our esSAy

A quick note addendum as I am knee-deep in the phase of blogging that I call “Oh shoot it’s Sunday and why did I start so many drafts of ideas and do so many interviews and how in the world am I going to get these things done by Monday night?”

Act 1: What Can Be Lost in the Outsourcing

Oftentimes in both research and in interviewing for these blogs, I do a thing where I use voice memo or quicktime to record a conversation to revisit later.  And because I am ancient and can type weirdly fast, I always (much to the shock and chagrin of my academic colleagues) prefer to transcribe myself, rather than use the many transcription services (temi, etc.) that exist out there.  Still, I’m in the aforementioned phase of panic this Sunday morning, I turned back to a blog I had started the old-fashioned way, listening to and recording clips of speech from our friends in the ARC and decided to throw the rest of my interview with the basketball coaches into Otter AI to more quickly finish the job.

My writing flow completely dried up.

Whereas Saturday afternoon, I wrote alongside the laughs and very distinct voices of Russell, Burney, Timmer, and Sarah, this morning I suddenly found myself trying to make sense of words on a page that were often inaccurate and titled as “unknown voice A” or “unknown voice B.” 

I felt, suddenly, alone.  

I decided to go back to the more time consuming method.  What I gained from the transcription help wasn’t worth what I lost.  

It reminds me of all of the questions and things we’ve been discussing about student and faculty use of AI.  So much can be gained in terms of time and efficiency and accuracy and man all that stuff matters.  But what can be lost in the outsourcing when we ask a platform to summarize, transcribe, research, or write for us?

For me, it was:

Actual understanding.

Recognition of voice. 

Surfacing the full human in the transcript. 

Writing flow.

My own processing of the conversation so that I could share it with you all. 

It may very well be that an AI assisted version of that basketball coach blog would be as good or even better written than the one I did myself. But I know I am better, as a human, for hearing the voices and typing the words on my own.  I know that I have better absorbed the generous messages our coaches shared with me.   I know that, for me, literacy is at its best, meaning-making.  

Sometimes I want to be the one doing that meaning-making. 

Act 2: What Can Be Gained in the Outsourcing

Once I returned to my handy dandy trusted voice memo app and google doc I got quickly back into the rhythm.  And, surprisingly, after waxing on and on above, I found myself clicking back on the transcript OtterAI made for me.  I discovered that I can highlight transcript text to hear those voices that meant so much to me.  I found that the interplay of my old processes with some of the beauty time saving nature of the new tools felt a bit like the best kind of dance.  

Do I want OtterAI to summarize the transcript for me? No thanks.

Do I need some other platform to write these blogs for me? Nah, bro. 

But could I make use of an app that puts the words into sound clips and text in a fell swoop?

Quite possibly yes. 

You may or may not be surprised to hear that the sport of basketball has taken up a good amount of space in the Rust household the last year or two.  Whether it is the mini-hoop hanging in the living room, my husband yelling “STOP DRIBBLING THAT WHILE YOU ARE TALKING TO US AND SIT DOWN AT THE TABLE WHILE WE EAT,” Z begging for a round of “family basketball” in the driveway, or the sound of basketball shoes squeaking on courts emanating out of youtube shorts . . . it has become so familiar that I can almost tune it out.  

The game is thrilling to watch, even to a complete non-athlete, non-fan like me.  But it’s so fast paced that I barely can keep up with what’s going on. What does that whistle blow mean? How do they know where to set up as a team? How come some people get two foul shots and others just get one? What does that motion the ref made mean? And why is Timmer yelling out words like “FIST!” and “UTAH!” as if they are meaningful?

I’ve got questions, so it’s a good thing our coaches have got answers.  In the past four years, we’ve dedicated a host of blogs to celebrating the expertise of our coaches and the amazing work that happens in the gym and ARC at all hours of the day and night.  (See “Fitness: More Than Just Dodgeball” (2024),  “Meeting Each Athlete Where They Are: The Coaching/Teaching Connection” (2023) or Hollie Marjanovic’s (2021) “The Athletics-Academics Connection, and Why Preparing for Finals is a Lot Like Practicing for the Big Game.”)  This month, in the spirit of our theme of “checking for understanding” I decided to meet with our fearless bball coaches (left to right, below): Russell Marsalis, Michael Timmer, Sarah Spann, and Burney King to uncover the craft of coaching the sport of basketball.  What they shared, though, had fascinating applications for prompting understanding beyond the game, for all of us investing in teaching, learning, and coaching.

Here are fifteen lessons I learned from that conversation for my own teaching practice: 

1. Age, developmental readiness, and inherent skill matters: Before creating an appropriate growth plan in any area we have to step back and consider all of the above in each of our students.
   • Burney: “It’s important we understand delineation due to age.  Middle school may be a little more focused on [fundamentals], what we just brush up on when we get them or expect them to know. Just like academics.  Think of him as 7th-8th grade math and us as Algebra 2 and Trigonometry and all of that.”
   • Timmer: “One thing that really differentiates us from [academic teachers]l is [students get academically]  tested so we get the best of the best, but we [in athletics] get whatever we get. We could have a kid that doesn’t even know the ball is round and bounces or we could get a future All American.”
2. For struggling students, try DR. C: Discipline plus Repetition = Confidence (Burney King)
   • Marsalis: “I think it’s kind of what you do when you have struggling students in the classroom, you have to set up either before practice or after practice or maybe on the weekends, to give extra help.  You can’t just stop a class and individually spend a ton of time with each student individually during the class but if they are willing to work and ask for extra help then we are willing to give it.”
3. Leverage the benefits of being in a small community: we often already know what is coming up in a particular class from watching the youth in other contexts.
   • For our coaches, tryouts aren’t a big piece of figuring out where kids are.  We know most of the kids.  It’s not that much of a surprise. We’ve watched them play in 5th-6th intramurals and on up.  
4. Create just-right game-time opportunities where students can feel success.
   • Just like we shouldn’t be giving students huge assessments they aren’t ready for, athletes do best when they are matched with other athletes of similar skill and preparation.  Of course you can’t always ensure this, but constantly being out-matched can be demoralizing and create a negative sense of momentum. 
5. Recognize that our work with students/athletes is naturally filled with emotional highs and lows. Still, tone matters in giving feedback, and sometimes it’s helpful to have a colleague beside you to keep you in check.  (Because we all CARE SO DEEPLY!)
   • Sarah:  “Tone does matter and at what point is the tone appropriate? In practice we stay pretty calm with our tone but they have to also know that our tone is going to change based on what is occurring on their performance.  Burney has always said too  ‘don’t listen to the tone hear the message; it’s nothing personal or it’s nothing to hurt your feelings but it’s to get your attention.  Sometime saying ‘Rebound, Rebound’ [quietly] is not going to get their attention and you have to change your tone, but it doesn’t stay that way. The tone is not high the entire time.  
   • Burney: “My kids have always had a problem trying to decide whether I’m being negative or being a realist. I’m all about realism; and that’s hard for them to get because we know truth is hard to hear.  They get it I guess but [Sarah] helps me with this and sometimes I have to tell her, ‘well Sarah, grab my belt loop and tell me to sit down.’  I go into every game saying ‘calm’ but for some reason that doesn’t happen. . . Sarah will call a sub so she can go talk to them.”
6. We can’t do it all by ourselves! Utilize the strengths of your colleagues whenever you can (teachers collaborating with teacher assistants, or simply collaborating with other folks in your grade level team or department).
   • Marsalis: “With basketball being so fast paced that’s where having good assistants comes into play. I can’t be as focused as a head coach with guys come off the court to give them much feedback because the play on the court is still going on and that’s what I rely on them for. In JV I like kind of floating around . . . I enjoy that aspect because that’s how I started out.  [In a past coaching job] I would have an assistant coach that didn’t know as much and I felt like I had to do everything but not here at SA because I’m blessed with great assistants.”
     • For people who need more information like me: The head coach in each game focuses on the plays, strategies, and whether the team as a whole is playing like they should together, with intention. The assistant coach has the bandwidth to watch individual players and give them tips. He’s doing the correcting.  
   • Burney: “Especially with girls we deal with, Sarah is taking a lot off of my plate. In that regard, I think they’re a little more comfortable coming to a female, which I like,. I also like that she keeps me up to date.”
7. When a student is struggling, pull them aside to give them a break, a reset, and provide direct feedback.  Or you may want to give them a minute to observe how they respond to the setback.
   • Oftentimes, the coaching strategy is to pull a player from a game when they make a mistake to provide feedback.  
   • Burney: “Sometimes we have kids who will make a mistake and they know they made that mistake and we will leave them out there to see how they respond to it. If they don’t respond to it the second time, then they have lost that chance. That’s much less negative than it looks from the bleachers.”
8. Try the Whole/Part/Whole method: Teach the whole concept to give students a sense of where you are headed, break it down into pieces, and then, when everyone is ready, put it all together.
   • Burney: “I think we all use a whole part, whole method, show the whole thing, yes, and we break it down in parts, yes, bring it back together. But we’ll also drill. For example, if we’re going to work on a flex cut, okay, we’ll just break down to some section of the offense that’s a flex cut. [the oldest cut of the game]. .  it’s a continuity offense.”
   • You hope when you bring it back to the whole you are at least jogging; ultimately you want to sprint it. 
9. Teach the skill “on the court” (doing the THING in the context of where it matters.); makes me think of grammar instruction embedded in writing
   • When teaching a new play, students aren’t in a classroom or looking at diagrams. They are walking through the movements on the court.  
   •  Timmer: “I will literally say, Zander, you’re my shadow. I’m gonna walk through it. And this is what it could look like.”
10. Don’t forget to review at the start of each new year.
    • Kids need to brush up on plays and skills with a review at the start of the year; don’t assume they come in knowing what they knew at the end of last season.
11. Provide various strategies to get to the outcome: For example, man-to-man defense versus zone.
    • Burney: “We start teaching them in the 7th grade; they need to understand the concept of midline and ballside/helpside.  We build from that.”
    • Timmer: “There are a lot of options to go off one play, like FIST . . five different options.. .  It’s not just one thing. There’s a lot going on, and that is one of the simplest, most basic plays we run.”
12. The goal is to get kids to combine-integrate-fluidly work in the skills we teach them into situations rather than discretely work with them in isolation.
    • Burney: “Sarah may run zone . . . the idea with man-to-man is that you are so good at it that when you choose to run a zone in high school there are points when your man-to-man principles come in even though it’s a zone defense.”
    • Sarah: “There are different options so you don’t just get stuck (like in math equations).”
    • Burney:  “I’m such a fundamentalist and Sarah has helped me with scrimmages.”  
    • Russell: “I feel like, sometimes I’m like, I need to get these guys in the flow more, because a game is more of a flow. I’m bad about staying half court and teaching so much, and then before, you know, we’ve not run up and down the court.”
13. Don’t overwhelm kids with too much information at once. This can result in analysis paralysis and disable their ability to utilize their instincts and go with the flow. The content you share should be purposeful, timely, and useful in the immediate future.
    • Burney: “We see a lot of what I call analysis paralysis, yes, and I think it’s because we have standardized thinking.”
    • Russell: “[They are] overthinking, and basketball is so fast-paced you don’t have time; it has to be a lot more reactionary.”
    • Burney: “Sometimes the less information we give athletes, the better they do.”
    • Russell: “They aren’t bogged down that way!”
    • The more experienced the team is, the more info you can give them and they can handle. 
14. Hold tight to established routines in your classroom, but always make room for a few outliers and teach youth to respond appropriately to the environment around them or the audience they are performing for.
    • There is pretty much always a play going on in a game, unless someone gets a steal or rebound and takes a fast break for a layup.
    • Teach kids to respond to the environment around them; there are different plays for different defenses. 
15. Use the competitive element in your students to push them to greatness; peak at the right time of the school year.
    • Timmer: “Oh, one thing I will say about the girls team, about their coaching, they do a really good job. Most people don’t see this. If somebody beats them by 20 or 30 in the first game, they’re gonna beat them the second time. Or if they lose, it’s really cool. It’s by one. That’s one thing I’ve noticed about Barney. I’ve been watching them for well, how do you do that 12 years now? Or maybe even more, he is, they are really Emma, Sarah, really good about taking a team that just got their ass whooped, yeah, and just like, motivating them enough to go beat that same team that beat them by 30, they did it this year.”
    • Burney: “One, we try to peak in mid-January. We might not do some things early in the year that we know we’re going to need to do.”

---

There’s a mythology about a divide between those of us that teach academics and those that coach at St. Andrew’s.  Worse, there’s sometimes an assumption that we as teachers might have nothing to learn from the folks in the fancy offices in the ARC and vice versa.  But if time spent with youth counts for anything, coaches who work with our students three, four, up to five years in a row have a leg up on most of us.

When I shared this blog draft with the coaches, I got an email reply from Burney that is really pretty wise, and a pretty apt way to end this:

“You have captured the essence of ‘Coaching.’  We are all teachers that use a silly game to teach young people silly skills, to put a silly ball in a silly hoop but at our core we want to excel as teachers. This is the best way to prepare them for life!!!”

In other words, we, teachers and coaches alike, are on the same team with the same end goal: preparing these youth for life. Go Saints!

Every Wednesday morning, without fail, my phone dings with a message from an icloud account:

“Friendship Club today? I’m ready.”

I’m not going to say it’s the most important part of my job at St. Andrew’s, but sponsoring Elizabeth Bensler’s fifth grade Friendship Club every Wednesday at 12:10 in Josh Brister’s room definitely ranks up there.  What is middle school about if not friendship? And really how many times do we actually let the children lead a thing?  (It is my greatest test of will not to help lesson plan these sessions.) 🙂 

Unfortunately, our fearless leader got ill last Wednesday, so we were left afloat, without a clear plan or agenda.  What else could I do but use the time to get good material for our blog blast this week? Why not ask the source?  What stories might they have about teachers that have successfully made space for checking their understanding? 

Well I asked, and they delivered and they MOSTLY stayed on topic.  They did have one demand though.  They wanted to be referred to with the title of their choice.  So, without further ado, I present a collection of stories from Friendship Club about the teachers they most admire for checking their understanding.  

---

Mrs. Howard!  Whenever she asked a question, she will wait like a minute and say “are you sure we have no questions?” and then in the last ten seconds someone raises their hand and says “actually I do have questions!” 

It was the day after Halloween and we had DEAR time but I didn’t read but I tried to read and I couldn’t and fell asleep.  Mrs. Howard woke me up and was like, “Edie are you okay?” and my stomach kinda hurt, and I went to the nurse and threw up. 

 -Dr. Girl Phillips (otherwise known as Edie) 

---

Ms. Dennis last year taught me violin. If I say some of the notes wrong she will say NICELY “let’s do it again until you get it right.”  

Mrs. McArthur at the playground, when I opened up a scrape there was blood everywhere and she helped me.  

Ms. Newburger!  I was reading Magic Treehouse books, and I spilled a lot of water on the page. Instead of getting mad at me, she was calm and had me put it by the window to dry.

-Miss Dr. Sterling, Esq. (otherwise known as Evelyn)

---

Senora Buford!  One time I was really not okay; I was really dehydrated and she was the one who really noticed me and she pulled me up and asked me if I was okay and sent me to the nurse. Without that I would have had to go to the hospital . . . or at least I had to come home! 

-Dr. Kristina, Esq.

---

Mrs. McArthur! I loved her!  She always was so enthusiastic when she taught and everytime we played a game she would make sure everyone was included.  I got out so many times and she was like, “Mary Oliver, hop back in and I felt like I was included. I don’t like losing games! 

-Miss Nurse Wadlington 2 (Also known as Mary Oliver) 

---

Mrs. Menist would go over all the details.  Like when we were making things with paper, she would do a demonstration and that would help you do it yourself!

-Miss Sarah Selby (Also known as Sarah Jane) 

---

Ms. Weatherspoon, because she makes it like a safe environment to ask questions so you will ask them.  She doesn’t ask anything in a scary way, so it feels safe.  Some students need to be told the answer first, and then we can help explain it.  

Mrs. McArthur never raised her voice until she needed to.  If a teacher raises their voice at someone else it makes me feel like they are screaming at everyone including me.  That makes me scared and not able to focus on learning. 

-Lil’ Dr. Rust (Also known as Alianna)

---

[The thing about Ms. Weatherspoon is] she actually answers the question and doesn’t simply ask the question back to you like some teachers do.  Or sometimes they do answer but don’t explain it which doesn’t help you learn.

Mrs. McKey helped me write a good kind of 8.  One day we were drawing numbers when I was in PK4 and she saw me do it the wrong way. She taught me how to do it this way and she told my mom and she was really proud of me.

-Esq. Bedi (Otherwise known as Ruhaani)

---

Mrs. Weatherspoon, because some teachers don’t answer questions or they just do it for me.  I didn’t understand how to make the atomic numbers and she helped with JUST the right amount of help.

-Dr. Papadimitrou 2 (Otherwise known as Emma)

---

This was a long time ago, but Ms. Smith . . . I could never take naps in PK4 she knew that and she would always take me to other rooms and teach me and do extra class and let me play with toys when I couldn’t nap.  She helped me learn the alphabet!

Last year in Mrs. Black’s class I wasn’t very good at the worksheets because I wasn’t good at reading comprehension and that kind of stuff.  She would always help me whenever I had trouble, and she would never get mad at me. She’d always walk me through it. 

-Annie Mae Harkins

---

Mrs. Edwards, because she always makes sure you understand.  Even if you get behind on notes, she gives you the packet with the answer key! 

-Miss Dr. Penton (Otherwise known as Cilia)

---

Did you notice the number of stories that sharply veered from “they checked to see what I learned” into territory of care and tone? On the day of the interview, I thought this was a function of last week’s school wide epidemic; vomit was kind of on everyone’s minds.  But the more I thought about it, the more I decided they were right on target after all. Checking for understanding begins with a responsiveness to where the kids are.  You have TO CARE¹, and you have to be willing to SEE them.  Then you’ve got to do something about it, and that something should show sensitivity to the fact that the youth we teach have minds, yes, but also bodies and hearts. Sometimes that means reteaching a lesson, or asking them to reassess, or giving them extra practice problems.  And sometimes that means tapping them on the shoulder and saying, “You don’t look like you feel well.  Are you okay?” 

Thank you, fifth graders, for reminding me that checking for understanding is most effective when it is encased in a cloak of love. 

1.  Noddings, N. (2015). The challenge to care in schools, 2nd Editon. Teachers College Press. ↩︎

This post would not be a thing without the generous Susan Pace investing many, many hours in fostering her young writers. Big thanks to seventh graders Sally Stover and Beck Ellis for sharing their amazing words with us.

Quick note from Julie: There is something you first should know. Susan Pace is kinda a hero in the Rust house. She was Lucy’s “wow I am totally inspired by you and the class community you create” third grade teacher. Then she proceeded to win over Zander Rust in not just one nor two but THREE classes (3rd grade, 4th ELA, and also seventh grade English). Alianna has felt just plain neglected to still not have experienced the legendary Susan Pace at the ripe age of fifth grade, and my only concern is by the time she hopefully has her in seventh grade, Alianna’s expectations will be absurdly pie-in-the-sky high.

In the past blog, Susan mentioned these FanFic projects seventh graders were working on after reading The Outsiders. But of course, being a true writing teacher, she couldn’t handle NOT featuring some of the incredible work of her students. So without further adieu . . . . two exemplary FanFiction pieces!

---

RUNAWAY by S. Stover

It was a nice night, regardless of my situation, and the full moon hovered in the sky. It was the same color as the faded orange of my sweater. The sweater was billowing in the chilly November wind as I rode down the bumpy street on my motorcycle. I had on only a tank top and shorts besides that, so my skin was dotted with goosebumps. 

“Lucy!” I ignored the yelling, not even looking back.

I pulled the straps of my backpack around myself tighter, wishing I could drive faster. There wasn’t much around but flat land with grasses and shrubs, and the neighborhood behind me. The thought of that place brought about a bitter taste in my mouth. It was past time for a new start.

~

By the time I got to the next town, I was exhausted and nearly out of gas. It was past midnight. A quick glance at my old watch told me it was 1:46 in the morning. I struggled to keep my eyes open. Looking just down the road, there was an empty parking lot. Thank goodness.

I parked inside the lot quietly, in a corner blocked off by a tall shrub, where no one could easily spot me. I blinked wearily and placed my backpack on the ground, buttoning up my sweater and trying my best to fall asleep quickly. All I could hear was the ambient sounds of the city. Distant cars, crickets, a can rolling in the wind…

I woke up sore, but at least I had slept–

“She’s awake! Two-Bit, look!” Someone was poking me with their shoe. 

It was a boy, maybe thirteen or fourteen, with choppy, bleached hair that was slicked back with grease. Another teenage boy, older, hurried over. They started talking, and I sat up.

“Who… huh?” I almost forgot where I was. I fumbled to open my backpack. “Stay away from me! I have a knife in here… uh… somewhere!” I tried my best to look threatening, but I doubted they would be scared of a girl.

“Calm down, we’re not gonna hurt ya.” The one called Two-Bit chuckled. “Just wanna know why you’re sleeping on our lot.”

“This is your lot? You bought it, with your own money?” I smirked.

“Ah, we got a smart one,” Two-Bit teased. He was being funny though, playful. I got the sense they weren’t like the boys back home; they weren’t gonna hurt me. “Pony, help the lady up.”

The younger one held out his hand. I took it cautiously and raised myself to the ground.

“I’m Ponyboy,” he introduced himself. “And the funny guy is Two-Bit.”

I nodded. “Nice to meet you two. I’m Lucy.”

I remembered something with a jolt. Someone could’ve taken something from my backpack! I searched through it. Everything was still there.

“What’re you looking for?” Ponyboy asked.

“Nothin’,” I lied, and zipped up my backpack. It wasn’t really a lie, not fully. I had learned a lot about not sharing too much. “I hate to bother you, but do you mind if I stay in this lot? Not for long, just until I get a job maybe, or find somewhere else to stay…” I sighed. There’s no going back now.

“You don’t got a home?” Two-Bit raised one eyebrow at me questioningly.

“Not anymore.”

Ponyboy smiled warmly, and paused before speaking. “I think… well, only if Darry says yes, that maybe you could stay at my place? So long as you clean up after yourself and pay for your own food and such. And again, it’s Darry’s decision, he’s my older brother.” Two-Bit looked a little shocked by Ponyboy’s offer.

“You… really? You just met me and you’re offering me a place to stay?” I returned the smile.

“It’s the right thing to do. You seem nice.” Ponyboy fidgeted with the string of his light jacket. “I’ll talk to my brothers about it.”

Two-Bit stepped forward. “I think she should get to meet the whole gang. We’re headed to the drive-in tonight. We even asked Cherry to come along.”

Ponyboy nodded slowly. “…Yeah. That’s a good idea. You up for it, Lucy?” His eyes were apprehensive, but welcoming all the same. I could tell he had been through some things just by glancing at him.

“Alright,” I agreed. “Give me directions and I’ll find my way there. Around what time?”

“7 o’ clock, I reckon,” Two-Bit said. “That’s when one of the movies starts. The place is a couple blocks from here, then a right on Oakmond, and you’ll see it down the way soon enough.”

“Great.” I unbuttoned my sweater as the sun filled the air around us. “Listen, thanks for being so kind to me. It’s not the usual from guys like you, ya know.”

Ponyboy shook his head. “It’s the usual for us, I promise. Though I’m not sure if Two-Bit has been working on his manners.” The two of them laughed, said goodbye, and walked off.

I stared at my reflection in an oily puddle on the ground. Was my hair really that fluffy today? I had just cut it nice and short recently, almost as short as a boy would. It looked prettier this way, I decided, smooth and the same chestnut brown as my eyes. You’ll be okay, I told myself, but I didn’t believe it quite yet.

~

I had been wandering around town all day, buying a quick meal with the cash I had brought. It was a nice little town, and I found myself walking for longer than I could keep track of. I wondered if this was the first place my folks would come looking for me.

By sunset, I was hurrying back to the lot to get my motorcycle. I was going to get to the drive-in theater early. I cursed under my breath as the engine growled before finally roaring to life. It had been acting up lately, and I couldn’t afford repairs.

I arrived at the theater and parked down the road so I could just sneak in rather than pay. The boys from that morning came in soon enough, Ponyboy and Two-Bit, followed by three other guys and a girl as well. They introduced themselves in a group, as if they were family. And three of them were brothers, but still, all of them were closer than I had ever been with… anyone.

There was Pony, the youngest, the heart of the group. Sodapop and Darry were his brothers. The first a happy-go-lucky ball of energy, and the latter a responsible tough guy. I was wary of him, but I felt like I could trust the other two brothers immediately. Steve was alright, he was mostly Soda and Two-Bit’s friend. Cherry was interesting. She was a Soc, unlike the rest of them, but friends with them all the same. She had this smooth, light red hair and calming green eyes. Apparently, her friend Marcia was busy today, and she was glad she wasn’t the only girl hanging out with them that day. I was glad, too.

The movie started, but most of the guys were more interested in chatting and joking around than actually watching it. Steve got some snacks for the group and passed around chips and sodas. I tried to pay attention to the film, but it was just another generic action movie. Maybe trying to fit in with these guys would be better. They’ll give me a place to stay if they think I’m fun.

“So, you hang out with these kids?” I asked Cherry. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“They… well, they certainly did me a favor a while back. I don’t just feel like I owe them, though. They’re nice, too. A good break from the Socs. I usually come with Marcia.”

“Makes sense. I guess you just seemed, like… too good for them, or something.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She giggled.

I smiled, just a little bit. The gang seemed to be accustomed to my presence already. I was just starting to feel okay again, to feel comfortable. Which is exactly when I saw him.

That boy from my hometown, he was half the reason I ran away in the first place. And there he was, laughing with his friends standing right outside his car. Bill Attersley. Just the sight of him scared me out of my wits. What was he doing? This is a small town, he and his friends had no business here; they had all of Sedgefield to run around! I’d had enough of him and his bullying. Ever since I switched schools over a year ago, there had been constant mocking and threats from those rotten Socs in my town, especially from Bill. That’s why I left. I was sick of it. It’s not my town anymore.

I prayed he wouldn’t notice me, but it wasn’t enough. He looked over at me and the greasers with a terrible smirk on his face, slowly walking towards us. His friends hovered in the background like a pack of wolves.

“Lucille… What are you doing here? You weren’t at school yesterday, and there’ve been all sorts of rumors goin’ round…” His words oozed like slime. I knew what was coming. “Why don’t you come on back home, and away from those greaser boys? Oh wait, look at that. She fits in perfectly!” He guffawed and one of his buddies slapped him on the back encouragingly. “You’ve got their hair and everything.”

He suddenly darted towards me, grabbing a container of something from one of his friends. It was hair grease, and I could barely see it in the dark, but it didn’t matter. He slicked my hair back, all of it, rubbing the grease off his hands until it was all in my hair. 

“Greaser girl!” He jeered, and his pals erupted into laughter, pointing at me. There were a few odd stares from the folks around us.

The rest of the greasers and Cherry started to look defensive, but I shook my head. This was my rivalry to deal with. Bill grabbed the collar of my jacket.

“Get your hands off of me,” I muttered.

“Yeah? What’re you gonna do about it, grease?”

I shivered. This was a terrible plan, but it was my only plan, so it would have to do. I jerked away from him, standing up and curling my frozen-cold hands into fists. “Fight me, if you really want to, Bill. I’ll fight.”

“Lucy, don’t do it!” Ponyboy shouted. I ignored him.

I lunged forward at Bill, punching him square in the nose. I watched him stumble back, a few drops of blood falling to the ground. He was more muscular than me but barely taller, so I considered it a fair fight.

“You little…” Bill cussed me out and tried to get ahold of my arm, but I slipped away and punched him again, this time in the eye. He shouted in pain and took a few more steps back.

“What’s wrong? Scared of fighting a girl, Billy? Huh?” I felt confidence surging through me like electricity, pushing back my fear. He shook his head, fuming, and managed to throw a punch at me. He was probably going for one of the spots that I had hit him on, but instead he bruised my jaw. It stung, but I could ignore the pain. I had ignored a lot of pain before, after all.

I dug my fingernails into his wrist, scratching till I drew blood. He winced, and while he was distracted, I pushed him to the ground. He hit his head hard on a rock. Clearly, I had been thinking my moves through better than him. He was in no state to fight now. He stood slowly, staggering forward.

“You’ll pay for this, Lucy… You’ll see…” He spat on the ground in front of me and stalked off in defeat, trying not to look too weak in front of his friends.

The greasers surrounded me, beckoning me back to sit with them on the grass in a circle.

“You alright, kid?” Steve asked.

“Whoa, who was that guy? You sure showed him, Lucy!” Two-Bit high-fived me. I rubbed where my face had been hit. I could taste blood in my mouth. Still, it probably looked worse than it felt.

“I’m okay. That guy… he’s bad news. It would take a while to explain.” I had a grim expression on my face.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Ponyboy murmured.

Darry looked up slowly. “Kid…” He sighed, but he looked vaguely happy. “I’ve decided to let you stay with us. It isn’t the best house, but it’s our home. Soda and Pony really convinced me to help you out.” The younger Curtis brothers grinned. “You’re real tough. We could use someone like you, if you like to rumble. The Socs will always be a threat.” He drummed his fingers on the wooden bench.

Ponyboy looked at me. “So… will ya stay with us?”

I could feel my heart pounding. I really didn’t think this would happen, but I found some people who actually seem to care about me. “Of course. Thank you… thank you so much. And I’ll pay for my own food and everything once I get a job, and I’ll help with chores, whatever you need–”

“Lucy.” Darry stopped me. “It’s okay. That’ll be dealt with later. Just know you’re safe now.”

Cherry smiled. The way she smiled made me feel like I could do anything. “You’re with us. I think you’ll find that these boys are good friends. They’re my friends, even though I’m a Soc!” She laughed.

“This really means a lot to me. Again, thank you.” I yawned and rested my head on my backpack, which sat between me and Cherry. Everyone started talking again, but I could barely hear them. I was looking at the stars. It was such a peaceful evening, despite the skirmish with Bill.

I think that night I realized something important. Even if you run from something and think you’ll never be okay again, there’s always somewhere to go. Somewhere you’ll find yourself truly… at home.

---

Chapter 13 (By Beck Ellis)

“I’m sorry,” I thought as I ran out of the grocery store with a backpack full of food. 

I could hear the sirens wailing in the distance. They got closer and closer. When shouts and doors slamming reached my ears, I knew they were here.

“Hey kid!” 

“Stop!”

My hand was on the unloaded heater, and I whipped around holdin’ it. I thought they were going to shoot; I hoped they were going to shoot. After Johnny…I couldn’t. My eyes closed, my hands sweating… I couldn’t go on any longer. Nothing happened so I opened my eyes and looked at the cops surrounding me with heaters.

 I didn’t hear a thing but their mouths were moving. One of them tackled me from behind, and my gun fell from my hands. I hit my head, and the last thing I saw was Ponyboy looking at me with shock and dread.

I dazed awake for a few seconds at a time. For one time I was in a cop car, another in  the police station, and finally I was dragged into a jail cell.

I woke fully in a familiar jail cell with my head bandaged. Oh Johnny. He was so young. He died from a fire. It was stupid. He shouldn’t have done it. And now, and now he’s gone.

I’ve been to jail lots a times. If you want something you have to do it yourself. So I broke out. Luckily I used a fake name back then. Yoke. I did it as a Joke (get it?). I didn’t do it again ‘cause I earned my time, so I needed to do it. But this time, I would escape. I just lost the only thing I had: Johnny. 

He wasn’t like me at all. He was shy, he was smart, he was kind, and most of all, he had a chance. I should have died from the fire. It wouldn’t have mattered. But he could have done something with his life.

“Aight Dallas, Imma give it to ya’ straight. Ya’ got court tomorrow at 8:00 am. I’ll come pick you up at 7 am, you dig? Good,” A cop looked at a paper and lit a cigarette. 

The next morning we drove to an all too familiar building, the court house. The judge I had never met, but the owner of the grocery store was a juror, which was illegal and bad for me.

I plead guilty to the charges of robbery and police endangerment, but I was not expecting what the judge said next, 

“Officers.” She nodded towards the officers that arrested me last night. “I know you apprehended the target but you were out of your jurisdiction zone and allowed a jewelry store to get robbed of almost all of its products. You are lucky the TWO other officers on duty were competent enough to arrest the jewelry thief. I don’t know what to do with you but I have a meeting with your supervisor.”

The look of shock on their faces didn’t even brighten my mood.

I was sentenced to 1.5 years in prison, but I wouldn’t stay for long. When I got back it was time for lunch. Perfect. The first time I escaped it was during lunch from the air vent that broke. I walked over to where it had been and it was still broke. At dinner I would get out, but for now there were too many guards around.

I went to my cell and saw someone else in there.

“Hello, I’m Stewart!” He had a high voice. 

“What are you doing here, you don’t look like you should be here,” I said.

“Oh don’t worry sir, I’m pretty Badass but I have Asthma. Also I’m allergic to peanut butter, Jelly, bread, butter, grass, water, sunlight, flies, and…” He went on and on about his allergies and stuff. By the time he finished I was in bed staring at the ceiling. I started to think about what happened that night.

Earlier when I wanted to die cause nothing really mattered to me but after I saw the look of horror, and desperation on Ponyboy’s face I didn’t know. It reminded me of Johnny, and how he would feel if I did this. No, now I would change.

At dinner I waited for everyone to get their food ‘till I escaped. The guards were all busy making sure no fights broke out.

The air vent was barely big enough to fit me but I could crawl. The alarm started ringing when I was half way there.

WEEEHWEEEHWEEH!!

I started crawling faster, last time this happened and I barely got away. This time I was slower and bigger. I crawled through the vent. By now they turned off the air and I started sweating rivers.

“Where is he?” A guard asked from on the other side of the vent. He was about 50 feet away but the sound traveled through the vent.

When I got all the way to the other side of the vent, guards were scrambling around the premises. There was just no way I could make it to the closed gate. So I did the only thing I could. When all the guards cleared away enough from where I was I hopped and climbed a pipe to get to the roof.

“THeRe He Is!” A guard screamed, voice cracking.

A bullet whizzed past my head but I kept on climbing faster and faster. A bullet skinned my ribs, not enough to break it but it hurt like hell.

“AHHHAH!” I had been shot by a bullet before, but you never get used to it. I was almost there. 5 feet. 3 feet. 1 foot. I was at the top. I started running to the beam that connected to the small wall, but someone stopped me.

“S-stop right there,” I heard a quivering voice behind me. I turned to see a 17 year boy holding a gun. The gun was shaking wildly and off target.

“We both know you won’t pull that trigger, so why don’t you just put that down,” I told him.

“Just go back to your cell and then no one will get hurt,” He told me.’

“And if I don’t?”

“Y-ou either die, o-or you are captured. There is no escape,” As he said it he was inching forward and closed his eyes a second too long.

I lunged at him and knocked the gun out of his hands. It flew off the edge and onto an unexpecting cop’s head.

“What in the?” He looked up and saw me. His walkie talkie beeped and he called for backup on the roof.

“Sorry, I got to go,” I started running across the 2 feet wide beam that connected to the walls. Cops were shooting left and right but couldn’t hit me.

Days after I ran away I arrived in a little town in Texas, but was exhausted from the trip. The people there were not what I expected.

There was nothing but houses here. They were in mint condition but everything just had a gray and black tint to it.

I stepped onto a porch and knocked on a door. The door opened swiftly like the person had been waiting.

“Hello? Oh, dear soul. Poor poor mortal, I weep for your demons,” An old man, with white hair, pale white skin, and a white blanket wrapped around his body, answered the door.

“Um okay, but do you have any food or a grocery store? I can pay.”

“Oh and you will,” He went inside to grab a loaf of bread. I tore into it and ate it within 30 seconds.

The old man just watched with sadness in his eyes.

He mumbled something under his breath about being young or something.

“Come with me poor boy.”

We walked down the lane of houses, not seeing anyone. As we came up to the giant church looking building I started feeling weary. My eyes blurred and my legs felt like they disappeared. 

We walked into the building and it was incredible. One side was pure white and the other pure black. It reminded me of angels versus demons for some reason.

“This is Death’s corner, where we talk to the spirits of the dead. But it comes with risks,” The old man floated over to the black and white lectern. 

“You must love a dead person or be one yourself to see me, so who is it?” The old man started flipping pages.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You love a dead person. You were led to us and now you yourself are turning into a mere spirit. I was set to guard the crossing from the unworthy,” He explained.

“I- turning into what?” I looked at my legs and saw nothing. I couldn’t feel my legs because they were gone.

“Where are my!? Oh I don’t care. I would be in the underworld if my plan had worked.”

FLASHBACK FLASHBACK

“Yes Dally?” The teacher called.

“The half man half bull is the minotaur. A queen bragged that she was more beautiful than Aphrodite so Aphrodite put her under spell. They made her fall in love with a bull; then they had a Minotaur baby! The minotaur wandered the labyrinth until Thesius killed it!” 4th grade Dally exclaimed.

REAL TIME REAL TIME

I had always loved mythology but when I dropped out of school I forgot all about it. This seemed just like an adventure a hero would go to save their lost one. I was no adventurer though. I was just a regular human, not a demigod.

“Why do you want to know who I loved?”

“So you can see them,” This was the first time I saw a smile on the old man. It didn’t look happy, it was malicious. 

“I- I could see Johnny?” I was too awestruck to realize he was tricking me.

“What do I have to do?”

“Tell me his full name.”

“Johnny, Johnny Cade,” My hands felt like they too were disappearing. I didn’t have long.

I was in a grey room but a glowing blue humanoid was in front of me.

“Hello Dallas,” The humanoid called.

“Johnny? Is- is that you?” I stood up and ran over to him.

“Dally, Dally why did you let me die? I wanted to become something but now my mind is laid to waste in Elysium. Then I watch you try to end yourself. Disgraceful. You should just finish the job,” I pictured Johnny with the puppy dog eyes, being all scared and alone.

His words hit me like a truck. I didn’t know what to think. Was this him or was it an illusion. Either way I couldn’t let him suffer alone.

Authored by Susan Pace

Recently, students in seventh-grade English were tasked essentially with writing a fan fiction of The Outsiders, a beloved novel for most middle schoolers and their parents. 

Briefly, fan fiction is a piece of writing written either in the style of a favorite author or using the lore of a favorite book. The aim of the project was to get students to choose one of three ideas: extend the story, rewrite a scene from a female perspective, or create a modern-day take of a favorite scene. Most students combined multiple prompts to create their stories because – of course they did. 

Students submit a rough draft of 800-1200 words, receive feedback, revise and edit to resubmit a “final draft” (I hate the term final draft as it implies the writing is complete, but it is what it is), and receive a second layer of feedback. The writing is then graded for a final grade (major, not minor…150 points…eek!)

As you know, the window between Thanksgiving and Christmas was a wee bit smaller than usual, so students were anxious about completing their stories on time. No one struggled to meet the minimum requirement. 

Herein lies the misadventures of the writing teacher. 

Number 1: Reading 73 stories and providing informative feedback time during the holiday season x 2. 

Number 2: Receiving an email that says“Student Name rejected your suggestion” after reading and responding to writing for six hours straight and immediately forwarding the email to the student politely suggesting the student accept my suggestions. Poor kiddo! He was manually changing each suggestion, clicking the X, and moving on to the next.

Number 3: Students reading my suggestion of “Add Paragraph” with negative connotation such as “You did not write enough paragraphs: add one more here” instead of “Hey there, look at how you could break up this section by adding a paragraph break. I’ve already added said paragraph break. Please click the green checkmark to accept the edit I already made. Go you!”

Number 4: Setting the word limit and then negotiating with wordsmiths (also known as tyrants) about the length of a story was a massive teacher fail. Children emailed repeatedly to check and double check if it would be okay to go over the word limit and many came in a THOUSAND words over the limit. And, I may or may not have responded to one very anxious student late into the night saying, “If you feel this way, I trust your writing instincts. I can’t wait to read your saga. No more than 3000 words, ok?” Plot twist: the writer did, in fact, blow right past 3000 words.  

Next year we’ll write flash fiction, I think. 

And now, the fun part…

The Secret Lives of Students

Part of the editing process was encouraging students to elicit feedback from their peers. I encouraged my grammar pros to sign up to help their peers on the board…

Note: Students indicated their preferred method of contact! (Their teacher realized in writing the post that many students added their phone numbers!)  

Another “fun” thing about seventh grade is that this year will be the first year the students get to take exams. Here are just a few tips they shared to help each other find success. 

Some students have less enthusiastic feelings towards exams:

Others are clearly working through some things:

And finally, some magnetic poetry…

Contributed by Kari East

Honestly, I don’t know who is more excited for the holiday break, me or the kids?! I’m feeling ALL the things: stress, a sense of urgency, deciding what to prioritize, difficulty juggling work with my personal life. It all just feels like too much! I shared with a friend and coworker that here recently I have felt like my life is a train on max speed and I missed my boarding time so now I’m constantly running to try to catch it. But, I can never quite make it to the next stop fast enough to board. I suppose that’s life. 

I was thrilled when I found out that the topic for our next Blog Blast would be teacher burnout because it’s a very real and serious concern in our professional lives. The more we talk about it the better equipped we’ll be to face it head on. We do hard but meaningful work and with that comes significant challenges. Burnout can lead to serious consequences if not addressed. Exhaustion is typically what I see from my peers first. We often push ourselves to the point that we’re not taking care of ourselves physically. For me, this manifests itself in poor sleep, bad eating habits, and neglecting my personal responsibilities. I can’t tell you how many doctor’s appointments I’ve missed or just haven’t scheduled because “I don’t have time”. Oftentimes, I don’t even think we realize we’re exhausted until we have those physical symptoms. It’s common that we push ourselves until we’re physically ill and HAVE to slow down. Burnout can also lead to feelings of cynicism – not a good head space to be in. It’s easy to get stuck in the world of negativity. Misery loves company. Try not to let your mind go there because it can be difficult to pull yourself out of it. 🙋🏻‍♀️Guilty!

Avoiding teacher burnout takes intentional (and consistent) effort on our part. Personally, I’ve found the following three things have helped me significantly to have a more healthy work life balance, consequently keeping me from burnout (I hope! 😜)

1. Leave work at work  – Generally, I try to leave my work life at work. I might vent to my husband about a bad day or share a funny story with a friend but for the most part I leave work at work. I’ve had to be really intentional in this area. Past Kari would call a colleague to talk about the day’s events (the good, the bad, the ugly) or share a frustration with the group chat. I didn’t realize how much time and energy I was using on “work stuff”. 
2. Disconnect – This is a BIG one for me. I typically don’t read or answer emails/texts outside of work hours. There are very few emails or phone calls that can’t wait until the next business day. I also leave my phone on the charger when I get home and try to knock out some housework without the distraction of my phone. Fresh air also does wonders for me, especially in winter, so I also try to get outside for a little bit each day. 
3. Do something good – Grab a drink with a friend, volunteer at church, or pick up a good book. Do SOMETHING that feels good to you. It doesn’t always have to be a grand gesture. Sometimes it’s the small things in the midst of the mundane that keep us going. 

Sometimes burnout is inevitable but don’t forget to make room in your life for what’s important. Schedule the doctor’s appointment, make the most of your school breaks and don’t forget to reach out when you need help! We can’t be everything to everyone. I’m thankful everyday to work in a space that values me and the work I do. Have a very Merry Christmas and may your break be full of everything you need and want. 

Friends, you already loved Maria Edwards, Judy Menist, Rachel Scott, and Toby Lowe, but just wait. Their vulnerability, wisdom, and depth of stories in this particular podcast episode recorded on Friday the 13th (just the day before Toby got married) will undoubtedly move you.  Part therapy session, part love story, part call to action, episode 2 in  “Can We Talk?”  reflects on the very real, very timely topic of teacher burnout.  What is it? What produces it? How do we help ourselves and our colleagues when we find ourselves there?  

Listen to the whole conversation, or pick and choose from the show notes below:

2:35-7:26:  Maria had the advantage of entering her teaching career armed with tools for avoiding teacher burnout: find a community, connect to your personal “why” for teaching, don’t hesitate to ask help from mentors, choose to teach at the RIGHT place that fuels you, accept that every day is a different-new day, embrace the constant change that surrounds teaching., and enjoy the performative aspects of teaching.

7:30-8:20: Toby recalls his feeling of belonging when first invited to SA and the impact it made.

8:43-12:40:: Judy reminds us that community and having a passion for what you do isn’t enough to guard against burnout . . . and why fireworks and campfires provide powerful analogies for a sustainable teaching career. 

14:05-16:32: Judy’s story of burnout which stemmed from not feeling trusted as a professional and the constant pendulum swing of “this is how you are supposed to teach.” She reminds us, “It’s easy to get [to a place of burnout], and you’re there before you realized what caused you to get there.”

16:35 -17:20: Why burnout isn’t always directly tied to long working hours working.

17:20-18:42; 22:20-28:34; 29:59-30:15: If you can only listen to one section of the pod, listen to these snippets in which Toby shares vulnerably about his own personal experiences with burnout. 

18:43- 21:01: Rachel’s story: burnout by boredom ironically cured by the challenges covid presented 

21:02-22:07: If you’ve seen one case of burnout, you’ve seen one case of burnout; there is no monolithic experience or cure.

28:35-29:57: Why it’s doubly difficult to do “mindfulness” as a teacher . . . and why teaching pushes all of us into anxiety.

31:48-34:30: Judy issues a strong call to administrators to pause, read the room about how faculty are feeling, and take the time to ask faculty for their professional opinions. 

34:45-36:20:  You know how north campus students have to fill out a survey and list their “trusted adult” on campus?  Well, we think we should have to do that as faculty as well; asking help is most definitely a superpower. 

Post contributed by (the magnificent) Margaret Mains

As we officially wrap up the first semester of the school year, I have caught myself saying the plot is completely unbelievable at this point. For some reason, this year at St. Andrew’s has felt particularly zany.  A prime example being a literal (small and contained) fire in the Admin office closet the other week. While the building was still evacuated, right on cue, our kind UPS driver walked up the sidewalk holding a box containing a Christmas Kringle– cheap gimmicks and unbelievable writing if you ask me.

When I first made the move from the 5th grade teacher to Executive Assistant and Registrar, people were curious about the differences between the two jobs. Even though my desk is probably 100 yards from my old classroom, at times the two roles feel a world apart. It is very hard to compare the two yet they still feel so intertwined.

Instead of cringing each time the “First semester grading is live” email arrived in my inbox, I am now the one who sends that email. I used to have 75+ students who were dependent on me daily, now adults are my main points of contact, and I still get to see a handful of students. The laptop that was used for updating lesson plans or grading one more project before bed is the same laptop I use to take Board of Trustee meeting minutes long after carpool has ended.    

One of the biggest differences is not having as much of a universal experience with the people with whom I work most closely. When I taught, I knew what my other grade level teachers were up to – I knew about what units they were teaching, we were interacting with the same students and parents, and standing in the same spots during recess duty. We were all adjusting our plans based on field trips, sicknesses, and olympic meetings. Now, I have the same camaraderie and great group of coworkers but all of our directives are so vastly different. I have a basic understanding of what our offices do but have no concept of the hundreds of procedures that go into making those offices successful.

Looking at the school from a different vantage point, I am more humbled by the diverse and vital roles we all play at this school. Thank the Lord for the coaches who will referee dodgeball, the business office who preps all the cash boxes, the teachers who add memes to their study guides, and the person who is willing to smile and say “::insert # of days:: to go!” when they walk by even though they are up to their eyeballs in work.  

The rhythm of the school year feels the same and I find this comforting too! That rhythm right now is whacky. We are spent, weighed down by obligations in and out of the workplace, and feeling the effect of the third Christmas Kringle to arrive in the office (that last one might just be me). Fingers crossed for a completely anticlimactic end of the semester! I hope we all return rested and take comfort in the universal experiences and the dozens of things we each do to keep our little world spinning.

You guys.  

They moved my old refrigerator and beneath it there was SO. MUCH. BROWN. SLUDGE.

I recoiled as if I was bit by a rat.  (I also wondered for a moment if a rat could be living in the sludge.)

These are the two phrases that went through my mind again and again scraping the one inch goooo off of my floor and then as I wiped down the absolutely disgusting shelves of our old fridge before relocating it into our garage.

“WE LIVE IN ABJECT FILTH!”

and, as I slowly gave up on actually getting every single crumb and smudge, but continued to fight the good fight . . .

 “DON’T LET PERFECTION BE THE ENEMY OF PROGRESS.”

(Apparently the actual aphorism is “don’t let perfect be the enemy of good” which is attributed to Voltaire who himself was quoting an Italian proverb but I mean, close enough. Or maybe my version is actually better.)

Both things, it turns out, are true in the way that all things that you hate to admit are true. But those weren’t the only big takeaways from my four hour adventure in fridge-land:

• It has to get messy to get cleaned up.
• In order to have motivation to do a thing you have to first look the disgusting sludge in the eye. 
• You have to be vulnerable to strangers to help move the fridge:  hey strangers see my goo.
• Sometimes you have to drill a new hole for an entirely new water line (hey plumber, don’t forget to turn on the hot water after doing so) because the new fangled shiny things aren’t compatible with the old line.
• I live in abject filth, but other people do too.
• A lot of times your so-called family and friends will disperse the minute there is a job that big revealed. Don’t despair. Just do it yourself and make them feel really guilty later.
• Don’t let perfectionism be the enemy of progress.
• The La La Land soundtrack is excellent cleaning fuel.
• JUST GET THE SECOND FRIDGE. HOW DID WE WAIT THIS LONG TO GET THE SECOND FRIDGE?! WE HAVE FIVE PEOPLE IN THIS FAMILY!
• If the first person you call doesn’t help you, try a different customer service number. 
• Ask the questions. Ask all the dumb questions. 
• They don’t make ‘em like they used to.
• Sometimes new things take some getting used to. And you’ve gotta flush out the chemical smell to drink the water. (Seriously, does anybody have any tips to fix this? It STILL tastest like chemicals!)
• No one in your so-called family will care about your brilliant new organizational scheme so write them a note so they remember. 

• You have to establish habits (every week clean out the fridge before shopping and meal planning) or you will revert to your natural, abject-filth-state.

That’s all I got, but the good news is, the Rusts have SEVERAL home projects we will conquer over the break. I’ll keep you posted. It’s sure to be revelatory.

If one of the keys to avoiding burnout is embracing change when the opportunity presents itself, Michelle Portera is doing something right.  Changing grade levels is a common move on the south campus, sometimes initiated by the interests of a given faculty member and sometimes triggered by necessity, the ebb and flow of class sizes.  So what revelations emerge when we change contexts?  I asked our wise TEAM alum to share what she’s been noticing this year after making the transition from kindergarten to first grade.

Okay, so Michelle, what has stuck out to you this first year in the ECC?

The ECC has its own set of norms, many of them unspoken. The best way to learn is to ask or make a mistake and then learn! A new role is excellent practice for those who don’t enjoy asking for help.  So many things contribute to the vibe of a space and whether it functions more cooperatively or independently. I realized the way supplies are allocated and stored is a big one. In first grade, teachers took what was needed and pooled everything else together in the workroom. K teachers have a closet and cabinets so that’s not necessary. There are pros and cons to both, of course, and I had to choose to embrace a new norm.

What has been similar between teaching first grade and kinder?

A big part of the job is coaching children on how to resolve conflict with one another and asking a lot of questions to build on what they already know.

What has been different? 

Parents ask me to monitor students’ eating habits and bathroom habits more often. The overall dynamic between teacher and assistant is different, due to the age of students and the fact that K assistants stay all day (which is SO necessary and for which I am grateful!)

What is it like working with younger students?

At best, it’s like visiting another country with tiny, drunk people as citizens. By that I mean students are uninhibited, honest, and here for fun! Part of why I love my job is that I get to relearn how to play. It requires that we as adults suspend our worldly stresses and choose to immerse ourselves in the present moment. So it can feel like therapy sometimes, too. At worst, it takes all the reserves of patience and acceptance you possess on a given day. For example, they can be nose pickers or may be unaware they are talking with food in their mouths at lunch. A teacher spends all year trying to change these habits. To survive, we choose our battles and plan activities according to our level of energy and patience. The key for me has been to plop down on the floor with a few students and play a game or to put on music and dance. When you identify things at work that actually replenish your energy, it is easier to keep going and giving of yourself. Working with young children’s behavior is about considering how they feel in the moment, empathizing, and guiding their thinking.

What is it like working in a brand new space/classroom?

Organization is essential to getting into teacher “flow.” Kinder requires many more props and real-life objects for exploration than first did. If what I need isn’t easily accessible, it can tank a lesson. I love having a closet and I’m still learning what it actually contains. Sometimes I have to remind myself that finding an organizational system that works for me might take all year and that is ok. My classroom in the ECC is the realization of a career dream. It’s top notch with spaces allowing for play and exploration. My struggle working at former schools has been figuring out how to create a space where students can talk without the noise level becoming disruptive. Thank you, high ceilings! I now have a space for home living and dress up (loft) and a space where students can build and not have to clear away their creations immediately (under the loft!) I have a back porch with a sand and water table and art easels. Painting doesn’t just happen on days I feel like hauling out the materials. Students can access and set up art materials as well as learn how to clean up afterwards. I have a room set up for student choice and independence. Theoretically, these have always been goals in kindergarten, but few schools are able to offer a space to make these things possible logistically.

What have you learned from your colleagues? (K or 1st or anyone at SA you’ve worked with)? 

I learned that After School Care is an important piece to the puzzle of student progress and behavior. It’s important to know who is at school until it closes at 5:45. It’s important to find out who their ASC friends are, how they behave, and what kinds of activities they choose to do. The more I collaborate with ASC staff, the more successful I have felt in solving problems.

How have you shifted, grown, (insert other verb) as a teacher this year? 

I am learning to assume positive intent when there is a problem or something doesn’t make sense. Every single person in the building cares about our students. No one comes to work here and thinks, “I don’t care what happens today.”  When it appears that a colleague or parent has dropped the ball in some way, it’s more than likely due to miscommunication or misunderstanding.

What do you wish first grade knew about kinder?

The summer slide is real. Many kindergarten students can recite the months, days, seasons, etc in class right now. These same children might not be able to do that in the fall. It’s not for lack of teaching.  This is one of the first things I mentioned to my first grade fam because I remember thinking last year, “Don’t they do calendar time every day in K? Why don’t kids know this already?”

What do you wish kinder knew about first grade? 

It is important that students are familiar with the spacial awareness that worksheets require. Top, bottom, left, right, knowing a blank line means you should probably fill it in, etc. The first grade list of new skills is long, and a familiar format means there is not an extra hurdle to face.

Got any funny teaching stories to share from this year?

On the playground, a sweet child walked up to Rachel, holding out a pair of not-child-sized panties. There was a look of confusion on her face when she said, “I think these fell off my bottom.” Beware of static cling!

Last time, in his first installment of a very cool, very new column, David shared some documentaries that had been piquing his interest. This time, he shifts media to investigate a podcast episode that happens to do a whole lot with our theme of burnout.

This weekend as I was going for my morning walk, I-Heart Radio somehow switched from my Beatles channel to the On Purpose with Jay Shetty Podcast.  The episode was entitled Tom Hanks: #1 Theory Tom Uses to Live a Balanced and Fulfilled Life.  Tom talks about the importance of finding purpose and meaning in his work, the joy of collaborating with others, and always staying curious.  Although Tom had a difficult childhood moving from place to place, he accepted his hardships and never let them drag him down.  Though he was quite content being alone, he felt the importance of what he called the “Hang”.  He felt that 90% of people are good and it was important for one’s mental health to hang out around people.  He also emphasized the benefits of being around people of different ages, cultures, and backgrounds.

The story that resonated with me the most was when Tom talked about a trip in Japan. Once in Japan he observed his guide at a Shinto Shrine write on wooden sign and place it on a tree.  Tom asked what he wrote, and his guide responded, “I will never know all I need to know.” Tom took from this his philosophy,   “So the ongoing education of we’re never going to know what we need to know more is always going to be revealed. And this too shall pass, That governs absolutely everything. If you are having the greatest time in your work, this too shall pass. If you are successful, that this too shall pass. If you are sick, if you are experienced, and great tragedy and great drama, great difficulty, this too shall pass.”

This is just a brief part of the podcast because the complete podcast is 103 minutes long.  The complete podcast and a transcript of the conversation can be found here.

We so often talk about burnout in the mental health stance, in the psychological exhaustion and drained sense.  In the “I don’t have the motivation to do the thing” sort of way.  But what about the literal burn-out of a physical body?  Is our psychological burnout merely a foreshadowing, a gentle reminder, that we are mortal?

My husband’s grandmother, Judy Pippin, is currently dying.

She is 88. 

It went slowly and then quickly.  A cancer diagnosis, a UTI, not wanting to get out of bed, refusing food/drink except for a few bites of Alianna’s bday cake over Thanksgiving, now an impacted colon.  “I wouldn’t put her through surgery if she was my own mother,” the surgeon said, eyes welling up with tears. 

We are told her skin is so dry and parched it looks like a fragile, thin layer covering her 4 ft 10 inch, 83 pound frame. She was officially put on hospice just yesterday, and reportedly has days or possibly a week or two. She wakes up occasionally and smiles at her visitors, sometimes reaching out to hug them.  

She was a dancer, she reminded us when we all crawled in bed with her a few weeks ago over the holiday.  She danced her whole life.  But then she added a tidbit we had never heard before: she had been asked to teach lessons to other kids starting at the age of 9-10. 

She’s been saying goodbye, more or less, since she lost her beloved husband a few years ago to a mercifully quick brain tumor. “I miss him,” she simply said on repeat. “I want to be with him.”

 The last year or so conversations with Grandma Pippin have been circular.  

“Are you behaving?”

“Are you keeping him [my husband] in line?”

“It’s a tough job!”

“I’ve sure been blessed.”

“When I see your Grandpa in heaven I’m gonna bop him on the head.”

And then always back to “are you behaving?” and the cycle ensues.

One of Grandma’s most enduring joys was music: first as a dancer and then, as she aged, singing in her church Cantata, an event that (I am ashamed to say) we were invited to often but rarely prioritized the time to attend. Then, as she aged further, attending the Sunday night band concerts the Brazil Concert Band (for which my dad proudly plays baritone).  Every Sunday, no matter the weather, she tip tapped her toes to the music. “I just can’t help it,” she would explain, “my body is moved by music.” 

When we entered her home several weeks ago during our visit to Indiana, we were met with the characteristic smell of cats and the wave of heat she had blasting.  (Gma truly should have lived in the south, she so despised winter.) We walked past her rows of family pictures into her bedroom where the TV is always blaring: Survivor, Law and Order, Jeopardy.  It is so loud, we cannot hear our own words of greeting.  

“Oh that? I just have that on for the noise.” 

Grandma Pippin has never been the kind of smothering grandma that covered her grandkids with kisses and warmth.  She brought rutabagas, not sweets, to Christmas dinner each year. She maintained a fierce independence, even as entering dementia, leaving family gatherings promptly after her 45-60 minute dedicated window of socializing. “I like to have my own space” and “I don’t want to be in people’s hair” she reminded us.  Her signature greeting to the grandkids and then great grandchildren was “who is taller than me now?” 

The latest stray cat she brought in, Blacky, hisses from the corner of her bed.  Blacky is not domesticated and isn’t trained and leaves poops all around the house.  Still, she is the definition of a dutiful guard. 

Grandpa Pippin is the kind of fierce lady that has seemed old to my husband her entire life.  She has always been tiny and terrifying in the “go find a switch so I can whip you” sort of way. I find this kind of loving incomprehensible, (I who never once was spanked a time in my life except for the traumatic time when I was four and I couldn’t find my mom in the house so I carefully crossed the street to ask my friend Kimmy if she had seen her.)  I look across the bed and all of us are keeping respectful distance, sitting or standing on the bed corners, all except for my husband.  He lays ungracefully sideways so his head is parallel to hers.  His hands are laced in her hands. She occasionally looks up at him and the love between them makes the rest of us squint. 

I find the corporal punishment version of Grandma completely incompatible with the woman I have known since I first met her when I was 17.  She and her past-baker, now-methodist-preacher husband, Grandpa Pippin (who was notorious for an incredible wardrobe of punny sweatshirts and slightly inappropriate jokes that can’t stop/won’t stop) had an entire crafts workshop of a garage.  They worked tirelessly cutting out ornaments and decorations and the kind of thing that I rolled my eyes out like the jerk I was at 17, when things that seemed corny or cliche (but took actual work) were the worst kind of sin. The Pippins were consistent fixtures at all the Saturday fairs.  The two of them came as a pair as far as I was concerned, sending out gallon-plastic-bag after gallon-plastic-bag of Christmas cookies (ritz crackers with peanut butter enrobed in chocolate or, my favorite, butterscotch) to family members, gifting us all massive rolls of toilet paper for Christmas (the pragmatic side I would grow to appreciate later on, when I too became an adult).  Grandma Pippin was also famous for her flea market-level yearly garage sales, which would take about 600 hours to set up and made actual real money.

“I just feel weak,” she confessed from her bed last time we saw her.  Indeed, even after days in bed sleeping almost 24/7, dark circles undergirded her eyes.  It wasn’t like her to look so tired.  

The Survivor episode blared in the background. “I have no idea what they are doing,” Grandma commented, blinking in disbelief as incredibly tan, young, and fit young people worked to slowly pull objects on a rope without losing balance to win immunity or something like that. We all took our eyes off of Grandma and focused on the screen.  What a weird, strange, manufactured emergency, simultaneously slow-moving and impossible-not-to-watch.  One young woman was ahead of her peers, until she got a little too hasty and one of the objects fell.  We all gasped in unison.  

Aunt Rene interrupted the TV spell, bursting into the room to cajole Grandma to try a bite of the pizza re-warmed on the plate.  She grimaced and put the plate on the bedside table in silent protest. Remembering her sweet tooth, I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a huge piece of white cake with white frosting leftover from Alianna’s 11th bday party.

Food had always been a point of contention and control for Grandma Pippin. She had apparently been a life long “Weight Watcher,” although I had almost certainly never seen her have an ounce to lose.  She was notorious for taking tiny portions at huge family feasts and moaning at how full she was.  (This is a topic for a different blog. The ways in which our human relationships with food are often at odds for our evolutionary need to survive, to nourish and be nourished.  The ways in which control and scarcity and hunger are rewarded with “you really look great.”)

I set the cake in front of my dying grandmother.  (We are all, of course, dying.) She sat up with interest, picking up the fork with what could almost be perceived as enthusiasm. As she lifted her first bite in days into her mouth she paused, white buttercream dangling precariously, and my visibly gaunt grandmother-in-law said, with a smile,  “You took the calories out of this, right?” 

At the moment of typing this, Grandma is no longer eating cake at home with Blacky and the TV blaring.  She is surrounded by monitors and being given comfort measures only.   I like to imagine that there are quiet waves of Christmas music funneling in from the hospital hallways. I like to imagine that in her dreams she alternates between tap dancing away and lovingly punching Gpa in the shoulder for his ridiculous jokes.  I know she is meeting this moment of mortality, this moment we all will face, with characteristic spunk and grace.  

Last night as I lay down with Alianna, just as her breathing started to even out into sleep, she suddenly turned over.  “Momma, I don’t want Grandma Pippin to die.” 

“Me neither, baby.”

Alianna was the last of the great grandchildren to still be shorter than Grandma Pippin, a fact that she celebrated and relished. “Don’t you dare pass me up, Alianna,” she would tease, pointer finger out. 

“But Momma, I just realized something,” [small sob]. “I’ll never be taller than Grandma Pippin.”

“None of us ever really were, baby,” I said without thinking, kissing the top of her soft forehead. “None of us ever really were.” 

Note: Since writing this piece, Grandma Pippin passed away peacefully, just one day after being put in the hospice unit. You can read more about her life and legacy in her obituary here.

This is a little ditty that riffs of the “ode genre” of poetry that I dedicate to all the Type A, list-writing, often-introverted humans out there (LIKE ME) that are surprised every single time they realize the do, indeed, very much need other humans to stay healthy, balanced, and productive.  I have to actively resist the urge to “make every minute the most work-efficient possible,” but the irony is, each time I let go and make space for breaks and conversation with other humans, the rest of the day is SO much more productive. 

In praise of coffee machines
And water fillers
And mailbox stations.
In praise of tea bags and hot water
And teacher-lounge birthday cakes.
In praise of communal bathroom sinks and mirrors,
And “come-and-get-em-while-they’re-here” leftover snacks spread out on a table,
In praise of copy machines.

Shared spaces.
Shared tools.
Beginning in our professional pursuits, 
“I must make copies of that poem or that agenda”
Ending in delightful disruption: “there are others in this community too.” 

In praise of all the spaces and moments that remind us of our shared humanity,
(“You need water? So do I! What a coincidence!”)
The zooming-out that helps us take our very important thing less seriously.
In praise of slowing down and making eye contact and replacing the martyr-like-sense–of-urgency with
“I’ve got time for you,
for this unplanned conversation,
for a moment of connection.”

In praise of serendipitously timed walks from the parking lot to our various destinations,
In praise of you getting a glance of my messy car trunk,
Spying the way my driver’s side mirror is hanging on with some grace and clear duck tape,
Noticing my 7:15am plastic cup filled with overnight oats.
Kindly gesturing, “Hey- you have something on your face.” 

In praise of unplanned drop bys to my office,
Right when I am really locking in and focusing on a task.
In praise of 
“Just wanted to tell you something about what happened in my class” or
“Just wanted to see what you thought about _______” or
“I need to unload some stuff. Here goes.” or
“I’ve got some hard feedback to give you, but it comes from a good place.”

In praise of all of the offices and cell phone numbers and google chats and emails that
I take refuge in,
When I feel perplexed or lost or stuck or in need. 

In praise of the fact that for every negative interaction, misunderstanding, conflict,
There are 100 innocuous head nods and “how are yous”” and “hope you have a great class!”

In praise of unmerited, undeserved, positive assumptions flooding our work together.

In praise of serving as ticket-master at the football game or theater performance,
In praise of the warm-notes soaring in the CPA for a band or choir concert,
In praise of I don’t have to be here, but I want to be here.

In praise of beauty. 

In praise of exchanging our work clothes for sweats and hoodies,
Seeing the children cheer and kick and throw and shoot,
Finding a row of other faculty and sitting beside them.
In praise of the next day, as student tiredly shuffle into my classroom,
“I saw you make that goal last night!” 

In praise of pausing your packed-to-the-brim day to fill out a google form to shout out a colleague.
In praise of happy hours after school and all the work christmas parties coming up,
Blurred lines between friends-colleague-work-fun.
Surprise at the fact that, indeed, we like each other.  We could hang out more often.  
Maybe we should. 

In praise of how terrible I am at estimating exactly what will make me happy.
In praise of the social events I dread,
In praise of entering, drained and exhausted,
And exiting, strangely fueled up again. 

In praise of staying out past 9pm on a weeknight.

In praise of the stories that erupt when we make space for
“What did you do this weekend?”
When small talk shifts into something bigger.
In praise of guffaws and tears-welling-up.
In praise of those three minutes we are waiting for another meeting to end so another can begin,
In praise of third spaces, in-between spaces, not-quite-here-nor-there spaces. 

In praise of wasting time.

In praise of walking back to our offices, classes, meetings, piles-of-tasks,

somehow

lighter.

It was one of those steady-rain afternoons on south campus.  You could feel the pent-up energy of the third graders as they powerwalked from the lunchroom back to their classrooms.  But I had no time to join them; it was almost noon . . . time for a gathering of a Foundations PLC.  I rushed to see if I could help Tabitha unload wings from the back of her car, umbrella in hand, and she looked up at me smiling: “It’s the PK2 team’s turn to lead.  This is going to be great.”

This year we’ve moved beyond a one-size-fits-the-whole-school PLC model.  Middle and upper school faculty have maintained a fairly similar structure as past years, with a series of faculty-offered topically-centered groups.  But most of the South campus decided to veer away from topical groups and spend the time together engaging in grade-level curricular goals. With their recent adoption of both a new literacy and math curriculum, there was just too much to do and too little time.  Foundations, who serves our infants through two year olds has slightly different needs and schedules, decided to use those PLC meetings as opportunities for their own “grade level” teams (infants, 1s, and 2s)  to take turns sharing out with the other faculty on something of interest: crafts that have been successful, routines that help calm down stressed out toddlers, and, in this particular PLC I got to attend: Enneagram in the workplace. (Check out the whole slideshow; it’s worth your time.) 

Enneagram is likely not brand new to any of us, but the thesis that Abby, Catoria, and Morgan presented was entirely fresh to me: they posited that knowing your colleague’s enneagrams, particularly their number when they are in stress mode, can be a super-power.  Why?  They explained: 

Who knew taking a moment to take a quiz to learn about yourself and your friends could have such dramatic benefits? 

For those of you that are Enneagram aficionados, apologies in advance for my very simplistic understanding, but here’s what I know. You get assigned, not one, but two of the numbers below.  One indicates your “stress number” which indicates what you tend to move to when feeling overwhelmed or pressured, and you often display the more negative aspects of that particular type.  It is also called “disintegration” so that feels apt.  The other (“integration”) indicates your “growth number,” which represents who you are in times of progress toward personal development, growth, and the emphasis here is usually more on the positive traits of that type. 

Can we pause here and say how much I love this? I love that this test so normalizes the ups and downs of life that it literally takes a step to say “you are both things” rather than asserting “you should only be the good thing” 

In Foundations, the most impactful collegial relationship is teachers and instructional assistants. So the rest of the PLC slideshow proceeded to unveil co-teachers side by side, with both their stress and growth numbers.

Ya’ll it was revelatory. I want to hurry up and do the same thing with everyone I work with.  We did something similar with the “compass points” activity from the National School Reform Faculty that Buck showed us in senior leadership.  It is SO helpful to see these familiar patterns of both “yay I love working with you!” and “That’s why _____ frustrates me!” are rooted in ways of being that are different.  Thank GOD for the diversity of our community.  If  I was working with a buncha #3s like me  I would lose my ever-loving mind.

Speaking of me,  ready for a fun game?  Who wants to guess my enneagram numbers? 

Wait for it  . . . wait for it . . . The survey says . . . 

Looks like I’m just barely a 3: The Achiever, although my #2: Helper self is a close competitor.  If I’m a 3, that means that Julie Rust at her worst is a 9 (Peacemaker), which sounds good, but the negative aspects of that include becoming withdrawn, apathetic, anxious, and disengaged. Wow that sounds familiar, particularly the anxious part. 

I don’t know everything about working in schools with children, but I can promise this: there will be stress. Big thanks to Catoria, Abby, and Morgan for reminding us that being overwhelmed (dare I say burned out) isn’t something to “get rid of” or “improve”; it’s just another ever-present facet of who we are all.  And maybe, just maybe, being more aware of our closest colleagues’ stress responses can make us better supports when they need us most.

For More, Check Out:

Enneagram type descriptions for teachers

https://www.teamdynamics.io/resources/enneagram-team-building-workshop

Tour the Nine Types

Take the Test: 

https://www.truity.com/test-results/enneagram/18713/60493880

*The Enneagram Institute is also a great resource*

Contributed by Burton Williams-Inman

Okay, so to be completely honest, this may end up being just as much a plug for Shadowing a Student as it is a blog on teacher burnout and stuff like that. It may even be a shameless plug for the teacher PD options, as a whole- let’s be clear, I have not been asked by Julie to plug these opportunities in any way (cue Wayne’s World sponsorship montage- real one’s know). But, really, I haven’t.

This time of year is obviously wild for a number of reasons: exams are on the horizon, we’re all exhausted and wishing maybe we were still on Thanksgiving Break, students are tired and also really busy with all of their out-of-school activities that are also somehow ramping up at the same time as everything else. In the midst of ALL of that- I do want to give a few words of encouragement before doing my thing:

a) the assignments from the semester that are piling up will get graded

b) the students will take their exams

c) you will make it to break and will enjoy some much needed rest

All of those things are true. 

On a different note, earlier this week, I shadowed a 9th grade student for a day. I specifically chose a Monday schedule because I wanted to attempt to see a Monday schedule through their eyes. The option to shadow a student was attractive to me even last year because I (as much as everyone else) sometimes fall into the trap of simply saying/feeling, “they’re high schoolers, they gotta figure it out on their own” (which is true) or “if they wanted more time they shouldn’t have applied for AP/decided to play ball/wanted to do all of those extracurriculars/etc.” (also, kind of true). I haven’t endured an anchor day/Monday schedule as a student since my own days in high school and I figured it would be at least somewhat enlightening and hopefully even give me a little more empathy. I’m also not saying that they don’t need to figure this out on their own and that high school isn’t the time to figure out some semblance of time management, because it is, but I also genuinely believe that I (again, as much as anyone else) can fall into the trap of thinking that my class should be a student’s highest priority. Further, I also kind of think an equally dangerous trap is the trap of not thinking about it all. Moving on!

I shadowed a 9th grade student for the day- following along to their classes and lunch and breaks (at a slight distance to not make it too awkward). When asked by my 9th graders why I was in their Spanish or Biology class, I just told them I was doing some observations for a “teacher development thing”. It was honestly a pretty fun and informing day for me. I’m not going into detail on my findings during this blog, I’m saving that for later; I’m actually observing this student again in the Spring on a Tuesday or Thursday schedule in order to compare it to the movement and flow of a Monday schedule. I’ll be doing a larger tell-all closer to the end of the year.

I’m telling you about my decision to shadow (even in the midst of end-of-year content and exam preparations) to say that I actually think some of these PD opportunities can be a great way to mix up our daily or weekly routine to prevent/mitigate some of the burnout or exhaustion you may be experiencing…just hang with me for a sec. I am FULLY aware that, essentially, to some folks, it sounds like I just said: “maybe try replacing some work with some different work and see if you feel better?” I don’t mean to sound so naive or pretend that the real feelings of exhaustion or burnout, or however you would prefer to word it, are so curable that you just observe someone else’s classroom and then you’re suddenly caught up and well-rested and all that other stuff we want right now.

I am merely stating that, for me, shadowing a student was a really great way to get out of my own rhythm for a day and allow me some insight that I wouldn’t have otherwise received. I also think that taking that day to shadow a student or observe a colleague for a block or two, or participate in a teaching square can actually take us out of the moment that we’re in and allow us to glimpse/remember the larger picture in front of us. That is something that I am always down for. 

AGAIN, this message is not sponsored by Julie Rust…but next semester, especially as we enter that stretch of February days where we feel like we need to mix it up somehow because we’re already feeling the burn, I might recommend taking the time to observe a faculty member for a couple of blocks on a Monday, or even shadow a student with whom you already have a working relationship. I’ll even put my money where my mouth is and say that my planning blocks are 3 and 5 if you need some coverage to do either!

I firmly believe there is SUCH good work going on in the classroom right next to us and I also believe that there are SO many insights to be gained from better understanding the perspective of the students we teach. Why not let this inform our daily experience and use it to get out of our own daily ruts?

If you need a reminder, here is a list of this year’s PD opportunities w/ short explanations. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have questions or would like to chat more about any of the PD options, especially Shadowing a Student!

When the 24-25 cohort proposed we do “can we talk about burnout?” I almost guffawed.  Of COURSE we can talk about that.  That’s basically all we’ve talked about ever since I had the idea of mashing up faculty reps from all divisions to work together for a year of faculty growth implementation with TEAM.  Again and again, no matter where we begin, the conversation ends here: there is never enough time.  There is never enough energy.  We are tired.  We are on a roller coaster of sometimes good days, sometimes bad days.  We all feel that this is very particular to our roles as a PK teacher, as a division head, as an English teacher of high school students, as a middle school counselor, but I’ve been around in education long enough (aka my entire life)  to be able to say with confidence: whether you are a tenured professor teaching grad students or a first year teacher designing an experiment for two year olds, you perceive your days as overloaded.  You never get to all the things.  Perhaps this is a truth of being human, but I’ve never been human outside the field of education so I can’t speak to those realities. I do think it is a truth of the public nature of our jobs.  Humans are draining, ya’ll.  Often delightful, but draining.

So I decided it might be worthwhile to take a bit of a journey back through time to track the many stories we have told as a community around this theme through blogs and podcasts since I started at St. Andrew’s.  I counted a total of 33 blogs and six podcasts that pretty centrally examine themes revolving around burnout: exhaustion, feeling overwhelmed, experiencing anxiety, too much to do, too little time.  We may never quite crack the code or find the proverbial silver bullet to fix burnout, but one thing is for certain: this is a timeless theme that HITS.  As much as our various powers and creative reimaginings allow, we need to improve systems where we can to make this professional life more sustainable, livable, balanced, and doable.   But even when we can’t change the system because the very nature of working with so many humans  is draining, this I believe:  bringing our lived realities to light, writing about them, and telling our truths, can often be just what the doctor ordered.

• I Feel Rage Sometimes & Other Surprises
• School Dreams
• Bird by Bird, Day by Day
• That One Time I Almost Quit Education
• Working at a School is a Game of Whack-a-Mole
• Essay Means Attempt
• Much Ado about Deadlines
• End of Quarter 1: A Time to Reflect
• Why Asking for Help is a Superpower
• Patterns (Michelle Portera)
• A Benediction (Kim Sewell)
• Summer Send Off: A Mash Up of Goodbyes and Hellos
• Kid Bids Hub Fans Adieu
• Spring Has Sprung: Student Edition
• Spring Has Sprung: Teacher Edition
• Meeting Students Where They Are: How do I Respond when a Kid Falls Asleep in My Class?  (Buck Cooper)
• Let’s Get Real about Time, Differentiation, and Sustainability
• ‘Tis the Season . . . For Class Disruptions!
• On Hamster Wheels and Hamster Shortages (Michelle Portera)
• Less is More, and Other Lessons I Have a Really Hard Time Learning
• A Day in the Life of Instructional Assistants 
• Lesson Planning/Lesson Coaching as Best Intentions
• An Inside Look at Saints@Home (Saana Watson)
• Thoughts & Fragments of a 1st Grade Teacher Mom: A Timeline Leading Up to  Meet the Teacher (Mary McCall McArthur)
• We are back and we have themes: September 2022 we delve deep into “Best Intentions”
• The Corner of “Practically Perfect in Every Way” and Practically Prepared to Binge Watch All Day (Marty Kelly)
• *A Time to be Tired (Marty Kelly)
• *Let’s Be Real: What Teachers Need
• 4:48PM, First Day of School Eve
• 2020 Epic Fails
• I2 Resources for You: Wellness Edition
• What Can We Do Now?: We Teach
• Tis the Season: Embracing the Ebb and Flow of Innovation

PODCASTS

• Motion Pictures Meets Reality: Learning the Art of Slowing Down from Mr. Rogers
• Exploring Teacher Loneliness
• On Ghosts & Cloaks: The Invisible Part of Teaching Life
• Bridging the Admin & Faculty Divide: A Day in the Life
• Bridging the Admin & Faculty Divide: Unpacking Faculty Support
• Finding Your Jam When You Feel Like an Imposter

Those of us who are lucky enough to know David Bramlett know that there is much more to the man than mathematics.  On any given day, a conversation with David might begin with a fabulous veggie stir fry he just whipped up and then quickly diverge into part-film-review, part-critique-on-society.  Recently it hit me– with David on TEAM this year, what if we had a recurring column entitled: “What’s David Watching?”

Serendipitously for this first installment, David happened to choose two documentaries that perfectly address this question of “how to cultivate resilience” on an existential and life-span level.  After all, when you pull the concept out of the classroom and student context, one’s level of resilience can quite objectively be measured by length and quality of life. Check out David’s review below:

---

Join or Die and Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zone are two documentaries streaming on Netflix that at first glance you would feel are not connected.  The essential underlying theme for both is that community engagement is essential. 

Join or Die focuses on the work of Robert Putnam’s research and book, Bowling Alone, which looks at how the decline of Americans in joining community clubs is connected to current political unrest that we see today.  It explores the importance of spending time with people in your community, and how it can make a positive difference in how members of a society get along, successfully govern, and achieve a healthy mental outlook.

 Blue zones are regions of the world where people live long lives and are generally healthy and active into their 90s and 100s.  The documentary Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zone at first glance seems totally related, but one of the primary attributes to a successful healthy life is once again community engagement.  All the blue zones had this as a major factor.  

While these are very different documentaries, their overarching thesis is nearly identical: community engagement is a vital part of a successful democracy and in preserving one’s health.

---

Thanks, David! Interested in adding some more community engagement into your routine? Join another one of David’s initiatives this year: Pubtalks.  Be on the lookout for date, time, and location for this November’s gathering, where we will get together and share ideas on how to best handle potentially difficult or contentious topics at family gatherings over the holidays.

Guys, I’ve got this really flashy cool new resources to find teaching materials.

You ready?

It’s called TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS.

Sure stuff costs money,  But is $14.99 worth the 500 hours it would take me to meticulously create these templates on Canva myself out of my own brain?” Absolutely, times 100, or to quote my dad, the worst haggler of all time: “Are you sure I can’t pay you more? This is certainly worth more than THAT.”

Still, a few years ago, I would’ve sworn I’d never utilize the website. Just put it up there alongside all of my pre-parenting “never would I have ever” statements of pure ignorant pride.  My reluctance originated from my very stubborn brand of frugality.  Back in my day when I started teaching, all the things were free on the interwebs.  Teachers shared their stuff as a matter of kindness, pride, profession.  Then something changed between when I started grad school in 2008 and started teaching college students at Millsaps in 2014.  All of a sudden, if you wanted access to that cool sketchnotes template, you had to pay $2.99.  What?! Shock to the system.  To add to this,  I had seen SO MANY “teachers pay teachers” fails in my student teachers’ lesson plans.  The danger of using a thing you didn’t create is you don’t take the time to really go through if it matches your aims.  The stuff may be cute, but is it appropriate for your class?  Never would I EVER even darken that door. I am an expert! A professional! I have the creativity and the will!

Then I decided to add teaching a section of English 12 to an already too-full-time-job (because SO MANY good reasons) and I lasted about 12 months until I succumbed to its Siren-like-call.  I bought the Macbeth unit packet.  Call it purely experimental if you’d like, but if I’m being honest I needed some quick activities and templates for holding my students accountable for comprehension of the play.  It’s rated 4.9 by 170 reviews.  It can’t be that bad, right?

The truth is it has been marvelous.  The Act-by-Act interactive notes have created a routine for my students to track their understanding or the lack there-of.  The initial center-like get-to-know-Shakespeare activity fell a little flat, but the variety of acting troupe small group exercises have been a hit.  Sure I’ve had to adapt a TON in terms of pacing and approach and depth.  But it’s given me a storehouse of clever little hooks (e.g., play this Harry Potter scene with a song featuring “double double toil and trouble”) and journal topics (e.g., “are self fulfilling prophecies real?”) that have resonated with high school seniors more than I thought.  Without this set of resources, I never would have thought of having students reenact a scene with finger puppets (templates of characters provided!), which completely jazzed two very creative-artistic students who often are less-than-enthused by the kinds of assignments I dream up. 

Me: “Why are you two suddenly so engaged in a class activity?!”

Students: “We get to color and play! It doesn’t feel like work!”

Sidenote: Seriously guys, asking students to hide under their desks to re-enact Shakespeare is my top teaching tip of the year.  Somehow it frees the more self-conscious ones to use crazy accents and the shy ones somehow feel protected. 

I’m still not a superfan.  I would never advise an entire year designed by TPT. I still think you start with your objectives in mind and go backwards.  I think things can go very wrong very quickly if you don’t create something and you instead, at the very least, should go through the process of “trying out” the worksheet of activity before assigning it to students. 

But when you are feeling very very pressed for time, I am 100% in favor of a little TPT browse situation.  

In all things, my biggest revelation of aging is this humbling truth: Never say never.  

Have you ever noticed that some of us just seem more resilient than others?  Like I know this is a muscle that can be worked out, a practice that can be internalized.  But for real. It seems like some people are born with it. If this is the case, let it be known: I was not born with it.  My dad and my eldest daughter most certainly were.

My father, whom I feel like figures prominently in every other blog, is the type to be irrationally persistent. More than once growing up I can recall my mother and I begging him to call a plumber/electrician/HVAC expert/insert thing here.  Did he ever cave? NO.  He just methodically took apart whatever was broken and tried a thousand things until the issue was fixed.  This was, mind you, before the days of easy access to all the youtube tutorials.  The man, who as a child took apart computers and other appliances he found in trash heaps to learn about for the fun of it, is wired to stay calm and slowly gather data and learn from mistakes.  Are all engineers this way? 

My daughter is more of the normal-spectrum-healthy variety of persistent. She is the person Zander and Alianna go to for nearly any “fix or open this thing” kind of problem, since she turned about six years old. And really, they pretty much always go to her for homework help now too. The kids know I will quickly abandom the project when it doesn’t quickly bend to my command.  Lucy just digs deep and gets comfortable in her pursuit of a solution.  She almost seems drawn in even more, in fact, when things get tough.  “Oh you are trying to stump me?!” she sneers back at the can of spaghetti sauce that I can’t seem to open.  “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!”

Which leads us to me, whose favorite words are “whoops, I can’t open that, go ask your father.” When Justin Rust with his old-fashioned manners took my parents out to dinner to ask for my hand in marriage, my father replied in the affirmative, but quickly followed it up with: “There’s something you should know about Julie.  She’s a bit like a golden retriever.  One minute she’s chasing after one thing and the next minute she sees a squirrel and runs off in the the other direction.  Good luck with that one.” 

Hey dad, I’ve been married for 20 years.  (In the words of Alianna Rust when she proves herself right, especially to her brother. . . ) BAM!

The thing is, I am incredibly resilient and persistent and focused when it comes to things I care about (Running! Writing! Teaching!) It’s the other stuff, the spaghetti sauce jars, the house cleaning and yard care, opening up doors with keys (I wish I was kidding) that I just kind of abandon with a good shrug and a good dose of learned helplessness.  “I’m just not good at that stuff, so I’m not going to even try.” 

All of this begs the question, what if our levels of resilience at any given task is less a genetic or brain-wiring precondition, and more about the stories we hear and tell about our identies and then consquently live out? 

Mesmin Destin, Associate Professor at Northwestern, argues just this, in his important work with traditionally under-resourced youth in education.  It turns out that resources and access to positive educational experiences matter a lot for youth achievement, but the reason they come to matter so much is about identity formation and the motivation that then results.  His work reminds us that moving from a deficit-based to strengths-based perspective that emphasizes students’ community cultural wealth and the various capital they can leverage from their communities (navigational capital, linguistic capital, social capital, etc.) can make huge and measurable differences in a students’ success.  If we can tell and retell the story of students’ background specific strengths (e.g. street smarts birthed of marginalization and adversity) we can, not only increase their self esteem, but their ability to believe that actual achievement on academic tests. 

Elephant in the room: we teach at a place of privilege with a disproportionate population of students that come from socioeconomic backgrounds of wealth.  How can we equip them with a greater variety of stories about success and skills that the youth from less-economically-privileged backgrounds might bring to their soccer team, their future college classrooms, their future workplace?  Second elephant in the room: not all of our students come from wealth. How can we boost their motivation to succeed by emphasizing their background specific strengths? Third elephant in the room: a whole lot of our students (hello intersectionality) carry other identities that have been traditionally recognized from a deficits-perspective. How can we flip the script in our own attitudes and expectations as teachers from “those kinds of students”? 

What about our curricula or approaches make it so hard for us to move from deficit to strength-based perspectives about all the difference that fills our classrooms?  How can we make space for new stories to circulate about ourselves and others?

Note: For Destin’s slideshow from SAIS this year, see this link.

Authored by Kari East

“Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the chance to work through difficult problems.”

― Gever Tulley

In my job as a middle school learning facilitator I typically spend my time working with those students that have difficulty completing assignments,  turning things in on time, and prioritizing their work with their many extracurricular activities. It feels like a constant game of juggling. I often get so caught up in making sure my students are successful that I lose sight of the importance of letting them manage things on their own. I’ve come to realize that middle school is the perfect time to allow students to try on their own, even when I know failure is inevitable. Let’s be honest, the stakes in middle school are low which makes it the ideal time for students to learn through failure. “You bombed a math quiz because you didn’t do the homework to prepare?” Not exactly a life altering experience, but sometimes it’s all a 12 year old needs to make the connection that homework matters. Failures in school can teach our students so many things, both in and out of the classroom.

1. Resiliency  – When students fail it affords them the opportunity to problem solve. That’s where the learning takes place.  Resiliency is that ability to work through challenges and adapt to situations in order to come out successful. There’s a direct correlation between successful adults and their ability to be resilient in times of difficulty. Resiliency is also an important part of a teen/adolescent’s overall mental well-being. 

2. Perseverance – Failure is inevitable at some point in life. This is especially true for students with learning differences. Despite the many barriers that may stand in their way, it’s their ability to dig deep and push through hard circumstances that ultimately leads to their success. I encourage my students to change their way of thinking when it comes to academic obstacles. Instead of saying “I can’t do this”, I challenge them to use the verbiage “I don’t understand this right now and that’s okay, but I’m going to keep trying”. Think The Little Engine That Could. 

3. Reality Check – There are going to be times in life when all the things are hard. As much as we’d like and no matter how hard we work, we are never fully in control. There will always be circumstances beyond our control and this is where resiliency is key. An example that I see quite often with students is complaints about teachers and the way their teacher does something. It’s vital that our students understand that they won’t always love their teacher or the way they run their classroom and that’s ok. But, it’s up to the students to adapt and figure out how to communicate their needs to the teacher. Healthy communication between teachers and students leads to successful outcomes! 

While letting students fail is never easy, I’ve come to accept that it has far more benefits than one would think. If you truly think about what learning is in a neurobiological sense, then letting students fail seems sensible! Learning is just the brain processing information and adapting to experiences in order to reach the best possible outcome. Success isn’t always linear and it’s important that our students (and teachers and parents) understand this. Sometimes, failure really does equal success.