This morning I woke up from a dream that I was driving to school1 and suddenly realized that I had forgotten my lunchbox at home. Apparently that was enough of a jolt to wake me up.2
Which got me to thinking on the topic of recurring dreams — or rather, one in particular that still dogs me every now and then. Every time I mention this one around friends — particularly, friends in my approximate age group that are working jobs and are long done with school — invariably a bunch of them chime in with “OMG I GET THAT ONE TOO!”
It goes something like this:
I’m back in college, and it’s Final Exam week. (Both of those are scary enough, in and of themselves, no?) The kicker is: I realize I have a final exam THAT DAY for a class that I have somehow NEVER ATTENDED.
Yes. As in, “Uh I don’t remember having this class on my schedule EVER but WTF I have a final exam in it TODAY?!?”3
Feelings of intense anxiety ensue, basically it’s the end of my world, and when I finally wake up in a cold sweat, it feels like I’ve narrowly escaped an Alfred Hitchcock sketch.
Like, what the heck IS that?4 I suppose you could try psycho-analyzing it to say maybe we’re anxious about being unprepared for the next stage of our lives? Or that we feel like our lives are moving too fast? Or that maybe we’re forgetting something really important? Sigh.56
Interestingly, a friend pointed out that a bunch of the folks in our circle of friends who seem to share in this recurring dream are graduates of the College of Engineering at The University of Texas (at Austin).
Which — if you’ve been there — would actually explain a lot. :)
given that it’s my 5th day of summer vacay, this immediately classifies it as a nightmare [↩]
A couple of variations on the same theme that I’ve had: I have a final exam (as a student) and for some reason, I can’t find the classroom that I’m supposed to go to… or it’s the first day of school (as a teacher) and I can’t figure out which bus route to take to school. Yes, bus route. I can’t explain it either. [↩]
If you follow that link, do yourself a favor and “listen to the story”… the audio version has a good deal of statistics parlance that gets cut out of the print version.
Here’s a rundown over the significance of these sporting moments in history:
Bill Russell, 1969
The Boston Celtics were in their 11th NBA Finals in 13 years, led by defensive titan — and player-coach for the last two — Bill Russell. This last year, they went into the playoffs as the lowest seed, wounded, an old dog on its last legs. The Lakers1 had lost in the Finals to Boston six times, but were sure this would be the year as they finally had home court advantage. Yet Boston somehow managed to triumph in Game 7 of the finals IN Los Angeles.23 He retired that summer, walking off into the sunset with 11 rings.4
Coach John Wooden, 1975
The iconic coach of the great UCLA Bruins mens’ basketball team. 10 NCAA titles — seven of them in a row. A record 88-game winning streak.5 Announced his impending retirement in a 1975 Final Four post-game press conference, and walked off into the sunset after the Bruins bested Kentucky for the title.
Michael Jordan, 1993
People forget: Charles Barkley won the MVP this season, and some even considered him better than MJ this year. Jordan went on to beat him in the Finals6 to complete the Chicago Bulls’ first 3-peat. His father was murdered that summer, and Jordan announced his surprise retirement in October of that year.7 This would be one of those sunsets that sports fans everywhere were sad to see him walk off into…
John Elway, 1998
The Denver Broncos were for years the butt of Super Bowl jokes8 until Elway and the team finally pulled through in the 1997-98 Super Bowl. The picture above needs no explanation for anyone who remembers that game. His team won it all again the following year — 1998-99 — after which he decided to walk off into the sunset.
Michael Jordan [again], 1998
Post-baseball. Another 3-peat. The “Last Season” with Phil, Scottie, and Dennis Rodman. THE LAST SHOT.9 What would have been the storybook of all storybook sports endings.10 And another walk-off into the sunset.
Jerome Bettis, 2005
The Bus. The Pittsburgh Steelers. … … … To be truthful, I don’t have much back-story on this one. At this point, I was just Googling for athletes that retired after winning a championship, and he was a Pittsburgh icon that fit that bill. -_-
Kobe Bryant, 2010
Any real Laker fan knew that this was the end of the run for this group of Lakers. There was talk all season long that Coach Phil Jackson wouldn’t come back, and after exacting revenge11 on Boston in game 7 of the Finals, I really wish Kobe, Phil, Derek Fisher, Pau Gasol, Ron Artest, and the rest of the bunch would have just walked off into the sunset. It would have been the perfect ending.
There’s a reason that people like happy endings. There’s a quote I heard once,12 that says: “It’s better to leave too early than too late.”13
Did you ever wonder, as a kid, what happened in all of those fairy tales after the storybook endings?14 Well, there’s a reason the authors of those things choose to end their stories on a high note.15
The history of sports is littered with out-of-this-galaxy superstars who tried holding on to their glory years a little longer than the sports deities would allow. Sadly, Father Time — like gravity — is undefeated.
Last week I said goodbye to my students, which was rather tough. This week — through 3 days of staff development16 — I said goodbye17 to my coworkers, which was arguably even tougher.
Jump to the 5:25 mark in this video… Russell could barely compose himself in the post-game locker room interview [↩]
Jerry West of the Lakers — whose silhouette is the current NBA logo — had a triple-double that game, and won the Finals MVP — even though his team lost. That hasn’t happened since. [↩]
This included the 1959-66 OCTO-peat, which… let’s just say it: is NEVER gonna happen again. [↩]
If you’re curious, I heard it on SportsCenter, as the crew were discussing Ray Lewis’ incredible career [↩]
I recalled this quote earlier in the year, with respect to Coach Mack Brown. Really disheartening to see the way things ended for him at Texas. [↩]
I think — or at least I wonder if — that’s what this coming Fall is going to feel like. [↩]
On that note, I’m reminded of the final 5 minutes of the movie, “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”… -_- [↩]
which, in spite of my previous post, were actually enjoyable — kudos to the staff [↩]
Or — since I’ll probably see them around in years to come — “see you later” [↩]
It’s tough to properly elaborate the significance of being surrounded by a good team of teachers, but I will simply say that it cannot possibly be overstated. [↩]
Here’s the usual drill: Teachers come back for one day of work after graduation, and that’s it. We’re done, sayonara, hasta la vista, baby.
And today would’ve been it… were it not for ice-pocalypse.
Friday, January 24. The first of back-to-back A-days that got throttled (with another in February to follow).
As it is, we have two more days of professional development1 standing between us and freedom.
I can’t even begin to describe how difficult it is to get up in the morning for these days,2 especially when your mind & body have slipped into semi-hibernating summer vacay mode.
I also cannot even begin to describe how much stuff I have accumulated in my classroom3 over the years. The plastic container pictured above used to be enough to fit all of my belongings for the first few years.4
A few years back, I refused to buy a refrigerator for my classroom5 because I felt like that would’ve been the ultimate sign of surrendering any semblance of a life outside of that room. But had I known that I would have settled in and accumulated so much junk6 in my classroom anyway, I would’ve just bought the fridge and been happy. Oh well.
Under “normal” circumstances, I’d be able to at least drive this stuff over to my new campus and dump it somewhere… but with the renovations going on over yonder, I can’t even do that. So there will be boxes piled up in a corner of my living space until around August, which is when I usually start to slowly hit the defrost button on my brain anyway, so I guess that works out.
If you were about to get kicked out of your room7 and had 10 seconds to choose three items to take with you, what would you pick?
Yes, these are the kinds of you ask yourself8 when you spend an entire day of packing up and cleaning out your working quarters. On an absolute knee-jerk, I think I would pick:
It’s a comfy chair! Especially when coupled with the pillow…
Well, due to size and practicality issues, I’m not taking my chair, and I’m probably not taking the coffee maker either.10
So then I got to thinking — what would I substitute out for items 2 and 3?11 And I think both would be objects that have been in my classroom since Season 1.12
One would be a piece of “furniture” that… I won’t talk about.13
The second, strangely, is something that could so easily be replaced, but one that I am rather fond of:
and I think I have so many issues with the use of that phrase, but I may save that discussion for another lifetime [↩]
But I’ll try anyway! If you were a performing musician or comedian… I’d imagine its a bit like coming back out on stage for an encore… AFTER everyone in the audience has gone home… and then staying out on stage for another half-hour ANYWAY. It feels a bit pointless. [↩]
which has moved three times in the past 6 seasons [↩]
I lived pretty lean… until about the time I bought a coffee maker for my classroom. Hmmm. [↩]
Even though I had already bought a coffee-maker and a microwave [↩]
Well… I use the term “junk” in an endearing fashion… although a lot of the stuff truly is junk. [↩]
Disclaimer: This post is definitely not meant to be a gripe. And I sure-as-heck do not want to spark the slippery discussion about how teachers are paid — truly, I don’t wish to go there. Nor do I desire to discuss WHY teachers get into the profession in the first place.1 This is just a “random”2 thought I had whilst catching up with a former student at our high school’s graduation last night.
I’ve had two former students — on two separate occasions — recently ask me about my move to a new school next fall:
“Are you getting paid more over there?”
And that’s cute. =)
Because if you’re a teacher and/or know how teacher pay scales work, you understand: That’s not the way it works.
But that’s the funny thing.
The reason that question even gets asked is because that sort of thinking — that a horizontal move elsewhere somehow equates to a bump in salary — actually makes sense almost everywhere else in the “real world”.
As final exams wrap up, and all of the life begins to leave the room, and the lights get turned out for the last time, the finality of it all begins to sink in, and things can actually get a bit… sad.
Until it dawns on us that we’re finally FREE and not actually sad. =)1
This week our seniors will walk the stage and officially embark on the rest of their lives. Earlier this month, many of the students that I taught as sophomores in Algebra II during my first full year2 walked the stage at their college graduations. The flow of time gets speedier as we age, indeed.
The above shot was taken on Tuesday, May 29, 2012.3 That was at the end of a wonderful three-year arc which took me through Algebra II (regular and Pre-AP), Geometry, Precalculus, and — finally — AP Statistics. Thanks to that trek, more than a third4 of the students in my classes that year were “stuck”5 with me for a second — or even a third6 — time. But having some of those students for multiple years allowed for some really special times,7 and as such, having to watch that year finally wind down to a close was rather difficult.89
This year is also a tough one to close out, for obvious reasons. Even on the first day of school, I could already tell that I had been blessed with an extremely special cast of characters. Ironically, though, when you feel like you’ve had maybe the best group of students that you’re ever going to get,10 that almost makes it easier for you to say to yourself: “It can’t get any better than this… now’s the time to walk off into the sunset.”
I’m fairly certain that this kid (whom I have never taught) was trying to be funny with the “tears tears rolling down my face” bit
Perhaps the toughest part of leaving for a new campus is personally knowing some of the students that you’re leaving behind. In recent weeks, I’ve had about a half-dozen of them come by my classroom or stop me in the hallways to introduce themselves, and tell me how excited they were to be taking my class next year.11 I’ve had to fake a few smiles, fully knowing — sadly — that they would not be in my class next year. (This was all in the timeframe after I had finalized my transfer to a new campus, but BEFORE I wanted to break the news to any of my students12 )
One of the luxuries I’ve enjoyed for the past five or six years is that many of the students that walk into my classroom on opening day already know who I am, and — thanks to word-of-mouth and such — know what I’m about. I’m reminded of the old theme song from “Cheers” — “sometime you wanna go where everybooody knows your naaaaaaame”. Well that’s another tough thing about starting over in a new locale: I am literally going to a place where nobody knows my name.13
I don’t have a dog. But if I had a dog, even my DOG would tell you that I watch too much television. But my favorite TV show the past few years has been “White Collar”,14 and on an episode15 right before the protagonists take off for the Canary Islands, there’s a moment where Mozzie asks Neal if he’s ready to leave everything behind. Neal’s reply was a poignant, “I can always walk out that door, Moz. I can never walk back in.” Of course, Mozzie — being Mozzie — retorts by channeling his inner Orson Welles: “If you want a happy ending, it depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”
A few days after I told my students that I would not be returning next year, one of my most respectable kids came up to me near the end of class and said the following:
So… you’re going over there to teach Stat… but you teach Stat here. And [some] kids here sign up for AP Stat so that they can have you… … [insert slight pause] … and that kinda sucks for them. Do you just not care about any of them?16
And honestly, that kinda sucked the air out of me for a few hours. :( 17 But this just goes to show:
Even if the situation is right and the timing is perfect, saying goodbye is never easy.
Every Summer I try to embark on a “clear-my-head-before-the-new-season” trip.18Teachers need to travel.19
Upper-left: Big Sur, Cali. Lower-left: Grand Canyon. Right: Siena, Italy.
One of the things I spend time considering over the summer20 is a personal theme for the upcoming school year, which is usually a cheesy little moniker or catchphrase that — on a personal level — sums up my feelings for the campaign.
Next year will be “Season 8”, and while it normally takes some time of reflection for me to arrive at an appropriate title for the season,21 this one almost seemed too easy:
Right after the end of “Season 5”. This was actually taken the day after the last day of school. For those not aware, teachers actually have to come back after the last day of school for a mandatory day of work (or three, as it is this year — thanks to all of the snow-free ice days that we endured back in January), and in my opinion this is sometimes the toughest day of the year. [↩]
and while I put the word “stuck” in quotations in jest, I’m sure some of those kids genuinely felt like they got STUCK with me. [↩]
Two truly blessed students had me all three of those years, from Fall 2009 to Spring 2012 [↩]
On the flip-side, it’s true what they say about familiarity breeding contempt… towards the end of that year some of those students were not afraid to let loose with their attitudes after having me twice. [↩]
2011-12 was the year where 106 of our students took the AP Exam, with 103 earning at least a “passing” score. Numbers that good are never going to happen again. But as I’ve said before, the numbers on the AP Exam should not be the single most important thing about teaching an AP class. [↩]
Season 5 was such a tough act to follow. I remember how coming back the following August felt a bit anticlimactic, and getting off of the ground was difficult. [↩]
or perhaps, tied for maybe the best group with every other class of students that I’ve ever had… teachers don’t have favorites of course. [↩]
This actually happens a lot. Which, I think is weird, because honestly, I really don’t think I’m THAT great, but okay… whatever. :shrug: [↩]
I didn’t want students finding out about my impending move until after the AP Exam on May 9, which was a full week after the fact. [↩]
But honestly, those kids will all be fine. They’ll have another very capable teacher and everything will be just fine. [↩]
However, it was nice to find out that this kid thought well of me. That’s one of the things with teaching smart kids: You never know if they like you or if they think you’re a total tool bag (and it’s really nice when you find out that they don’t think that you’re a complete tool bag!) I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been surprised to get a note at the end of the year from a kid that was relatively quiet, telling me how much they enjoyed the year – I’m always like, “WHAT that kid actually liked me?!?” [↩]
which, this year is looking to involve Nessy and Stonehenge [↩]
which in some cases I don’t even come up with until AFTER the year is over [↩]
Well. This is THE END of this blog (or at least the current chapter of). As such, here’s one miscellaneous detail that never really found its way into any of my blog posts: my 404 page — which even the most vicious of blog-creepers have probably never seen — will tell you that I’m a big BIG fan of Chris Nolan. Cannot wait for “Interstellar” later this year. Oh, and with regards to the last picture above, yes, I know, the actual title of the movie is “How To Train YOUR Dragon”, but just go with it. Oh, and if you’re still scratching your head: the mascot at my new school is a dragon. [↩]
![[image courtesy of NPR]](http://www.brianyoun.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/m-m-1-new-fa630f8dc7bd9184a50ee5afa2770770e53ce747-s4-c85.jpg)
