Free Throws

We had a pretty rough morning at our place today. I found myself outside, too frustrated to play with my kids yet, even though I knew I needed to run them around more. I grabbed a basketball.

I shot the ball, letting out a little frustration, maybe hurling it with some added velocity against the backboard, trying to make it in, but not really coming close to making any shots.

I started to think about what I control, perhaps inspired by this timely, grounding article by one of my favorite teacher bloggers, Dave Stuart Jr.

I thought about Michael Jordan, a generational talent who brought himself into the conversation of who might be the single greatest basketball player ever with an almost fanatical willingness to work at his craft. I started to think about how many free throws Jordan must have attempted. Probably millions. Probably still out there somewhere, adding to that total.

I thought, "What if I just focus my energy on getting a little better at this." What if I were to walk out of this confinement having really improved at something, even if it's just something dumb like shooting free throws?

I focused. I struggled to string two together. Then I got three in a row. I found a rhythm. I hit five, then seven.

I got just a little bit better. I found something to do with my other hand that worked. I started to use my knees. I followed through. I repeated my shot and some of them were beautiful even as some luckier ones fell in.

There are many stressors in confinement. The reintroduction of teaching this week is one, although I enjoyed seeing the faces of my department colleagues so much today that I was sad to see them off as I ended our video conference. My wife and kids are struggling and will continue to struggle more than I will with the lack of interaction outside our family unit, but I was reminded that I need human interaction too.

I was reminded of this as well by my students, 31 of whom wrote me a letter I requested, giving me a little summary of their doings and mindset. Many of them are mourning the loss of face-to-face time with friends and school activities. Practically all of them are feeling restless. I wrote back to all of them, sometimes letters several paragraphs long.

My job description sometimes encompasses a lot of things outside of teaching the content. Mental health and making meaning out of a frustrating situation will become a focus.

I am believing more and more that our confinement is littered with opportunities for bettering ourselves. I become less of a content specialist teaching skills; I now pivot to a role as a mental health counselor, using literature, information, and fun to keep my students sharp, sane, and perhaps a little bit more ready to clean their own cages out.

Here we go!

Riding the Roller Coaster

Remember how yesterday was a really good day?

Today... not so much. My little guy found himself totally off his routine, missing friends and teachers, and just decided he just couldn't do it today. When we have days like this, what helps me is to look at how far we've come with him. Looking back two months, four months, six months, a year – you simply don't see the positive trend if you're only looking at a few days. It's there. And it's encouraging.

Unfortunately, we're being told that the pandemic is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Most of my neighbors are staying home, but I heard a party on Saturday night, and I see families on our street having friends over. It is frustrating, and I imagine that part of my son's lousy day was seeing the kids down the street that he likes to play with sometimes have friends over. I look forward to the day when this thing peaks and starts heading downhill. Of course, we could be riding a statistical roller coaster, which I've also seen in the news.

We met as a school staff online today, which went more smoothly than I thought it would. Zoom will be a serviceable tool for experiencing remote conferencing. I saw an interesting tweet today: something about us teachers finally seeing if our classes were actually worth the price of admission now that students won't face any academic penalty for not working, (which I completely agree with).

Oops, did I just say that?

Why yes, I did. Grades are horrible, students, and if the point of school is to get the grades, you're not doing it right, and we haven't helped much.

Now's our chance to offer meaningful work. We've been asked to keep it light for you, and believe me, I will. But there's freedom in ungraded work. We'll be taking off the pressure and asking you to write for writing's sake, read for reading's sake, and do these things because it makes you a more capable version of you.

Now we have to really put our money where our mouths are and put out assignments that are actually worth doing. The mindset shift we need will be tough for me. Many still won't work. Parents might pop up and not get it.

I hope it will change the way we look at school. My earliest replies have been clear and real: students want meaningful work, but they don't want it to stress them out. Why can't we do it that way all the time?

Check-in Letter to My Students: My Responses

Dear Students,

Here's where I answer the same questions I'm asking of you.  No need to worry about formatting or anything for your responses. Enjoy!

***First of all, how are you doing? Is there anything you are particularly worried or upset about, or are you generally doing okay? Do you have family members or friends who you are concerned about, were you a part of extracurriculars that were canceled, and are there other ways that your life has been significantly impacted by this pandemic? Also, how are you passing this time away from school and other people? 

I am doing pretty well, all things considered, although I tend to be all smiles when things go well in the short term. Today was a good day. I'm concerned about my wife and two kids staying healthy, and I'm keeping in touch with other family members.

We are, as most of you probably are, trying to stay home as much as possible and keep our distance from others as we do. My spring break was turned on its head: I'd planned on doing some prep work for our last quarter of school, plant a garden, keep the place clean, and enjoy a quiet house for the morning with my kids at school

Instead, my kids were home for the week when their school shut down, I am doing some of the trickiest parenting of my life as I try to keep them occupied, healthy, and somewhat content. I try to make routines and keep my house very clean. We make a schedule for our kids because they like certainties. We try to follow it.

I didn't take much leisure time last week, but I stole a few extra moments today to do some gaming (Civilization V on Steam), which I hardly ever do anymore. It was nice.

***What has been going on in your life since the start of the new semester that is not related to COVID-19? What successes have you had since January? What setbacks? What have you been most interested in and spending the most time on?

This seems like a different life, doesn't it? It's been a solid school year in a lot of ways. My students are a good group this year. There's always some change with new principals, but I feel like the year is going okay, if a little more interrupted by testing and trainings. I'm a den leader for my son's cub scout troop. I followed the 49ers closely as they had a surprisingly great season and came devastatingly close to winning a championship. I'm enjoying seeing my kids grow up more. There are lots of little pleasures in life that you can grow to appreciate as you get older. I wish I could tell my 14-15-year-old self that so many of the things I worried about didn't really matter that much.

Added up, my energy levels have been a little lower than last year's, but I'm more content.

***When thinking about the school year, how have you grown in the time since it began? If possible, give specifics. For example, don’t just say, “I’m a better writer.” Instead, say something like, “I realized that I used a lot of run on sentences, which made my writing difficult to understand. After sharpening that with the MITS practice, I do a lot better now at punctuating my sentences properly. It makes my writing a lot more like an adult’s.”

As a lifelong perfectionist, I'm learning to live with doing things that are merely good enough to get the job done rather than the spectacular, mind-blowing experiences I've sought after in the past. I don't have to destroy myself to be a good teacher (repeat over and over).

I'm coming up on a decade of teaching now, which is a heck of a long time. I've grown a lot, yet I feel I've realized only a fraction of the teacher I can be. Education is a puzzle: a maddening, delightful, impossible mess. I'm embracing that more and more. Pretty Zen, huh?

***What are you most anxious to work on or learn for the rest of the school year? What do you still feel unsure about? What topics do we absolutely need to cover before the school year ends?

We were supposed to do a research paper in April, and we may yet: there is certainly a real-time historical event to track. What form that takes is still uncertain, though I can see a few different paths for us to try. I've got some ideas, but I sometimes find that my students will give me superior ideas. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

***Lastly, what mindspace are you in concerning school work right now? How much work do you think you will be able to do over the next few weeks, and what kind of work would be appealing to you? Please be honest in this section: this will help me calibrate my workload.

I'm actually excited. Any time we can read, write, and discuss things that matter and shove grades off the table means we're doing things that are important. I got into this business to help young people have better lives, and I relish a challenge like this. I believe that our character is revealed in difficult situations, and I hope to push myself and see so many of my students do the same. I look forward to being there for them.

To Your Health,
Mr. Posluch

Racing the Rain

Today was one of the better ones so far. The kids got along better, thanks, I think, in part to "go jump on the trampoline 15 times" as a solution to both angry feelings and brazen silliness.

Early Spring is a nice time around here, but I'm really drinking this one in. Rain is finally greening the place and the weeds are battling for supremacy in my backyard. When I mow them down, they become a lovely green color that gets all over my clothes when I clean out the catcher on the lawnmower. I finally mowed the back lawn: just in time to beat four days of forecasted rain. Driving around town is kind of fun with fewer cars on the road.

I stopped at the pharmacy to pick up some prescriptions, signing as usual with the same old pen attached to the battered tablet in the drive-through window, and I wondered: how many people have touched this thing? I was careful not to touch my face on the road back – when you're trying not to touch your face, you realize how much you touch your face – and quickly washed my hands upon returning home. I have avoided buying cages for a pepper and tomato plant that I put in last week because I don't want to go out to more places than I have to. 

I enjoyed playing Mario (banned for the previous few months due to gamer's rage) with Kenny. He did great! We played Mexican Train as a family today with the 15s. It desperately needs to be pared down to 9s for a family of four.

We did church this morning, enjoying Pastor Mark's message. The kids sat and paid attention to most of his 36-minute message, and we enjoyed seeing him and hearing his encouraging words. The four of us sang a favorite song together and Kenny played my drum, which was a real thrill for him. Looking back, I feel that taking the time to do that as a family might have set the tone for our good day.

Work with students is returning this week. I do not plan to be overwhelmed but to focus on giving my students the type of experience they need in this unique situation. I want them to track the news so they know how to be good citizens and save lives during this time. I realize that many of them are caring for siblings as their parents work and have little time for school. Many of them (and us) may get sick as the virus continues to move up its frightening curve, which will undoubtedly disrupt learning. Many of them may lose a loved one.

I will be writing a letter to them and posting it on here with the same questions I'll be giving them. I miss them, and I hope I can be a part of helping them through this challenge. 

What's Next?

It was Harry Potter Saturday at our house today: we read the final pages of Deathly Hallows and watched the last film. It's been a reliable activity for us over the last few years, and now it's over.

As we do around here these days, we'll adjust.

I did not mow the lawn today as I'd vowed to do, but it seems I'll be safe from the forecasted rain tomorrow until the evening.

Speaking of safety...

The threat of a pandemic hangs over your head from the moment you get up to the moment you go to bed. You wonder a little every time you think about making a move that you'd never think twice about before. You wonder every time you cough. You wonder every time your throat feels a little bit sore. Could I have picked it up from that trip I took a couple of days ago? If I'm struck down by it and it's bad, will there be hospital space? Maybe you've seen those articles about the situation in Italy and read how triage works, how they'll be too many patients to treat, and you'll get a wristband, one of four colors.

If you get the black one, you're marked to leave to die.

You start to worry about this kind of worst-case scenario.

But living in fear of what you can't control is a fruitless exercise. This section of an essay from C.S. Lewis is making the rounds on social media with a note to replace "atomic" with "coronavirus." It's one of those things that is becoming ubiquitous, at least among the type of people I tend to follow, but it rings true:

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

— C.S. Lewis, “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948)

Chickenfoot Threes

We put the kids in the car today and hit three friends' houses, decorating their driveways with love in the form of chalk messages and drawings.

It was nice to "spread some sunshine," as one of them later texted us.

Taught the kids to play a dominoes game I learned from my grandma: Chickenfoot. They dug it. Ongoing tournaments will begin at some point.

The post-rain sky was gorgeous. There were many families and kids out for walks and rides. The parking lot to In-Shape City was taped off with yellow caution tape. Plenty of cars still out on the road, but no abundance of traffic.

My kids are not "coop up inside" kids, which is going to be problematic, but we are trying. They got three tasty meals and lived. One week down. Many more to go.

"Lockdown"

On the day of the lockdown order
In between rainstorms
I took my children outside

We played capture the flag
With a stuffed otter and a frisbee

Briefly forgetting
Schoolwork
Worst-case scenarios
That this could be months
The dizzying and rapid influx of information
The scouring of news and social media for answers

To enjoy
Chasing and being chased
That they are almost too fast for me now
The joyful messages they wrote in chalk on neighbors' driveways
Hiding under a car
Pretending I don't see them
Celebrating too early and getting caught like my dad always did to me
Clean air
A deserted street
The first day of Spring