The silence between the notes

 Trigger warning: Hot button topic ahead. I’m looking for insights and solutions, not complaints. Goodness knows our world has plenty of criticisms right now, so let’s focus on insights and solutions here! 🤍 ——————————————————— I have worked in education for over 20 years. Clarification— I have OVERWORKED myself in education for 20 years. For the first decade, I really thought that’s what I needed to do. I thought that’s what my students needed me to do. Then after years of hard work, constant self-evaluation, additional degrees, and endless professional development goals… my family experienced several traumatic situations, and I realized I couldn’t actually do it all. I couldn’t be there for my students 60 hours a week while caring for my family 60 hours a week too. (And I certainly hadn’t even considered if I should be taking care of myself at any point.)  When I began mentoring incoming teachers at the university, I made it a priority to teach my candidates that they shoul...

Uncertainty, patience, trust. Probably my least favorite words from 2020. And we're likely to face them ALL again tomorrow...and the next day...and so many “next” days... I have vague memories of the hanging chad controversy from the 2000 election, but until I saw the video below, I didn’t realize it dragged on for 36 days without an official result! Friends who were more of an adult than I was back then, did that waiting period have the same sense of distrust and angst that I sense coming with this one?! I get that it’s hard to be patient in the face of such uncertainty, and I think 2020 has hit us all with enough uncertainty and upheaval to last a lifetime! But I’m legitimately worried that America won’t be able to handle what comes next. It feels like so many people are ready to burst, no matter what the result is, no matter how quickly we get a result, or how long it takes to thoroughly confirm a result. So we can’t fully trust the system to provide certainty? Ok, then it...

As more and more STATES and SCHOOL DISTRICTS are releasing their plans for how their schooling will happen in the fall, I’m seeing more and more anxiety and frustration from people’s responses. Friends, please remember there are NO EASY, OBVIOUS ANSWERS, because no matter how obvious one viewpoint might seem to YOU, we have millions of families coming from various experiences across the country and they all have different concerns. I really don't think a singular solution exists, so the most important contribution I can offer in this conversation is my wider perspective. I’ve been a teacher for about 20 years, and a teacher of incoming teachers for 5. I have worked in or alongside approximately 60 schools throughout Washington State. I love my students and their families and my coworkers very much and I wish we could find some magical answer that would fix this situation we’re in. But honestly, I'm still torn about what I wish for the 2020-2021 school year. I’m worried...

I was trying to catch up on email during a coffee break, but I got distracted by the two gentlemen in their 60s-70s who were talking at the next table.  The younger one was answering questions about how people can have so many opinions about President Trump all the time. The gist of his answer: Trump writes short notes on electronic media and shares them with anyone who has a computer via a place called Twitter. So people aren't just responding to his policies or his recent military actions; they're also interacting with these notes, which at times are actually quite brash or vulgar.  Both men continued evaluating the pros and cons of various ideas, asking sincere questions and giving thoughtful answers, comparing recent events with past wartime experiences, and maintaining a perfectly relaxing conversational tone.  Their conversation was so completely opposite of the hype and drama we've become used to on social media lately. It made me wonder how many of to...