When Kids Make You Tear Up

I am going to admit that this is one of those posts that rambles a bit. I am not sure exactly where I was headed, but I felt compelled to write about this, so I did. - JK

"Are you crying?"

That was a question posed in my classroom a couple of weeks ago. And yes, it was lobbed my way. Actually, I was not really crying. I just had a little moisture on my lower eyelid that resembled a tear.  If you had been in my room, you would understand.

At that point, I was laughing so hard, water fell out of my eyes. One student had just completed a reading of his Spoken Word Poem, a masterpiece titled "Mr. Kohls". One of the kids looked up at me and queried, "Mr. Kohls, are you crying?"

I answered honestly. "I've teared up several times this hour." Why lie? It was their fault.

We were wrapping up our poetry study as the school year wound down, and I had challenged my honors sophomores to pen a spoken word poem which they would then present to the class. Of course, "Do we have to say it out loud?" was the first question. I am not sure what part of "spoken word" the student was missing, but I answered, "Yes, but I won't make you stand up."

"Oh, ok then," he responded. It was the easy. As long as he didn't have to stand up, it was all good.

My kids are weird sometimes.

At other times, they are amazing. That day, I told them to get out their cell phones and place them on top of their laptops. I then told them to leave them there was we left the room and headed out to Crusader Field. I was going to lock the door, and everything would be all right. We were going outside, and we were going to write, on paper, with pencils. We spent the next 45 minutes scattered around the green turf and maroon endzones, kids sprawled out on the surface or leaning up against up against the goalposts. And, for the most part, they wrote. When one student said he could not come up with something to write, I told him to write about that. One young lady asked me to read what she had started; it was a piece on how the world might change if we didn't have cell phones.

"The room is lit up like a blazing fire had just been ignited.
But not a single light switch is turned on..."

Some would not let me see what they had written, while others asked me multiple times to check out what was scrawled on the notebook paper. One class was even a little late getting to their next hour because we lost track of time because they were into what they were doing. On the way inside, Raegan thanked me. When I asked her what for, she told me it was the longest she had gone without looking at her phone in as long as she could remember, and she felt good about that. She had written more, and better, than she had in a long time.

(On a side note, I geek out about tech in our classrooms. We are 1:1 laptops, and I love it. We are nearly paperless. I let my kids use their phones to do things in class, and I let them listen to music when they write or read. On this day, however, I felt like leaving it all behind was worthwhile.)

The next day, my second hour begged to do it again.

Now, I won't try to tell you that each and every one of the kids produced a masterpiece worthy of high literary praise. and not every topic was earth-shattering, at least not on the surface, but they were their topics and their words, and not a single kid balked at producing and presenting. Some of the pieces stood out, however, and, yes, they caused moisture to collect across my bottom eyelids.

One young lady wrote about how horrible she felt as she thought of having to present what she had written to our class. Her voice quivered as she began to deliver her lines, and her eyes never rose from the page that shook in her hands. She uttered one of the greatest lines I have heard as she personified her anxiety:

"He is the weight on my back telling me to stand up straighter as he holds me down."

She finished, and as she took a deep breath in the silence before the first class member started the traditional snaps, I heard someone across the room whisper, "Wow." The activity for the day would not appear explicitly anywhere on a state assessment report card, but it was a victory, not just for Emma, but for so many of the kids who had a chance to shine that day. The girl who wrote that family is not everything, at least not for her, because her family situation is something she must overcome, the boy who penned a piece about his social anxiety and presented for the first time all year in any class, the multiple young ladies who wrote about doubting their self-worth because they question whether what they see in the mirror each day will be seen as pretty. I am not sure if it is because I am the father of a daughter or because these girls are truly good and beautiful people who should never doubt their value, but that one bothered me. One student wrote passionately of the love she has for music, painting a picture of little girl dreaming of being a lead singer in a rock band, only to discover that she couldn't sing. Another wrote of her love of 'home': 

"Home-grown

Like a seed planted in the soil

Watered and weeded

We grow taller and taller

Our buds aching to find the sun

Twisting around to be graced by the bright

Warm

Light

But still anchored firmly in the ground..."

One poem was inspired by Hakuna Mutata of The Lion King fame, and another explored the importance of eye-contact. One young man wrote about the feeling of hurling pitches from the mound while another penned an ode to the weight room. I could go on and on. The topics were as diverse and wide-ranging as, well, the personalities of the people I am blessed to work with each day.  I was given a brief glimpse into the hearts of some of these kids, a little shutter flash that many struggle to allow. It makes them vulnerable, and for some of those kids, that is the last thing they want to feel when they come to school. If they are going to let me in, if they are going to sincere and genuine with me, I owe it to them to be same. So, if I tear up listening to them read, I am not ashamed to let them see that. My "football coach" status does not preclude me from letting them see me as vulnerable. It is not always fun or easy for me, as was put on display when my fifth-hour seniors demanded I read them the poem I had handed them just before class ended on their last day, a piece titled "A Letter to my Seniors". I wasn't planning to read it outloud to them because I knew I would struggle to make it, but when Tiffanie said, "Hey, you made us read our stuff," I had no way out. They deserve my sincerity. Every one of my kids does.

And they continue return the investment many times over.

The PLN at Our Fingertips

In the last year or so, I have had the distinct pleasure of taking part in something that invigorates me as a teacher and supplies me with a seemingly bottomless treasure chest of resources and motivation as I try to work more effectively with my students. If this was an infomercial, now would be the time when the enthralled host would breathlessly utter "And what magical experience would that be, and how can our viewers get in on this?" The answer is simple: I discovered the modern tools to help me develop my PLN, or Professional Learning Network.

Before you click the X in the corner of the page and abandon this page, let me beg you to bear with me just a little longer because "WAIT! There's more!"

I am proud, and a little embarrassed, to be honest, to say that I am a 2016 Kansas Teacher of the Year Semi-Finalist. This program has allowed me to spend several days visiting the districts of truly talented teachers from around central Kansas. We get to ask each other questions, laugh together, learn what the world outside of our classrooms looks like, and explore the different ways we can work with our kids each day. It has been an amazing experience. Getting together, talking about what they do, learning from one another, and exploring ways we can continue to stay connected even after our tours are over has been a gift. These are amazing teachers and people: why wouldn't we want to stay in touch and continue to draw on one another to become better at what we do?  Without the KTOY program, I probably would not have met these exemplary people. I am truly blessed to have this opportunity to become part of this circle, to be able to build my Profession Learning Network. Everyone should have this chance.

On the way home from Council Grove after our last tour, I commented to Jenn Keller, our elementary KTOY nominee and fellow Semi-Finalist, about a fact that struck me during this process. I coach football as well. Actually, the way I look at it, I have the pleasure of having multiple classrooms where I get to teach: Room 202 upstairs at BHS, the weightroom on the north end, and the practice and game fields where our boys play. Something is different though. As coaches, the PLN, while not called that, has been the basis for success and growth for ages. Coaches have been developing and building PLNs as a natural process and never think twice about it. Coaches seek out one another. If Bo Black runs a no back, no huddle system before everyone else in Kansas does, then Coach Warner makes a trip to Great Bend after we move to Buhler and they discuss how they do it, and more importantly, what might stop it. Coaches in Wichita mention how their LBs read the zone, and Coach Warner and I drive down to NW Wichita after school one day and talk football for three hours. Wisconsin runs the power play to perfection in the Rose Bowl, or Kansas State abuses defenses with run-pass options, so we get on the phone and set up ways to pick the coaches' brains about what they do in their programs.  Coaches talk, and if more than three are in a room for more than 12 minutes, a dry erase board is going to turn into what might look like a modern art piece as plays are drawn upon plays and defensive counters are diagramed out and adjustments are made.

And yet, a recent attempt to draw teachers from neighboring districts together in an effort to share, learn, and support one another was met with everything from skepticism to outright rejection. That is frustrating.

The desire to share and be a part of a bigger community of positive thinkers and innovators is present in all great professionals. Teachers are no different. In 2016, we have incredible opportunities to do just that. It is literally at our fingertips.  We can connect, not only with those teachers in our districts, but throughout the state, across the country, and beyond all borders. Thanks to some of my colleagues, I have been thrown into the community pool of Twitter Chats, Voxer, and the like. And, I can honestly say, "Come on in. The water is fine."

Thanks to these tools, I have, at my fingertips, the ability to not only share my thoughts, but to tap into the gifted minds of thousands of educators who have different experiences, varying resources, altered viewpoints, and extraordinary imaginations. Sometimes, this simply allows me to renew and recharge. I have selected three Twitter Chats that send up smoke signals for what is becoming my professional tribe (outside my hallway, building and district, which are still a source of terrific pride and energy. I am blessed to teach in Buhler): #leadupchat, #ecet2, and #ksedchat. Each one has its place, and I was drawn into each one by different people. One Monday, I was having a truly Monday Monday. I was grumbling, I was dark, and I was frustrated. I did not even intend to take part in the #ksedchat discussion that evening. However, at 8 pm, I opened up my tweetdeck, and took a glance or two at the feed over the next 10 minutes or so.  Soon, I was reading about how Ts (Teachers for those saving their 140 characters) engaged reluctant students. The ideas were flying, and commitment was clear. A couple struck a nerve with me, and I read more closely. Then I was engaged. At 9, I was disappointed it was over. I felt so much better. I could actually breath easier. My jaw was relaxed. And I began planning anew for the week.

Our district has been discussing how we can use Twitter Chats to help teachers develop and grow. The question was posed: Do Twitter Chats really offer anything more than a chance to toot our own horns? That is a legitimate questions. Twitter is, after all, SOCIAL media. What real good can come from it?

The answer is simple. Growth. Several weeks ago, I commented on a picture that Greg Froese (@Froese89) had taken while his seniors read poetry outside on the football field. The irony of the Thoreau-esque activity taking place on artificial turf was not lost. Shortly after, Suzanne Rogers, an AP English teacher from Arkansas had commented on the photo and asked if I had seen how "Thoreau" the rapper Macklemore had gone on his last album. She sent me a link to a video. BOOM. Lesson on Romanticism that will relate to my students today (after I edited 2 words from the video). Last week, I connected with a teacher who will be speaking a two ComiCons and a national social studies conventions on the topic using comics to teach history (and many other things). I had shared that we use "Walking Dead Mondays" in my English classes to help draw in students who might not otherwise be interested in plot development or character motivation. The discussion was during an #ecet2 edchat about engaging boys in the classroom. How am I, a lowly teacher in central Kansas, going to exchange ideas in an immediate fashion with a creative teacher who will be speaking to multitudes at the nation's largest ComiCon in San Diego? Guess what? I am doing it regularly now when I see the lessons he is teaching posted on Twitter.  Just this Saturday, I saw a comment on my Twitterfeed about distict Twitter Chats. I replied to the poster. Her response? "DM me, and we will chat." So I did, and we did. In between stops at garage sales, she enlightened me about the process she and her district has explored in using this tool to help their teachers and district grow. We can use this expertise in our own journey. The teacher, Ms. Denko, teaches 3rd grade in New Jersey. We might have crossed paths at some point without Twitter, but the odds are slim. I don't get to Jersey much.

Great, you might say, for you English teacher nerds. But wait. There's more. I recently set up Coach Warner's Tweetdeck. I had found this little Twitter Chat called #MeshPoint, which focuses on option football. That's right: we can even geek out about football plays.

It goes beyond Twitter Chats. This week, Dr. Randy Watson, the Kansas Commissioner of Education, spoke to me. In his voice. Ok, he was speaking to many of us, but he spoke to us. I was added to a group on Voxer that is pulling together Awesome Teachers from across Kansas. Dr. Watson has replied and even liked a couple of my comments on #ksedchat. He is a regular participant. He doesn't have to be, but he is. That means something to me, as he is a part of a positive and energetic town hall meeting of educators from across Kansas, not once a year or leading up to some election, but nearly every week. We have several Voxer groups in our district at this point, each one with a particular aim, from team communication to student celebration. It is just beginning to take off.

This is an exciting time in education. It is so easy to read the headlines and grow jaded and frustrated with how our state's leadership seems to be trying to tear us down. However, we owe it to our kids to keep growing, and in turn, help them to do the same. We do not need to wait for the district to approve the funds (which are being held up in Topeka) to send a group to some conference. We do not have to wait for a PD day speaker to lift us up and energize us with new ideas. Those activities have their place and are valuable. But we have so much at our disposal. We just need to tap into them. The PLN is out there, waiting for each and every one of us to "contribute our verse."

The Powerful "Why Not?"

I have a slight problem. Not quite an addiction, but quite possibly a compulsion. On Twitter or Facebook, or even in everyday life, if someone quotes a movie line, I feel the nearly irresistible urge to follow up with the next line. If Rob Hedrick, a friend who lived across the hall at Baker, posts "You will report to the stables tonight and every night at precisely 1900 hours" I feel obligated to follow up with "And without that pledge pin!" If Lacy Pitts tweets, "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?" it is my obligation to reply, "Germans? Forget it. He's rolling." Oh, and, unfortunately, I have recited, word for word, "I, state your name..."

In short, I am "that guy".

However, not all is lost. Something good has come from this. To quote Bluto in response to the question "Pinto? Why Pinto?":

"Why Not?"

That short, explosive line has become somewhat of a battle cry.  It has allowed me to take some risks, and it has given me the freedom to step outside of the proverbial box. It has become a mindset, at times. 

I am blessed to work with some incredibly talented people. Steve Warner is a top-notch as they come on the football field, and I have had the good fortune of working with him for 12 years and counting. Several years ago, we had a tough football player that we needed to get on the field. He was not one of our top linebackers, and he was only about 160 pound soaked in the mud he carried with him from the field at Topeka Hayden. I remember commenting to Coach Warner and Kevin Ruda, our defensive line coach, that I wished we could put the kid, named Austin Ortiz, down on the defensive line, just because he was so tough. Their response? "Why not?" So, a 160 pound, tough, wiry kid lined up across from 260 offensive linemen, and he beat them. He recovered two fumbles against Hayden in our playoff victory on their field. He won all-league and all-state honors. Why? Why Not? The next year we decided to look for another player to fill that bill. Austin's brother, Levi Boman, a 2nd-team all-league free safety the year before, slid into a three-point stance. Why? Why not? First Team All-league and all-state honors. State semifinals. In the 2013 season? Scott Whitson, a 165 pound wrestler who had lined up at corner up to that point, wreaked havoc on offenses from the 2 tech position and helped raise a State Championship trophy. Why? Why not?

The talent pool of teachers I call colleagues is even deeper than just talented coaches. In the ELA hallway, I have an amazing mix of creative and passionate teammates from which to steal ideas on a daily basis. This afternoon, Greg Froese and I were discussing the "Gimme 5 Challenge" he was completing, which asked for two of his greatest accomplishments this year. He was including the Ideal Human Prototype lesson and our Sonnet Throwdown. I value the opportunity to collaborate with Greg on a daily basis. Greg makes me a better teacher, in part because he supports my "Why not?" addiction. A few months ago, Greg talked to me about this Ideal Human Prototype idea he was developing, and I loved it. I told him I was game to use it in my senior English class too. Why not? I came down a few days later with an idea that had come to me in the truck that morning and asked Greg what he thought about applying the IHP idea to Sweet 16 March Madness bracket of literary figures. His response: "Why not?" So we did. The depth of the conversations and the passion of the arguments as Atticus and Batman, Katniss and Han Solo battled through the brackets was impressive and exhilarating. When I told my classes as they worked on team rotational sonnet writing that Mr. Froese's classes had challenged them to see which class was more talented (they actually hadn't, but my classes responded as I had hoped), and my students took up the challenge, Greg and I collectively asked "Why not?" Thus, the Sonnet Throwdown was born. At this moment, the final rankings are in a sealed envelope held by Price-Waterhouse, and the trophy will be awarded at the BHS Has Talent Show on April 20. Even the trophy was basically a response to "could you somehow create a trophy?" One "why not", some collaboration with the ag-mech teacher, some time on the plasma cutter, and application of the talent of Josh Potter later, our trophy was complete.

This afternoon, I was visiting with Janea Gray, our Media/Tech Specialist. She had come to my room this morning with some ideas for "Poem in Your Pocket Day" next week. We tossed out an idea of a Hit and Run Poetry Slam in the LMC on Thursday. My honors sophomores seemed interested. Mr. Knapp thought his juniors could jump in. So, when we weighed whether we should try to make the idea into reality, Janea and I came to one conclusion: why not? If it tanked, all we were out was a little time and the effort it would take me to move back a couch or two. I am excited to see how it goes. It should be a blast. Why wouldn't I be excited? 

Why not?

Why wouldn't I try something new?

Why wouldn't I try to go a full week without complaining?

Why wouldn't I take part in a new Twitterchat?

Why wouldn't I choose to be positive if I possibly can?

Why wouldn't I sign up for EdCamp?

Why wouldn't I try to be a better, happier, more effective teacher?

"Why not?" indeed.

"The whistle of a boat..."

Lost

BY CARL SANDBURG

Desolate and lone

All night long on the lake

Where fog trails and mist creeps,

The whistle of a boat

Calls and cries unendingly,

Like some lost child

In tears and trouble

Hunting the harbor's breast

And the harbor's eyes.

The poem above one of my favorite by Carl Sandburg. How this verse came to introduce this post might be somewhat rambling, but I am going to go with it This is how my mind works: I read an article shared by a colleague on Twitter about the importance of teaching emotion as part of literature study. More on that later. The post made me think of some "emotional moments" in my classes that were particularly meaningful, and sometime painful. The day a young lady burst into tears as we read The Road, a visceral reaction so honest and sincere that she could not control it. The days when leave the lights down for a few moments after the last scene and lines of "To This Day", partly to let the kids mentally swirl the experience before we come together as group, but partly to allow the kids, male and female, to wipe away tears and sniffles that invariably well up during the poem's presentation. It also reminded me of the day this year our son discussed the ending of Of Mice and Men, revealing to his Dad that he had "gotten choked, and kind of cried a little." So, I sat down to compose this post, and as I pondered a title, the line from the poem above, "Like some lost child/In tears and trouble..." came to mind. 

Short story long, the post on emotions in literature study has me thinking. At a recent conference, we discussed particular talking points regarding how Kansas education can move forward in ways that are best for our kids. It was a lively and thoughtful discussion. One point prompted the question "Why do we need to teach four years of English at the HS level?" Two talking points later, we dove into social and emotional growth of our students. I interjected that this is one answer to the previous question. One of the only places that we can address the emotional growth of our students in a variety of ways that are meaningful and safe for those kids is in the study of literature. When Piggy dies and it hurts one student so deeply that she has to leave the room, as happened in the classroom of the author of the above mentioned article, it is a teachable moment vital to that child and the other children in that room, possibly more vital than any other lesson. A student of mine reflected a couple of years ago that studying the spoken poem "To This Day" by Shane Koyczan was more powerful than all of the anti-bullying assemblies she had attended since entering grade school combined, and I realized that sometimes, literature and the conversations it raises are the only place a kid can safely face their demons, or perhaps even the demons of others.  You see, this young lady was not touched because she could relate to the boy in the poem who was bullied or the figurative circus freaks who played solitaire spin the bottle. She reflected that she was a bully, but had never considered, truly, what she was doing. She didn't shove kids into lockers or steal lunch money. She joked, she made fun, she laughed at the little things she saw about other people. It's what she did. For the first time, she could see the other side. In the dimmed room, as the lines of the poem tumbled to her ears, something made sense. 

Every time I read the lines that Sandburg penned decades ago, probably with no image of high school students anywhere in the misty fog of his poetic thoughts, I think of certain kids. So many of our kids send out that whistle that "calls and cries unendingly" as they navigate the fog and mist of their lives. Sometimes, it rolls on the heavy fog of the classroom in the form of nervous laughter or frustrated grumbling. Sometimes, the lonely whistle strings together in tunes that they scratch out on notebook pages or poetic blog posts, or lines of graphite or paint that fill sketchbooks or canvases. Sometimes it is the voice of the kid who lashes out from the back of the room, or the silence of the one who refuses to, seemingly more content to sit with hood up and eyes down than interact with anyone around him. The whistles blow in all pitches and tones, and, unfortunately, sometimes, we do not hear them, or, just as unfortunately, we hear them, but fail to recognize that they are not simply idle and meaningless humming but, instead, are calls for help by the lost and wandering, the pleas and cries of those seeking shelter and warm protect of some harbor, any harbor, as they float on, hoping against hope that they will not crash upon the rocks they know are out there waiting. 

So, we read and write and study and discuss. We do so because, as my students might say, it gives us the feels. And that is a good thing. To quote Three Days Grace "I would rather feel pain than nothing at all." And, if we can feel that pain within a safe harbor, where we can toss one another a towrope, where we can sew together some sort of life jacket to be donned later in life after they have left our harbor, then it will have been worthwhile. 

Get Out of the Way and Just Listen

I am blessed in so many ways, and one of those gifts that I am reminded of at the most opportune times is that I have two of the most creative, thoughtful children. There is a myriad of ways that they prove this to me over and over again. So many times, I grow as a person and as a teacher just because I get to spend time around them.
Recently, my lovely offspring reminded me that I need to let my kids, those who call me Dad and those who call me Mr. Kohls or Coach alike, teach me more often. Every year that I teach, some kid teaches me to look at a piece of literature in a different way. So many poems, such as "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" have touched varying cords with different students, and when they are allowed to tell me what they see, hear, and think, when they have the confidence to let those ideas guide our discussions, new angles are opened and amazing new lights are shed on the language and speaker of the poem. I look forward each year to diving in and hopefully watching a student, often one who might not be atop the list of most likely to deliver a literary gem, surface with a fresh pearl.
This week, my son Dylan wanted to talk. That in itself is an event. Dylan is not one to waste breath and effort on idle chatter. When he shares, it is usually something he has been rolling around in his head for a while or something he has been researching after a chance encounter. On this occasion, my boy wanted to talk about Of Mice and Men. SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVE NOT READ IT, WELL, SHAME ON YOU. GET A COPY AND READ IT. THEN COME BACK HERE AND FINISH READING THIS POST. Dylan had been reading the novel in Miss Porter's English class, and he had read ahead and finished it on the bus that afternoon. He started the conversation with "I finished the novel today. And well, um, I cried a little." I told him that was good; it meant that the novel was worthwhile. It had moved him, which is a terrific thing. I also told him that I always teared up when I read the end of the novel, and sometimes even when Candy lets Carlson shoot his dog.  For the next hour or so, we talked about the classic and what the characters had done, why they had done it, and what it all meant. Then Dylan hit me with a new one. "Dad, I think the farm is supposed to be Heaven." I had not thought of it that way before. It represented dreams, hope, a future. Heaven? Hmm. Dylan went on to tell me that the farm was Paradise, it was the place that Lenny hoped to get to one day where no one would make fun of him, and no more bad things would happen. And he had to be good to get there. It was Heaven. He went further. The only way for Lenny to get there was to die. He had to die to reach Heaven because it was never going to happen on earth, and that is when he would be truly happy. So George let him go.
I did not lead him to this thought in any way. He just went there, and the more comfortable he became talking, the more his mind turned. And then he taught me. He reminded me that I sometimes need to get out of the way and let it happen.
Now, this is also the same kid who spun a joke during a conversation about the Rubio-Trump mudslinging that included a comment about Trump's small hands. Dylan's turn. "You know what they say about guys with huge hands, right? They get shot in the back of the head by their friend George."
My son.
Tonight, I was taught another lesson by my lovely daughter Emily. As a second semester frosh, she is taking 3D Design and is sculpting a figurine of Alice's (you know, from Wonderland) great-great granddaughter. As part of the project, she is also designing packaging artwork that involves other descendent characters. She had already sketched an amazing depiction of The Mad Hatter as inspired by the lead guitarist for Motorhead. Then we started bouncing ideas for other characters, inspired by rock legends, preferably from the from the 80s. Joan Jett-inspired Red Queen? Debbie Harry-influenced White Queen? We spent a long time throwing out potential models for the Blue Caterpillar. Jimi Hendrix? Jim Morrison? Iggy Pop? Axel Rose? It had to be somebody lanky.
What is the point here? We just turned the ideas to an arena for which Emily has a passion, in this case, hard rock, heavy metal, and classic rock. Then we just had fun with the ideas. Now her sketchbook is full of ideas that may grow and blossom. The possibilities are infinite.
I need to give my kids, all of them, the tools to dream and think, and then get out of the way. I need to supply support and encouragement, and the opportunity to grow, in knowledge, expectations, confidence, and passion. I know I need to be there and it is not always going to work perfectly. Sometimes I do need to deliver material or content, and I need to make it relevant. But sometimes, I need to just listen because when I do, kids surprise me. They show me new things and make me see old things in new ways.
They point out Heaven. And often, how to get there.

Of Harper Lee and Kurt Cobain: Small, Significant Moments

Now, before the English nerds out there not of my generation completely lose their minds and cry literary heresy because I have dared to couple the beloved Ms. Lee and the grunge icon in the same title, please hear me out. Before you raise a protest and demand revocation of my TNS (True Nerd Status), let me meander just a bit down a pathway that hopefully leads to a worthwhile end.

My daughter made her first foray into the world of blogging last night. She wrote to commemorate the birthday of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, and to speak of the influence he has had on her.  She called him a mentor, and the story of her first exposure to his voice and the music of the band. She wrote, " For once, I was alright with being the quiet introverted artistic kid. "  That moment when Emily first hit play on the CD she had snagged from my dusty collection, she found a kindred spirit. Her granddad once asked my why Emily was so infatuated with Kurt Cobain, with Jim Morrison, with the band Green Day, and I told him because those artists, they were her. This is that girl, who much like Cobain, sometimes let her hair fall forward over her face, hiding those revealing windows to a sensitive, creative, thoughtful, and, sadly, sometimes tortured soul. You see: with those strands cascading past those eyes, one can still watch the world, but it makes it extremely hard for the people in that world to look back in. That way, they are kept at bay, separated by that curtain. It seems a little safer that way. I see several of those kids in my world right now, and I wish I could help them brush back the bangs, to let the world see the promise within.

I know: I put a lot of significance on a haircut.

As Emily describes it, that seemingly insignificant moment when she first hear Kurt Cobain sing "In Bloom" and "Come As You Are" was incredibly important. It changed her view of the world, of herself, and of her place in this world. It was a nothing moment, and it was everything. Emily has been blessed to encounter people in her education have enabled and encouraged her to find her voice, and to let it be heard. They let her explore her passions, and they help ignite others. I cannot thank those people enough for what they have done. A willingness to let those passions burn was stoked by what Emily called a "small, significant moment".

Emily's blog started me thinking: what other "small, significant moments" have changed lives. Then, as I read an article commemorating the passing of Harper Lee, one such moment for me struggled up from the depths of my memory and peeked into my consciousness. I remember Miss Jewel, the legendary English teacher at KMS, telling my parents how impressed she was with a character sketch I had written on Scout as part of our study of To Kill a Mockingbird.  I had written before that assignment, but that assignment, and her reaction to it, stays with me. It probably meant very little to her at the time; she was just giving feedback on assignments in her class, as she did so often on "Major Test" and sentence diagramming. But it meant a great deal to me. If it had not, it would not have stayed with me since that fateful day in the 7th grade. It was a small, significant moment. It may be why I continue to attempt to write. It definitely is part of why I teach.

Those moments are what I want to allow to blossom for each and every one of my kids. The problem with those moments is that they cannot be written into a lesson plan. I wonder which moments will have that positive spark? The kid may not even remember it, but it could allow them to feel something, some confidence or some comfort, which will allow them to one day do something amazing. One day, I had a conversation with a student about the movie Pacific Rim. We nerded out for a while. He seemed to get legitimately excited about speaking about the possibilities of an alien force residing deep within a fissure in the earth's crust, and the irony that one day nuclear energy will be classified as "old school".  Was it a monumental literary discussion? Uh, no. Could it have created a little bit of a connection that will lead the kid to maybe, just maybe, give some piece of literarature that I nerd out about as chance? Perhaps.

Recently, a colleague and I have been exposing our students to Shakespeare's writings. Greg Froese mentioned his ideas for an activity, and I stole it for my classroom as well. This led to what has taken on a bit of a life of its own and has been dubbed "The Sonnet Throwdown". Our students have been impressive, in their literary efforts and in their enthusiasm. (On a side note, the finals of The Sonnet Throwdown are going to be EPIC! I believe The Ocho, ESPN8, is currently in negotiations regarding the right to televise the event.) As the activity progressed, one student commented that if this is a competition, it needs to have a trophy. And at that moment, it was on. Like Donkey Kong. One of my students, a young man who is a dream to have in class but who I am going to lay odds will not say English is his favorite subject, partly because he is "not the creative type" (not my assessment, by the way) took that off-hand comment and ran with it. You see;  while he would rather ride than write and run a bead than count out beats, he is, in fact, the creative type. After employing a plasma cutter, welder, and a grinder, after meeting a time or two with his ag mech teacher, and after applying some unique skills and vision, he produced our trophy, a piece far beyond our expectation.

Within this activity were so many "small, significant" moments. What if we had grumbled or disregarded a student at any point along the way? What if Mr. Froese had not had the confidence to take a flash of brilliance one morning and turn it into an opportunity to help literature come alive? What if our kids had lamented having to study texts written by some dude 400 years ago and not spoken up and thrown out ideas, even though they would wreck the lesson plan and reading schedule? Small, significant moments.

We never know when those moments will happen. So, we have to assume each moment is one. We have to listen, we have to encourage, we have to be flexible, and we have to allow passions to ignite. We have to hit play on Nevermind; that tap might lead to a brushstroke that changes the world.

And changing the world is what we dream our kids will do. One small, significant moment at a time.

"I want to talk right down to Earth, in a language that everybody here can easily understand."

A couple of weeks ago, while working out in the weight room with a dozen or so young men and women, a particular song shuffled onto the playlist of my phone, which was broadcasting through the weight room's speakers. It was a cover of "Cult of Personality" by the 90s metal band Living Colour.

The song's opening lines are from a speech I could not place, so I asked the other coach who was with me at the time, who happens to be history teacher, and he too was not sure who was speaking the words, although they sounded incredibly familiar. As has become common, a google search saved the day. I won't reveal to you the answer, even though I would suggest you look for the results yourself. The song, and the quote, which resulted in a brief bit of research, led to a conversation as we continued to lift. Two teachers and several high school students intent on sweating away some calories and building some fast twitch fibers discussed major historical figures and the words they uttered that still ring today.

Some people would be amazed at how often such conversations actually take place. Once, while waiting for his turn in "the cage" during offensive line drills, a player asked me if a thought was more along the lines of an atheist or an agnostic, and what exactly was the difference? I will admit that this is one of the more thoughtful students I have ever worked with, but it was an interesting philosophical question and an exchange of knowledge and thought took place. LEARNING took place.

So where am I headed with this? I recently was struck by the use of the phrase "in the instructional classroom" as it applies to school funding. That phrase kept turning over in my head. Every day, so many teachers strive to take teaching beyond the four walls of the traditional classroom and push students to learn in whatever way possible. Tonight, as The Walking Dead returns with its first episode following its mid-season hiatus, more than one student and I will exchange thoughts regarding the plot, characters, themes, style, and symbolism presented in the show on A&E. Much of this conversation will take place via Twitter, and the feedback will be swift. How could I pass up such an opportunity? The series has used an intriguing non-linear storytelling style the past couple of seasons, and that has raised more than one literary discussion that may have never occurred otherwise. Former and current students have waited to initiate conversations on "TWD Mondays", many of which revolve around how this character or that character moves through the traditional hero's journey, how Daryl is the prototypical antihero, or how his angel's wings, once subtle and symbolic, have become soiled and ironic. The commercial for TWD mobile game uses the lines of Frost's "The Road Not Taken" in a startling new way, which allows for examination of tone and mood, and how different presentations and reading can alter a poem's effect. When Carol sobbed, "Just look at the flowers" to Lizzie, it prompted a discussion of the themes Of Mice and Men and the use of literary allusions. The opportunities for thought, for discussion, for learning, are surprisingly vast.

Every day, new opportunities to teach and learn present themselves. Sometimes they are expected and obvious. We grab hold of them and run with them. Hopefully, they work out and the kids are captivated. At other times, we do not even know those opportunities are there until we look back and see that they took place. Regardless, we need to be open to them, in whatever form they take. They may take us out of our comfort zones, and they may sometimes fail. Sometimes that is scary.

What they should be is exhilarating. Who would want to miss out on such opportunities, whether it happens inside four walls, in the weight room, or in the Twittersphre? It is all learning, and isn't that what we are searching for?