The new year is a month old. If you’ve kept up with your resolution(s), give yourself a pat on the back! (Unless your resolution was to stop being self-congratulatory, of course.) My resolutions were to do something productive that involves writing and to stop procrastinating. I started this blog yesterday, so it looks like I’ve been more successful with the former than the latter. While the new year started thirty days ago for most of the world, among high school teachers, the start of the second semester brings much more “new” than the first of January. While "new semester resolutions" don’t figure prominently into discussions among teachers, we do view the new semester as a chance to build new bridges with the less successful students in our year-long classes, and, for those who teach semester long courses, to start things off on the best note possible with those incoming students.
When I meet new students, I consider how I would want my son to act toward a teacher upon meeting him or her for the first time. First and foremost, I would want him to speak one-on-one with the teacher, if only for a brief introduction. I know that many teachers initiate this, but for those that don’t, I hope he is willing (whether he’s completely comfortable doing so or not) to take a moment and speak directly to the teacher. Perception fuels reality, and I want him to realize that first impressions are very important-- according to studies, like this from Web MD and this from Science Daily (which focuses specifically on student / teacher interactions) they tend to be quite accurate too. Of course, first impressions do have the potential to be wrong, but they are certainly hard to shake. I hope that my son, who is currently carefree enough to greet nearly everyone at the grocery store, particularly if the person bears even a remote resemblance to my father or father-in-law, will be able to able to hold onto a sliver of that trait and unabashedly connect with his teachers, but refrain from writing his first impression of them in stone. So, I resolve to help my son become this sort of person. But, unlike a New Year's resolution, this one won't be deemed a success or failure by the time the groundhog sees his shadow.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Three, Two, One, Make Rocket Go Now!
After being a teacher for seven and a half years and a father for two and a half, I have concluded that I spend many of my spare mental moments considering what, if anything, I can do to A) prevent my son from being like some of the students I've taught and B) prod him in the direction of being like some of the other students I've taught. So, rather than just allow those thoughts to escape like lightning bugs on a summer evening, I have decided to trap them in this blog where they will eventually end up burnt out and on the bottom of the jar. Perhaps before their lights go out for good, they can offer you some insight into your own parenting, or answers about the uniquely conformist segment of the human population known commonly as the American teenager.
Since I am not yet 30 years old, I labor under the illusion that I am still "hip" in some ways, but there is a litany of things about the world of today's teens that irks/frightens/mystifies me-- and that's before I even think about their behavior on Facebook! One of the primary things that teaching teenagers has done for me as a parent is what inspired the name of this blog. I often feel as though my experience teaching high schoolers allows me to hold a metaphorical fun house mirror up to my son. Though the reflection is certainly not wholly accurate, there are portions of his nascent personality that will undoubtedly be a part of him into and even well beyond his teenage years. What can I do to nurture him, equip him to be successful and happy, and just generally not screw him up? Furthermore, how can my career help me (and perhaps, vicariously, you) do this? My answer to those questions will be the backbone of this blog. Perhaps more importantly, the meat on those bones will be this blog's ability to crystallize the ephemeral moments that all parents encounter as their toddler becomes a pre-schooler or their pre-schooler becomes a little person that gets on a bus and goes to "work" each day, living an entire existence that we, as parents, aren't privy to. The moments that, when the child graduates from high school or gets married, we'd love to have on video to show everyone just how far they've come, and perhaps, just how little they have changed. I will end this first blog post with one such example. In the past three days, my son has stopped calling trucks "ruffs," abandoned "choo-choo" for train, and suddenly given up his staunch refusal to call our dog anything other than "puppy." It seems as though he is transitioning from a little boy into, as he says, a "small man." Perhaps it seems that way because he is.
- Teacher - Father -
Since I am not yet 30 years old, I labor under the illusion that I am still "hip" in some ways, but there is a litany of things about the world of today's teens that irks/frightens/mystifies me-- and that's before I even think about their behavior on Facebook! One of the primary things that teaching teenagers has done for me as a parent is what inspired the name of this blog. I often feel as though my experience teaching high schoolers allows me to hold a metaphorical fun house mirror up to my son. Though the reflection is certainly not wholly accurate, there are portions of his nascent personality that will undoubtedly be a part of him into and even well beyond his teenage years. What can I do to nurture him, equip him to be successful and happy, and just generally not screw him up? Furthermore, how can my career help me (and perhaps, vicariously, you) do this? My answer to those questions will be the backbone of this blog. Perhaps more importantly, the meat on those bones will be this blog's ability to crystallize the ephemeral moments that all parents encounter as their toddler becomes a pre-schooler or their pre-schooler becomes a little person that gets on a bus and goes to "work" each day, living an entire existence that we, as parents, aren't privy to. The moments that, when the child graduates from high school or gets married, we'd love to have on video to show everyone just how far they've come, and perhaps, just how little they have changed. I will end this first blog post with one such example. In the past three days, my son has stopped calling trucks "ruffs," abandoned "choo-choo" for train, and suddenly given up his staunch refusal to call our dog anything other than "puppy." It seems as though he is transitioning from a little boy into, as he says, a "small man." Perhaps it seems that way because he is.
- Teacher - Father -
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