Advice from the Dogs

In May, we bid goodbye to our golden retriever Daisy, who had filled our home with love and our vacuum cleaner with fur for more than 14 years. Daisy didn’t ask for much – a pat on the head, a good meal and, always, her Beary. Daisy wasn’t a material girl – she longed only for a stuffed bear that she used both as a comfort toy in her mouth and a pillow for naps. If you walked by our house, you’d likely see Daisy lying by the front door, looking out on the world with Beary beneath her head.

         Our other dog, George, now has the home to himself. He has always required more space than Daisy, both literally and figuratively, since he joined our family in 2018. George likes to be seen and heard, and he has no problem with waking me up early on a weekend morning just to remind me that it’s time for breakfast. At 140 pounds, this Great Dane/German Shepherd/lab mix also makes it quite obvious when he wants to be in our vicinity, be it under the dinner table or in the middle of the living-room floor. And he is a very different consumer than Daisy was, which makes him an ideal target for holiday-season marketing.

         George prefers many different soft toys, and he likes variety. He has a toy bin that he’ll often knock over just to see his options. One moment it’s his stuffed stegosaurus, another it’s his stuffed Scooby-Doo van. Some days it’s a stuffed Seattle Space Needle, and other days it’s a stuffed Dunkin’ Donuts to-go coffee. Of course, he has his bones and antlers. But mostly, he is all about options, which leads our two college-age daughters to make far more BarkBox purchases than any family really needs. Because really, who wants to disappoint George?

         We live in complicated times, and we’re all figuring out our own ways to get by. George isn’t scrolling social media or reading a morning paper to figure out his place in the world. He’s just looking for some people to love and pay attention to him, some good meals and long walks, and a whole lot of toys. Needless to say, he enjoys the holidays.

         I can’t relate to a desire for BarkBox toys or stuffed bears. In general, there’s only so much I can learn from George and Daisy and their priorities. But I do see a value in simplifying my world and focusing on the things I can control, then giving those items my full attention and dedication. A quarter of the way through this 21st century, I recognize that the number of voices clamoring for our attention is more than anyone would find truly healthy. The author Jenny Odell writes in her book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy that “if we have only so much attention to give, and only so much time on this earth, we might want to think about reinfusing our attention and our communication with the intention that both deserve.”

         Odell writes about living in a “third space,” where we engage with and resist the attention economy at the same time. That might mean asking the three questions that Yale scientist and professor Laurie Santos recommends before using our phones: “What for? Why now? What else?” These three questions can help us decide where our priorities will lie before diving into the endless number of internet messages yet again.

         This doesn’t mean I’m shifting from caring deeply about the world to cuddling with a stuffed stegosaurus. It just means I am considering the value of thoughtful decisions about attention and focus. “Attention — what we pay attention to and what we do not — renders our reality in a very serious sense,” Odell writes. Engaging with the world on our own terms – it feels revolutionary in a way. At least radical enough for a New Year’s resolution.

 

Labor of Love

During the summer of 2017, I decided to cut down a tree stump by hand. My lawn is on a hill, and a stump grinder couldn’t get up there without potentially damaging our retaining wall. So for a good part of the summer, I hacked away at the stump myself, using an ax, hatchet, handsaw, shovel, sledgehammer and wedge. When I finally gave in and asked some folks from a tree company to finish the job, they ran into all kinds of problems, as the rocks and dirt deadened their chain-saw blades. 

So I finished it all myself, continuing my stubbornness by cutting it down by hand - until a neighbor finally handed me his chain saw and told me he couldn’t watch it anymore. I combined my tools and his to finish up, and before summer’s end I had a stump-less hill, ready for sodding. 

That was my last summer off, as the following year I made the move from teacher to administrator. There would be no more time for cutting down stumps. I would be getting my hands dirty in a different sense, through an assistant principal job that required grit, perseverance, humility and commitment.

Speaking metaphorically, I chopped a lot of wood and endured a number of challenges during the next six years, both on the job and off. The loss of a principal. A global pandemic. A teen mental health crisis. The loss of my father. An Alzheimer’s diagnosis for my mom. A family to care for. A doctorate to complete. And, of course, the day-to-day challenges that come with helping to run a school. 

My focus every day has been to make myself present for students, colleagues, parents, community members, family and friends, and to keep thinking of new ways to support my school, community and loved ones. The work of school leadership is never easy, nor is the work of being a friend, father, son and husband. But by leading with love, humanity and forward-thinking, I have tried to be of use.

Tomorrow, I will step into a high school as principal for the first time. There will be challenges I can expect, and others I can’t even dream of. Some days it will come at me fast and furious, and other days I will find some space to breathe. I am ready for this step, with gratitude for the opportunity. I’m thankful for those I have worked with so far, and for those I will work with in the months and years ahead. I am inspired by the family and friends whose lives have touched mine, and I’m stronger for the lessons I have learned in life.

One of those lessons is to delegate a little better than I did in the tree stump days, and to pace myself a bit. Another is to never, ever give up, and to commit myself fully to making a difference. It is time - time to start another uphill project. Yet this one surely feels like a labor of love.

 

A Principal and a Rivalry

             In recent days, I have become the Johnny Damon of central Jersey education.

            For 20 years, I have worked at Westfield High School, a secondary school in Union County – first as an English and journalism teacher, then as an assistant principal. But starting July 1, I will be the principal of Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School, a secondary school in the town next door to Westfield. For many years, the two schools have been archrivals in athletics, with huge student turnouts whenever they play each other.

            And now I’m moving from one to the other. I’m by no means the first educator to do such a thing, and we certainly have plenty of similar examples from sports as well – one notable move being the New York Yankees’ signing of centerfielder Johnny Damon after he had led the rival Boston Red Sox over the Yankees en route to ending Boston’s 86-year World Series drought.

            I recall the headlines of the Yankees’ signing and thinking to myself, “How am I going to root for Johnny Damon?” He had symbolized the rivalry, and was going to have to shave his famous beard and long hair to comply with the Yankees’ facial hair and hair-length policies. But once he showed up in the Bronx, Damon was fully committed to the Yankees, and by 2009 he was helping lead them to a championship as well.

            When folks have asked me about my own rivalry switch, I have shared that the high school I attended had the same nickname as Scotch Plains – the Raiders. And when I got to college, I attended a university whose heated rival, Duke University, shared the same nickname as Westfield – the Blue Devils. So based on my formative years as a student, I don’t expect to have much trouble rooting for the Raiders and against the Blue Devils. The difference will simply be that I’ll know and care deeply about the students and coaches on both sides. I can think of far worse things than that.

            And the principal of Westfield High is a dear friend and mentor, so I’m sure we’ll figure out fun ways to handle big rivalry games – who has to treat the other to lunch, or who has to wear the other school’s gear, based on the outcome. She’s also shared that she really looks forward to beating the school with me there. So, all right, bring it on.

            Becoming a school principal carries with it tons of challenges and opportunities, and I am preparing for those with a complete and dedicated effort. I think all of my colleagues and students – in the past, present and near future – care more about what I bring to the table as an educational leader than the reality of my rivalry switch.

            In the end, Johnny Damon was a baseball player, first and foremost. And he played with class and determination. I guess I could do far worse in comparisons.

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.

The Dream School

             We were holding a brief assembly for our 12^th-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.

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.

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 21^st-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.