Living life in the Challenge Zone

In two days I will accompany a group of our ninth graders on an Outward Bound experience for five days on the Appalachian Trail. I almost typed that as “a backpacking experience,” but instantly realized that it is far more than that. The Outward Bound experience involves challenges (and support) well beyond a basic backpacking trip. My school takes this trip with the ninth graders every year and I love to go with them, so naturally, people often ask me how many times I’ve been on the trip. I actually had no idea, so tonight I sat down with some yearbooks and figured it out. I have gone on the trip six times; this year will be my seventh. I am torn when I think about how I feel about that number.

My overarching thought is that I waited a number of years to go on this trip (“Burch,” in case I call it that later in this missive) and I am very happy about that. My children were young and after a few years my wife was re-starting her career, which has totally outshown mine – yep, she rocks! Once I started going on this backpacking trip with kids, I got hooked. I teach at a school where the kids are good at school. We often overlook the importance of kids’ developing good “school skills,” but it makes a huge difference. Our kids have school skills in spades. Many of them, however, break down when they find themselves in an uncomfortable situation in the middle of the woods. They are never in any danger, and I don’t believe they ever really feel that they are in danger, but they are uncomfortable and have to figure out how to navigate that feeling and accomplish physical goals. The Outward Bound instructors challenge the kids in amazing ways that I could never achieve in the classroom, and I learn something from them every year that makes me a better teacher when we get back to campus. I truly believe that there is nothing I do that both makes me a better teacher and helps my students become better people more effectively than this Burch trip. So what is my struggle? Why am I torn?

I have gone on the Burch trip six times. Each trip has lasted five days. That means that, in my 44 years of life, I have spent a grand total of one month doing the thing that I believe I am best at. That seems like a pretty small amount of time to spend excelling. That leads to the bigger questions about priorities and reaching more important goals. I have spent a month doing the thing I am best at, but what have I been doing in the meantime? Hasn’t that been worthwhile? I have worked with hundreds of students (I should do the math and see if it is thousands at this point) and have made real connections with many of them. I have helped raise two absolutely incredible, yet very different children and glory in their different strengths. I have helped support my wife in her career and drive to end cancer, although I definitely could do a lot more to be a good father and husband.

Then I go back to the thought that, in 44 years, I have spent only a month doing the thing that I believe I am best at. Was that the right call? 100% YES! Many of us have something we are best at, but if we limit ourselves to that one thing, we forfeit the richness that life has to offer. If I dropped everything and became an outdoor educator, I would have missed so many moments with my family and so many opportunities to support them. I also would have missed the challenge of improving at the parts of my life that do not come as naturally to me, which is a major part of Outward Bound and outdoor education. Every year on the Burch trip we talk about the three zones – the comfort zone, the challenge zone, and the panic zone. (I think they have new names for them now, but I like the old OB terminology.) Maybe strangely, the Burch trip and outdoor education are my comfort zone. That is where I feel most confident and feel like I can be most effective. (Even though it has taken me a few years to get to that point and I have definitely made some mistakes along the way.) My math classroom is my challenge zone. I enter that room every day a little bit apprehensive, but with the confidence that I can succeed if I give it my all. (Wow! That sounded really cheezy!) I am totally confident in my knowledge of the subject, but the challenge is being able to transfer that knowledge and problem-solving ability to each unique student. Succeeding in the Comfort Zone is exactly that - comfortable, but succeeding in the Challenge Zone is truly satisfying! What is my panic zone? It wouldn’t be my panic zone if I were willing to answer that question in a public forum!

So, my first thought upon starting to write down these musings was that I might be wasting my life having spent only one month doing the thing I am best at. Instead, at the end, I recognize the gift I have been given to live my life in the challenge zone. Succeeding in that challenge zone is impossible without a support structure in which I feel confident. On the Burch trip, when the students are challenged, that support structure is their peers. In my life, that support structure is my family, which is always there to support my dreams and whims, and to let me know that, even when I am not changing kids’ lives on the Appalachian Trail, I am changing their lives for the better here at home. Life is awesome!

As they say at OB – “A fair wind, and just enough of it…”

Social confidence?

Another school year officially starts tomorrow, which always makes me a little bit more thoughtful than usual. (I realize that’s a pretty low bar.) The older I get, the more I’m struck by the dissonance between perception and reality, especially among teenagers. I don’t want to comment on others’ experiences, especially those of my students, so I’ll limit it to thinking back to my own high school experience. I was the poster child for low self-esteem. I firmly believed that I could never be attractive to anyone. I was nerdy and only marginally athletic, and believed that I was one of the least attractive human beings ever to exist. As I go back now as an adult and look at old pictures, I am struck by the fact that I was actually a pretty good-looking kid for a few years. I hope my senior picture will serve as evidence, although beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.

(I dream of looking this good now!)

I was not a modest teenager. I truly believed that I was smarter and (sadly) better than most of the people I encountered every day, and I suspect I gave off that vibe in a very negative way. I recognize now that a lot of that persona was a defense mechanism because I believed I was so unattractive. I wonder how much more I would have connected with people if I had possessed just a little more social confidence. That confidence would have earned more positive reinforcement, which would have bred more confidence in a self-sustaining cycle.

As a teacher, I think about where I fit in to this cycle. So much of a teenager’s social identity is based on peer interaction, yet that social identity affects everything they do for years. I cannot tell a student that he or she or they are much more attractive than they believe. Obviously that would be inappropriate and creepy! But what can I do to bolster their critical social confidence? This year, I pledge to do my best to nurture my students’ confidence both as mathematics students and as moral/ethical people. Hopefully that little push will help them as they navigate the rough waters of teenage social interaction. In that sink-or-swim environment, I plunged to the seafloor, but I see more and more kids like me raising their sails and catching a little air off the tops of the biggest swells of teen peer pressure. Can anything I do really guide them through this difficult time? Probably not. But I am going to be there with the rescue dinghy when they need it to patch up their wounds and send them back out into the storm a little stronger.

The Purge & Donald Trump

So I only blog about once a year, but I write when I feel compelled to write. Tonight will be my first blog inspired by a movie. I just finished watching The Purge - the original movie, not the sequels (nothing against those, I just haven't watched them ...YET!) This movie was one of the most disturbing films I have ever watched, and I think that may not have been as true if I had watched it when it first came out. The basic premise is that, in the United States, we keep peace by scheduling in a 12-hour period, once a year, when there are no laws. Everything is legal, most importantly for the plot of the movie, murder. I wonder if there would be more economically oriented crimes if this were an actual event, but for the sake of the film, it focuses on murder. 

I have heard about this movie for a long time but didn't get around to watching it until tonight. I have always interpreted it at face value, that we are inherently violent creatures that need to get that out of our systems for one night a year. In the movie, they advertise the Purge as the night when we get out all of our aggression and violent tendencies so that we can have a peaceful country the rest of the year. It got really interesting, though, when the main character was looking at a news story which speculated that the Purge was really about ridding society of its lowest members. Those who could not afford expensive security systems and such tended to die on the night of the Purge. The economy was booming since the start of the Purge and those opposed to it speculated that it was really an opportunity to rid society of the unfortunate to make sure that overall everything was great. 

The film focuses around an affluent family (the father sells home security systems, so he definitely profits from the existence of the purge) who locks down in their home for the night of the purge. Early in the night, the young son in the family notices a homeless man begging for help on their security camera. He shuts down security and lets the man into the home for protection. Later in the evening, a group of young, affluent people (yes, they are white and the homeless man is black) come to the house, looking for their worthless prey that has sought protection in the house. Their argument is that the homeless man is a worthless drain on society and if they purge him from existence, our entire economy will be better. (Hence the economic motivation of the purge.) This group threatens the family who is protecting the homeless man and much action/tension ensues. 

There are so many questions that arise, especially for me as a 40-something father. The dad in the movie (Ethan Hawke) decides to protect his family and turn over the homeless man to the killers. The family helps him in the process of doing that, although they do not succeed. In the end the homeless man saves their lives, but I don't want to go into too many details of the movie. What would I do in that situation? Would I put my family before the other guy? I have to admit that I think I would. It has nothing to do with his being homeless, just with his not being part of my family. I also fully believe that if I told my family that we were going to offer him up as a sacrifice to protect the family, then my family would revolt and unanimously say no. They would rather fight for his life at the risk of theirs than give him up to certain death. Maybe I overestimate my family, but I fully believe that would be their reaction. (Yep, they are better people than I am.) That's not an easy question, though, and I think that's what the movie presents so well. You have the option of giving up a stranger to certain death or exposing your family to the possibility of death and certainty of a horrible fight. Does your family merit more consideration than a stranger? Even if you believe that to be true, does the stranger's life merit enough consideration to risk your lives for them? What would you do in that situation? 

Finally, I find this movie most compelling during this presidential race. Watching the videos and descriptions that have come out of the Trump rallies, I can completely see The Purge as being a feasible reality. When somebody taps into the base hatred and distrust of a large group of people, it makes it possible for people to commit acts they would never conceive of otherwise. Trump has woken the Purge element in out society, and I worry where this might be leading us. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, but I'm worried. 

Inadvertent Role Models

This is going to be a short one, I just have a random thought rolling around in my head and wanted to get it out on paper. My question is - how much responsibility do the inadvertent role models in life bear? The vast majority of inadvertent role models are celebrities. They may not want to be role models, but due to their celebrity status, kids emulate them whether they like it or not. Do they have a responsibility to alter their behavior because of that? Is that part of the responsibility of celebrity? Do they deserve the same anonymity and privacy as the rest of us in order to make normal human mistakes without harsh judgement? I am not sure where I fall on this issue and would love to hear others' thoughts. This topic is on my mind because of a soccer game I helped coach yesterday. My son plays in a rec league, and I help coach the team. In yesterday's game, one of our players was shown a yellow card because, after a whistle was blow, he picked up the ball and nonchalantly tossed it out of play to delay the game. We pulled him from the game and talked to him about sportsmanship (we had a big lead at the time). He seemed legitimately upset about the situation, and his argument was that, when he watches soccer on TV, he always sees players do that, so he thought it was the right thing to do. This 12-year-old boy has a legitimate misunderstanding of sportsmanship because of the poor examples he sees on TV. Do the high-paid professionals have a responsibility to model sportsmanship because of their celebrity status, or are they paid only to play a sport? It is an interesting question, and I am not completely sure how I feel about it. What are your thoughts?

A Trip Down Memory Lane, or, A Love Letter to Bawl-mer

Today was a good day. My wife and I drove up to Baltimore to ride the Tour du Port. We chose the 50 mile Raven Challenge. While that choice of route was based more on the length than the actual course, the loop we rode was ideal.

We were married in May (many years ago) and spent the first summer in Charlottesville, VA. Those three short months were awesome, but we were subletting an apartment full of somebody else's things, so I don't really think of that as our first home together. That fall, we moved to Baltimore, where we spent the next five years. We moved a couple of times, and owned our own home for the first time (and only time so far) there. In the process, we fell in love with Baltimore, which all natives know is more correctly pronounced "Bawlmer".

Today's ride led us past many of the highlights of our time in Charm City. We started at the waterfront in the Canton neighborhood and rode north through the city. First we passed GBMC, the hospital where our first child was born. That was a harrowing night saved by quick thinking by my wife and a doctor who was willing to actually listen to suggestions from a patient.

Next we rode through the Johns Hopkins University campus, right past the lab where my wife earned her PhD. For me the highlight was riding past Homewood Field and the Lacrosse Museum, but the PhD is much more impressive. :) Continuing north, we followed strangely color-changing chalk arrows through the campus of Loyola University in Maryland. It was called Loyola College when I got my MEd there years ago. That brought back many memories of two of the greatest professors I have ever had, Dr. Erford and Dr. Vinson. They were about as different as possible, but both really made me think in different ways.

The next few highlights of the ride are a little less specific. We rode through beautiful neighborhoods in north central Baltimore filled with houses that I will never be able to afford, but I love the fact that there are still such nice neighborhoods that close to the city's center. Crossing over the Beltway, we rode through horse farms, vineyards, and across the Loch Raven Reservoir. All of them were absolutely beautiful. Again, it is shocking that such incredibly bucolic scenes are within a few miles of the city center.

On the way back through the city, we rode past the first apartment that my wife and I shared on our own (other than the Charlottesville sublet). We debated taking a detour to ride through the complex and check out our old place, but decided there wasn't time. I kept picturing the small hill next to our back patio that we covered with pansies that first year.

We even rode past the animal shelter where we adopted one of our first cats - the earliest editions to our family.

Finally, we rode through Morgan State University. On our way to work for that first year, we drove past MSU every day and never stopped to get to know the campus. Riding through today we realized that it is a beautiful school with an incredible library.

Today I fell in love with Baltimore all over again. I realize that my feelings are completely tainted by nostalgia, but that's okay. Were there bad things about our time in Baltimore? Of course! The magic of nostalgia is that those things fade away and I can focus on the positives. I fully believe that this would not happen if the positives didn't heavily outweigh the negatives, though.

I remember Baltimore as a beautiful city full of friendly, down-to-earth people and it holds so many happy memories for me. Today's experience solidified those impressions. I have been very lucky to live a charmed life and a visit to Charm City was a terrific reminder of just how lucky I am!

Risk vs. Reward

Risk versus reward is one of the fundamental questions of life and possibly one of the most telling personality tests out there. Where is your threshold where the potential reward of attempting something outweighs the risk involved in that trial? Obviously it depends on the individual situation. I thought about this question tonight while watching The Fault in Our Stars. Both the book and the movie completely blur that line of risk. The reward of a loving relationship is obvious, but the risk changes during the story. At first the risk seems to be for Augustus, who is risking losing somebody he loves by pursuing his relationship with Hazel. In the end, it was actually Hazel's risk, because Gus's sickness was more immediate than hers. (I apologize for the spoiler, but I think the very few people who actually read my blog posts are probably already acquainted with the story.) Through most of the memorable parts of the story, Gus knows that he will die before Hazel, but does that reduce his risk? Sure, he is not going to have to deal with the loss of his love, but at the same time, knowing that he is going to leave her and that she will have to deal with his death may be an even greater risk. I don't think you can decide that one character is more courageous than another. Their courage is different, but equal. One thing I enjoy about reading YA books in my own middle age is that I am able to identify with the parents as much as with the main-character teenagers. In a lot of ways, I think Hazel's parents are the most courageous in the entire story. In a literary world inhabited by so many unlikable characters, it is refreshing to have a book full of realistic, but engaging personalities.

Risk vs. reward is the main question of so much of our lives. I am a huge football fan. For both my wedding and my 10th anniversary, my wife gave me a Dallas Cowboys jacket as a gift. I enjoy football games at all levels, from high school the the NFL, and I have a hard time imagining the fall without the sport. BUT, does the risk outweigh the reward? There has now been so much research into the long-term damage caused by playing football, that I think the risk is just too great. I'm selfish enough to keep watching and cheering as long as the sport exists, but if I had to vote, I would end football at all levels. That opinion is completely biased by the inconvenience of having so many students at different levels of concussion treatment throughout football season, but the increasing number of diagnosed concussions each year makes me think it's just not worth it.

I am teaching a section of Precalculus this year, along with two colleagues who have decided to experiment with flipping the classroom. I love the idea of the flipped classroom, and have heard far more positive reviews than negative about their attempts, which is impressive in a school that puts such a huge value on "tradition." That is an area where risk and reward are not clearly defined. I actually think you could say that about every classroom innovation. For the teacher, who is looking at a half-century of teaching, the reward of experimenting clearly outweighs the risk. One less-than-optimal year of teaching is virtually meaningless when compared to 49 years of teaching that benefited from the lessons learned during the one sub-par year. Try telling that to the parents of the child who is struggling during his one year in the new, experimental system though!

The last reason risk vs. reward is on my mind tonight is because I am sitting in my den, typing on my computer instead of what I would prefer to be doing at this time of year. By far my favorite thing we do at my school is called the "Burch trip." Without boring you with the story of how it came about, I'll explain the basics. We send the entire ninth grade on a 5-day backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail each fall. We break them into groups of 12 students with 1 faculty member and two Outward Bound Instructors. I try to go on this trip every year, both because I love the hiking and camping involved in the trip, and because I learn something every year either from the students or from the incredible Outward Bound instructors, or, usually, both. On the trip I develop a bond with a group of students that lasts forever, and helps me to work with them more effectively in the classroom. This year I chose not to go on the trip, and that was a very difficult decision. About a month ago I had my first ever serious reaction to a bee sting, which resulted in an IV in the hospital and their crashing an epipen because they didn't think they would be able to get the IV set up before I reached a critical stage in my reaction. The doctor told me that I really needed to avoid exposure to bees for six months. Since I have been stung on half of the Burch trips I have taken, I decided that the risk outweighed the reward in this case. It is clearly the right decision, especially to people who have not experienced the trip themselves. For a teacher who has witnessed the incredible awesomenity (my daughter's word, and I love it!) of kids adapting to the unfamiliar and sometimes terrifying conditions on the Burch trip, the risk versus reward balance is not necessarily as clear. Fortunately, tonight the reward of keeping myself safe and healthy was made very clear at the end of the movie. TFiOS has brought me to tears four times. The first was when I read the book. If you haven't read it, you should! The second was when I saw the movie in the theater. (A great adaptation, although no movie can ever do justice to a great book!) The third was tonight while re-watching the movie. The fourth was when my son finally lost it at the end of the movie tonight. He is so open and sensitive emotionally, but able to maintain a balance at the same time. I learn so much from his ability and willingness to show emotion without embarrassment, but still maintain a healthy outlook. As much as I am dying to be out on the trail right now, the risk just doesn't outweigh the reward of a lifetime of these moments with my son. The world would be such a better place if our concept of "manliness" required this level of sensitivity. Augustus embodied that very well in TFiOS, and I am so proud that my son can do the same!

End of year musings

I don't know where this post is going, but I feel like writing something tonight. Right now is probably my favorite time of the school year. Tomorrow morning I give my final exams to my students, and I just finished my last tutorial session to help them prepare. Actually I finished about an hour ago, but I've been thinking about it since then. I love that time after everybody has left and I am alone on the math hall on this last night. The previous two hours have been a frenzy of questions and nervous energy, and suddenly all is quiet and calm. I feel good about the questions the students were asking and I believe they are ready for tomorrow. Another frenzy of work is coming up in a few hours as the students take the exam in the morning and grades are due in the afternoon but for a few hours there is a very satisfying quiet.

As our Headmaster often says in faculty meetings, our profession is one of the few where we have an endpoint when we can step back and reflect on a job hopefully well done and how we can do it better next year. For me, that reflection really begins tonight, between the last tutorial and the exam. Seeing how far these kids have come this year gets me so excited about the next year. What will I be teaching? Who will my students be? What can I do differently to get them more excited about the class? What was the best part of this year that I need to make sure I repeat next year? Will these kids be able to focus tomorrow and show what they really can do on the exam or will they be distracted by the last day of school? Did I connect well enough with that kid who's struggling with a tough home life to actually make a lasting difference?

Teaching combines the best of two different kinds of professions, I think. There is a repetitive routine, which is comfortable and gives you the chance to work on something and tweak it year after year in the hopes of some day perfecting it. At the same time though, everything is different every year because the classroom is full of a different group of students with different backgrounds, interests, and learning styles. We teachers get to enjoy the benefits of a repetitive task on which we can continually improve without the monotony that comes with such repetitive tasks in other jobs. When the ennui of teaching the same thing every year sets in, we can switch to teaching other classes or supervising other activities in the school. Every day teaching teenagers is completely different and new, exactly like the day before.