Category: Slice of Life

Note to self: This is, indeed, a slice of life, but as I was writing it I found myself surprised by its tone.  Interesting.

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Learning and encouragement, I think, oftentimes go hand in hand.  Learning isn’t always easy, and it’s nice to have an encouraging voice in your ear as you work toward understanding something new.

Recently, I’ve had a few experiences that have sort of refined my understanding of how those two activities–learning and encouragement–go together.

I have, for most of my adult life, been an avid user of technology.  In my early professional life, computers and automation were just starting to make inroads into the military maintenance units of which I was a member, and I sort of grew up with them.  As new technologies emerged (Windows 3.1 was pretty awesome), I had the opportunity to learn as I used them to do a few different jobs.  The nineties turned into the two thousands, and the world of early blogging and wikis turned into social media and other more-user-friendly and intuitive technology tools. 

Nowadays, I have the opportunity to help other teachers take advantage of some of the new tools we have available to us.  Sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes it’s not.  Given the current events, sometimes the process is leisurely, and sometimes it’s sink or swim, where sinking isn’t an option.

Over the last few days, I’ve been working with a teacher I’ve known for several years, helping her learn to shoot and edit screencast videos.  The process isn’t too difficult, but her expectations for herself are high and she’s quickly taken things to a pretty decent production level. 

When she first started, I found myself trying to be encouraging as she worked with this new-to-her set of tools.  (“Really, your voice sounds fine!”) As time passed and her level of proficiency grew, I could sense that my need to encourage her was diminishing.  She was finding success with her work, and that success became a source of encouragement beyond anything I could say.  At a certain point, verbal encouragement wouldn’t just be unnecessary–I think it would start to sound patronizing.  She is doing well, and she knows it.

In an interesting sequence of events just today, I left the teaching situation of my friend’s classroom, got in my car, and headed to our district’s tech services department where I spent an hour or so learning some of the basics of mobile device management (MDM) systems.  I was sort of familiar with the process, but there was quite a bit of new material and I had to work to make sure I had the gist of what was happening.  The material wasn’t totally new to me, but it was challenging, and as I was learning alongside another colleague our “teacher” assumed we were rolling along with her, and the time went well.

On my drive home, I thought about the “tech” events of the last few days.  Over the days I spent teaching, my need to encourage diminished and my learner’s success became its own motivator.  During my own learning experience, verbal encouragement was neither expected nor given.  Had it been, it would have seemed awkward at best.  If it crossed anyone’s mind, it was mine alone as I celebrated my own learning while figuring out how to apply my newly acquired abilities.  

As I’ve read over this slice, I realize that I haven’t necessarily learned anything new, but it was cool to have recognized what I have about the last few days.  I’m not sure how this will translate to teaching elementary-age children, but I’m happy to have re-experienced this insight!

Change, in so many ways, is hard.  While I don’t usually go outside of my personal life for these narratives, the events of 2020 (actually, just five or six months of it) loom large over everything that happens nowadays.  

Six months ago I was in and out of classrooms all over my district, helping teachers and teaching students a variety of science topics, mostly computer programming.  Now I’m walking through those same schools, but the classrooms are empty of students and most doors are closed, with signs taped to them admonishing me, “Do not Disturb, Virtual Meeting in Progress,” or some variation on the theme.

Six months ago my family and I ate in restaurants without thinking about it, but now an outing along those lines is an exercise in logistics, largely passed over in favor of just eating at home.  Just stopping by a fast food joint for an ice cream cone was a normal event, and now it’s a calculated risk.

Back in the days before, we saw friends more often, we visited family without a thought, and we popped in and out of our local businesses with a degree of regularity.  Need something?  We’d just run out and get it, but not now.

Change, in so many ways, is hard, but sometimes it’s a little bit funny, too. 

First off, I have to admit I’m someone who doesn’t always do well with a break in my routine.  I’m someone who goes out of his way to avoid such things, when I can.  I might even be someone who stays in a harder situation when an easier one involves, gulp, doing something differently.  I am, to use the cliche, a creature of habit.

So, about that funny example of change I mentioned.

Way back in 1982, I graduated high school and a few months later I reported to basic training as a recruit of the United States Marine Corps.  It was 1982, so my hair was a little long, but I joined the Corps, and in the time it took for a pair of clippers to be dragged across my dome, it suddenly wasn’t.  My hair was short; it was really short. 

After basic training I was allowed to grow it out a bit, but until I retired from the military in 2004, my hair stayed “within regs.”  Nearly 22 years is enough time, research shows, to establish a habit, and that’s what I did.  My hair? Short.

Then came the pandemic, and suddenly the idea of going to a barber shop (sorry, stylist) lost its appeal.  Within a few weeks, my hair was tickling the tops of my ears, and a few weeks after that it was starting to lie over them.  Weeks turned into months, and my hair, alone with me in my house and unseen by others, continued to grow.  After three or four months, it was at a length unseen in some 35 years.  

And I liked it.  Dad joke: It grew on me.

More importantly, my wife liked it.

And so, after a backyard trim by a neighbor who’s a stylist, I was ready to reenter my academic world.  (True story: After several years as a hairstylist, my neighbor’s actually working as a dog groomer right now.  I had my hair cut by a dog groomer.  I love it.)

As it turns out, I’m not the only one for whom change comes hard.  Just ask some of my co-workers.  “Tim, is that you?”

In many ways, probably too many to count, I’m a conservative person.  Okay, given the times, I suppose I should clarify that I’m not politically conservative, at least not as much as I once was.  Depending on the day and the situation, I’m a right- or left-leaning moderate.  Mostly left, lately.  You know, this slice of life has absolutely nothing to do with politics, yet there it is: I felt the need to clarify my usage of a word.  These are strange days we’re living in, and I’m not sure I like all aspects of them.

So, back to me being a conservative person.  Let’s go with the “slow to change/cautious about change” meaning of the word.

Recently, I built some stairs coming off of our side porch leading down into the back yard.  There’s nothing particularly special about the stairs, other than the amount of planning time that went into them. By some estimates, some six or seven years went into the process.

Anyway, the steps are done.  It’s been a few weeks, so they’re almost ready to paint (pressure treated lumber needs time to thoroughly dry).  

Normally, I’d be looking at a white paint.  Not “white,” but one of the “off whites” that one typically sees on a set of steps.  In lieu of white, I might just leave them natural.  I like natural wood, and “natural” is what one goes with when what they really want is an “I didn’t have to paint” color.

Anyway, let’s back up a few weeks.  I’d just finished the steps, but knew I didn’t have to worry about painting them for a while.  The treatment in the  lumber wasn’t dry, and even if it was, I live in Alabama.  You don’t paint outside during an Alabama summer unless you want to wait until an Alabama fall for it to no longer be sticky.

I was out and about that day, and found myself walking into a local business that had a small picket fence around some mechanical thingy just outside the door. 

The fence was blue.

It wasn’t a dark blue, nor was it a robin’s egg or sky blue.  I don’t know what the painter called it, but it was a shade typically seen in a “beach” palette of colors. 

Not a coral, not a turquoise, and definitely–most definitely–not me. No, it wasn’t.

But that color stuck with me.  

And it stuck with me, over the weeks since I built those steps.

That color is not me, or is it?  The rest of the woodwork on my house: White.  Other projects I’ve built: Subdued Earth tones, including (of course) “natural.”

Yet, that color stuck with me.

At the local big box home center, it’s called “Cool Rain.”  I’m not sure I can believe it, but I’ve got a quart.  I’ll let you know how it comes out.

Sometimes, poetry happens right in front of us.  The challenge then is to figure out the words to put down on paper!

This past Saturday morning was one of those times that cause cliches to almost sprout from the ground around you.  The rising sun, its brilliance seemingly driving shadows away, was over my shoulder as I walked toward the back of my yard.  The blue sky above was cloudless, and a color that brought sapphires to mind.  The bright sun didn’t cause it to wash out as it sometimes does–it was simply gorgeous.  The temperature hadn’t started to climb on that August morning in north Alabama, and a breeze made the air feel even more delicious.  The day was beautiful in the truest sense of the word.

As I approached the garden planted and tended by my wife, the deep green of squash and cucumber leaves provided a backdrop to the stalks of the sunflowers that rose well above my head, nearly double my height.  I anticipated looking up at the blooms, knowing from the previous day that they were at the height of their visual appeal.

Bringing my gaze up, I was startled to see unexpected movement.  There was a goldfinch, clutching the face of one of the flowers.  The bird wasn’t simply standing there, rather, it was laboring to pry seeds from the head, oblivious to me in its efforts.  The yellow of the finch’s wings fluttered to aid with the effort, and that in turn seemed to animate the sunflower, the hues nearly matching.  The few seconds I was able to watch before being spotted seemed to last much longer than they really did, and eventually my presence was known and the bird disappeared in a streak of gold against the sky and then the leaves of the nearby tree line.

That was poetry.  My words simply try to keep up.

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A solitary goldfinch
Some ten feet off the ground
Working hard on a sunflower head

Against the blue Alabama sky
Hue overload

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In her writing this past Friday, Molly Hogan of Nix the comfort zone published a blog post (Gratitude and #poeticdiversion) in which she presented some poems she’d posted to Twitter with the hashtag #poeticdiversion. Following her lead, I also posted and tagged this poem. You should probably post one, too.

So, I think I’ve got to learn how to play Pokémon.  I’ve still got a few years, but eventually I’ll have to learn.

My granddaughter, who just turned seven a few months ago, was over yesterday for school.  For better or worse, her grandfather is an elementary grade teacher who really needs someone to teach, and she’s convenient. Well, and there’s the pandemic. I suppose that’s relevant.

Anyway, we sat down at the kitchen table like we always do, but today she puts a small box on the table and announces that we’re going to play a game of Pokémon.  

I looked over at the pile of stuff I had ready for reading, then looked at the  expectant face sitting across from me.  Time was tight, though, and there wasn’t enough of it for a game.  So, I said we’d play if that’s what she wanted to do.  I think I mentioned I’m a grandfather. 

Really, there was a little bit of time for a game, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned over 15 years of teaching it’s that you’ve got to bend a little every once in a while.  Especially if, well, it’s your granddaughter.

Now, here’s the thing.  I’ve been around kids and Pokémon cards for a long time, and I’m not sure I’ve ever known one (a kid, not a card) who actually knows how to play the game.  Heck, I’m not even sure if it is a game–for all I know, it could just be an example of incredible marketing.  I’m sure that thousands of those cards have sat safely on my desk at school before being taken home at the end of the day, but I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen the game played.

It certainly wasn’t today, at least not the way the game designers intended.  My granddaughter told me we were going to play the way her dad taught her to play, but it turns out she couldn’t remember how that worked.  It was a tricky spot for me to be in: If we just called it off, I could go ahead and scrap my reading lesson as well because, to put it mildly, the mood would be broken.  If I let her decide, without any help, how the game was to be played, the reading lesson would have been called on account of darkness.

In keeping with the spirit of things, I played the “this is how the kids in my class play the game” trick, and it worked!  We basically played “War” using the point values on the card, and she couldn’t have been happier that I won.  Well, she actually won the Pokémon game, but I got to teach my lesson with a happy student.  I’ll put that win in my column any day of the week!