RUGator

I Slept, and Dreamed that Life was Beauty

I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, sad heart, courageously,
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A noonday light and truth to thee.

Ellen Sturgis Hooper

The Dial (July 1840) p. 123

I had hoped to do better.

But that’s the best I could do. For them. I wanted to say something pithy. But I had nothing. And as they looked to me, for answers, I felt inadequate.

“Recognition is the greatest motivator.”

Gerard C. Eakdale

Reading about Penn State’s iconic coach, Joe Paterno, I learned of the “experiment” he put into place early on in his career.

That high academic standards and athletic achievement were not mutually exclusive.

Paterno himself played football as an undergraduate at Brown. His parents wanted him to go to law school. He had other plans.

And so I borrowed an idea from him.

Perhaps I could demand high achievement from my students. But how would I do this? I didn’t have the athletic fields to reinforce any classroom ideas I might try out on them.

So I stumbled upon something else.

As a first year classroom survival technique, I got to know my kids. What made them tick? Where were they from? Who were their parents? What if I put them (the kids) first and not the “material?” It’s all I had. I didn’t know any better.

Show them that you love and respect them and they’ll run through walls for you. That popped into my head. I was on the look out for ways to recognize them.

Nicknames, likes, friends, aptitudes, eye-contact, accountability, one on one conversations, listening more than speaking.

In short: THEM.

Simple.

Not easy.

But, it works.

Can you do that?

Put others first. Listen more than you speak. Build others up. Hard work. Persistence. A positive attitude.

It never ends. Isn’t easy. Preaching to myself. Constant reminding.

It keeps me up at night.

And gets me up in the morning.

Another time ago, I sat at a desk.

I was a substitute teacher. In for a middle school science teacher who’d gone off for a week or two to find himself. As I sat there, I wrote down on a piece of paper how much I dearly wanted to have license to sit there. Without the word “substitute” attached.

It seemed so far off.

I was in another job. One I hated. It paid the bills. But at what cost? My soul?

So I tried to plan. With all the obstacles in the way, it seemed a daunting task.

Now I sit at another “desk.” My own kitchen table. With the reality of another school year staring me down tomorrow.

That other time was 15 years ago.

When I began my teaching career, I hoped for a time when I could call one of my students “colleague.” Hoping to inspire a young person to follow the path I had fought so hard to go after.

And just last week (during an in-service staff meeting), I heard my name called out from across the room.

Turning toward the voice, I found that student.

She had gone off to high school and college, and now she had become a teacher. And she told me of something I had mentioned to her another time ago.

“You’d make an excellent teacher.”

And with those forgotten words uttered by me, she had set forth too.

From today’s front page on Yahoo Sports comes this article by Dan Wetzel regarding John Calipari. What a “shocker.”

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news;_ylt=AnSFRwZ_xVqIcWIx2P5syT85nYcB?slug=dw-calipari052809&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

For the second year in a row, the Rutgers football team ranked in the “Top Five.”

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2009/05/rutgers_football_program_ranks.html

I don’t have horns.

Yet that’s the sort of look I get when I tell people I teach middle school.

“But how do you deal with those attitudes?” they’ll inevitably ask.

My experience has shown me that “the kids of today” are not a whole lot different than they’ve always been. I ought to know. I was once one of “them.”

One of my guiding principles is that if you show them you care, they’ll “run through walls for you.”

And it’s true too.

Simple? Yes. Easy? No.

Robert Frost once said, “and that has made all the difference.”

Can ya hit a lick, Yankee?

The second time I heard those words, we were on the practice field. Football practice in my 9th grade year.

He had asked me the same question earlier in the day. In school. Wearing jeans and sneakers, I certainly didn’t think I was prepared to act the part. But I’d practice anyway.

And I’d be covered with sand spurs afterward. We all were. Rolling around in Florida’s sandy soil, we couldn’t help but be.

I wasn’t alone in my ill-equipment. Eddie had actually shown up barefoot. His feet, more like paws, would resemble bloody stumps when practice was finished.

And the man was a Gator.

A Florida Gator. But he seemed more like a prematurely old Alabaman from another era. He called us things like “hairy dogs” and told us “we made him sick to his stomach” when we messed up. Gators don’t talk like that. He sounded more like a Bear. The Bear.

And, while I didn’t know it at the time, this was his first teaching and coaching job. And he was only in his twenties.

We (they) called him “Coach,” which was new to me. I had always called my “gym” teachers (now “P.E.” teachers) “Mr.”

He wore “slaps” and “tennis shoes,” drank “tea,” pulled his car off into the “breakdown lane,” sneaked a peak at a “high steppin’ filly,” “tore it up” on the dance floor, and “cut off” the lights before going to bed at night.

It was another world.

In another time.

“When you’re a Gator and a Scarlet Knight, you just keep choppin.’ You just keep choppin.’”

After thirty years, those were the new first words out of his mouth. And nothing else had to be said.

Now we were both Gators. And me too, a Rutgers man.

My first coach.

And I didn’t know what to do. Still not sure, what, if anything, I’m supposed to do. With the time, that is. The time. Time gone by. Time today.

How do you explain one year out of the past thirty standing out? How can one year of my life be so etched in my heart?

I don’t know what to do about it.

Middle school and junior high are big years for students. I know because I teach them today. It’s the end of an era for them. For me too. They go on to high school upon graduation. The same awaited me. But then we moved. To Florida. From New Jersey. Leaving behind my dear friends, it wasn’t something I was looking forward to.

My father and I went first. My mom, sister, and brother would stay behind and sell the house. Settling in a “mobile home” (until we built the house that would never be built), it was quite a change. Plus, it was summer. No school. No chance to meet (even by coercion) new friends. So I’d go (every day) to the school’s outside basketball courts and shoot baskets. Hoping that someone would show up. But no one ever did. I played alone. Alone with the sand sprinkled on the cement surface. It was Ponte Vedra/Palm Valley before there was “the Island Green” of the 17th at Sawgrass. And it was foreign to me.

I would dream about all the games my winning shots would claim for the team (and school) I’d star for. I’ve got no left hand. I’ve got to get a left hand. Otherwise, I won’t be good enough. Does anyone see me? Will anyone know me? Will I make the team? Who’s the coach? The players?

Can ya hit a lick, Yankee?

He’s still with me.

When she was in seventh grade, Noel told me she wanted to be a teacher. It was an exercise we did each year. Writing down your goals, that is.

Someone had taught me, so I blindly followed his advice. What did I have to lose? Already I was broke. No degree in hand, I had practically flunked out of college.

Now (then), I sat alone with a piece of yellow legal paper. I did what I thought I was supposed to do. Putting my head down, I ran hard and scared. For two years.

He was right.

I have the letter he sent in my binder. If he could know how he continues to inspire others. My students now. While he goes on, so do I. He walks with me though. He’s a coach and a teacher. He taught me with one condition: treat others as you wish to be treated. It’s written on my desk. For my kids to see. More importantly, it’s written in my heart.

And so they’d write down their hopes and dreams. And they’d do it just like I was taught to do. And they’d doubt too. But I could speak now with a passion burned in from experience. From failure. And heartache. And continued self-doubt. But I had something to hold on to. And that would change things.

Then in eighth grade, she’d tell me again how she wanted to teach. Again, she’d write it down. On a piece of paper. Dated and signed. So many years ago.

Coming back to see me years later, now a junior in high school, she’d tell me that it would be “early decision” she’d seek. All her eggs in one basket. “If not you, than who?” (and a good thing she couldn’t see me crossing my fingers too).

You know the rest?…

“Mr. C., I got in! Can you believe it? I actually got in. I am going to be a teacher!”

(I couldn’t help but go back to that day in ‘98 when I’d be asked, “Why would anyone want to be a teacher?” Would she know the answer now? Could she ever know?)

So today, coming into school, I’d stop to get my mail in my box. I’d see Gabby, the little first grader who was dropped off each day for “morning care.” She’d look at me like I had all the answers. With a smile on her face that could (and would) remind me of the answers that I continue to look for (maybe she wants to be a teacher?) Getting down on one knee, I’d give her the “high five” that the two of us tacitly agreed to give each other every time we meet. I’d tell her that she had a gift. And give her a wink.

Then putting down the mail, a letter of reference fell to the floor. It was for Noel.

She’s applying for a teaching position. At my school. Our school. And she wanted her teacher to vouch for her.

Brushing the tears aside and all alone, I filled it out.

Welcome home, Noel. Thank you.

A timeless song from one of my favorite groups.

“The Love I Lost,” by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes

Just staying afloat has been difficult enough. Making it to the other shore?

That’s another matter.

Mrs. Polovina was handing back our anatomy tests. She made a point of telling the class that most of us had done a lousy job.

“Most of you failed,” she said. “I’m very disappointed in these scores.”

Making my way up the long aisle to get mine, I readied myself for a red “F.” Instead, a “C” brought a bit of a relieved grin to my face.

Turning around to walk back to my seat, my steps were halted by her call of, “Just a minute, Michael.”

“What’s the matter,” I asked.

“Your grade?” she questioned.

“I got a C. Most of the class failed, you said.”

“Yes,” she quietly affirmed, “but I expect more from you.”

And almost thirty years later, I would find my role reversed.

Sitting down next to me, Alyssa had her head down. One of my most reliable students, she had just finished her test. “I know I didn’t do very well, Mr. C,” she announced with a tear streaming down her cheek.

An 86.

“Not your best effort?”

And so I recounted my 11th grade anatomy test story knowing too, that that same message Mrs. Polovina had relayed to me so many years ago, would have a similar effect on this future teacher.