Thinking about teaching perspectives

A flawed teacher leads students to believe that they will suffer the same way the teacher suffered, and that there’s no alternative.

A good teacher helps students learn to overcome the same challenges they themself once faced.

A great teacher prepares students to deal with challenges the teacher may not have personally experienced, but knows are possible.

Teeny Jedi

Button started fussing on the way out of Target. I paused in front of the automatic doors.

I saw an opportunity, since our little Star Wars obsessed 2.5-year-old cheers up as soon as you get him thinking about a galaxy far, far away.

“[Button], those doors only open if you use The Force. Can you open them for us?”

His arm shot out, elbow locked, and he walked forward. The doors slid open as he approached. Instant excitement. 

As we walked to our car through the parking lot, I heard him say something quietly to himself:

“I knew I could do it.”

There are definitely moments in parenting where we resort to deception. It doesn’t always sit well with me, but sometimes I have to pick my battles.

But there are times when a little deception can make a trip to the store for deodorant and toothpaste feel magical.

Small Seasons: Rain for Harvests

I recently stumbled onto a post about sekki, a division of the year into 24 small seasons from China and Japan based around the cycles of farming.

Living in Michigan, where seasons tend to feel a little fluid at times, the idea of seeing things in smaller chunks instead of four larger seasons appeals to me. I also like making seasonal playlists.

So I combined these ideas together. I don’t know if I’ll do more of these. I don’t want to pull a Sufjan Stevens and say I’m going to make 24 of these and stop at two. But for now, I’ve been enjoying this one. Thought I’d share it.

Reasons I like running

  • The endorphins help my brain work the way I want it to
  • When I focus on how my body moves, it pushes more abstract and/or irrational concerns aside
  • Being able to loosen up my body so that when I’m done, I can stretch in just the right way to pop that part of my lower back that gets sore by the end of the day
  • It reminds me to feel gratitude to my body for allowing me to move as freely as I do
  • It reminds me of the importance to make time to take care of this body to demonstrate that gratitude
  • It’s a time to disconnect from The Twitch of jumping from input to input
  • It creates a natural division; a nightly reset to clear the mental cache
  • It lets me believe that a little regular exercise might further delay the inevitable moment when I can no longer pick up my kids

I wanted to write these down as a reminder that these are reasons without numbers attached. Success isn’t about hitting some specific metric, but just staying in motion.

Being kind to myself can be enough of a goal.

The In-Between Moments

I needed something to do while waiting for my coffee to finish brewing. A fresh pot makes a good dividing line between tasks.

I chose to weed my reading list of saved articles. There was plenty I saved months and years ago that I never came back to.

I saw a block of articles I saved for a story or script idea I never took past the idea stage. They seemed oddly relevant to a completely different story I’m working on right now—one I was just about to start working on as soon as my coffee was ready.

I’m glad I took the moment to tidy up my digital life instead of searching and scrolling. I’m also glad I have a system, even an imperfect one, for keeping track of things that spark ideas.

Those moments between to-dos have the potential to be a rest stop, a detour, or an on-ramp.

It feels like a lot of the writing and writing-based work I do lately is all about collecting shiny things, trusting I can forget them for a while, and then pulling them back out when needed.