the roads were getting slick.  It was 9:30 p.m. The forecast continued to call for copious snowfall.  Guessing (it turns out correctly) that the school district would remain undecided until the early morning, I had a decision to make.  I knew our families and staff would appreciate going to bed knowing they wouldn’t have to set their alarms.  I knew school would be closed and I didn’t want to wait until dawn.

Sensing the magnitude of the moment, I made the call.  In a great ‘first’ of my career, I pulled out the heavily guarded secret codes which gave me access to the television stations’ websites and entered the information.  SCHOOL CLOSED.  We ran it on our own website and posted on the school’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.  No one was going to be uninformed. 

Staying up just long enough to witness the first announcements on our school scrolling across the TV screens, I headed upstairs, flipped off the switch on my alarm clock, and went to bed.  I slept like a baby.

4:25 a.m.  I was still deep in slumber.  Unbeknownst to me, the public school district in which my school resides made their decision.  The schools were closing.  Their preferred choice of communication? Reverse robo-call.  Phones rang off the hook in the homes of every family in the district.  Thousands of people awoke to a recorded message.  Most didn’t go back to sleep. All day long social media buzzed with the grumblings of a decision mismanaged.

I slept on.  I eventually woke up naturally and well-rested at 7:30 a.m., the time I’m usually arriving at school.  I looked out the window at the 15” of snow already on the ground and the gorgeous thick flakes still falling.  Steph made a delicious cup of morning coffee while I began to crack the eggs for breakfast.  My thoughts turned to the snow shovel leaning against the garage wall and how I should start putting it to good use.  No, I thought to myself, the shoveling can wait.  I’ve got all day.

Rainy and Inspiring Days In Seattle

I am grateful to have attended the National Association of Independent Schools conference in Seattle last week.

It was an amazing opportunity to re-unite (and empathize) with first-year colleagues from the Institute for New Heads, the conference I attended in Atlanta last summer, and to be inspired and educated by great speakers.  

Several friends have been asking me about my experiences so I thought I would share for all.

The theme of the conference was innovation.  As I wrote in my Among Friends' blog last week, it was inspiring to learn about all the incredible innovation that is happening in independent schools across the country.

In a nutshell, I attended talks by: 

Bill Gates (Microsoft), who spent more of his time talking about how his foundation is funding teacher assessment programs - I would have loved to have heard his thoughts on personal innovation.  Too bad - I didn't get close enough to hit him up for a donation!   I thoroughly enjoyed finding a spelling error in one of his slides (learing instead of learning).  Not only that, but I and hundreds of others around me were taking notes on his talk on an Apple computer product.  It’s nice to know that nobody’s perfect.

Pat Bassett (president of NAIS), who highlighted the big shifts on education over the last ten years.  Not just the 5 'C's of 21st century skills (creativity, communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and cross-cultural competency) , but the way the internet has presented amazing ways for teachers to share ideas and use resources.

Amy Chua (The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother), who was far more charming and personable than the media portrays.  She talked a lot about the humor in her book and remains convinced of the importance of holding kids to high standards.

John Hunter (subject of the forthcoming movie World Peace and Other 4th Grade Achievements) This is a movie that will be shown on PBS in May - and we should all watch it. He's a humble gentle 35 year veteran teacher who has literally invented a superbly complex game for helping kids understand world politics.  He got by far the longest standing O of the conference - minutes longer than Bill Gates!

John Medina (Brain Rules) Many of you know the book.  An amazingly gifted presenter on the latest brain research and what we know about parenting.

Dan Savage (Savage Love and the It Gets Better project), a Seattle humorist, columnist and gay rights activist who's youtube channel has gone viral in helping GLBT teens feel heard and supported.  A sensationally inspiring presenter.

I also attended seminars to help me learn about successful strategies for asking for gifts for my school and for hiring well.

In between, it was wonderful to network with heads of schools and other independent school people from Colorado and across the country, to visit with Jim Bonney (Educators Collaborative, Friends' head of school search firm) whom I had never met in person, even though we have talked on the phone many times, and to sneak in a lovely lunch with my friend and marketing guru Monique Davis.  

All in all, apart from the incessant rain, (c'mon Seattle I was expecting better and did you really have to put your schools on a two hour delay because there was sleet in the air?!) I enjoyed a hugely busy and successful three days.  Great seafood too!

I'm grateful to everyone at Friends' School and Steph Bruno (who's also a great blogger by the way!) for keeping things running so smoothly in my absence. 

It's good to be back!