In anticipation of spending a week at Mount Vernon and being able to look out at the Potomac from the same vantage point that George Washington did, I am continuing to read and reflect about the man who would become our first president.  I am fortunate to have such an opportunity after having been accepted to the program with a full scholarship.  That said, I don't think I have shared, in this forum, the description of the program; Mount Vernon's website bullets a list to describe the experience:

I love some of the descriptions used here:  in-depth, immersive, lively, and connections.  I know that I will be overwhelmed with activities and experiences while I am there, and I am perfectly OK with that.  This week will not disappoint.

The team at Mount Vernon has put together six of these weeks from which prospective participants may choose.  Each week has a specific focus, from study of Martha Washington to slavery, from the founding of the U.S. to George as a businessman.  The week I attend, the title is Washington at War:  From Soldier to Commander-in-Chief​, described as follows.

This is not just going to be me rehashing what I already know; this is the chance to be challenged with some difficult and complex content, to meet people who have been inside the mind of Washington, and to consider the difficult choices both the general and the soldiers faced.

Sometimes bullies do not act alone.

We are proud to team with Crystal Bridges, Museum of American Art, in Bentonville, Arkansas, for the 2018/9 school year.  Our contact with the program has assured us that our school will be provided with many perks in exchange for our involvement:

• Prints of American artwork for the school
• An all-expenses paid field trip in the spring, including travel, tours, and lunch
• One week of professional art collaboration with students before the field trip
• A substitute teacher so the art teacher may also attend the field trip
• One week of deep collaboration for the teachers, this summer, with lodging and meals provided

I look forward to the experience.  Any time we can make a field trip into more than just a vacation from the classroom, we should take advantage of it.  This is also a chance to learn something new about subjects we know very little - how to use the museum, and art in general to support our academic standards and curricula.

We have requested a focus on the Early American and Colonial period, with emphasis on the lifestyles of the late 18th century and the history of our burgeoning nation.

Does the field trip mean more when the teachers wait until after standardized testing?  Does it mean more when the class doesn't attend until the end of the school year?  Is the field trip just an excuse to spend a lovely spring day outside of class?  When is a field trip worthy of its expense?

Students bring admission money.  Parents dig deep to pay for a Lunchable.  The school district ponies up the expense of bus fuel and a driver.  The PTA might even subsidize the trip.  I want my field trip to be meaningful to my students - either an introduction to something we're going to work on in class or a confirmation that what we have already done has a real-world application or connection.  I want my field trips to be extensions of our class - not just a vacation from preparing lesson plans or a reward for ending the year.  I want my trips to be academic.

I don't know the history of schools taking field trips.  I wonder when they began.  What was the first destination? But I do know that they were meant to be experiential in nature.  If students can't experiment something outside their norm, there is no reason to attend.  And usually, if you wait until the last month of school to take one, you're probably just scheduling a day out of obligation.

I wish we had more opportunities to "study abroad", outside of the four walls of the classroom.  I wouldn't mind leaving the school building on a cold wintery day to spend some time in a historical museum or shadowing workers in a manufacturing plant.  I wish we could see science and math at work in the real world.  We take trips to caves and museums, not because we have cabin fever after a long winter of being cooped up, but because there is academic merit in the trips.  I want to take those trips when they are relevant to the curriculum, not because they are mandatory by the district or because we need to stretch our legs.

I don't know what to think about this.  As the speed bump in our school's pickup line after school, I understand the importance of keeping order among the cars.  We have two lines of traffic, and kids cross one, with an adult, to get to the other.  The reason for this is to avoid the car line tangling with traffic on nearby streets when it gets too long.  We to have three adults at the pickup area at the end of the sidewalk - one to catch students, one to help students cross, and me, the speed bump.

My job is to stand between the two lines of cars and help load kids in the second lane.  Our asphalt in that area is actually spacious enough to allow for a third lane, so occasionally, a rogue vehicle attempts to jump the line and pass through the center.  That's when the speed bump jumps into action.  Like a superhero, I stand my ground, stopping cars from sneaking through the middle where children are passing from one lane to the next.  It's an important role that I must take seriously.  I have been known to stop these rogue vehicles and have conversations with their drivers about the reason for remaining in the two established lanes and not making a third.  Safety is the name of the game at all times.

The guy in this video goes one step further; when a mother tries to take a short cut through the elementary school parking lot to get to the high school's drop-off area one morning, the teacher/coach steps in front of her car.  This mother/former teacher then claims she should be allowed to break the rules since she is "running late".  She ignores the fact that the rules, and the orange cones, are in place for the safety of the children.  That's when the coach becomes a hood ornament for a few seconds.  I think I might have thought of a different route to take rather than jump on the hood of a moving car.  I might also have tried to diffuse the situation once I knew a little more of the story.

Still, I cannot fault the coach for keeping student safety at the top of his priorities.  Teachers might often say that we will throw ourselves in front of danger for our students, but this fellow does it.  While we might agree that he could have handled the situation differently, he seems to have been doing his job extremely well and with conviction.

The first two videos below tell more about the Turtle and its mission.  The third is about something that helped the operator see the controls and gauges inside the turtle at night and underwater.

In my reading of General George Washington to prepare for my summer residency at Mount Vernon, Virginia, I am building my knowledge about the man's leadership.  Shall I share?

When he was 21 and 22 years old, a young major in the British forces was tasked with leading a small contingent of men.  Major George Washington set out to learn more about French forts, gather what information he could about them, and along the way make nice with the Indians.  He did just that, but it wasn't as easy as it sounds.

It seems that Washington was an impatient leader, always raring to go and assuming everyone else felt the same way.  It was a frustration that he would have to identify and learn to deal with.  While others would wait for a ferry, Washington's impulsive nature put him to swimming with his horse through icy rivers to cross to an opposing bank.  Rather than stop for food and shelter, Washington's drive made him risk hypothermia for himself and his team by hiking further and further through debilitating snow.

At that point, through the winter of 1753/4, in George Washington's early military career, one might think that George was more than slightly reckless in his leadership abilities.  There are fascinating points to learn in the development of his character, points my students and I need to understand:
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• Learning how to be a leader is fraught with mistakes and the opportunities to learn.
• Leaders are developed and not born.
• Sometimes a leader has to slow down to bring others along.
• Taking risks can bring reward.
• Sleeping in a foot of snow is not always preferred to lodging indoors.

Well, here's another book on 2018's Mark Twain Award nominee list - Counting Thyme.  It's yet another story about a girl and her family who have to move, this time from California to New York because the girl's brother has a specific form of cancer.  The girl struggles with adapting to her new surroundings and insists on not telling anyone her brother is deathly ill (She's afraid of how people will pity her.).

All in all, the book is kind of a non-starter for me.  I wanted more from the story, but it just never seems to come.  I was never as intrigued as the author would have like me to be.

People do not like being micromanaged.

Teachers are people.

Therefore, teachers do not like being micromanaged.

That goes for our professional development - at least for the self-conscious teacher who genuinely cares about improving lesson delivery and student relationships.  George Couros, in his book The Innovator's Mindset, he does not mince words about allowing teachers to be in control of their own professional development.

Couros quotes Simon Sinek:

All of these make sense, but what of the recent push to develop teachers in unison.  Don't PLCs allow for teachers to direct their own development based on their needs?  Dean Shareshi:

I have to follow this up with a simple I told you so​.  What PLCs attempt to do often does not develop the teachers involved.  PLCs are notorious for creating, not relieving, stress.  What they attempt to do - get teachers out of their caves and into collaborative moods - really only results in teachers copying each other.  At a time when the world needs to understand that our differences are what make us unique and stunning, common planning, teaching, and assessing could become simply common, and not special and effective.

Couros suggests that reflective journals and blogs are more effective than the expensive PLCs.  I know this is true.  Since developing my old website into this more dynamic "blog" and collection of ideas, my teaching has leaped forward in its effectiveness.  In the last seven years, my teaching has taken new directions because of it.  I think The Alchemist author, Paul Coelho comprehends human nature:

For years, I have explained that teaching needs to be genuine for me.  Copying someone else's style and using someone else's lesson - even using a particular textbook or program - is made richer to me by my own discovery and research.  I have to be allowed to tweak programs, using the strongest parts and infusing it with my own touch, to make them work for me.  You, dear teacher, may find the same to be true, but feel free to wait for your teaching personality to be handed to you.  Go ahead and use that program in exactly the prescribed manner, not adding the magic of your individual style; do so, and you will only be as effective as everyone else who uses the same materials.

My advise is for you to get in the sandbox with those materials and build something creative and new.  That is where you, as an educator, will become less of a pattern and more the exception - an exceptional exception at that.

Every Friday, I let students choose their classmates who deserve to be recognized for various positive traits: respect, creativity, responsibility, caring, etc.  Students wear pins though the day which are recognized by students in other classes, as well as teachers and other adults.  One of the pins displays the single word - tolerance.

It's a difficult concept to teach.  I mean, there is the first thing that pops into our minds these days - racism.  We hear about "tolerating" people of varying races all the time - or is it that we hear about not tolerating them? - but in our classroom world where that doesn't seem to be an issue, how does one go about teaching tolerance?

The fact is that tolerance is a much broader term than what we've made it out to be.  While the media pushes the agenda that racial tensions are due to a lack of tolerance, we have to recognize that tolerance might just mean "getting along" with people who are different and might have different views and opinions.  Sometimes Getting Along means tolerating that person at your table who is dealing with ADHD, or a crazy home life.  Sometimes it means keeping the peace with that person in the group who wants to be in charge all the time.

And sometimes it means understanding that people's words and tone of voice don't always mean what you think​ they mean.

This past school year, some students came to me with the sorry idea that everyone was offensive to everyone else.  They believed that people said things out of hatred for others.  These students thought that everybody was out to get them.  They passed judgment on other people (and on me) for what they perceived was meant by their tone, body language, facial expressions, and language.  They failed to understand that sometimes a person is just trying to be funny, sometimes a person is just trying to participate and force words into the conversation, and sometimes a person is just teasing.

Now I realize that all of those things can go too far - that there is a line that can be crossed into a territory that may be offensive - but I also realize that many of today's students have become hypersensitive, as well.  We often hear teachers and parents tell kids to Toughen up, Buttercup, but saying it and making it happen are two different things.  When children are told to develop a thicker skin, do we ever tell them how to accomplish it?  When, after a decade of conditioning in their lives that has resulted in their looking for ways to be victimized and seek attitudes of entitlement - when do we propose reconditioning people to adopt an attitude of tolerance on the backside?  In other words, when do those who do not feel tolerated learn to tolerate the intolerant?  Keep in mind that I'm not talking about serious issues of racism, bias against religion, or prejudices against genders; what I'm talking about is everyday sarcasm, everyday plays on words, and everyday teasing.

This was never as evident as it was during this last school year when students were vocally challenging each other and the teacher at every turn.  We were constantly faced with a barrage of That's mean, That's offensive, and That's not nice.  Students who understand what was happening found themselves defending other people from the accusations that they were just being unkind.  

And I, the teacher, had to put a foot down.  It happened one day when a student announced to the class that the teacher had said something that was not nice.  At that point, I had enough.  I had been teaching a lesson about something that happened in history and put something in the current vernacular so my fourth graders could understand it better, and this student said with malignancy, that it was not nice.

I had to stop everything.

I looked the student in the eyes.

And I informed the student that sometimes that student was also offensive.

The fact that you can perceive intolerant tendencies in others but can't identify them in yourself is something that we must all recognize.  Even the Christian Bible recognizes this:  in Matthew 7:1 (NASB), the apostle records, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged."  That's very possibly the most freely quoted verse in the entire Bible these days, but it also may be the most misunderstood.  Taken in context, the verse means to examine yourself before condemning someone else.

If it's wrong for someone else, it's wrong for me, too.

If you want to make a difference, start with the man in the mirror.

I had to get students to understand that humor, sarcasm, and even free-flowing conversation often comes from a place of comfort.  We often say things to our own families that we would never say in public.  Why?  Because we are more comfortable with our families.  We tease the people we are most attracted to.  We are sarcastic and snarky because we want the people around us to notice us.  It's not always the case, but hopefully you get the point.

Look, I've blown it with some people.  I've crossed the line with comments I thought were witty and funny, but that were perceived at mean-spirited.  I always meant for those comments to be taken with a light heart, and the result was one less friend on social media or a former friend talking about me behind my back.  When we are our most human, our relationships are vulnerable.

That's why I had to get my class to understand that families quarrel and disagree, but that it's not the end of the world.  If someone in the family wants to have a different opinion than I have, I can have a conversation about it with that family member, but the conversation does not have to take a turn toward hatred and intolerance.  If someone says something that I think is offensive, it's acceptable for me to ask about the intention before slinging poison arrows in their direction.

And yes, sometimes I find out that I need to tread lighter around that person, that I cannot tease that person to the point that I can with others.  Some educators would have us leave out sarcasm and silly comments all together, but in the real world our students must learn to tolerate perceptions for a little bit longer, at least until they can figure out the intention behind them.  If done correctly, they might figure out that those things they thought were unkind were actually endearing phrases intended to express affection - just the opposite of what they thought.

This year, we saw students start at that low point of always looking for ways to be victimized by others, but we ended in a very different place.  By a certain point in the year, pupils were identifying themselves as different.  They recognized that everyone in the class was different, and they were even surprised that they were getting along (tolerating) everyone else.  They were looking for the good in people instead of being offended by the bad things. They were accepting and helping even the most annoying among them, understanding that every improvement was something to be recognized, that every conquered mistake was something to be celebrated.  It is something of which to take note.

It's also a point of learning for this teacher.  After 28 years in the profession, I rejoice at having learned something myself, and I need to make an effort to understand it better.  In my reflections on the year, this may be our biggest accomplishment - the thing students expressed most often in the Last Day of School speeches:  that "we had each other's backs", that "we supported each other".  Every year is different and brings its own challenges.  I am so glad that we faced this one and overcame.

This year, this phrase means something special and surreal.  Usually it is a happy thought - that you take a little of our class with you when you step out of it on the last day of fourth grade.  It is a bit of nostalgia that brings you back from time to time, in a blast of memory from the simple events that occurred when you were turning ten.

But this year, there is something sinister in the phrase.  Once a Hoggatteer, always a Hoggatteer.  Just six months ago, we learned that a former student's older brother lost his life.  We've certainly dealth with our share of family deaths through the years - a grandparent, a mother, a dad - but no one at the age of 10 should lose a brother.  I wonder if OAHAAH means very much when such occurs.

At the same time, in December, another former student was arrested for allegedly being involved in a knife attack. What does OAHAAH mean to a kid sitting in a holding cell with his head in his hands?  What does it mean to a kid who's lost and angry at the world?  Can a kid find his way back to center?

And just this past Thursday, I saw that the Joplin Police are looking for another former student - a 15-year-old girl who showed much promise when she sat in my classroom, now considered a runaway.  We can only pray that she finds her way back, as well.  In an ideal world, something I said five years ago would trigger a thought in her mind that helps her face whatever she's running away from (or put off whatever she's running toward).

                                    [Update:  the 15-year-old has been located and is no longer missing.]

I don't pretend to understand which direction is up for these kids.  I don't understand the things that set them up for chasing such lives.  I can only whisper to them from the corner of my house, "Once a Hoggatteer, always a Hoggatteer," and hope for the best.

If you've ever been in my class, please remember - in your darkest moments - that you have people who can get you the help you need.  It may not be easy for you, and it might even be painful for a while, but we can find intelligent people who can turn over rocks to help you find yourself.  You won't solve your problems by seeking darkness, befriending wolves, or hiding from your demons.  Please come home, touch base, and stop running.