Tuesday, January 30, 2024

The Issue of Their Lifetime

            I am not an expert on climate change education. I am, however, a veteran teacher and a citizen of this world. And it seems clear to me that we owe our students more discussion of climate change in the classroom.

            It is the issue of their lifetime, and we are not talking about it – not in most classes, and not in a lot of places. Even though 2023 was far and away the warmest year on record, even though the 10 warmest years on planet Earth have all occurred in the past 10 years, and even though we experienced the warmest June, July, August, September and October in history this past year, we are still not really discussing it.

            In a representative survey of more than 1,000 adults conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, researchers found that 65 percent of Americans say they rarely or never talk about global warming with family and friends, while 35 percent said they discuss it either occasionally or often. And yet, 65 percent of Americans said they are somewhat worried about climate change, with another 29 percent saying they are very worried about it. On top of that, more than 10 percent of Americans said they are feeling down, depressed or helpless because of climate change.

            We see stories about climate-related crises all around the planet, and we notice things that just don’t seem right in our own region, such as being able to go for a run in shorts multiple times in January – in New Jersey. We hear people refer to climate change as an existential crisis, which doesn’t really make anyone feel better about it all.

            But for many of life’s most difficult questions, we can find hope in the classroom. New Jersey was the first state to provide state climate change instructional standards, and no, the standards are not geared toward indoctrination. They are geared toward analysis, evaluation, collaboration and solution-seeking – in other words, student-centered learning. These standards offer teachers and students the chance to learn together, and to prepare to take leadership roles in addressing this issue.

            The Yale and George Mason climate change communication programs provide a wealth of resources for educators and for all of us. One of Yale’s educator resources is titled “Five Facts, Ten Words,” and the lesson breaks down climate change in five two-word phrases: “Scientists agree. It’s real. It’s us. It’s bad. There’s hope.” Many of the additional Yale sources connect data to storytelling, which is in many ways what scientists are trying to do as they examine our changing climate. Resources such as these pull away from the existential dread and move more toward honest discussion, concern and solution-seeking.

            I look forward to seeing more and more schools follow guidelines such as these, and offer students the guidance and exploratory space to seek out the solutions their generation will need to lead us forward. I hope to see additional professional development offerings so that teachers feel prepared to do this work. This is not about pushing an agenda; it is simply about doing right by our students. As they explore climate change more with their teachers, our students will gain the language and the confidence to look this crisis in the eye and talk about it in ways that genuinely help them, and us.

Sunday, December 10, 2023

The Dream School

             We were holding a brief assembly for our 12th-grade class, supporting them with whatever college-related information they still need at this point in the application process. In the assembly, our counseling department included a video clip of New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, who wrote an influential book a few years ago titled Where You Go is Not Who You’ll Be. The book, which I have referenced many times with parents and students, addresses the degree to which characteristics such as character and work ethic end up meaning more to success in life than the specific college we attend.

            I believe that my life has lived out that premise, and I believe most of us would say the same. But so many of our seniors and their parents have their eyes set on a specific dream school, and they often find themselves feeling as though their goals will only be met by gaining acceptance to that school.

            As Bruni was just starting to make his point in the assembly, the sound cut out on the video. I was the one working the projector, so it must have been my fault somehow. Having read the book and talked about it frequently, I figured I should try and summarize Bruni’s point. I took the microphone and did just that, then added my own personal experience.

            I shared with the students that in the spring of 1989, I was valedictorian of my high school class and applied to many elite universities. I assumed that with my grades being what they were, I’d receive many acceptances. And yet, none of my top five choices accepted me. I “settled” for my sixth choice, an outstanding state school, one that many students – including some of my friends – had tagged as their dream school.

            I shared that when I arrived at this college, it quickly became clear that this was a better fit for me than any of those top five choices. I told the students that six months into my freshman year, I would have definitely turned down an offer to attend any of those “top” choices. I recognized that this school was the place for me, and that my senior-year dreams had been grounded more in illusion than in reality.

            My college, nestled in the dreamy town of Chapel Hill, N.C., was inviting me to study really hard, but also to stroll the downtown area and shop for CDs and cool T-shirts. This campus was providing me with superb classes but also with tons of extracurricular activities. I joined the school newspaper, and journalism quickly became the focus of my undergraduate years. The school wanted me to be a student who could excel on a final exam, while also contributing to the greater good of the town and the world around me. I was expected to work into the night on a research paper, yet also wait in line all night to get Duke-UNC basketball tickets.

            I told my story, and the students heard me, I guess. One colleague told me that when she asked students later how the assembly was, one student shared that Dr. Hynes had told a really depressing story about getting rejected by all of his colleges. {Sigh.} I am sure I did the best I could in the moment, especially considering there had been no plans for me to speak at that moment. I have shared this story of my college rejections many times with students, and it usually goes over well and leads them to feel less anxious about the process. I’m sure it did on this day as well. But I reflected afterward about some ways I might tell it a bit differently.

            I think I would start with the metaphor of life as a marathon. Because, after all, some students do not find their ideal fit in the first semester of college. My story speaks to the idea that we can find that fit even when we don’t think we have it. But in reality, it might take awhile for that to happen. Some students transfer, some find a better fit in their graduate school than in their undergraduate school, some need a gap year before going anywhere, and some find that not attending college at all is the best fit for now. The larger theme here is that our lives do not typically unfold exactly as we thought they would in December of our senior year. But it may take some patience and perseverance before we find the right track for us.

            I have two daughters who are commuting to college right now. Neither would tell you that these schools are the perfect spots they were dreaming of in senior year. But they would likely tell you that these are the schools they need right now, and they are grateful that they can drive 30 minutes from their home and attend a world-class university. The words “dream school” or “best fit” would not come up in their conversation with you, but they would tell you that they’re narrowing down their interests within their majors and they are growing as learners and as citizens of the world.

            They’re still early on in the marathon, with so much more ahead of them. Like the students I spoke with last week, they’re still figuring it all out. And our Gen Z students do not need anyone to tell them that everything works out perfectly, as per plan. They’ve witnessed enough horror in their short time on this earth to debunk that myth.

            Like most of us, they’re going to respond to the opportunity to listen, learn, share and grow. They’re in search of hope for their own lives and for the greater good. They want some fun, some joy, and some intellectual challenges. They might like a cool college logo on their sweatshirts as well, but that logo represents more than cachet. It symbolizes the fulfillment they hope to gain in this life, at this stage of the marathon and in the stages to come.

            So yeah, I would go a little deeper if given another crack at speaking to the seniors. Even so, I think they got the point in my shortened version. Hang in there, and don’t fret if your perceived dream doesn’t pan out. There are more possibilities out there than any of us can count. Where we go as human beings – that’s how we figure out who we’ll be.

Friday, November 10, 2023

The Teachers of PS 39

           They were always together. Chatting in the hallways, sharing lunch in the break room, socializing outside of school. They were technically colleagues, but in essence they were more like family. It was just a small elementary school in northeast Staten Island, but they made it feel like home.

My mother was a teacher, and for most of her career she taught at Public School 39 in the South Beach section of Staten Island. She taught whatever the year required – third grade, fourth grade, music, you name it – and she did so with joy. I spent plenty of days visiting her in the school, and I witnessed the deep connections she made with students. Those visits had plenty to do with the decision I made to become a teacher myself.

But I was always fascinated with the relationships my mom built with her fellow teachers. These people weren’t all the same in terms of personality and interests. Yet they cared deeply about one another and knew all about one another’s triumphs and struggles. They all came over to my house, for my mom’s annual St. Patrick’s Day party, and for regular visits. I spent time in their houses as well, getting to know their children and becoming close with some of those kids. My mom organized Broadway trips, and the teachers would travel to Manhattan together for dinner and a show.

As I grew up, these women became some of the most important adults in my life. One of them delivered a reading at my wedding. Another became a trusted mentor. Still another gave me one of her old cars to serve as my first set of wheels. These teachers paid me to work at their houses, painting walls and raking leaves. They invited us to their Jersey Shore homes. And, when my parents retired to Cape May, they all made pilgrimages down there to spend time together. My parents returned the favor, visiting their retirement homes everywhere from Connecticut to Florida.

For most of my teaching career, I was hesitant about growing too close to my fellow educators, out of an attempt to maintain professional boundaries. It’s true that I did become an administrator in the school where I’d taught, and I found myself supervising people with whom I’d worked side by side. But that happens, and I’ve found that it is possible to supervise a friend. Over the years, my boundary-setting left me missing some of what my mom and her friends had. It’s as though I ignored the very thing they were modeling for me all along – the reality that the best friends you make in life might just be the ones teaching across the hall from you, toiling by your side in one of the toughest jobs anyone can choose. When you work in a school every day, you develop a partnership with those who care about it as much as you do, as you bond over a mutual understanding of how much compassion and dedication go into this job.

As my mom’s Alzheimer’s has progressed, these teachers have made their way to visit her in the assisted living home where she now resides. The teachers sit with my mom and talk, and she listens, sharing her wish that she could remember all the times they have spent together. They hug her tight, and tell her they love her. My mom does the same. Nothing can take away the love they have for each other. The teachers call me on the phone as well, and ask me for updates. When we finish, I tell them I love them, too. Because I do.

They will be there for my mom throughout, because that’s the only way these PS 39 teachers know how to operate. And I will be there for them as well, because that’s the least I can do to honor the friendships, the family, the inspiration, and the kindness I have received from these very special educators and humans.

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Seismic Changes

             I began my teaching career three months before the turn of the century, at a time when the baby boomers were starting to retire and bipartisanship was still a thing. We looked forward to a millennium of changes beyond our imagination, in education and in the world at large.

            Three years into my career, the 21st-century educational changes began. No Child Left Behind ushered in a seismic shift in education. Standardized testing, school accountability and educational standards became required, unquestionable aspects of every state and district’s educational landscape, and the use of data to evaluate school success became a fixed part of how we run schools. It took years for school districts to adjust to this method of evaluation, and many are still struggling to produce data that reveal a quality commensurate with the education that district leaders believe they are seeing in the classroom.

            Change can be exciting, but it also can be all-encompassing. In their classic scholarship on organizational leadership, Lee Bolman and Terrence E. Deal describe four frames of leadership – the structural frame, the human resource frame, the symbolic frame and the political frame. A seismic shift in education hits all four frames at once. No Child Left Behind, for instance, altered the very nature of what schools do (structural), the job requirements of educators (human resource), the messages we send about educational equity (symbolic) and the fixes legislators had made to that inequity (political). For institutions as complicated and bureaucratic as school districts and school buildings, a seismic shift takes a lot out of everyone. After all of the meetings, professional development, and readjusted lesson plans, we hope we’ve found a way to pivot toward improved education for the students we serve.

            Another seismic shift arrived after the Newtown, Conn., mass shooting of 2012, this one focused on much stricter school security. In the first decade of the century, yet another seismic shift began as both smartphones and social media arrived in students’ lives, bringing technology into our classrooms every minute of the day. And a fourth shift took place over the course of the first two decades of the 2000s, as many colleges maneuvered toward higher tuitions and lower acceptance rates, thereby turning the promise of higher education on its head and leading to a near-obsessive student/parent focus on the K-12 finish line.

            All of these shifts led to countless research and policy changes, as well as deep challenges to the daily lives of educators. We know that big changes are coming in our careers, and we know that rigidity will be of no use. But we do hope that these changes can be spread out a bit, so as to make the essential job of educating students more manageable. Four huge changes in 20 years was a lot. But it was actually easy to handle compared to the past several years.

            In this last 5-10 years, the frequency of seismic changes has increased at a pace few could have expected. While I identified four such changes over my first 20 years as an educator, four more have fully developed over the past half-decade or so. For one, we have a mental health epidemic affecting our children, which existed before the Covid pandemic and continues to exist after it. Two, we have ever-increasing polarization that leads to intense divisions and lines in the sand on virtually every topic you can find. Third, we have rapid increases in the development of artificial intelligence, coupled with a widening mistrust of source material. And fourth, we are expected to produce quality education in the midst of catastrophe, whether it’s from infectious disease or climate-induced crises.

            In essence, these four current shifts are challenging the very nature of wellness, the very nature of truth, the very nature of learning, and the very nature of survival. With changes this wide and deep and disturbing, it’s no wonder some are choosing not to pursue careers in education. These are tough times all over, and the classroom is no exception.

            My doctoral dissertation focused on two tough yet critical topics in education – media literacy and racial literacy. One day, while I was conducting my research in an eighth-grade classroom in New Jersey, students were discussing sources related to immigration. In a small-group conversation, two boys offered differing views on how much is too much when it comes to U.S. open-border immigration policies. When we gathered for full-group discussion, a third boy from that group quietly shared that he’d been listening to his two friends as they had disagreed over whether this country should accept more immigrants. He said he heard both points of view, he believes both classmates to be really good people, and he was having trouble determining who was more correct in their points of view, and what to do about it.

            We listened to this student, and the class quietly reflected on his point. He was addressing an issue that has no quick fixes. And yet he was listening, learning, and sharing. He was engaged in respectful conversation with his peers as they studied up on the topic. He was ready to keep learning and talking about the issue. He wasn’t shying away from it, but he also wasn’t expecting easy answers.

            Bolman and Deal’s four frames were all on display here: the structure (student-centered learning); the human resource (respectful discussion and discovery among peers); the symbolic (democratic learning with free exchange of ideas); and the political (fearless entry into the tough topics, with mutual respect). This was just one conversation, for sure. But for me, it shone a light on an educational path that can seem dark and foreboding in 2023. Just as seismic changes can hit all four frames, so can collaboration and our commitments to learning and growing together.

The changes are abundant and they are overwhelming. But I have to figure that if these kids can find a way forward, one step at a time, so can I. And so can we.   

Tuesday, July 4, 2023

Opportunity and Obstacle

             For the past two years, I have written far fewer blog posts due to the reality that I was working on my doctorate. A doctorate is by no means a requirement for educational leadership; many of our school leaders have no Ed.D. at the end of their titles. In my case, I just felt that the doctoral training could help me more fully understand the intricacies of the educational landscape. So I did it.

            And it was hard work. After two years of coursework and dissertation-writing, I have completed the journey. I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to being called “Dr. Hynes,” but the title was not the point of this. It was all about deepening the lens through which I view this incredibly challenging, yet fulfilling, profession.

            A big part of this doctoral journey is researching, writing and editing the dissertation. My dissertation addresses the intersection of media literacy and racial literacy. I spent hours visiting with middle-school students, talking with them about how media literacy tools and media sources influenced their thoughts about tough topics. I’m hopeful that I added something of value to the research on these topics. The dissertation link is here, as it was published just last week.

            When I began this doctorate, I was able to share the details of the program with my parents, who as always were supportive and very proud. They had, after all, nurtured my brother and me into strong students and lifelong learners. Three months into the doctoral program, my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Six months into the program, we lost my dad after he suffered a massive stroke. Over the past year and a half, my brother and I have tried to honor our dad’s life in appropriate ways, while also managing our mom’s care. We have had a lot of help along the way.

            As I began my dissertation defense, I shared with my committee that I was dedicating this dissertation to my parents. My dad was no longer here to read his son’s work, and my mom was not able to absorb this research and remember it. Yet they were still surely proud of me as I began the defense, and I stood on their shoulders as I successfully defended the dissertation.

            Life brings with it both opportunity and obstacle, sometimes simultaneously. At age 52, I am a doctor of education. At the same time, I am mourning the actual loss of one parent and the gradual loss of another. It’s my job to navigate all of this – to honor and care for my parents while also using their inspiration and guidance to fuel my modest attempts at making a difference in this world. It can feel like a lot sometimes, but it is life. And I can do it. That’s how my parents raised me.

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Thomas Grant Hynes

             My dad was one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. He sported an SAT above 1400 and combined a quick wit with wisdom and integrity. He grew up poor and never forgot what that felt like. He lived in a house that wasn’t always loving, and he never forgot that, either.

            He served his country in a war that was deeply complicated, and few people welcomed him home upon his return. For most of his career, he didn’t care too much for his job, but he clocked in and supported his family in spite of that. During my adolescence, his struggles with alcoholism peaked and tore at our family, and he found sobriety at just the right time. During the last 25 years of his life, he dedicated himself fully to service, making amends many times over by caring for his family and community.

            As an English teacher, I see his life in many of the books and characters I’ve taught. Like Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, he could be too smart for his own good and was a bit lost at times in his youth. Like Huckleberry Finn, he was abandoned in some ways by his father but found his moral compass just the same, with help from two peers who became his lifelong best friends. Like Tim O’Brien in The Things They Carried, he was haunted by the shadows of Vietnam long past his service time.

            Like Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, he stuck with a career even though it didn’t give him as much as he gave to it. Like Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, he was observant, reluctant to judge others in public, but quietly judgmental in private. Like Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, he always remembered to look at things from another person’s point of view. And like Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, he grew throughout his life in taking action to support his neighborhood, community and society as a whole.

            It’s not possible to fully express a man’s life in one blog post; that’s not what this is about. I’ve been grieving my father’s death since he passed a few days ago (a stroke took him from us suddenly, at 78 and full of activity – house projects, travel plans and volunteer work, not to mention serving as my mom’s caregiver). I’ll keep grieving in the ways that fit the often-complex nature of father-son relationships in late-20th and early-21st-century America. My dad had incredibly positive and negative impacts on me at different times in his life; he made up for it more than I can ever express; I forgave him completely; and I continue to assess which parts of him I am proud to exhibit in my personality, and which parts I’d like to work on shedding.

            I’m a school administrator now, and in that role I find myself often reaching for the most impressive part of my dad’s character – his ability to stay cool under pressure. So many things happen in a school every day, and administrators strive to remain calm, reassuring and present-minded as the crises mount. My dad, who was never able to stop sweating the small stuff, was actually always capable of handling the big stuff. In that way, he reminded me of a character from one of the first movies we saw together – Han Solo in Star Wars. I was just six years old, but I can remember talking with him the whole ride home about how great that movie was. And in his best moments, my dad could manage the moment with the grace and wit of Han.

            One of the most frequent crises I see as an administrator is the constant pressure students feel to reach the highest levels of excellence between ages 14-18. Secondary education has become all about preparing oneself for the college application process, with both students and parents fretting over what each high school class and experience will mean to the arbiters of admission, who will supposedly alter each student’s life with either acceptance or rejection.

            My dad, like a lot of people I know, did not peak in high school. Nor did he peak in college. He didn’t even peak in his 20s, 30s or 40s. I’d say he had a heckuva run in his 50s, 60s and 70s, and found more of his potential during that time period than ever before. To me, that makes more sense – you develop your character and work ethic early on, then figure the rest out as you go along. There is nothing my dad did or failed to do at age 16 that defined his life; it was a collection of decisions over 78 years that did so. High school and college were just a sliver of it all, and honestly the best things he did during that time were paying attention in class, keeping his head up amid struggle, and meeting his best friends and my mother.

            We carry many role models in our lives, for a variety of reasons and purposes. If we’re lucky, our parents’ presence remains with us beyond their lives and serves to guide us forward. I am raising two teenage daughters who have made it clear that I was not the only adolescent to feel angst toward my father; they’ve got plenty of that at this very moment. But I know that they’ve also got a lot of love as well. And I hope that the pieces of my father that made me a better man are somewhere inside those girls, adding some rays of light to their life’s journey.

Tuesday, August 17, 2021

The Power of Small Steps

             I recently finished a belated reading of Samantha Power’s gripping and inspiring memoir, The Education of an Idealist. As she describes her tenure as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Power attempts to describe just how many crises exist in the world at one time, and how hard thousands of dedicated U.S. personnel work to address all of them.

            While describing the steps she tried to take for women’s rights around the world, Power mentions the Afghan Women’s National Cycling Team, which had been banned by the Taliban but had been able to get back together in 2011. Power writes that some men would yell at these women to get off the road, and some would even grab at the women while they rode past. When she spoke about these athletes, Power would ask her audience to think about the impression they left on others:

            “Imagine just for a minute what it must feel like to be a little girl from a rural town in Afghanistan – and to suddenly see those forty women, in a single file, flying down the road. To see something for the first time that you couldn’t have believed possible. Think about where your mind would go – about the shockwave that image would send through your system. Think what it would allow you to believe possible. You would never be able to think the same way again.”

            Like many people, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about all that’s been happening in Afghanistan in recent days. I pray for the people of this country, and I of course think about the women and girls, as well as those who are not Pashtun or Sunni, and those who worked alongside troops from the U.S. and other nations. I hope that those who wish to leave will have a flight out of the country and that those who wish to stay will experience more equality and equity than they did 20 years ago.

            There are so many aspects of these past few days to despair over, particularly with regard to concerns over human rights. Place all of this on top of the other despairs we’ve had in our lives and minds – the ever-evolving virus, our changing climate, debates over social justice, a polarized U.S., disagreements over the very nature of the truth – it has already felt like too much, and now we add in images of the Taliban in power again.

“Even committed, motivated people felt overwhelmed by the gravity of challenges in the world,” Samantha Power writes in her book, “from climate change to the refugee crisis to the global crackdown on human rights.” Power adds that she worried about people falling into a “doom loop” in which they’d choose to do nothing but despair because they couldn’t solve all these problems. But she adds, “Whenever my own thoughts about the state of the world headed toward a similarly bleak impasse, I would brainstorm with my team about how we might ‘shrink the change’ we hoped to see.”

            Power chose to adhere to the theory that big problems can be solved by a series of small solutions. Even when this takes years or even decades, small steps are made. A friend advised her, “The world is filled with broken places. Pick your battles, and go win some.”

            This week, as many eyes focus on Afghanistan, Power – who now serves as administrator of USAID – is working along with many others to provide relief to those devastated by the earthquake and storms in Haiti. Another crisis, with yet another nation in peril, and some are choosing to shrink the change, through whatever small solutions they can find.  

There are individual steps we all can take to help just a bit, to try and move the needle toward the greater good. In my own headspace, that is seeming like a better path than a doom loop.

            “People who care, act, and refuse to give up may not change the world,” Power writes, “but they can change many individual worlds.”