Thanks for Teaching Me to Gamble, Grandma

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Teaching Declan CardsI’ve been playing cards for a very long time. My Irish grandmother taught me when I was about five, and I’m sitting down teaching Declan now that he’s reached the golden age himself. He’s not ready for poker–he doesn’t have a poker face, just one smeared with honey he stole from the kitchen. He  has a propensity for laying down all the cards so he can see them all at once which makes him easy to hustle.

I miss cards. My husband doesn’t play. Cards took me all the way through high school into college–in high school, where I had one, sometimes two, study halls, I spent four years with at least one period a day playing cards. That’s approximately 540 hours, or 67.5 eight-hour days of cards. Kids can’t do that anymore. They get stuffed in test prep class instead. They’re missing out.

I played Euchre and Spades throughout college when I wasn’t working, but when I was working, it was straight to the poker table with the guys after a long shift.

I wanted to poker with the guys–just to be included, not to crusade for equal rights. The guys didn’t think girls should play poker. I wasn’t sure why, because it wasn’t like they were using their male distinction to count or hold cards, but they really felt uncomfortable with the idea. Like I was invading male space. Since I hung with them, worked with them, got them sodas when they were dripping behind the line, they eventually forgave the fact that I was a girl–for the most part–and let me play.

Being a girl was an advantage. We played dollar ante. That was a significant bet. The pot grew quickly.

“Do you know how to play, honey?” one asked the first night I was included.

“I think so.” I replied.

“Okay, so what’s natural low… the worst hand you can get?”  Oh, this was going to be fun.

I answered.

“Very good. You sure you want to play? We don’t give the money back, you know.”

“I’ll try my best.” I’d brought twenty or thirty bucks. The amount I’d spend at a movie or out. It was enough.

Now, there are rules for this–etiquette. You can’t just clean up the table and leave. You have to say when you’re leaving, so people have plenty of time to get their money back. Even from a girl.

“I’m out at one.” I said. Before long, I had all the money. I enjoyed looking at the pile–it was pretty cool. The kid across the table was fidgeting, sweating just a little at first, then trying to contain his fear before long. I was playing with some pocket change. Sure, I could have sent it to the University bursar, but twenty bucks wasn’t going to pay down my $100K debt. My opponent was playing with his rent money. And he lost it. To a girl. Suddenly, I felt sad, the fun diminished just a bit. I decided to give the money back. I couldn’t just say “here you go,” and leave–no self-respecting poker-playing guy wants to be saved by a girl. It’s worse than when girls give guys advice in the weight room. I had to strategically return it by throwing a hand or two without looking obvious. I lost the money. He won it back. I smiled.

“Looks like you win,” I said. I had fun. I walked away.

After college, I progressed to the football pool to fit in at the office. Sixteen games wasn’t too much to memorize, and I knew my stats. I won quite a bit, putting a timing belt in my car, and paying for groceries. Predictably, I was removed. It seems girls don’t win football pools just like they don’t play poker. Maybe someday we’ll get equal rights.

I’ve moved away from football these days, and nobody wants to play cards. And I’m old now, so I don’t have to do things to fit in–I just want to be left alone to grow vegetables and figure out the meaning of life.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t properly train the next generation. I wiped Declan out at three games of Go-Fish and a couple rounds of War before throwing just one hand to keep his mind in the game.

“I WON!” he shouted with glee, piling up his cards.

“Yes,” I said, “Indeed you did.”

Thanks, Grandma.

Jobs Where You Can Succeed Even If You’re Awful

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Screen Shot 2013-05-20 at 5.55.40 AMI do a lot of career counseling, even though I’m technically a social studies teacher. Students ask what they should do with their lives. They seek validation and a good plan. Many come to me far too late. I’ve been trying to have this personalized conversation for anywhere from four to six years.

“What’re you doing next year?” I ask.

“I’m going to RISD.” Rhode Island School of Design–the Yale of Art Schools.  I ask more questions.

“Did you apply?”

“I’m going to apply.”  Well, it’s May. If the app isn’t in yet, you’re not going. I follow up with, “Can I see your portfolio?”

“What?” Never a good sign. It indicates the student doesn’t know what a portfolio is. Game over. No RISD. It makes me sad. Someone needs to prepare students for short and long-term planning--to navigate the system.

Sometimes it’s not their fault. There’s a lot of red tape, expense, and logistics involved in getting into school. This is one of the reasons to hit this message hard freshman year. “What do you want to do?” becomes a four-year goal check in. For students who are ready to listen, this is critical. For the ones that think they’ll deal with this in June, the results are often heartbreaking.

Even those of us who understood “the system” make these mistakes. Heck, I back-doored my way onto one of the nation’s best music schools, and I can barely read a note. It was a disaster. I’m empathetic. Today, I offer options. Careers where anyone can succeed, whether you’re the top 20% or the bottom 80%. Better yet–careers where, even if you’re terrible, you have a great chance at success.

Writing The best writers are famous. You’ve read them. But there’s a job for the worst writers, too. At Hallmark.

Photography Good photographers get hired by National Geographic and Discovery. Bad ones by the DMV. Or you can do “abstract” work in a New York gallery, say your blur is “a representation of the contrast between dark and light–a lesson in how we should see the universe.” Sell it for six figures. If working at the DMV, your only responsibility will be to take the worst possible photo of your subjects so they can be grateful those holiday pictures on Facebook look pretty good after all.

Acting Good actors win Oscars. They get rich, develop drug habits, go to rehab, and get free publicity. Bad actors get hired for reenactments on cable TV shows and for medical commercials. “Hey, that’s the Viagra guy!” Instant fame either way.

Weather forecaster It’s harder to fake this and succeed due to accurate computer models, but don’t be discouraged. You can always throw out a “30% chance” “el nino,” “Polar ice caps” “Al Gore came out of hibernation early,” “cataclysmic jet stream” or some other global disaster. If you’re not sure, simply tell people to go shopping for emergency supplies. It helps the economy.

Teaching If you’re a bad teacher you’ve got it made as long as you can make lots of charts and graphs and administer super long tests using acronyms people don’t understand. Because tests are going digital, you can actually use UStream to proctor while you go out for coffee. Don’t dismay–there are still jobs out there for good teachers–waitressing and bartending. It’s just like the classroom, you get to serve a lot of kool-aide, and there is still math involved when you add up the bill. But you need fewer graphs and don’t take ten hours of work home.

Economists–These guys never, ever have to be right–a beautiful thing. Imagine your day–wake up, drink coffee, turn on CNN, roll dice, and make up stock predictions. Maybe you prefer dart boards instead.  Either way, say something no one understands, insert charts and graphs stolen from the teacher who served your last beer, say “billion” three times in the conversation, and you’re golden. Ruin a sector or two of the economy, and you might even get an award.

Politicians This is a career where being good gets you put out of a job. Just go to Washington, check out your new office, and ask people for money for the rest of your term. That’s not too hard, especially if you have experience selling Girl Scout Cookies outside of stores.

Foodies We love celebrity chefs, but if you can’t cook or blog you can do Vitamix demos in Whole Foods or serve side-orders of fried potatoes next to quarter pounds burgers.

It may be a tough economy, but there are indeed jobs for everyone. I hope my students reach the stars, but even if they’re fabricating predictions about when the next one will crash to Earth, as long as someone eventually pays them, I’ll be proud.

 

[image: collegeessayorgainzer.com]

Sunday Garden Lessons: Be Like Mint. Indestructible.

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garden mess I grew up in the 80′s when the entire world watched nuclear disaster movies and made lists of the things that would survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Most people said cockroaches would survive. I know something even more indestructible.

Mint.

Mint can survive anything. You can dig it up. It returns. Light it on fire with a blowtorch. It’s back. Prune it, it grows through the window and says “Whazzzuppp!” by the next morning.

I hate pruning plants. I always feel bad that I’m killing potential flowers or lessening the food supply. Like somehow that bud will lose its chance to survive because I shaped and cut. Maybe that’s true, but mint makes me think differently.

afterFirst, it makes me think of resilience. Survival. Marching forward and making the best of the worst of circumstances. Mint cannot be defeated–it refuses to surrender. It thrives anywhere with any plant. It grows in cracks of sidewalks and peeks up yards away from where it was originally planted. It’s a horticultural Criss Angel.

But after a while, it always chokes things out. Last week, I was clipping it to add to salads and ice tea. This week, it’s crowding out the entire two acres. As someone who wants nothing more than to be able to go out to the yard and pick my entire dinner for the whole season, I sit in glee and think of all the tabouleh salad, iced tea, mint ice cream, and pestos I can make, but truth is, there’s only so much of a good thing that is useful. And so it’s time to pull some out.

Sometimes it’s good to prune. To take out excess. To shape the garden. Even if it means you have to toss some stuff aside.

No different from life, I think. Keeping the relationships that improve us, letting the ones go that served us in another time, and simplifying, cutting out the things that can easily claim our best time and energy.  Learning that less really is more, and that productivity increases when we can see around all the flowers, when our garden takes shape–it becomes more resilient.  When we keep what matters and toss the rest, the rest thrives.

Japanese philosophy says this well.

Hagakure, Yamamoto Tsunetomo’s 1716 work, says “Among one’s affairs there should not be more than two or three matters of what one could call great concern.” Written three years before his death, Hagakure serves as a guide to samurai both in battle and in life. By the time this was written, Yamamoto Tsunetomo was well off the battlefield and into the monastery. Like so many great warriors, he transferred the lessons of the battlefield to the lessons of life. Tactics, science, and philosophy are one in the same, for all intents and purposes. They work universally–anywhere you take the time to notice and apply them.

Japanese philosophy from three hundred years ago is no different from psychology today.  I find it amazing that the lessons Yamamoto Tsunetomo shared several hundred years ago can be found in my plants, and subsequently applie to my life, but if I stop, get rid of all but those important two or three things, and “prune some mint,” it all begins to take shape, leaving the rest of the day to be amazed at the simplicity and drink some mint tea.

 

[image: http://www.jiandaouruguay.org/inicio/index.php/Contacto/Contacto-con-Escuela-de-Disciplinas-Orientales-JianDao.html]

 

 

Coffee is Teacher Crack

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English: Cute coffee.

English: Cute coffee. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Coffee is teacher crack. I’m about to make 30 cups and line them up on the back of my desk. I don’t only double-fist cups of coffee, I “quad” them. This is a technique I saw once in college, where the individual rehydrating himself carried four cups, two in the left hand, two in the right hand, drinking from the front two while the liquid from the back ones cascaded into the front. It works nicely for coffee.

 

Some days, I wish I could come into school with a flask, but even if I could, there’s no point. I don’t really drink. If I filled it with coffee, I’d just get mocked. It’s not really gangsta or effective.

 

I can’t be a drug addict. I know crack’s bad for you; I don’t even like the plumber crack I endure as a result of tall students busting a sag. So, since drugs and alcohol aren’t a possibility, coffee’s the only thing left.

 

Coffee’s a drug, I guess. When we were little, my sister discovered that in her health program. Caffeine is a drug. She loved to help educate others, “My mom’s a drug addict!” she’d scream in all public places. Mom loves coffee, too.

 

I get half my calories from coffee. That’s no joke. I used to drink it black when I worked in restaurants, but now, I enjoy a little cream and agave to provide that “Calgon, take me a way,” moment. The American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, or some publication with a ton of doctors, at any rate, recently said I could drink as much coffee as I could physically consume.  That’s good, because I drink way too much. I’ve got a fair-trade farmer at the ready with a beeper.  On a normal day, I drink a lot, but lately all this testing, grading, benchmarking, and evaluating is making me drink even more. When I’m actually teaching, I’m never at my desk–I’m moving around, so I don’t drink as much. When I’m dealing data and numbers and piles, I’ve started to vacuum it in. I feel like a kamakaze pilot on his last mission, “BONZAIIIIIII” Another cup of coffee hits the deck. I sure hope Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t walk in and take away the big mug. That’d be a disaster.

 

I’m not here to talk about testing, I’m here to reflect upon whether I have a problem–an addiction even–or whether, in fact, my coffee consumption might be beneficial to my students. Some days I drink so much coffee that I can actually teach two weeks of lessons in fifteen minutes,  giving the test before the activity is complete. That’s speed. Efficiency. The mark of a good educator. Other days I hear my inner voice, and know I should slow down a bit. Pause. Breathe. Drink more water or something. Then I rationalize that water is in coffee and I make…just…one….more…cup. Tomorrow I’ll have less. I promise.

 

That’s the mark of an addict.

 

“It’s good coffee though,” I think. An addict would have that three-dollar bag cut down with the cheap stuff. Reuse the grinds. I never do that. I spring for the best. An addict would steal, rob, and lie to get his coffee. I don’t do that either–I just walk over to the Keurig station I’ve set up in my room and push the button. Simple.

 

I think coffee might be good–it’s the only time we see each other as faculty. We see each other so seldom sometimes that I introduced myself to someone I actually worked with at a conference. If we didn’t have museum tags on our doors, “Mrs. So and So,” we probably wouldn’t even know some of the exhibits in the rooms.

 

Drink More CoffeeCoffee makes people talk. They pilgrimage to the Keurig and make coffee while I teach. I like when people do this–I like to be social and see my coworkers. Coffee helps me do that. I don’t mind keeping the place stocked up for that reason. I put coffee under my “friendship and happiness budget.” Sometimes I wish I could sit down and actually have coffee and talk, but I can’t because there are 25 kids behind me who say otherwise about me concentrating on one coherent thought at a time.

Today I’m on cup two. That’s not enough. I’ll make one for the drive, and restock the Keurig for the TGIF caffeine extravaganza. If you work with me, come in. There’s cream in the fridge, and agave and sugar on the table. Even some honey for you teetotalers. Because when you have “coffee” with someone, you don’t always have to drink coffee. But I always do–seems a waste to do otherwise. Smile and say hi on your way out. It’s probably the only time we’ll get to converse. I want to remember your name.

 

[image: squidoo.com/cafetieres]

 

 

 

We (Don’t) Got the Beats

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Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 6.23.24 AM“Miss, come here.” I do.

“Can you please explain to him why he’s stupid?” said friend about friend.

“Elaborate? Give me the details of this conversation?” I inquire.

“He’s got $80 headphones.” friend says. Now, I am the queen of coupons, the maven of money-saving, the pinnacle of penny-pinching. They know what I’ll say.

“What do you need $80 headphones for? What could you buy with $80?” I discuss opportunity cost. No one signs up for an economics lecture at 7AM.

“Well at least they’re not Beats, those are expensive.” says the money-waster.

“Beats are big,” I say. “I don’t understand–we are three decades removed from MY Day, when the Walkman was invented…” I notice they are staring at me with a curious mixture of shock and disbelief. When the Walkman was invented…  “It’s true. I remember. We used to run like this…”  I mime running with a hand carrying a suitcase, “Because it was so darned big. We make things small now.”

I continue, “Just yesterday I had my new iPod implanted in my arm. I use a QR code to update the play list so I can run. The headphones were inserted in my brain through my nostril and I only sneezed twice. All bluetooth. Why,” I ask, “Are you people,” I motioning to the collective group of teens, “reinventing headphones that are bigger than football helmets?”

“These are stealth,” said the proud owner of the $80 headphones.

“Why are they $80, then? I have to know. I can get a Bose speaker for ten dollars more.” My students often educate me. Seems like something I should learn.

“Well, this part’s gold,” he said.

“Gold?” I ask.  ”Is this where you put your gold if you can’t get a chain or a fake gold tooth? Or maybe you’re still uncertain about the economy?” There I go, more economics lesson. Maybe I’m indeed, too old to understand. The teens laugh. I’m reducing this expense to rubble. Opportunity cost one, student zero.

“Well, anyway, Beats are for hip hop. These are for metal.”

“Oh, so now there’s a socio-musical-political underlying implication to this?” I’m happy because at least one student understands what I’ve just said.

The rest need coffee.

Or louder music to block me out.

We never resolve which headphones are best, or why, when they are not permitted in school, half the crowd buys lime green ones the size of Texas rather than the “stealth” ones with the bling, but I agree to stay after and listen to my cheap ear buds next to the Beats and the Skull Candy bling buds.

Because it is time, they advise, “for you to be educated.”

“I agree.” I say. “It’s important to learn something new every day.”

Building Bridges Instead of Burning Them–EdTechRI

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Shawn and HeatherI was teaching a unit that was boring. But it’s in the curriculum so I had no choice. I tried to chug it down and get on to something better. I gave the test. They bombed.  I don’t even like tests–In a few years, I bet we won’t even need tests–they’ll wear a Yankee Hat that will suck out their collective knowledge and send me a report.  I won’t even have to teach them because there will be an app for that too. Oh, how much money the tax payer will save!

All these apps are very cool–it’s what I’m trying to do–get these things into the classroom.  But sometimes looking around at the old and the new in classrooms makes me wonder if I’ll ever get to the Yankee Hat stage.

Yesterday, all that faded into the background. I was in the middle of an event designed to change the world. An event filled with rock stars, creating rock star vision. It was the EdTechRI Shark Tank Smackdown. Actually, I think there was a better name than that, but it was really the culmination of a year or so of work where we sat down and got key players together at the table to discuss the issues faced by educators and entrepreneurs system-wide. The bottom line, educators and entrepreneurs need a constant dialogue. By opening the lines of communication, we solve problems and get those solutions where they need to be most–to the teachers and the students who need them.

Last night’s event was beautiful. It was sponsored by the Highlander Institute, which brings blended learning (teachers using tech and traditional methods) and EdTech accelerator Socratic Labs, (they help ed tech startups develop so they can be successful) and housed at the very classy Rhode Island Foundation, which supports pretty much every good mission in the state.

photoThis event was special for me. When I started my tech journey approximately one year ago, simply by making a few Learnist boards and beginning to use them in my classroom, I never imagined it would end in my involvement with Learnist, EdTechRI, and the EdUnderground–in getting to work with some of the world’s best and brightest in the field of teaching and educational technology–in seeing both sides come together.

It seemed there was a disconnect–education on one side, and entrepreneurs on the other. School systems didn’t always get the best technology, and entrepreneurs certainly wanted to build it, but they sometimes lacked access to the feedback they needed from the classroom end. Teachers would say, “Oh, you’re a vendor.” Vendors sell stuff. Entrepreneurs and visionaries create stuff. Totally different. We don’t have vendors. We have visionaries creating critical solutions with cutting-edge technology.

In getting the sides together, Rhode Island is solving problems in education.  Some of the best platforms in the world need one or two simple tweaks to rock the education world. Teachers give that feedback. I’ve seen this first hand. It’s magic.  By getting the educators and the entrepreneurs together, we eliminate about seven layers of bureaucracy. We have the tough conversations we need to have about our commitment to engaging students and making education real–and better. By involving visionaries, creating bridges and partnerships with the best and brightest the teaching and technology worlds have to offer, everyone wins.

I looked around the room, and saw the picture.  My friend Heather Gilchrist, who mentors startups and has personally yanked me off a cliff on my own entrepreneurial journey. Shawn Rubin, who, though he doesn’t know it yet, is pretty much the face of EdTech in Rhode Island and will be on the forefront of this momentum nationally. My EdUnderground friends and antagonists. A room full of startups and entrepreneurs in various stages of development pitching their creations to smiling teachers and educational leaders, all  tweeting feedback on the board. A food spread that reminded me of classy seminars when I was in Corporate America. People laughing and having a good time. Business cards exchanging, entrepreneurs and teachers lighting up when they found the right match to discuss needs and solutions, and in general magic in the air.

And I got to come along for the ride.

To be continued…

 

If the Music Won’t Die, Neither Will I

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Screen Shot 2013-05-12 at 10.03.34 PMHaven’t run in a while–it seemed like a great day to get back. 80 degrees in Rhode Island. Sun. When I got home from work, the world was happy and everyone doing his thing–the perfect time for sneaking off for a pre-grilling workout. But…the iPod was on red. Deep red. Would ten a minute charge be enough? I need tunes–ten minute charge. Exit stage left.  I needed the run. I needed the music–the same three playlists that I listen to every run… helps my meditation, and helps keep me from running backwards. I always mean to change the playlist but never do. Sort of like half the tasks we all have hanging like fruit waiting to be picked from a tree that just hangs and never gets eaten.

The music lasted–It lasted and lasted till the end of the several mile run. It was like the Maccabees and Hanukkah in iTunes land–the music should have gone a tenth of a mile, but it lasted all five miles.  A miracle even if it wasn’t oil lasting eight days.

I ran and ran and ran–too far for a first day back. I lack moderation. The music played. That made me want to run some more. I did.

The iPod on red. Music played. I ran. The iPod had more in it than I thought.

Sometimes, we have more in us than we think.

I consider this year–a very good year. A year of transformation. New job, new business, new voice. Getting things done. Quite amazing. Every time I thought I had nothing more to give, I survived. I made things happen. I became a better person.  Exhilarating.

I ran and ran and ran and the music never stopped. Each time I thought it would, it continued.

I remembered a lesson from Chinese medicine. I studied for a few years, never achieving mastery, but I learned some life lessons. There was a point on a meridian, not far from the knee, called zu san li. It translates to “three more miles.” When stimulated, it helps invigorate the patient. It was useful in constructing the Great Wall–legend has it that by using this point to treat exhausted workers, foremen could get three more miles of work out of them before they keeled over and died.

Pushing and pushing can be a bad thing–sometimes we go three more miles and burn out.

But it can also be the thing that makes all the difference, taking us exactly where we need to go–through the wall, over the hump, and in the place where we need to be. To the glory.

So, I ran until I knew it was really time to turn around–a few miles too late. I headed back. I waited for the music to cease. It never did. I picked up the pace. I listened more. I sprinted the last half mile.

The music never stopped. It made it to the end.  Sort of how it always seems to work out that way in life.