Get out the Map!

I am not a parent nor am I an educator, but please allow me to share parenting advice from an educator.

Years ago, I overheard a friend with three degrees in education including a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership giving parenting advice to a small group at a dinner party. I should add that someone in the group asked her opinion. She doesn’t run around doling out unsolicited parenting advice. Well, she might sometimes, but probably not nearly as often as she’d like.  

Her top tips for parents have remained throughout twenty-plus years in education. First, read to kids every night. This should not be a ground-breaking new suggestion for parents, but it’s become even more important as kids are getting more and more screen time at younger and younger ages. Hearing the language and picking up sentence structure in early years to recognizing words and pronunciations as they grow naturally helps students in school. Talking to them about story content and illustrations improves their comprehension and cultivates connections between the text and the world around them. Kids learn that the written word can be meaningful and fun, both through fiction or non-fiction as well as in the quality down time with another.

A winding down at night in close contact with a parent, sibling, or other loved one helps also sets the mood for sleep and fosters feelings of comfort and safety.   A good night’s sleep and regular nurturing practices allow for kids to be better students. Teachers can accomplish so much more when the material they work with are rested and fueled for learning.  Nighttime reading is fantastic fuel.

The second and more unique tip is to put a map in children’s rooms. A city, state, country or world map will work. It should simply be something that can illustrate where a child is in it. This lets kids see that they are part of something bigger, gives them a sense of belonging, and can initiate the ever-present wonder of how and where they might fit among their various populations.

Ask just about any District 25 student and they’ll tell you there are 16 more days of school before summer vacation. This is a perfect time to consider the introduction of a new family routine of reading or ensuring an already established practice continues throughout the summer months. 

The season is also a perfect time for adventures, so get out the map! Then put it on the wall. Kids will see and remember where they’ve been and imagine all the places they can go.

When a Boy Sees Beauty

Last weekend, my friend’s eight and five year old sons spent an afternoon with me. Their mom wanted quiet time to study and some one-on-one time with her teenage daughter. The boys brought their bikes to my house and after a good ten minutes of adjusting seat heights and helmet straps, tying shoes, and going potty, they were geared up for a ride around Holt Arena while I walked my dogs.

Still in my driveway, I finagled three leashes and arranged the stubborn old golden, the deaf older golden, and the three year old labradoodle puppy. I fear that guy will always be a puppy. I was ready to forward march when the eight year old boy shouted my name.

“Billie! Have you seen this? It’s beautiful!”

I felt a flash of irritation and exhaled. I finally had the dogs situated. The prep time for our walk and ride was surpassing the time for our actual venture. I turned to look. He’d gotten off his bike and was crouched on my lawn 12 inches from a fully bloomed daffodil. He pointed and turned his head toward me with bright eyes and a smile. My impatience dissolved.

I validated his assessment of beauty and spelled daffodil admitting that I didn’t know if it had one or two “L’s.” I nodded at his descriptions of “bright and cheerful” while I motioned for him to get back on his bike. My dogs tugged and bounced and clearly didn’t grasp the beauty of the daffodil or the boy who noticed it.

After our loop around Holt, the boys convinced me they needed a snack. My seemingly expensive apple-corer was invaluable as it transformed the lone apple in my house to eight equally sized slices for them to share. I asked the five year old how many they would each get and when he correctly told me four, his older brother congratulated him.

I sat them and their four apple slices each at my dining room table while I refilled the dogs’ water bowl. At the kitchen sink, I heard the eight year old exclaim again, “Billie! Have you seen this?” He was pointing to my back yard through the dining room window.

I opened the back door and took a peek. I didn’t see anything. My neighbors have chickens that intrigue the boys, so I expected to see them doing a little jig based on the boy’s excitement. I canvassed our yards and there was nothing but a breezy, spring stillness. Then I saw it.

“You mean the buds on the fruit tree?”

“Yes! Aren’t they beautiful? Look at them. Look at them!” 

There he sat with his back to the table, sitting sideways on the chair, legs crossed while he stared out my window and chomped on his apple. I took him in while he took in the newly discovered beautiful blossoms.

I remember the drives to church camp when I was a kid and my mom implored me to look at the mountains and trees out the window and admire their beauty. It drove me crazy. You can’t force someone, let alone a preteen to see beauty. But I see it now. I see it almost as often as this boy does.

Amidst his Legos, Transformers and hours of Mine Craft, beauty strikes him, and he’ll tell you. Seeing him notice and react along with his demands to see what he sees are beautiful in their own right. Part of enjoying beauty is sharing it with others, and he longs to share. So do I.

He has no idea when he asks me to see the beauty he sees, that his is what I notice. I hope his appreciation for simple splendor and that sheer joy stay with him as he grows.  I hope classmates and peers join in when he asks them to see beauty, and if they can’t see what he sees, at least appreciate the beauty that lies in him.

Belching and a Bible Verse

I went to a K-6 Christian school, and I still remember the series of Bible verses beginning in Ecclesiastes 3. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot.”  

In my late 20’s I was a volunteer counselor at Idaho Business Week. It was a summer camp event held on the Boise State campus for high school students involved in Business Professionals of America. Hundreds of kids were divided into “companies” of 10-13 students. Q business professional was assigned as their mentor while they ran a mock business.

I look at most of my bad decisions with the lemons-to-lemonade adage, and I value the lesson learned. One of my toughest lessons came at the end of this week when I made a very poor decision. I write this with low grade nausea and wrinkle-causing winces.

In addition to remembering birthdays, my other secret talent is belching.  No one could best my belches on my high school band trips or at church camp.  The kids I’ve coached get a kick out of it, and even today, I could outdo the bass of most car audio systems.

A boy on my company team was disrupting the meeting and belching. I thought the fastest way to redirect was to say something through my own booming burp.  I bellowed a “Knock it off, Jared!” and the room went silent in shock.  They giggled and whispered some “Whoa’s” and the company team was back on track after I glared at him.

A formal lunch and graduation at the end of the week welcomed executives and representatives of sponsoring Idaho companies. Everyone wore business attire with men and boys in jackets and ties, and women and girls in pant suits or dresses. My fellow belcher was chosen by our team to say a few words.  He gave a great speech about his week and offered kind words about me as a coach and then he did it. He told the entire crowd how I could belch and rallied the students to cheer me on and show them.

I thought twice and should have thought a third time. I tip-toed to the mic and belched in front of a crowd containing dignitaries from Micron, HP, Idaho Power, Boise Cascade, and all three state universities. My kids thought it was a riot, and the sophomoric high-fives were contagious, but not one adult in the room was impressed. Nor should they have been.  I wasn’t asked back the next year. I hate to think what this graceless, tactless act taught the students.

There’s a little hullabaloo about School District 25’s efforts to curtail disruptive behavior at the upcoming graduations. Discerning appropriate times for specific behaviors is more than a valuable lesson to learn. It’s critical. I’m lucky I was only uninvited to future events because the stunt could have had career-lasting implications.  When students know a high school diploma is at stake, hopefully it conveys the seriousness of appropriate behavior, so when jobs or entire careers are involved, the seeds of discernment are rooted.

The Ugly Art of Neutrality

A few spring breaks ago, my former partner and I toured Washington DC with her teenage daughter. We met our congressmen Mike Crapo and Larry Craig in their offices. We toured the White House, the Capitol, Arlington Cemetery, the Holocaust Museum and the National Mall. We saw the World War II, Vietnam Veterans, Korean War Veterans, Lincoln, Jefferson and Einstein Memorials. The only time we sat still was during a showing of Ben Stiller’s “A Night at the Museum” at the actual Natural History Museum. We took our Christmas picture sitting around the Einstein statue, and with a dual nod to the scientist and the season, we captioned our card “Three Wise Women.” 

On our way home we discussed our favorite parts of the trip. Mine was the Lincoln Memorial at night because he was my mom’s favorite president.  My ex’s was either the cherry blossoms lining the Tidal Basin at the Jefferson Memorial or when her daughter asked Senator Craig if he collected elephants. (His office was adorned with dozens of them and the kid hadn’t immediately made the connection to the Republican Party symbol.) Her daughter’s favorite part was visiting the Holocaust Museum. When asked why, she said “the memorial was so beautiful but the holocaust was so ugly. That ugly will stay with me and remind me what can happen when I choose to do nothing.”  She lauded the mixture of learning about history but also how to shape the future. Smart kid, that one.

We bought a poster for our house in the gift shop of the Holocaust Museum.  Let that oxymoron sink in: the Holocaust gift shop.  They sell books, posters, magnets and other items advocating remembrance and equality. The 11x17 artwork depicted watercolor symbols for various causes including women’s rights, environmental preservation, AIDS education,  protecting wildlife, religious freedom, and civil rights. Of the poster’s 15 symbols, two pay homage to gay rights. (I don’t like the phrase “gay rights” and prefer “equal rights” but it aligns with the artist’s description of her work.)

Beneath the colorful swatches reads the following quote: The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. – Dante

It’s easy to mistake a soft voice for neutrality. I think some have done that with me over the years, but I have never been neutral regarding equal rights. I have gone about my advocacy in a way that is true to me. I don’t think equality will come in shouting at society, churches and law makers about how persecuted I am, but rather in showing how equal I am. Or rather, how equal I can be when afforded the acceptance to coexist.

I say that, though, never having experienced traumas that others have. I’m sure there’s room to make me shout.

This week marks the one year anniversary of my coming out publically at a City Council meeting as well as my first column in the Journal. Happy Anniversary and cheers!

In my testimony last year supporting the non-discrimination ordinance I said, “I’ve never hidden or lied about my sexual orientation.  I’ve chosen not to talk about it. I’d describe myself as living in a large walk-in closet with a lot of Hawaiian shirts, Converse sneakers, and a half-dozen cow suits. It’s a closet with an open door with a welcome mat if you’d like to come in and get to know me. “

That’s still how I prefer to live and work and much remains the same although I’ve talked about it some and added a couple cow suits to the closet.

I talked a year ago about living in fear of losing jobs, friends, or housing opportunities, and while my fear has faded over time, it’s still prominent for many. Today, I fear that there is so much anger on both sides that discussion is becoming impossible.

Many in the LGBT community lead with an understandable but unfortunate anger. The harshest words I have ever encountered personally haven’t been from a fundamentalist Christian or angry right-winger, but rather from within one of my communities.

A militant bisexual woman years ago lectured me at a dinner party almost to the point of yelling about how I ought to be living my life “loud and proud” and what a disservice I was to the LGBT community for not being more vocal. I’m so much more than that. Why should that be my loudest voice? She criticized my patience with critics while testing my patience with her. I sat silent and stunned. I could feel my anger swell, but didn’t engage because there was nothing to gain.

Dante’s “hell” is harsh, but when anger or neutrality linger, an ugly stays.

Giving Up "Google It"

A friend of mine’s 13 year old daughter is an X-Files fan. The TV show ran from 1993 through 2002, but she discovered reruns on an obscure cable channel about a year ago. She now has posters of the actors and UFO’s on her walls and will likely have dogs, cats or fish named Scully and Mulder someday.
 
I don’t share this kid’s fanatical love of the show, but I discovered through my network of Facebook friends that the wife of one of my high school classmates does. Her name is Nicole and she has four X-Files-related tattoos, an impressive collection of memorabilia, and a photograph with Gillian Anderson (Scully) that probably still has her smile muscles aching.

The teen fan got a replica of Mulder’s FBI agent ID card over spring break and showed me amidst excited squeals and squirms. I’ve told her about Nicole and I quipped in a text chat a few nights ago that they were definitely kindred spirits.  She asked me what that meant. Explaining the concept via text at that moment seemed cumbersome and complicated. I was in the middle of folding clothes, and she has a smart phone. I almost replied, “Google it.” 

But I caught myself. She is an inquisitive, tech-savvy kid. I have told her to “Google it” before to learn something quickly, but as soon as she asked me a question, I had an opportunity to provide more than an answer.  

We navigate tricky balances ensuring that kids are technologically competent but also socially astute; teaching them to be independent but also to talk to adults when they should. Even if it was via text, a teenager was talking to me. She was asking me something.

I suppose there may be legitimate times like driving in heavy traffic, when her little brother is throwing a tantrum or while sitting in church—wait, not that one—in which “Google it” makes sense, but it didn’t make sense here.

I explained that a kindred spirit is like a soul mate but not romantic. It’s someone with whom you share a love of something or hold a similar world view or simply have the same quirky, warped sense of humor.

She could have learned a myriad of definitions for “kindred spirit” through Google, but in my giving it up, I hope she learned a little bit more. I hope she learned that I will give her answers when I can and I will continue to invite dialogue with her. I hope she learned both from my giving her an answer as well as in the answer itself that, just like the X-Files espouses, “We are not alone.” As she is at the beginning of often tumultuous, confusing and isolating teenage years, that constant reminder can’t hurt. Not only is the truth out there, but so are many, many kindred spirits. And we most likely won’t find those on Google.

Shuffle the STEM

Appeared in the Idaho State Journal on April 1, 2014.

The acronym follows STEM, but do a quick shuffle of the words. Whether it’s in the education or the application of Science, Technology, Engineering And Math, it entails T.E.A.M.S.

When I was three, I wanted to be a ballerina. That stemmed from accolades of how pretty and graceful I was in a pink tutu made by one of the little old ladies in Lava. Maintaining that beauty and grace was difficult, so I changed my mind. I wanted to be a motorcycle cop like every other kid who watched CHiPs, but after my best friend in third grade moved away, I couldn’t imagine who would be my partner.  So I settled on aspiring to be president for the rest of my youth.

Then I had an epiphany in high school. I would be a math teacher and volleyball coach. I couldn’t wait to tell my mom.

My mom freaked out. She used swear words and hand gestures and everything. I explained all of the reasons why I would be good at it and she countered with, “Yes, and you’ll starve. “ As an underpaid civil servant herself, she spent the next week shouting all of the reasons I shouldn’t teach and coach.

So I became an engineer—a very fortunate one with a schedule that has allowed me to coach volleyball and “teach” math over the years.

I am hardly a math teacher.  I have not dealt with parents, administrators, accountability to test scores, individual education plans (IEPs), or a schedule dictated with opening and closing bells. I wasn’t teaching kids, I was coaching them, and I can point to a collection of factors of my success during my tenure leading a MATHCOUNTS program at a local charter school.

This school applies an inquiry-based math curriculum and collaboration and teamwork are a critical component in all subjects. The kids already knew how to work together by the time they got to me in sixth grade when they chose to join the math club. They chose to join the math club. I showed up for an hour a week with a smile and energy and ensured they had snacks. I also donated the funds to sustain the school’s MATHCOUNTS team and was able to use a vast collection of online problems, activities and other resources which are funded by national STEM companies and engineering societies.

I am convinced that the future success of STEM education lies in partnerships like this between professionals and educators. It has to be a team and it needs parents, too.  Teamwork is also paramount in how kids learn and apply science and math because office projects and field assignments almost always require teams.