So I’ve mapped out the journey I’m going to need to take to become Sec. of Ed. To follow are the five things I need to do over the course of the next decade to make it happen:

1) I need to become a master teacher. I’m not there yet and have much to learn. The difference in the master teacher and the average teacher is that the master teacher is always anticipating what’s next. In fact, the master teacher is about five steps ahead and correctly anticipates the needs of the students. The master teacher has, not one plan in place, but several plans in place as the lesson goes forward in order to meet the differing needs of the students. I have work to do to get to that place.

2) I need to become a principal. I would love to work alongside a teaching staff to make a school recognized for, not only its academic achievements, but also for its place of service within the community it resides.

3. I need to become a superintendent. But not just any ol’ superintendent. The kind of super who turns a poor performing district into a high performing district. The kind of super that is on top of the latest educational reform movements and deftly implements those strategies that are right for the district.

4. I need to know people. I’m a realist, folks. To scale the political ladder, I’ll need to know people. Important people. People who can help me get to know even more important people. Which leads me to my final need:

5. I need to kiss some…butt. Again, realist. It’s not just about knowing people, is it? It’s about kissing their butts a bit. I don’t want to be just another forgettable person to those important people I need to know. They need to remember me. I’m going to kiss their butts.

Ok, now that I’ve got the master plan in place, I should let you in on a little secret: I love teaching so much that I can hardly imagine my professional life outside the classroom. I can imagine myself as a principal but that’s about as far away from the classroom that I would be willing to get…which means that I really don’t want to be a super and I certainly don’t want to be Secretary of Education. But that’s a fairly good blueprint for becoming Sec. of Ed., no?

So that means that my professional goals are rather simple (yet complex): I want to become a master teacher and I might look to become a principal in the future. In the meantime, I gotta figure out how to teach my next science lesson. Bill Nye the Science Guy, where are you?

In reality, this blog has been dead for a while. I’ve tried, a couple of times, to bring it back to life but my interest in writing in this capacity has waned more than waxed. So here’s the deal, after 8 1/2 years of writing, I’m putting this blog to rest.

But before I officially do that, there are a few more things I want to chronicle here for my own sake; for my need to feel that proper closure has been issued; for the “circle of life” thing to be true.

Under the category of things I want to chronicle here before closing shop are the following:

• my progression of understanding regarding homosexuality,
• the five things I’ll do to become the Secretary of Education,
• and my still undying love for the Yankees but my growing affection for the Cardinals.

Under the category of needing to bring closure is:

• an update and final word about Ira. This blog was invisible to most of you until Ira hit the scene. While Ira’s story will continue on long past the life of this blog, Lord willing, I feel the need to say a few things about him that will help close this out.

Finally, under the category of the circle of life thing is:

• the need to say something about church. The whole reason this blog started back in 2003 was to chronicle my church planting endeavor in New York City. With strong support from Manhattan Church of Christ, I gave that a go. Now, two and a half years removed from that experience, and from being a minister in general, my outlook on church has completely changed.

So look for 5 – 10 more blogs here before I officially close the doors

Here’s why: I haven’t really learned yet how to talk about it. In a nutshell, things are great with my new gig. My principal is encouraging and positive, my coworkers are helpful, the district is working really hard to make sure the new teachers of the district are well-trained, the students are eager, and the parents are involved and affirming. So like I said, things are good. Really, really good. And that’s not okay. Because this is not the way it was at my old gig. My old gig was really, really hard. (Don’t you love my bland descriptive words? Work with me, folks. That’s about all my brain can muster these days.) I can’t even begin to articulate the difference between my old job – teaching at a resource-poor inner-city school – and my new job – teaching at a resource-rich suburban school. (I guess I better figure it out if I’m gonna follow-up on my big book idea.) This is what I can say: the difference between the two jobs, the gap between the two gigs is monstrous. Huge. It shouldn’t be. But it is. Like I said, that’s not okay.

So when people ask me how my new job is, I sheepishly respond, “It’s great.” I know that my nonverbals speak otherwise and I guess that’s what I’m trying to communicate, “It’s great but that’s not okay.”

Now, maybe more than ever, we direct our kids to exercise extreme caution when it comes to dealing with strangers. After all, there are some real creeps out there who look to take advantage of kids. But I hate to think like that. Of all the lessons that parents are supposed to teach their kids (look both ways before crossing a street; mind your manners; wash your hands after using the bathroom; do not, I repeat, do not use “I” when you should use “me” and vice versa or I’ll take ten cents off of your allowance!) it’s this lesson about strangers that doesn’t sit well with me.

Ira is drawn to people. And for whatever reason, people are drawn to Ira. Ira has absolutely no problem approaching a stranger and engaging them in conversation. Just tonight we were out for dinner. He finished with his meal, got down from his seat and walked over to a woman who was all alone. He started talking to her. I quickly jumped up and pulled Ira away. More than anything, I was worried that Ira as invading this woman’s space. She smiled politely as I apologized for Ira. Laura then started in on Ira on the whole “we don’t talk to strangers.” He asked Laura about the meaning of strangers. Once she finished, Ira walked back over to the woman and said, “are you a stranger?” The woman, who overheard Laura’s and Ira’s talk said, “yes, I’m a stranger.” Ira came back to report, “mom, she’s a stranger.”

Thing is, it’s so natural for Ira to talk to people and I hate taking that away from him. What would you do, friends? How would you teach this global, age-old lesson about being cautious with strangers while also giving Ira room to be who he naturally is?

photo by Jeremy taken in Central Park

When Laura and I graduated from grad school in New Jersey, we celebrated our hard work by buying a yellow Lab Retriever. While we weren’t sure where we were moving, we knew we probably wouldn’t be staying in New Jersey. We thought long and hard about names and kept coming back to “Jersey.” (For the record, our neighbors had a cat named “Jersey” and we asked for their permission to use the name. It just fit. Our dog would remind us of where he came from and the time we spent in New Jersey.) We got Jersey in May of 2001. Laura and I were both done with school and didn’t have jobs. We spent a lot of time with Jersey training him to be the perfect dog.

Like most Lab Retrievers, Jersey was, indeed, the perfect dog. (Okay, so maybe he ate everything in sight and chewed on things he shouldn’t have chewed on when he was a puppy but he was perfect for our family.) Jersey’s true colors were on full display as Laura and I started having kids. It was not uncommon to find the toddler Sophia reading books to Jersey. Jersey was/is a huge reason Ira is with us today acting as an all-inclusive therapist. And Opal can be found sitting on Jersey demanding that he get up and go. She’s pretty sure he’s a horse.

And now, 10 and 1/2 years into his life, Jersey’s been diagnosed with lung cancer. There’s nothing that can be done. He’s been given 2 weeks (give or take some days/weeks) to live. The vet said, “pick his favorite three things and when he can’t do those things any longer, bring him in.” So we’ll wait until Jersey’s not interested in eating, retrieving or swimming.

In the meantime, we have to talk to our kids about, not only death, but the process of dying. We learned to talk to Sophia in frank and literal terms about Ira’s illness and so we’ll do the same with this but I’m wondering, do you have any advice for us as we proceed with these conversations? How do we need to process this with Sophia and Ira…and even Opal? We need your help.

Sophia "reads" to Jersey

Opal "rides" Jersey the Horse

Ira and Jersey about to wrestle

If a truth-telling prophet came to you before our wedding day and said, “There’s one thing I must tell you about your future. You will someday live for 22 months with your parents. Thing is, you’ll be married with three kids and a dog. The only way you can change that is by not marrying Joe tomorrow,” would you still have married me?

This brought on great laughter from Laura but I was serious. I wanted to know how she felt about those 22 months but on a deeper level, I wanted to know if that part of our life effected the way she felt about me. Did she have some kind of lesser view of me because of my inability to bring in the dough to rightly support the family? Once we cleared up the issue of Laura not feeling any differently about me (and I rid myself of the insecurities I’ve felt for a while now) we re-visited what effect of living with Laura’s parents, Harvey and Kay, had on us.

We’ve been in our new house for four months and so I thought there was enough distance between our living situations to do some examining. I can’t really speak for Laura but I will speak for myself on how that 22 months of living with my in-laws shaped me.

PaPa reading before bed

Simply put, I’m a better person for having lived with Harvey and Kay. I’m a better person because I am now acutely aware of what true generosity looks like. Not only did they open their home to us but they never treated their stuff like their stuff. It immediately became our stuff, too. I never got the sense that they were put out by us. They never seemed angered that we had our hands all over their stuff. I’m a better person because Harvey and Kay are incredibly patient human beings. I’m not so patient. At all. So watching them in action was good for me. I was kinda forced to slow down and breathe a bit when dealing with my kids. I still lean in the direction of impatience but Harvey and Kay, unknowingly, showed me the value of being patient. I’m a better person because Harvey and Kay are so laid back. Harvey and Kay don’t make hasty or impulsive decisions. They know what’s important in life and what’s not important in life. Me? I can get worked up over some of the littlest of things. I’m not so laid back. I’m a decision maker and often make impulsive decisions. Harvey and Kay showed me a different way. They showed what it looks like to be a bit laid back.

Kay-Kay and the kids

So now that I have some perspective, I can honestly say that those 22 months were good for me. I learned valuable lessons that I needed to learn. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it was perfect. I’m not saying that we all didn’t feel a bit cramped in the house or that we didn’t need a breather from time to time but it was pretty darn great. I’m glad we had that intimate time with Harvey and Kay. I’m guessing that, for Sophia and Ira, particular moments with Harvey and Kay are stamped on their memories forever. As for me, I am a better person because of Harvey and Kay.

Thank you, Harvey and Kay for those 22 months. Thank you for opening your home so generously. Thank you for your patience. And thank you for being laid back and easy-going. Most importantly, thank you for loving on my family.

Ira was at his first hippotherapy session a week ago. Yes, Ira’s hippotherapy serves the purpose of physical and occupational therapy, but secretly I’m hoping to unearth a talent Ira might have with horses. Could Ira be a vet someday? A horse jockey? An expert on all things equine?  The therapist broke from the session a few minutes before the session was over and came into the waiting room where I was, well, waiting. She sat down and said, “tell me about Ira.”

After laughing a bit, I started in. I told her everything. After I finished, she told me the four or five things they wanted to accomplish with Ira this summer. And then she ended our conversation with these words, “We set high expectations here and we will push Ira to reach these goals but the most important thing is that Ira has fun.” She continued, “I see too many parents who push and push and push their kids. Pushing is fine but we must remember that they are kids. Fun is a priority.”

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I can be pretty hard on my kids. I’m that parent that this therapist spoke of when she referred to parents who push and push and push. I’ve got some mixed emotions about the whole “pursuit of happiness” thing so what if my hope for my children was not success/fulfillment/admiration but instead, that they love God and love others wholly and completely? Could that be enough? Could I be okay with that being the goal? So what if they aren’t the next great athlete or the world’s smartest whatever or a president-in-the-making. What if love – in all it’s selflessness – was the goal for my kids? Is that enough?

(Okay, that sounded ridiculous, didn’t it? How in the world did LeBron think that was a good idea? And has he fired his publicist yet? Ack!)

You don’t have to be a trained investigator to know that teaching at Clark will be an incredibly different experience than teaching at Herzog. (The schools’ websites tell the story.) In fact, it will be a complete 180 degree shift in every way. In some ways, I feel like a bit of a sell-out. As I head to the burbs it feels that I’m turning my back on urban education where the need is the greatest. When I tell people that I feel like a sell-out the response is usually the same, “Hey, everyone needs a good teacher. There are kids in need in the burbs, too!” And that’s true. But here’s the thing that I think we all know and that I’m willing to put out there in the public realm: kids in the city aren’t as likely to encounter a good, transformative teacher as their peers out in the burbs. And that’s where the sell-out feeling comes from.

I have a lot more pondering to do about the transition I’m undertaking (I’ve already started new teacher orientation for Webster Groves) but I can say this with absolute confidence: I am thrilled to be working at Clark, I can’t wait to help students realize their goals and I am ready to grow my teaching skills in this amazing school district.

To start us off, I’ll treat this post kinda like ESPN’s Top 10 Plays in which they cover the top ten sports plays from the previous week of athletic play. But mine will only be five. And it will cover the last, well, several months. And there’s nothing that really qualifies these random five events/things as “top”. So I guess this post really isn’t anything like ESPN’s Top 10 Plays. Not at all.

Rain on it. Here we go.

#5 We bought a house. Our very first house ever. We’re a little late to the house owning party but we’re here and we plan to be the life of the party. The weather heading into our move-in weekend was amazing. The front of our house was just waiting to welcome us.

And then there was moving day. Hello, five inches of thick, heavy, wet snow. Nice to have you. In the middle of March. Sigh.

But check it: It totally didn’t hinder our excitement and it didn’t stop the nine amazing guys who traveled in the snow to help us out. [Um, not one person mentioned to me that owning house means that I no longer have a landlord to fix all of my problems. You're all fired.]

#4 So I’ve always had a bit of a, ahem, spare tire hanging out on my midsection but, well, it’s grown. So I decided to be diligent in my workouts and follow my so-called dieting rules [nothing but water to drink, no seconds on meals, no sweets, no eating after 8 PM, etc.] just to rid myself of the extra weight I gained. It didn’t work. This getting old thing sucks. I used to be able to shed extra pounds pretty easily. Now? Not so much. So I decided to embrace the poundage and throw it a party complete with wings and Dr. Pepper. Yahoo!

#3 I read my students the book Holes. For the character Mr. Sir, I used my best gritty, Texas drawl. For the Warden, I used a slow, southern drawl. I had the kids eating out of my hands. [Not literally because that would be gross. Really gross. For them and for me. But mostly for me cause my hands are really clean most of the time.] They couldn’t get enough. When we finished the book we watched the movie. Before the movie, I asked how many of them thought the movie would be better. All but one thought the movie would be better. After we watched the movie, every one of them realized the book was so much better.

#2 This summer, I’ve decided to tutor one day a week and conduct a mini home summer school for Sophia and Ira the rest of the time. Sophia’s struggling with math and Ira needs to keep up the work he’s started at school. I’m totally pumped to turn the basement room into a little school room. It’s gonna be fun. These kids of mine are gonna make big gains this summer. Just watch.

#1 I’ve talked about the church that Laura, the kids and I attend. It’s called Union Avenue Christian Church. What I love about Union Ave is how seriously it takes its communal worship time. There’s a lot of thought that goes into each Sunday’s service. One Sunday, we walked in to find two random guys sitting on the stage. Turns out they were percussionists. They joined the choir that day and played various instruments. (“During this morning’s service they will be playing this collection of instruments: djembe, kenkeni, songba, udu, kalimba, shekere, rattles/shakers, timpani, didjeridoo, Orff glockenspiel, metal water bottle, cymbals, gongs, wind chimes, buffalo drum.”) Being a part of that service was amazing. I even got out my iPhone to capture a video of the moment. It doesn’t do it justice but check it out here:

Did I say five things? I can’t end this post without mentioning Ira’s 6th birthday. He celebrated his 6th birthday yesterday on the 21st. He literally consumed my thoughts the entire day. I made this video six years ago and posted it on this blog six years ago. He’s come a long, long way.

Ira Lester Hays, you, sir, mean the world to me.

There are excellent teachers who are making a difference right now.

Right this very second.

How do I know this? Because I work with some of them.

There is a third grade teacher at my school who loves to explore the world of science with her students. As one who doesn’t feel very comfortable teaching science, I would be well served to watch her do her magic. (I’m not saying science is magic. Not at all. I’m not out to offend scientists by describing their craft as magic. I LOVE SCIENTISTS. I’m a huge fan of the Science Association of Scientists Who Do Science…allrighty then…) There is a teacher (she’s now a reading specialist) who is known for her patience. She had a very hard class during the 2009-2010 school year but managed her room with grace. As one who sometimes struggles with patience, I could learn a thing or two from watching her deal with disruptions. The sixth grade teachers are masters at creating end of unit performance events that enhance their students’ learning. You guessed it: I need that wisdom passed on. I got to see one of my peers educate the staff on setting up and executing small groups. It was an invaluable experience. The first grade teachers are doing their thing, I’m telling you. When I see their classes in the hallway and witness how those students hang on their teachers’ every word, I silently wish for my class to do the same.

I could go on. Right here in north St. Louis, I work with some teachers who are busting their butts to make sure their students are learning how to read, write and do math.

So, my friends, have hope on this day that more teachers like these saturate the market. Because fixing that old raggedy busted up machine starts right here in the classroom.