Summer Vacation, Day Two

I'm not in love with our new neighbors and don't know what to do with myself.

I don't hate the neighbors. They just aren't exactly the people I would prefer living so close. The previous owner hardly ever set foot in her yard and was silent. These folks, they aren't silent and swear a lot and one of them smokes while another vapes and their dogs bark at all hours and, well, you get the idea. 

Last week the owner of the house said she was having a six-foot fence installed for the dogs and asked if we wanted to have the four-foot picket between our houses replaced. She said of the fence guy, he'd give you a good price. We declined and that disappointed her some. It may be that we are difficult neighbors to her though I wonder what we do to disturb other than turn the pages in our books.

Summer vacation started yesterday. School ended Friday, but I don't feel on vacation until the first Monday. I have a big book to read, Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove which was recommended and is good so far. I get up early to write Morning Pages, go for a run, shave and shower, and, today at least, went to vote in the Democratic primary though voting seems pointless given what the country has become. Before noon, I pretty much have the day wide open. What to do with it? 

Reading in the backyard is good unless the neighbors are out. One of them doesn't work so she's out quite often, talking to the dogs in paragraphs: "Hey, don't you understand that you can't fucking jump all over everything? Stop it! I said, stop jumping. Don't you get it?" Perhaps she should put these things in writing. 

Even if our old, silent neighbor were back, reading isn't enough to keep me going the whole summer, six or seven hours a day. I get sleepy a few hours after running and sleepy when I read so the double whammy is likely to take me out if I don't do something more. I just haven't figured what to do. Yesterday I rebuilt the desk in my office, but that likely won't need doing again for a few years, so I'm out of luck there. 

My brother and I often talk about retiring. We're both ten years away from it but talk about it anyway and when he is over tonight for dinner I might bring it up again. He says, you have to know how you'll fill the days. He says, you need a kind of schedule. I believe him, but on this second day of summer vacation haven't come up with it yet. I suppose I still have some time. 

Taking time out to write and post something most every day is good. I could use an approximate time at which to do it. I don't need a time-clock schedule, but having a plan commits me to doing things. It makes it easy to commit to enjoying doing them too. 

In Lonesome Dove the guys keep sipping (or gulping) whiskey, and I keep thinking that might be the way to spend the afternoon. This feeling is especially strong when my neighbor is loudly asking the dogs to tell her "where's the poop?" then saying, "ah, Jesus Fucking Christ I stepped in some of your shit you fucking thing. Stop eating it! What did I tell you?" A beer or three would work too. 

It's quarter past four in the afternoon. I've read a hundred pages of Lonesome Dove, run seven miles, written three Morning Pages, let our dog in and out of the house thirty eight times (give or take), had lunch, and now have written whatever the hell this is. I could go ask the neighbor dogs.

I'm reminded of the Statler Brothers' song Flowers On The Wall, a favorite of my father's:  

“Countin’ flowers on the wall
That don’t bother me at all
Playin’ solitaire till dawn with a deck of fifty-one
Smokin’ cigarettes and watchin’ Captain Kangaroo
Now don’t tell me I’ve nothin’ to do”

Dad didn't seem like the type to sit and do nothing. My first thought of him is being busy. He painted and roofed our house when we were kids. He remodeled every room in the house. He built a business from the ground up. It's easy now that he's at permanent rest to think of him as always in motion, but then I remember him watching ball games or staring at the St. Lawrence or sitting in his office figuring things that might not have needed figuring, and I see a little of myself in this backyard, mercifully free of neighbors for the moment, just having a moment of rest and not being too worried if I don't know yet what I'll do next. It will come to me and I'll be ready whenever that happens. 

Slow Coffee, Slow Run

Went for a run this morning with Chris. He hadn't run in a couple weeks but was willing to take on a five-mile hilly loop when I said we would go slowly. We did. It was good. We talked and ran. I showed him the cemetery and the house with the pool out of which I hope Phoebe Cates will rise. (I don't know that anyone's ever swum in the pool. The gate is unlocked so I'm likely to dive in someday. No one will mistake me for Phoebe.)

After the run, we sat on my front steps drinking water and he told me about his coffee maker dying. A programmable drip machine, it used to brew as he slept. Convenient! He replaced it with an insulated French Press. Not so convenient. He has to wait for water to boil. There are fewer cups of coffee. But the coffee tastes incredible. 

Chris isn't lazy. He's building a fine-art business and hustles to make it happen. But, he says, I miss coffee being ready when I came downstairs. I get that.

My coffee hasn't been ready when I wake for years. I use an Aeropress and hand-crank grinder. A single cup of coffee requires two minutes of cranking, time to boil water, and another minute to press and then clean out the thing. It's as inconvenient as any coffee you can imagine. 

Which is what I like about it. 

It's not just the press that makes the best coffee. It's the pressing of it. The time we take making coffee makes it taste better. Slowing down to make a cup of coffee, that's just choosing to be part of living. 

It's okay if you don't buy that, but know that drip machines make weak coffee. Don't even bring up Keurigs. That thing is poison to the earth and makes pseudo coffee. Screw that. 

Our slow run felt good. Moving slowly, I savor the run. And why hurry the run anyway? 

It's the same with the coffee. We each took time to make coffee. It was slower than his automatic drip machine. All of five minutes slower. What were we going to do with that five minutes that's better than creating something? 

The act of creation, that's the best part of waking up. Forget about Folgers in your cup. 

Alan Lightman, Searching For Stars On An Island In Maine

Cosmology, philosophy, religion, and a brilliant mind come together in the book which at times is as easy to read as that quote and at other times tough going. It's a good balance. Lightman makes tough concepts available to a pedestrian science reader such as myself. Here he describes a Planck length:

“The Planck length is 10^-33 centimeters, a hundred billion billion times smaller than a quark, which is itself a few hundred thousand times smaller than an atom. Another way to visualize the infinitesimal size we are talking about: the Planck length is smaller than an atom by about the same ratio as an atom is smaller than the sun. ”

— page 65

That ratio bit floors me. I still can't imagine that infinitesimal size, but I have an idea of it now. 

This is what LIghtman does throughout as he discusses faith and science, absolutes and relatives. He suggests the beginnings of the universe then questions if such a thing could begin. He touches on quantum mechanics where particles cannot be located in space because they tend to be in two places at once. I don't understand these things as often as I would like, but by the end of the book, like the end of a good class, I understand much more and I want to keep going. 

The book is really about what it is to be human and leads me to believe that to be human is to raise questions, probe the answers, and follow these into more wondering. The universe, whatever it may be, is a place of wonder and Lightman wonders as well as anyone. 

Culture In The Schools

Re-reading Atul Gawande's New Yorker essay, I had an idea how to use checklists at school to make our work better and perhaps shift more attention to caring for students. This is a small school for at-risk students who need additional care because they receive too little elsewhere. Almost anything is worth trying, but I'm not going to suggest my idea. 

I must be some kind of terrible employee, eh? 

School culture matters and is dictated from the top. In the classroom, I'm the leader responsible for crafting culture. I start by considering each student to be worthy of kindness and inclusion. I temper that with continual judgment based on observation. Most of my work is helping students be more kind. I do that work through writing, reading, and discussion, but it's kindness, compassion, and understanding I teach as much as literacy. A culture of kindness is the starting point from which we can learn. 

To create that culture, I'm kind to students. I'm not all lovey-dovey, but I work to be thoughtful. I hold a firm line for our behavior. I accept who we are but not everything that each of us does. When they transgress, I talk with them about it, I try to help them see the problem and move them to new ways of doing things. Sometimes I resort to straight-on discipline (referrals and requests for suspension), but mostly, I work to get them to buy into the culture we need. 

(By the way, when I transgress, I come back with an apology and explanation. I suggest they keep an eye on me. Notice if I make the mistake again or how I change because of it. What's good for them has to be as good for me. That too is part of the culture.)

I rarely yell at students or call them out before others. My talks are short and usually quiet rather than lectures or tirades. I never say "because I said so" or "because I'm the teacher." I try to listen to their explanations and thoughts about what they are doing and have done. I answer questions as honestly and completely as I can. All of this to establish a culture in which people are honest, thoughtful, and don't try to solve things through fighting. 

I've tried setting up all sorts of rules. No phones. No hats. No swearing. But my rule-making created bad culture. Instead, I model my classroom on the culture my wife and I create in our home for our children. 

Many people who hear I have two teenage daughters tell me how tough it must be. Nope, I say. Well then, just wait, I'm told. I nod and shrug as I move away from those people. They don't understand the culture of our home.

Last night, after dinner, I asked the girls to scoop the litter box, dry dishes I was washing, and start the dishwasher. They obliged without complaint. Today they will vacuum the den and sweep the bathroom. When I asked, they said, no problem. 

Why was this so easy? It wasn't because I'd be angry if they argued. It wasn't because we pay them for these jobs. It wasn't because they're perfect children, though they are quite wonderful. It was because of the culture. 

When my older daughter is done with swim, she texts us. I often reply that I'm already in the parking lot reading my book. She knows I'll be there for her. My younger daughter often asks if we will give her friends rides home from school. We always say yes. It makes her happy and provides additional time with friends. Why not say yes? That's our culture. 

Our kids say yes to tasks around the house knowing this is how we do things. We all ask for what we need and give what we can. It's not sainthood but it is a culture of understanding and kindness established before they were born. My wife and I have always worked this way. 

In the classroom, I replicate most of this. A kid comes in too tired to keep her head up and I find her a quiet place to sleep. I tell her she'll get a lousy grade for class participation that day, but it's no big deal. She will feel better the next day. Sometimes I have her put her head down on the desk. The crazy thing: the rest of the class quiets to let her sleep. That's culture. 

If I have ideas from Atul Gawande about how to improve the school culture, why keep them to myself.

Of course it's the culture.  

Culture is dictated from the top and yesterday I received clear instruction from the administration about our culture. 

If I try to impose my will in the classroom by yelling or ordering, we have more conflict and do less learning. Yelling at students leads them to mistrust me. It makes us adversaries or even enemies. It creates a culture of fear and loathing. 

If I yell and demand at home, those warnings about teenagers come true. My kids will sneak out, tell me to go to hell, and worse. Even if the cat litter still gets scooped and the dishes are still dried, it will all feel wrong. Thee culture would be one in which I don't want to live. 

The school culture is clear to me. From 7:30 in the morning until 2:45 in the afternoon, 186 days a year, I live in that culture and am to accept it quietly. Within that larger culture I create a classroom culture that best serves students and my skills. And we keep the door closed.