The Art and Science of Teaching

As I write this post, it is the afternoon of Saturday, June 10, and I am sitting in the CAJ plaza.

Yesterday was the last day of class for the school-year, and 24 hours ago, the plaza was packed full of students excitedly beginning their summer vacation and saying their goodbyes, sometimes cheerfully and sometimes tearfully.

Today, the plaza is empty and the school feels like a ghost town.  The only sound on campus is the leaves of the Sakura trees rustling in the summer breeze.

I am grading essays.

I will have grades finished up by Wednesday, and then I will embark on my summer curriculum planning.

Teaching is both an art and a science, and the longer I teach, the more I realize that I need to approach it from both angles.

Summer is the time when teaching is mostly art.  My curriculum is a canvas, and I get to dream big--imagine what I want to be on the canvas, and then spend time figuring out the hues, the brush-strokes, the shading.  Summer is a time when I am in no rush--I can think deeply about teaching as a craft; a painting to be refined; a sculpture to be chiseled just so.  I've compared my summer curriculum work to restoring an old car, or tuning up an engine, but whatever the exact analogy, summer planning requires an artist's hand.

The school-year is the time when teaching is mostly science.  The classroom is a laboratory, and with my students serving as researchers, we test the curriculum like a hypothesis.  Day-to-day teaching involves trial and error, the collection of evidence, the consideration of constants and variables to create precise conditions.  There are patterns to be discovered, theories to be proven, and new hypotheses to be made.  Regardless of whether the hypotheses hold true, we all step away having learned something.

Now I know that this analogy may feel overly simplistic, and of course, there are elements of science to the summer planning, and art to the day-to-day teaching, but the fact remains that to thrive as a teacher, I must be both artist and scientist.

Grading is where those facets meet--the place at which the art informs the science, and the science, in turn, informs the art.

Each happens in their season--it's a wistful feeling to sit in this empty plaza, but at the end of a school-year, I'm ready to return to the drawing board!

Graduation Blues

I've attended enough graduations now to know that I'll walk away from the evening with a strange, gnawing feeling, an odd mixture of joy and sadness.  Of course, graduations are bittersweet events, as much farewells as they are celebrations, but I believe that for teachers, the emotion is more complex than "bittersweet".

Perhaps the feeling defies definition, but I'm going to attempt to pinpoint why graduation is such a strange evening for teachers, anyway.

First of all, it is vital to understand that teaching has an element of "wash-rinse-repeat" to it.  We arrive at graduation night, only to reset to the start of a new school-year in August, with a new group of students.  It's not repetitive in the way that the movie Groundhog Day is repetitive--we teachers learn and develop our curriculum from year to year; each class has a unique personality; job assignments shift... it's not as though each year is a carbon copy of the previous one.  Yet, the cycle itself repeats and becomes intensely familiar with each passing year.

Years ago, I wrote a blog-post about how with certain traditions, time seems to fold over itself rather than fly by.   Nowhere is this more evident than on graduation night.

The event itself doesn't change all that much from year to year.  Here is what one can expect at a CAJ graduation:

• 40-55 students, clad in blue robes, will crowd around nervously in the school plaza, taking pictures with friends and family before the ceremony begins.
• We teachers will line up at 6:45 in the hall near the academic office before filing into the gym just before 7.
• The orchestra will play "Pomp and Circumstance" as the soon-to-be graduates march in.
• We will start the ceremony by singing the CAJ alma mater.
• The awards given out (and even the script for announcing the awards) remain largely the same.
• We will sing the same hymn between the addresses by the student speaker and the staff speaker**
• Five or six parents from the class will read the benediction in their native languages.  
• Everyone will exit the gym to the same orchestral recessional piece, and the same frantic process of chair-stacking and table-moving will take place, to set up for the reception.

**When our current graduation coordinator took over the job several years ago, and replaced the hymn we had sung each year with another one, it was a jarring feeling at first, but even that "new" hymn has settled in as a comfortable tradition. 

The structure of the evening is consistent from year to year, and each graduation night is full of familiar beats.

What changes are the faces, and this is, I think, the main reason why graduation night packs such a strange emotional punch.

Past, present and future all collide on graduation night in a packed gym for a whirlwind three hours.

The Past--the alumni who return from university, or even possibly jobs of their own.  Some have younger siblings who are graduating, but most gravitate back to CAJ in the hopes of reuniting with old friends, catching up with favorite teachers, and for a brief moment, stepping back into a community that was home for part, or all of their childhood.  They return full of stories to share, but the time is scarce, and the reunion, brief.
Last night, I spoke with several former students who had graduated in 2013, one of whom had been in my class as a freshman during my first year of teaching.
One of them remarked, "This must be your eighth or ninth year, right?"
"Yep, this is my 9th CAJ graduation."
"Whoa, so you must have been really young when you taught us."
"Well, how old are you guys now?"
"Twenty-two."
"That's how old I was when I came to CAJ."
My response was met with an odd combo of shock, amusement, disbelief, and "We're getting so old!"

I was also able to catch up with a few students who graduated last year, and who had finished their first year of university.  We wondered aloud where the past year had gone, as it felt like only yesterday that I had addressed their class from the podium as their commencement speaker (and singer!).

Outside the gym on my way home, I ran into a large group of alumni from the class of 2015 who were clearly delighted to be reunited with each other.  I wound up having a 20-minute conversation about the culture on college campuses in America and Canada before I realized that it was getting late, and I needed to go home.

I remember when these students were in high school, even middle school--it doesn't seem all that long ago--and enjoyed the opportunity to hear what they are up to now, however brief.  There's so much joy and satisfaction in hearing that your former students are thriving!

Nonetheless, I wasn't able to catch up with everyone.  I wasn't even able to say 'hi' to all of my former students who were there!  It was, for all intents and purposes, a glimpse into the past--a reminder of times gone by.

The Present--The students who transition from being seniors to being alumni at about 8:30 pm.  The honorees for the evening, it is downright impossible to have a real conversation or say an adequate goodbye in the packed and noisy reception.  The seniors scurry about taking final photos and hearing "congratulations" a hundred times or more before loading up onto the bus at 9:30 for a long drive to the beach to watch the sunrise--a tradition made possible by the Senior parents.  Although I miss each class, and each year, I struggle at first to wrap my head around the idea that they won't be around school each day anymore, I'm also filled with pride at what so many of them have accomplished and how so many have grown; filled with joy for the new adventure they are about to start.  Soon enough, they'll be "The Past"--part of the mass of alumni who flock back to CAJ for some future graduation for an all-too-brief reunion.

The Future--The Juniors--my current students, who, under the supervision of the PTA, are responsible for setting up for graduation, preparing and serving food, and cleaning up the gym afterwards.  In one year, they will be the ones graduating.  On Monday morning, I'll step into the classroom and they'll still be there--we have a couple days of class left to go before summer vacation officially starts.  However, I realize what they might not fully understand, that the next year will go by in a fraction of an instant, and soon, they'll be the ones walking across the stage.  Soon, they, too, will be part of the alumni throng.

Ask most teachers, and they will tell you that the school-year, as a whole, goes by very quickly.  In the blink of an eye, one year ends, the next begins, and the cycle continues at a break-neck speed.  The thing is, similar to the smooth velocity of a shinkansen, we don't realize just how fast we're going when we're in the thick of grading, prep, school-improvement, curriculum, collaboration and coaching.

Graduation night is where time catches up with us, where we watch life unfold in front of us, past, present and future, as though we were fast-forwarding through our favorite movie.

Maybe that's why I come home from graduation with a strange, gnawing feeling each year.  It's already starting to fade as I finish writing this post.
It'll come back, though, same time next year.

The lanterns are another tradition--a symbol of the passage of time.

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

As has become my tradition, I wrote a letter to the Juniors this week thanking them for the school-year that is now swiftly coming to a close. In my letter, I wrote that "a milestone year for a teacher means a more difficult year for his students"--I mentioned the year I met my wife, and the year that I got married as other examples of such "milestone years"; years where changes in my life affected my ability to teach--and thanked the Juniors for their incredible patience as I struggled to balance teaching and fatherhood this Spring.

Change is inevitable. I'm in a different chapter of my life now than I was when I started teaching, and I've changed, too. I see the world differently as a husband and father in his 30s than I did as a single guy in his 20s. I see my job differently with my Master's completed than I did before I started my Master's.

My circumstances have changed, and as a result, I'm nearing the end of an era, professionally.

I have taught every 11th grader since the class of 2011, and as a result have taught every student to have graduated from CAJ in the last seven years (with the exception of the few who came to CAJ as Seniors).

Moreover, from the class of 2012 on, I taught every student for either Humanities or English 11 (in the latter option, the students take English and U.S. History separately, with another teacher for history). For those years, I have been the only 11th grade teacher to see every student every day.

Two years ago, I became a department chair, a role I have been striving to grow into ever since. As the role of department chairs and the Research & Development team at CAJ have expanded, the expectations have expanded along with them. Next year, one period of my school-day will be set aside for departmental responsibilities, which I'm incredibly excited about!

However, this time will not magically materialize out of thin air--the trade-off is that I'm giving up my 1st period English class so that I have that extra period in my schedule free. I'll still teach two sections of Humanities (my two-period English and U.S. History blend), but giving up the "orphan" English class is a big change: I'll no longer teach all of the 11th graders. There will be a handful of students who graduate from CAJ each year who I will never have taught. Letting that go is an emotional thing for me.

However, this is the right time for that change.

Now that I've started looking at the bigger picture as the social studies department chair, I cannot help but think about our program as a whole. The ways in which our curricula fit together like puzzle pieces; the way everything builds (or at least, should build) toward our Senior Comprehensives--this kind of thinking fascinates me, and it makes me so much more conscious of my own teaching, and how my class needs to build on 9th grade World History and 10th grade English, and build to Japanese Culture-Global Issues (our 12th grade social studies) and English 12.

Having an hour each day to think, to meet with colleagues, to collaborate and plan--what a treasure that will be!

At the same time, I need to have one foot in the classroom. I would become bored and restless if I wasn't able to put my curriculum into action, and go through that exhilarating, never-ending process of refinement and adjustment, trial and error that comes with actually teaching the units and lessons I have planned. I would feel isolated and disconnected if I didn't get to work with the students themselves, sharing with them a love for words and cultivating a sense of justice.

Giving up 1st period English will be difficult, but the door it opens will make me a better teacher, and a better program leader. I don't know what the future holds, whether I'll ever go back to full-time as a classroom teacher, or ever pursue a full-time administrative role, but for now, having a schedule that allows me to work with students, colleagues, and curriculum is just right. This is where I need to be.

Although I'm sad to see this chapter come to an end, I'm excited for the coming chapter, and grateful to be working at a school where I can continue to learn and grow in new ways each year!

Adaptability

I enjoy being the Social Studies department chair.  It gives me a feeling of stewardship over the Social Studies curriculum that I simply didn't have before, and it helps to break down the mentality that I think can be so tempting for high school teachers, that our classrooms are our own personal kingdoms.  Looking at the big picture has pushed me to look at how our classes all connect, and where it is we are going.

Sometimes, this means being extra-flexible and adaptable.

We have been updating our standards this year.  Not a dramatic change, really--just updating to the most recent edition of the standards we already had.  However, this process has sparked discussions of tremendous value, and prompted some serious introspection on the part of the Social Studies PLC (Professional Learning Community).

We observed that each year, our Seniors tend to perform at a lower level than we would like to see on their political analysis for their Senior Comprehensives process, particularly in comparison to their cultural analysis.  We noted that while economic analysis had been another area of weakness, it has substantially improved with the addition of a popular AP Economics elective for Juniors and Seniors two years ago.

The reason for this gap has much to do with our international school setting.  Although we adhere to an American-style education in many respects, it simply doesn't make sense to teach an American Government course--a standard requirement for students in the US--when only a handful of students in each class have a U.S. passport.  In short, it can be a challenge to teach civics and the responsibilities of citizenship to a diverse group of students who may not feel much connection to the countries listed on their passports.

We agreed that a comparative politics course would be ideal, but limitations on scheduling make that impossible for the time being.

This is where my deep feelings of stewardship as the department chair kicked in: at the time of this discussion in late March, I was in the process of finalizing my April unit for my 11th Grade Humanities class.

I made the decision to scrap several of the activities and assessments that I had originally planned (revolving around the concept of the American Dream, and immigration to the United States), and instead created a week-long exercise in which the students would need to examine a current issue of their choice from a local, national and global perspective.  This would involve looking into the workings of governments and organizations at each level, and assessing the advantages and limitations of pursuing solutions at each level.

Because this was a last-minute addition on my part, it was an awkward fit in my unit on the American Dream, and I didn't have the time to prepare to do any real instruction or modeling of what this kind of analysis would look like.  However, I felt like the process itself would be valuable, even with minimal instruction up-front, and it was.

The students struggled.  I reminded them time and again that this was a formative, and not a summative assessment, something designed to build their understanding rather than issue a final judgment.  To this end, I weighted the assignment to be worth only one point in the grade-book, and adjusted the grading scale so that a '3' (Meeting the Standard) would be 100%.  The only reason I was putting it in the grade-book at all, I told them, was to hold them accountable for doing it.

Even so, the students struggled, agonized and wrestled.  This was something new for them, and for many, that newness was an uncomfortable feeling.  A number of students asked good questions as they worked:
Is this a national or a global organization?
What if the U.N. doesn't address my issue specifically?
What does it mean if there aren't any local groups or organizations trying to solve my issue?
Can I compare two different countries' responses to the same issue?
Isn't my issue just the symptom of a bigger issue?
How do I find out how a nation's government works?

I definitely didn't have the answers to all of these questions, but I enjoyed the chance to sit down and talk with students, and help them think through answers, or at the very least, where they could find answers.  Last Friday, when the write-up was due, I emailed the students telling them to submit the assignment regardless of whether it was complete or not, that they had done the mental legwork I wanted them to do.    I'm in the middle of reading and responding to the students' write-ups, and while they are far from perfect, I take comfort in the fact that the students are starting to think in terms of political implications, and that they are beginning to recognize the differences between action on a local scale, national scale and global scale.  I'm glad that I did this activity, and that when the students need to engage in this kind of political analysis in their Senior year, they'll have something to stand on.

Next year, I will rearrange my curriculum to make room for an entire unit on citizenship and action.  This is a need I'm committed to addressing; a gap I'm committed to closing.  Maybe someday, we will be able to require a full-year comparative politics course (hey, I can dream, can't I?), but for now, I'll look for ways to adapt, building on what the students have learned before, and building toward what the students need to do before they graduate.

Coupled with the massive change in my routine with a baby daughter in the house, I feel like I'm learning flexibility and adaptability left and right these days!

Atomic Café

In the seven years since I inherited the 11th Grade Humanities course, I have made some sweeping changes to the curriculum.  In the process, I have removed some activities, lessons and materials that I really enjoyed, but which did not have a clear connection to my course themes.  Other lessons and materials, however, have stood the test of time, finding their way back into my syllabus year after year.

Atomic Café is one such example.

I love teaching Atomic Café, but I feel like it has been only in the last year or two that I have gotten to the point where I teach it well.

For those who aren't familiar, Atomic Café is a 1982 documentary directed by Jayne Loader, and brothers Kevin and Pierce Rafferty.  Eschewing such popular documentary techniques as voice-over narrations and contemporary interviews, Loader and the Rafferties instead spent five years sifting through thousands of hours of archival footage from the 1940s and 50s: military training videos, newsreels, government propaganda, Duck and Cover drills, and more.  Exclusively using these old clips, underscored by a soundtrack drawn from Cold War and A-Bomb-inspired songs released in the 40s and 50s, the filmmakers put together a brilliant 85 minute glimpse into the early years of the Cold War, and the alternating enthusiasm and hysteria over a world with atomic weapons.

I learned through several painful years of even usually responsible students sleeping through the documentary that it requires extensive set-up and commentary on my part to ensure that the students appreciate and learn from it.

Context--not only on the Cold War, but also on the cultural climate in the late 70s and early 80s when the film was produced--is a must.  I now do this through a set of lecture videos that I assign the students to watch before we view the documentary; these videos do not go into great depth, but provide a basic framework for engagement.

I've also learned that while we are watching the documentary, I need to comment regularly on the strategies used by the filmmakers, pointing out what makes the best moments of the documentary so good.

One reason that I love teaching Atomic Cafe is that it is an incredibly layered documentary.  It fits well within our unit on Stewardship, Science and Technology, as it shows how society's faith in science and technology can shift and change, and as it emphasizes the importance of thinking for oneself, and not merely accepting propaganda at face value (something we discuss in an earlier lesson on Rachel Carson and DDT).

It is also a masterful satire, a dark comedy that provides laughs even as it tackles serious subject matter.  Deconstructing how the filmmakers manage this is a feat in film analysis as well as argument analysis.

Early in the documentary, the filmmakers use an audio track of commentators comparing the desolation of Hiroshima to "Ebbets Field after a double-header with the Giants."  These flippant remarks are played over footage of the rubble, including several shots of charred corpses.

In a clip of unedited newsreel, President Harry S. Truman can be seen laughing and joking with someone off-camera before suddenly becoming grave, to make the announcement about the dropping of the first bomb.

The jingle from the famous "Burt the Turtle" Duck-and-Cover tutorial is played over clip after clip of children diving under desks, couches, beds and teeter-totters.

A propaganda reel about fall-out shelters is inter-cut with a scientist describing how the intensity of the fire-storm created by the atomic blast would incinerate or asphyxiate anyone hiding in a fallout shelter.

And of course, there's the film's soundtrack--I make a point of printing the song lyrics for the students to refer to as they watch.  These songs have not stood the test of time, and come across as unsettling or ridiculous to modern ears.  Consider, for example, "When They Drop the Atomic Bomb" by Jackie Doll and his Pickled Peppers, released in 1951:

There will soon be an end to this cold and wicked war
When those hard headed Communists get what they're lookin' for
Only one thing that will stop them and their atrocious bunch
If General MacArthur drops an atomic bomb

There'll be fire, dust and metal flying all around
And the radioactivity will burn their playhouse down
If there's any Commies left they'll be all on the run
If General MacArthur drops an atomic bomb

Or this bit from Carson Robison's "I'm No Communist":

The bureaus and departments have been busy night and day
They're figuring out just how we gave our secrets all away
And Congress has appointed a committee so they said
To find out who's American and who's a low-down Red

These lyrics are strikingly played over footage of men in suits looking through a pumpkin patch and scrutinizing each pumpkin carefully.

Because the music at first feels seamlessly integrated with the clips chosen by the filmmakers, the viewer can easily forget that they were not originally paired together, and possibly miss out on the lyrics, so I intentionally draw attention to the music and the lyrics as the students watch.

This year, we followed up our viewing of Atomic Café with a discussion of what the filmmaker's point of view was, and how they managed to convey that point of view.  The students were able to identify the critique of government propaganda, the call to think for oneself, and the bleak perspective on a world with atomic weapons, and perhaps just as importantly, they were able to identify specific moments and strategies throughout the documentary that had revealed the filmmakers' point of view.  

Atomic Café can feel like a bit of a slog initially, with its grainy black and white footage, its lack of a guiding narrator's voice, and the degrees of separation that my international classroom has from post-war America, by virtue of time and distance.  However, with the right set-up and commentary, it can be a rich and engaging teaching tool.  I'm already looking forward to using it again next year!

Encountering Grace and Truth

We went into February 23rd with tempered expectations: after all, how many babies actually arrive on the due-date?

Tomomi's weekly checkup that morning seemed to confirm that we would be waiting a while longer, though perhaps not as long as we feared--the doctor told Tomomi that if the baby had not arrived by Sunday, they would induce labor on Monday.

Still, I was a ball of nervous energy at school that day, and checked my phone compulsively for the message from Tomomi.

My students seemed almost as jumpy as me--when I put on my jacket to go out and get lunch, one girl asked if the baby was coming.  Later, as I checked my phone, another student asked, "is it time?"

Tomomi and I had recently started taking long afternoon walks based on the belief that regular exercise might speed things along (and, if we're being honest, to help me burn off the nervous energy).  I came home at 4:15, ready to go for a long walk when I found Tomomi standing hunched, eyes closed, leaning on the arm of the couch for support, breathing sharply.  

"Contraction?" I asked.

She nodded.

"This is different than before, isn't it?"

Nod.

Half a minute later, she visibly relaxed, sat down on the couch, and tapped the screen of her phone.  I sat down next to her.

"They started earlier this afternoon." She pointed at her phone, on which she had been tracking the contractions.  For the past hour or so, they had been coming every 8-15 minutes.  

"I don't suppose you're up for a walk today?"

"I don't think so.  I need to finish making dinner, anyway."  Tomomi had been slicing vegetables for crock-pot curry when the contractions had started several hours earlier, and the whole process had become a start-and-stop effort since then. 

I offered to help, but Tomomi told me that she needed the distraction, that sitting and waiting for the next contraction was kind of scary. 

"Is it kind of like when you have the hiccups and you spend the time between hiccups worrying about the next hiccup?"  Before I had even finished asking the question, I felt foolish.  Had I really compared labor pains to the hiccups?

But Tomomi just smiled patiently.  "Yeah, kind of like that."

Over the next two hours, the contractions kept coming, though they were still between 8 and 12 minutes apart.  Each time a contraction would hit, Tomomi would stop what she was doing and take a knee.  By the time we sat down to eat, I had the distinct feeling that we were in for a long night.  

We ate Tomomi's delicious chicken curry and watched an episode of House on Netflix.  For the record, I do not recommend watching House when you are anticipating a trip to the hospital.

As we were finishing our dinner, we received a Facebook message from our friend and downstairs neighbor Kiko, who offered to bring us up a plate of pepper beef and rice.  This turned out to be sharp instinct on Kiko's part--she knew it was the due-date and that we might need extra meals soon, but when she came up to drop off the plate and saw Tomomi's face as a contraction hit, she told us that it looked like the real deal, and that Tomomi should take a bath and then call the hospital.  Kiko also prayed over us, which was a tremendous encouragement. 

So, I ran Tomomi a bath, and put together notes for a substitute teacher for the next day, just in case.  Afterwards, Tomomi called the hospital, who told us to be there by 9 pm.  I sent my sub request, and emailed my students to let them know I wouldn't be in school the next day.  Tomomi had already packed a travel bag for her hospital stay a few weeks earlier, but double-checked to make sure she had everything she needed.  

We then walked the 15 minutes to the hospital--Tomomi felt like she could handle that, and she powered through four contractions on the way, the first and last of which occurred precisely as we walked out the door of our apartment, as precisely as we arrived at the hospital, respectively.  

Friends had cautioned us not to be disappointed if we were sent home, whether due to false labor, or to arriving when the labor was still in too early of a stage to stay, so I mentally prepared myself for this possibility as the midwife monitored the contractions.  

After 30 minutes of waiting in the hall, the midwife summoned me back to a labor-delivery room, explaining that the baby was on its way.  She predicted that the baby would arrive by the next morning, "hopefully by 7am".  

The contractions were still 6-8 minutes apart, and the midwife's prediction was not terribly encouraging.  

The contractions became more severe, and the image I'd concocted of spending the night sitting at the head of the bed, holding Tomomi's hand soon shattered.  Instead, my job became to push forcefully against Tomomi's lower back during each contraction, as that was where the pain seemed to radiate from.  The midwife helpfully demonstrated how to time the pushing and how to coach Tomomi on the breathing, and this became my one valuable contribution--at first, every 6-8 minutes, but eventually, every 3-5 minutes.  I gained a new appreciation for the term "labor"--I cannot even imagine the hard work that Tomomi was doing, but I know that I worked up a sweat and sore muscles as I swiftly took my position at Tomomi's back with each contraction to push her lower back and try to help her through.  (And just to be clear, when I say 'push', I mean PUSHING with all my might.  I tried just pressing her back, but Tomomi made it clear right away that I needed to put some real force into the motion). 

The midwife returned just after midnight to check Tomomi's progress.  She was a stern, but patient and calm woman who looked to be in her 50s, and seemed as though not much could surprise her.  However, I thought I noted a hint of surprise as she checked the read-out from the monitor.  She explained that everything was moving along quickly and that the baby would arrive sooner than she had predicted. 

Several friends later suggested to me that the quicker pace meant that probably labor was a little bit more intense and painful than if it had progressed as slowly as the midwife had originally thought.  This realization gave me all the more admiration for what Tomomi accomplished.

Early in the evening, we were able to talk and joke between contractions, but it became clear after midnight that trying to lighten the mood with a joke would not be terribly helpful.  Instead, with each rest, I handed her water bottle to her, told her she was doing an amazing job, and prayed with her.  Eventually, there wasn't even time for that, and it even became challenging to catch my breath between contractions, myself.  

One time, when a particularly big contraction ended, we heard a woman in the room next door shrieking in pain.  Tomomi and I just looked at each other--was that what we had ahead of us?  Several minutes later, we heard a baby's cries coming from that same room.  

Tomomi managed to say "I envy her" before another wave of pain hit.  

There are a few things I'll never forget about those hours: how warm the room was (we agreed that it was too warm), how dry the air was (we both came away with scratchy throats), and the quiet classical music playing over the room speaker, which seemed so jarringly incongruous with the intensity of each contraction.  

At some point just before 2am, the midwife returned and asked me to wait in the hall while they set up the room for delivery.  I came back in, and four or five big pushes later, Emma Sophia Gibson entered the world, at 2:37 am. 

The first moment I saw my daughter was indescribable--I started crying almost immediately, and looked at Tomomi, who had a look of total joy on her face for the first time since labor had started. 

Tomomi looked Emma over as she held her in her arms, turned to me and grinned.  "Black wins."

We'd had a running bet about whether her hair would be black or red, and the odds weren't exactly in my favor to begin with (curse you, finicky redhead allele!).  To be fair, on later inspection, we realized that her hair was a dark shade of brown with some light brown streaks.  

I was then promptly ushered out to the hall, so that the midwife and nurses could check Emma over, and tend to Tomomi's battle-wounds.  

I Facebook messaged my parents and emailed my brother and sister, telling them her name and sending a picture I'd snapped as Tomomi held her.

When I was allowed back into the room, the nurses snapped a family photo of the three of us, and gave us some time with Emma, before taking her to the hospital nursery so that Tomomi could rest.  

The next few hours were surreal--we were both still feeling some adrenaline, and talked and joked about the labor.  Then, Tomomi began to nod off, and I sent out emails to friends, students, and the CAJ community.

Soon enough, I began feeling drowsy, too.  However, there was no place to sleep, and so I spent a tedious hour or so sitting in the overly warm, dry delivery room wondering what to do.  When Tomomi woke up, she asked a nurse if there was a place I could sleep.  Unfortunately, there wasn't--not without a prior reservation, and I wondered silently whether anyone could actually predict something like this enough in advance to make a reservation.  So, I kissed Tomomi goodnight, told her she had done an amazing job, and I was proud of her, and I loved her, before walking home in a stupor.

There's much more I could say about my precious Emma, but I really just wanted to write about the hours leading up to her birth--the labor and the delivery--before it becomes a blurry memory.  

I'll close by sharing the email I sent out to the CAJ community and posted on Facebook:

恵真 (Emma) Sophia Gibson was born at 2:35 am this morning, Friday, February 24!
She weighs 3046 g (6.7 lbs).

Her name has special significance:
We chose the kanji 恵 (pronounced 'eh'), which means grace, and 真 (pronounced 'ma'), which means truth. "Growing in Grace & Truth" has been our school theme this year at CAJ, and it is indeed what we hope for our daughter as she grows. Emma was also my grandmother's name, and she lived a life marked by grace and truth. It's a blessing beyond measure to make my daughter--her great-grand daughter--her namesake.

Sophia, we chose because we desire for our daughter to grow in wisdom, along with grace and truth, qualities we believe to be inextricably bound to one another. We also liked the sound of the name "Emma Sophia"--that was an English teacher thing ;-)

Mother and daughter are resting after a long night, and although I cannot claim to have done any of the hard work, I feel in need of a rest too. We are so incredibly grateful for all of your prayers throughout the pregnancy, and covet your prayers as we begin life as a new family of three!

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The evening of February 23rd and the wee hours of February 24th are a night I will never, ever forget.  I'm so grateful to God for bringing us safely through, and bringing Emma into this world.  Now begins the new adventure called parenthood.  I'm terrified, I'm ill-equipped, but I couldn't be more excited!

Our first family picture!

Emma-chan, 30 minutes old

Emma-chan, 36 hours old

Making the World a Little Smaller

It never ceases to astound me that as connected as our world is by modern technology, our classrooms can still feel like islands.

Several years ago, I read Curriculum 21 by Heidi Hayes Jacobs for a Master's course.  Jacobs puts forth a compelling vision of what education ought to look like in the 21st century, and describes what various schools and teachers are currently doing to make that vision a reality.  Naturally, technology featured prominently in several chapters, including the recommendation that communication technology be used to connect students with other people around the world.

I wonder how many of us have connections we simply haven't recognized.  Several years ago, while my brother was teaching high school math on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation through Teach For America, I had the idea to have him talk to my students on Google's video chat.  I hooked my laptop up to the projector, and he joined our class for 40 minutes to talk about his experiences.  In a curricular sense, the activity was an after-thought.  I hadn't prepped my students, and did not have a clear theme in the unit that I was teaching, other than "Native Americans have had it rough".  Fun as it was to bring my brother into my classroom from halfway around the world, I missed opportunity after opportunity to really make his virtual visit count.

We did it again the next year, and even had the opportunity to talk to several of his students, who were as curious to talk to a class full of international school students in Japan as my students were to talk to Lakota students in South Dakota.  That opportunity made the experience more meaningful than the year before, but again, the idea lacked sound curricular context.

After that year, my brother's contract with Teach for America wrapped up, and he embarked on his Master's degree.  I didn't think to utilize his knowledge and experiences again for a couple years.

This year, as my brother began to apply to law schools, having finished his Master's degree, he told me that one direction he was considering was to study Native American policy.  His time living and working with the Lakota people had profoundly impacted him, and it was clear that the plight of Native Americans today was still very much on his mind and heart.  Everything clicked into place in that instant.  In the two years since I had last invited him to talk to my students, I had developed a unit exploring issues connected to Agency and Victimhood, and it occurred to me that my brother would have keen insights into what agency does and does not look like for Native Americans today.

I was already planning to have my students examine slavery and women's suffrage as case-studies in this unit, and from there it was not too much work to carve out time for the historical and contemporary issues facing Native Americans as a third case study.  I had my students research and present on Lakota history, culture, boarding schools/assimilation efforts, contemporary social issues, political structure and modern day activism.  They presented in groups on Monday, and my brother talked to the students on Tuesday.

This was far more interactive than the previous conversations had been.  My brother started by briefly describing what he did during his two years on the reservation, but after that, the floor was open for my students to ask questions.  One student asked whether the government's heavy involvement was hindering the Lakota from improving their situation.  Another student asked whether or not it was right for the people to resist the government.  Another student asked what my brother thought the first step needed to be to effect real change.

The discussion was steeped in the thinking my students had done on agency leading up to this point, and this lent all the more weight to my brother talking about how his goal was essentially to teach himself out of a job, to see more Lakota aspire to become teachers.  He talked about the importance of humility when coming from a place of privilege, being able to put aside one's own agenda and listen and learn from those you are working with.  He talked about the complexity of the relationship between the tribe and the federal government, and the need for thought and care.

It was an organic high point to a unit that had been spent wrestling with complicated issues.

I would not have been able to teach my students what my brother taught them--I could lay the groundwork and guide the discussions along the way, but I have never lived or worked in a situation like the one on the Pine Ridge Reservation.  I needed somebody who had.

Herein lies the power of communication technology in the classroom: the act of Skyping with someone on the other side of the world, in and of itself, is fascinating and personally enriching, but it may not have inherent value to the curriculum.  However, if teachers are able to discern when and where an expert's perspective, or a first-hand perspective will complete the picture the teacher is trying to create in the unit, they ought to consider whether or not they know anybody who can provide that perspective.

Ideally, teachers will look for ways to make new connections and build a portfolio of human resources, but that is not where we need to start.  We need to start by thinking through the connections we already have, whether near or far, and then taking steps to make the world just a little bit smaller.