Of Course It's Hard

     One of the things commonly uttered by many a young person is something along the lines of, "if it were right, it wouldn't be this hard." This is truly one of my least favorite sentences. It is uniquely idiotic, pithy, and unhelpful. How, you wonder, do I have the right to speak on this? I am one with a long history of being beset by this completely useless idea.

    I spent much of my angsty, angry, and lonely teenage and early college years held captive by the idea that hard was bad. I seemed often to be seeking ways to avoid difficulty. This, I believe, is quite common. It is, perhaps, a maxim, that when facing or contemplating the possibility that something will be unpleasant, it is logical to seek a way not to experience it. 

    Unfortunately for us, good things aren't easy. All kinds of harmful things come easily. It is easier to hit snooze than to wake up the first time an alarm rings (guilty). It is easier to eat sugar than it is to eat vegetables (or at least to enjoy them). It is more fun to spend money than to save it (for most). But any great endeavor has required endurance, grit, and an unequivocal commitment to completing the task. Everest was scaled, at last, as a result of this kind of attitude. The Sistine Chapel's ceiling took Michelangelo two years, and cost him his back's health. There are countless other examples of incredibly great lengths humans have gone to, in order to do things which were worth it. 

Fortunately for us, good things aren't easy. There is a beauty and grace that can only be encountered in the completion of something agonizingly difficult. 

A few years ago I happened upon a mind trick which has sometimes helped me flip my mind's natural tendency to shy away from unenjoyable things. Rather than asking myself "why?" I needed or wanted or ought do something, I began to ask myself, "why not?" This additional word served to reveal just how often my reasons for shying away from something are rather empty and selfish. "Why should I do the dishes? I deserve time to relax and watch a show." Why not do the dishes? Because I don't feel like it." A-ha! I have exposed a comfortable laziness which is all too easy to fall into, for me. 

My students need to hear these ideas. I find that I am often reminding them that the work we are doing or the lessons they are learning are not supposed to be easy. If it were easy, they wouldn't need me. Furthermore, if they don't understand something right away, there is not something broken or deficient in my students. They have simply not dedicated enough hard work to mastering or understanding the concept. To give up after an initial attempt is to believe in a lie or to allow oneself to drop something without really pursuing whether it is possible. 

I am not espousing a black and white ideology here. I am not a dualist. Things are not so simple as that. However, in looking at what has worked and failed in my life and others I have learned about and observed, there is simply no substitute for graft and hard work. The Brits would call this having "a stiff upper lip," or that people ought to "grin and bear it." There are endless idioms centered around this idea, and it is because it has merit. 

American culture is moving (often rightly) toward giving people permission to pursue self-care. However, it's important to draw distinctions between what this is, and what it not. Self-care is not a get-out-of-jail free card which provides permission not to do onerous tasks. 

In a group I go to, one of the adages we come back to when discussing concepts of right and wrong or reasoning out what needs to be done is this one: "The harder thing is usually the right thing." This is not a fun thing to consider, but not all of life is fun. There are so many tasks that require something besides ease and laughter, but, when completed well, can yield ease and laughter. 

So. To the phrase, "It shouldn't have to be this hard!" I reply, "Why not?" 

Homeschooled, now I'm a 5th Grade Teacher. #doesnotcompute

I've never met another elementary teacher who comes from the same background as me. Explanation
. 

    I am the seventh of eight children, each of us roughly 2 years apart, and all of us were educated at home by my mother, from kindergarten through the end of high school. A basic rundown of our day at home:

• Breakfast, from 7:30 until 8:10. 
• 8:10--Be at the table, ready to work.
• Since we were all in different grades, our math, science, and social studies content was unique to each student, and was completed individually. Think flipped classroom, but without the technology. Our textbooks explained concepts to us, and then we practiced. Assistance was available from older siblings or my mother. 
• We operated off of a core curriculum, which meant we all read the same exact texts together, even though there were at times 6 of us in school simultaneously. We took turns reading, studied for the exams together, and learned about all kinds of historical events, medical discoveries, scientific ideas, and Biblical teaching from the same source, regardless of age. It worked fairly well. 

  

  With a little less formality, this was us.

• An apple could be eaten at 11:30 (apple time!), yet work needed to continue.
• We all had a common lunch break, from 12:00-1:00. We could make our own lunches fairly quickly, which left the rest of the break for basement hockey, board games, endless reading, exploring in the woods behind our home, or whatever new hobby we were infatuated with. 
• Our afternoon went from 1:00-3:10, except on Wednesdays, when we were all able to attend volleyball, from 1:30-3:00 or so, with other homeschooled kids. 
• There was no such thing as completing my work and being done for the day (although I've heard rumors of families where this was allowed, much to my envy). Every time I completed core tasks, it was time to take up something else which could further my learning. 
• So, in essence, 6 hours of learning a day, with an hour of break time 2/3 of the way through. 

    Most public educators I know don't have a real idea of the resources available for homeschooling, or the different ways in which it can be conducted. And, to be sure, it can be done badly. For an overview of the different ways homeschooling is undertaken, here's a link. But then, how could public educators have any real idea of what homeschooling, private schooling, charter schools, or whatever other methods exist? Experience is the best teacher, it is said, and without it, little can be deeply understood. 

We aren't that weird. We're just different. 

So, why am I a public school teacher, having been homeschooled myself? And, do I regret being homeschooled in my entire pre-college life? What's more, how will my own children learn what they need to? 

1. I teach because it is the unique and best way for me to consistently meet, learn from, and have an impact on children. I am a Christian, and while I believe it's inappropriate for me to tell my students what I believe unless they ask, or to tell them what to think, I believe in living out my faith through my actions. I have learned so much from the precious and broken children I've had the honor of knowing in my nearly 6 years teaching. And, I hope my students have felt from me the love I have for them. Every day I seek to set my heart toward loving the children as they are, without qualification. I am quite imperfect in this, but I believe I must try. 

2. I don't regret being homeschooled myself. My experiences are unique, but I received a first-class education that prepared me for college quite effectively. I was not a shut-in. I had great friends, and opportunities to travel and serve around the country and even in Mexico. Although there are things I did not do, there are things my public-schooled peers did not do that I did. 

3. My children will be homeschooled, at least for now. And, my wife will be teaching, even though I have the education degree.

I believe in keeping an open mind about this and being attuned to the individual needs of each of my children, but there are so many benefits of homeschooling. 

I could flesh those out in another post, but for now just think about this: an average class size at the school I teach is 24 students. In a homeschool setting, it is never greater than 1. With enough effort and education, most parents can be the best teachers their children could hope for. They s

It's possible I stowed books in bathrooms for a little extra break-time...

tart out with an advantage over any public school teacher: they know their children better than anyone else. And, while this can result in some epic clashes, it can also yield abundant fruit.

So here I am, a paradox, a rarity, an aberration. Yes, I was homeschooled, and yes, I teach public school. Things are never as simple as they seem at first glance. 

It is Time (Or: Teaching is hard, but why?)

    It is hard to be a teacher. And it is not because I might catch a disease that could kill me (this is the least of my concerns, as a healthy younger teacher). It is because my pupils lack interest in what I am teaching, and their gaps are larger than ever. “Stop complaining and start being more interesting!” some thinkers might say. Listen. It is not enough to be entertaining, genuine, loving and kind. The challenges are so much more deeply rooted than in archaic teaching methods or boring content. The fact is, in any given year, of the six years I have been teaching 5th grade, the students’ abilities in reading, writing, and math vary immensely. I have taught non-readers to those far above grade level, children who know all their math facts and those who know none.

    This has been true from my first year, in 2016-2017, until today. I work in an urban district full of immigrant and low socio-economic families, but the last two years in particular have been noticeably worse. My students have less intrinsic motivation than ever. They rarely self-select activities, at home or in school, that are not attached to a screen. My efforts to motivate them and impress upon them just how integral knowing math facts and being able to read are often dismissed openly. 

    An anecdote: Noticing how distracted and unmotivated my class is, I remonstrate with my students about how the effects of too much screen time are well documented. They immediately contradict my statement. I rejoin, “Wouldn’t you want someone to tell you if, every day, you were unknowingly eating something poisonous?” “No!” They chorus. My shoulders sag in defeat. “Alright,” I say. “Clearly you know more than I do.” 

Photo by Tony Tran on Unsplash

    It is incredibly difficult not to retreat into cynicism and sarcasm in the face of such blatant lack of interest or respect for the ideas I am trying to communicate to students, even as the behaviors they’re exhibiting are understandable. What can adequately compete with the bright lights and dopamine hits all of my 10 and 11 year old students are experiencing each evening when they go home to their video games and cell phones?

    We are in the middle of the confluence of good intentions and bad ideas, to draw from Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff. Before the pandemic dawned, parents were already becoming increasingly restrictive of their children’s outdoor activity. During it, everything became hyper-restricted. With no good options for outdoor movement, most children turned to something their parents have thoughtfully provided for them: screens and media. Unfortunately, a neutral (potentially positive or negative) medium can easily become a destructive one, and it’s my belief that for a majority of young people that I come into contact with, the negative has become the normal.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

    For years I’ve noticed the difficulty I have getting into books, something I found effortless as a child. Only a few things have changed since then, my age and the plethora of digital entertainment opportunities available now. Since age is not generally an indicator when it comes to distraction, the clear impacting factor is my screen time. I have taken steps to be more intentional, but imagine the generation raised with constant technology! They often have no concept of the idea of technology-free situations.

It is time for the adults in the room to make decisions that will benefit our best hope for the future.

It is time for us to say no to constantly being plugged in, both for ourselves and for our children.

It is time to practice stillness and quiet, to model what we enforce.

It is time to prepare for the discomfort of our children being unhappy for what they cannot do, or do not need to do.

It is time to think more deeply, to strive more heartily, to embrace more fully the responsibility we have to our young people. They do not know what’s best for them naturally. It is up to us to inform them, teach them, and lead them into responsible and healthy living. It will be uncomfortable, but it will be worth it.

    Though it is hard to be a teacher, I love being a teacher. I will not give up, though there are moments when it seems I must. I will share my experiences, and I will listen to ideas that might make a difference. This is, after all, why I am in this job.