for the seniors

I moved to Phoenix and started teaching because my friends were doing it.  I came back my second year because I wanted to teach Economics.  I came back my third year because I was on a mission; I had something to prove.  If I had stayed for the fourth, it would have been for the seniors.

There are plenty of students, sections, teams, families, even co-workers(!) I formed connections with over my three years, but I always thought of the 2015-ers as my class.  I am loyal to them as a whole, because they transformed me during that second year.  Without their influence, I probably still would have gone to sporting events and chaperoned dances and whatever else young teachers with extra time do, but it would have been aimless.  No purpose or vision to it beyond sheer involvement.  The seniors won me over so strongly as sophomores that I was inspired to change who I was on their behalf.

When I first started teaching 10th-grade Economics, I realized two things 1) these kids are an amazing group, and 2) these kids are an unsatisfied group.  I recognized they had an incredible mix of intelligent, creative, athletic, weird, fun, people.  They had good leaders and a sense of independence from the upperclassmen. They also seemed more cohesive than any of the other classes.. they had fewer cliques and more mutual respect.  I suspect, in a way, I was drawn to them because they reminded me of my class at Hillsdale.  

Because Econ is only one semester, I taught four sections that year, every sophomore.  My first high school classes.  That was also the time when the most students left SPA mid-year, that I know of.  I refer to it as "The Great Sophomore Exodus of 2012", but I'm not sure of its official designation..

As I was becoming committed to these students and this class and getting plugged into the high school scene, it was impossible for me to ignore they were dissatisfied.  Their souls were not content.  It was partly an unhealthy outlook and lack of direction as a group, and partly the way the school was run, but I was afraid to imagine where they would end up if they continued their trajectory.

Potential abounded, and much was going to be unfulfilled.  The school had all the ingredients to be a great environment to learn and grow up, but they weren't being mixed properly.  It had attained some of the most difficult requirements of becoming a special institution, but it was too formulaic. 

So, I went all in.  It was this group of seniors that motivated me on a daily basis.. it may have been borderline obsessive..  More than anything else, I wanted those students to enjoy their high school experience, and, in doing so, learn how to enjoy the pursuit of a good life.  Sure, you can go ahead and study everything the classics have to say about living a good life, but if you're actively discontent with your day-to-day life in the long run? An unlivable life is not worth examining.  I daydreamed about building a culture and tradition that could be upheld and passed down and nourish upcoming classes, making the mission of the school sustainable, but that was nearly impossible without more leverage and time, which I would never have had there.  So, it had to be personal.  

I recently took the Myers-Briggs test, for the first time since college.  For the first time ever, it told me I was an extrovert.  It was wrong; I'm not an extrovert.  But, the mentality I cultivated during my time at Scottsdale Prep did change how I interact with the world, and how I see my role.  I would be a much different, and inferior, version of myself if I had never been in that situation with those students.  Teaching made me a better person, and my students had everything to do with it.

Put another way, my commitment to the school was merely a response to the undeniable value of the group of kids in front of me.  I saw their goodness and it made me want to be good, because they deserved it.  They changed me, and I am forever grateful.

They didn't just ignite my goal to build a positive culture, they recognized what I was trying to do and responded.  If I had put myself out there and gotten nothing in return, it would have been a short-lived effort.  But we made a good team.  There's nothing like mutual respect as a basis for a lasting relationship.. 

In light of all this, I'm coming to graduation Saturday.  I see it as my last grand gesture to a Scottsdale Prep class as a whole.  My loyalty was always to the individual people at the school, not the institution itself.  I'll still keep in touch with various students and families and teachers — I guess being gone has simplified the terms of the equation — my friends.  And the juniors are already Ms. Fuller's group, in any case.. (ya'll are studs, especially 8B :-P)

I'm being dramatic and lame, but it is genuine.  I'm also simultaneously being both congratulatory and self-congratulatory; I know.  I didn't get here by a lack of self-awareness.. Looking back, I am predictably sentimental but also transparently proud of the time we had together.  We didn't always know what we were doing, but a lot of it was good, and the run would have ended this year either way.  I've spent 75% of my working life at Scottsdale Prep, and I don't expect to feel this way about any other group of high school graduates, ever.

Not only am I certain that I'll be friends with many of these graduates years down the road, I know that they're going to accomplish great things in the world and I'm excited to see them do it.  I'm already proud of them, and they haven't even fully started living.

And, don't worry, grads, I've curtailed my expectations for graduation weekend.  In the same way you wouldn't fly to a wedding thinking you're going to chill with the bride and/or groom for the weekend, you shouldn't attend graduations under the delusion you're going to spend quality time with the graduate(s).  You have to be content with a brief handshake/hug while saying "Congratulations" and hearing "Thanks for coming".  Then it's on to the next one, right? I'm coming to show respect for who you are and what we've been through together; we can catch up later.

p.s. where the grad parties at

getting wrecked in Mexico

John and I drove all night to get to Phoenix.  We grabbed a few hours sleep at Lauren's and headed over to meet the caravan.  They had been kind, and called us to come over as they were finishing the packing process.  We jumped in the backseat of Eric's A/C-less Ford Explorer (Joe was co-pilot) and headed out within a few minutes.  Eric and Joe work at Trivium Prep - I know them through Laura and Lynzy.

The trip was a short one, compared to what we had just completed.  I sped through Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, enjoying the rare opportunity to be a passenger in a car while the sun is out.  We stopped to buy Mexican car insurance at Ajo, AZ for $74. When we crossed the Mexico border I set the book down to take in my surroundings.  I had been to Mexico, but never driven across the border.

After a few ill-marked turns in the city and witty group commentary throughout, we reached the outskirts of Sonoyta — briefly slowing and stopping against our will for John to locate a dollar to hand to a girl standing in the road on behalf of the Mexican Red Cross — and headed toward the beaches of Puerto Penasco, only 60 km away.  I noted there seemed to be a lot of traffic in both directions on the two-lane highway, which I suppose is typical for 3 p.m. on a Saturday sandwiched between two spring break weeks.

We had the windows down the whole trip, and upon entering the country had turned on a Mexican radio station and turned it up.  I was happy.  I was in another country with some of my best friends, and we were staying in a mansion directly on the beachfront for a week, reminiscent of my best spring breaks at Hillsdale. Life was good. I didn't even have evals to write.

As a rule, I try to find a way to enjoy life regardless of what is happening, and I'm usually successful.  But I'm also always looking for ways to make things better.  It's rare I sit back and think "this moment could not be better", and when I do have that thought, I express it.

"Hey John - this couldn't be better, eh? ...unless we had a beer right now."
(I'd been joking earlier about the lack of open container laws in Mexico & lack of enforcement of laws in general.. and by joking I mean testing Eric's reaction to the idea of a passenger having a beer.. I opted to not push it).

John laughed and seconded both emotions, then we both returned to taking in the countryside and anticipating that first beer on the beach.

I was sitting in the middle, so when the minivan ahead jerked severely to the right I had a clear view of the car careening toward us at 70 mph.  140 mph combined.  205 feet per second.  My breath caught for a split second and time slowed as I waited for the little black car to snap back into its lane, waited forever, hoping it could complete the most reckless pass I've ever seen.  As it flew toward us I got a sick feeling in my gut and recognized an undeniable out-of-control quality as it drifted further across our lane.  Like a spaceship piloted by Reavers.  Then time started again as Eric swerved violently right.

We missed a head-on collision by inches but had no time to be thankful as we were now flying straight toward a ravine at least 20 feet deep.  John later said he knew the second we swerved that we were going to flip.  I had more hope.  He was right.  As Eric spun the wheel back left and we squealed back toward oncoming traffic, all I could do was watch with the type of intense fascination that you would have observing someone flip a coin to determine if you live or die.

All four of us were dead silent during this entire process.  The steering wheel was now rotating as fast as humanly possible to the right, and as the tires grasped pavement my hope stuck, too.

*We can get out of this.  Everything can still be okay.*

Then the back tires slid and as we became perpendicular to the highway I knew everything was not going to be okay.

When the tires caught and the left side of the Explorer flipped viciously toward the asphalt, I had time for one thought:

"I'm going to die in Mexico."

Thinking back, there was a lot conveyed in that thought.  "I'm going to die [on spring break] in Mexico.  That's just an easily-scanned headline, a movie subplot.  It also included the awareness that my dad would now feel justified in warning me of the danger of my every act since becoming an adolescent.  It felt unfair.  Unfair to me, my dad, and Mexico.  I did not have time to be afraid; my emotions went straight from desperate hope to desolate certainty.  My life did not flash before my eyes nor did I have any time to ponder the existential implications of death.

As we slammed into the ground I briefly had the stomach-dropping feel of a roller coaster designed to tear your soul from your body, then I squeezed my eyes shut and ducked my head and lost myself in the sounds of twisting metal and shattering glass.  I did not expect to open them again.

When we stopped flipping there was a moment of silence.  My eyes were still shut, darkness all around.  Then Eric cracked the silence by yelling "is everyone okay?!"  An ambitious question, given the situation, but it revived my hope.  Maybe I was alright.  Maybe everyone was. It's a weird feeling, being alive when you expected to be dead. The ultimate second chance. I snapped into action, yelling "I'm okay" and repeating it ad naseum while opening my eyes and reaching toward my seatbelt. I was moving hyper-fast, with perhaps the greatest sense of urgency I have ever felt.  Somehow, we were alive, but all I could think of was a semi-truck bearing down on us in the middle of the highway or the car blowing up with us alive inside.

Roadblock.  My seatbelt wouldn't unbuckle.  I felt the first hints of claustrophobia. My spirit was dashed further when I realized I was only hearing two voices — Eric's and mine.  I looked John's direction and my heart sank.  John's face was covered in blood and he was moving like Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan after a mortar lands nearby. But he was alive.  I looked up front and saw blood spattered all over the shattered windshield, and Joe unresponsive.  Compared to the desperate speed of my thoughts and movements, John looked like he was stuck in slow motion.  I began yelling his name and went at my seatbelt with renewed vigor.  When the button finally gave was the first time I became conscious we were upside down.  I crashed to the ceiling, where blood was beginning to pool, and continued searching for an escape route.  The corners of the vehicle were crushed, one side had been driven into the ground, and the air was full of smoke and dirt.  Claustrophobia intensified, and I could feel animal terror bubbling beneath the surface. There was no way out. My near-panic was interrupted by John mumbling something about help with his seatbelt.  I reached over, now familiar with the pressure required, and released his belt. Now that he was free, I noticed a 10-inch swath of light coming from the window behind him.  It was too small, but it was all I could see.  I began instructing John to crawl out feet first, and he tried, groggily.  It wasn't happening.

I couldn't get around him, and I had no idea what to do next.  Then I heard voices outside.  Immediately I felt a sense of relief, because if there were people that meant traffic had stopped.  I had no idea where the car was relative to the highway, or how much time had passed, or what was happening outside, but looking back it still seems strange to be so terrified of a second car crashing into us.  It was certainly influenced by the inability to see anything outside the car.  We may as well have been buried alive.  When you escape death, secondary risks become urgently primary.

The men outside pried open the front passenger door, and gingerly helped Joe out, who clearly had a serious head injury.  They laid him next to the car to immobilize him and Eric clambered out, then I crawled up through the front and out.  It was bright outside and I quickly realized my initial fear was misplaced since we had rolled entirely off the highway and into the ravine, with the hood pointing back from the direction we came.  The first car I saw gave me a jolt — it was the same car that had driven us off the road.  Or was it? Surely it couldn't be. I turned to see John make it way out, and he was quickly swarmed by good Samaritans who helped him to a flat area about 20 yards from the vehicle.  We were all out of the car, and alive.

Part Two: The Aftermath

In a major car wreck on a crowded highway in the U.S., the people involved would never have to worry about calling 911, bystander effect be damned.  This was Mexico.

Most of the people who had stopped were American, and didn't have cell service.  The Mexicans who stopped didn't seem to have phones.  Our car had been in a caravan of five cars in our group from Phoenix.  I knew at least one of our cars was far ahead of the accident, and at least one was far behind.  I was fairly confident Luke, Laura's cousin, was in the next closest car behind us, and I was somewhat sure I'd heard someone say he had an international phone.

So, I took off down the edge of the highway against the flow of traffic, which had stopped completely due to the debris scattered across both lanes.  After passing several vehicles I saw the car I was looking for farther down the row, Rachel's car, which Sam was driving.  As I ran toward it I was vaguely aware I had a substantial amount of blood on me and had already been ridiculously attired before the crash and probably was unsettling those I was running by.  As I became vaguely aware I was vaguely aware of this, it struck me how absurd my self-awareness is.  Why can't I just do something without observing it externally?  Shouldn't I be able to run to a phone to call 911 without analyzing myself in the process?

As I ran up to the car I saw Luke in the back and Rachel opened her door.

"Do you have an international phone?! We need to call an ambulance."

"That's not your car, is it?  That's not you guys..."

"Yeah, that's us, everyone's okay, we need to call an ambulance."

It's amazing how our minds can deny the facts in front of us in the face of tragedy.

They pulled further to the side of the highway and got out.  One of the four passengers was Kat, who had been in a head-on collision nine months prior which claimed her mother's life.  I was aware of this, and tried to tell her she wasn't needed at the scene.  She was determined to help, and was indeed quite helpful.  The Golden girls are a strong bunch.

By the time Luke and I got back to the wreckage quite a few people had gathered, mostly trying to help.  The police had still not been called, because even those with working cell phones did not have service at that stretch of highway.  Odd, considering there is a radio tower in the background of some of the pictures from the scene.  Finally, a local was able to get through with his cell and assured us help was on the way.  It's very hard for me to approximate the passage of time, but it felt like close to 10 minutes had passed, and at least 15 more before the first Mexican responder on the scene, which was the volunteer Red Cross.  Then another 10 for a real ambulance, then at least another 10 for a policeman.

There was a sickening smell that permeated the scene, sweet yet vaguely acidic.  I've never smelled anything like it, but it was on my hands and clothes the rest of the day, as well as many of the items salvaged from the wreck.  I was told later it is the smell of various car fluids leaking onto the engine and vaporizing, and is present at many car accidents.  If I ever smell it again I'm sure I will have vivid flashbacks to the biggest Pi day of our lifetimes.

There were many benevolent acts during the stretch of time from the accident to when the guys were taken off in the ambulance. Strangers, some Mexican but mostly American, with no connection to us put their lives on hold to do anything they could to help.  I can't imagine getting through such a horrid accident in a foreign country without the altruistic support of so many..

An American EMT had been driving by and was enormously helpful.  I didn't realize until later, but he basically took over the medical management aspect, including bandaging John's shredded right arm and even creating a tourniquet.  After ensuring police had been called, I went to check on Joe and John.  Joe was on the brink of going into shock, and John was just conscious enough to say "You weren't hurt?" in an incredulous tone that made me feel guilty and I decided I would be more useful elsewhere.

I starting clearing the highway so traffic could resume, figuring it would help the police get there more quickly.  Several people joined me and we had it clear within a few minutes.  Others were rummaging through the grass and foliage along the highway and in the ditch collecting our belongings that had be flung from the Explorer and depositing everything in a pile nearby.  One of the first things I found were John's glasses, without a scratch on them.  My phone was brought to me from who knows where, still working, and with the 3% battery remaining I took a few pictures of the scene.  Eric is going to use those pictures for his insurance claim.

The minivan behind us was forced to drive into the ditch itself at full speed.  Both the minivan ahead and behind us contained small children, and both avoided harm.  The driver of the minivan who drove into the ditch was actually a guy I knew from Phoenix — a fellow sand volleyball coach.  He is bilingual and was incredibly helpful on the scene since the Mexican emergency responders could not speak English.  He even called me a week later to check in with how everything went (a few days before his team beat my team :-/).

In that span of time between calling and arriving, I saw someone else I recognized.  The father of a few students I had taught/coached at Scottsdale Prep.  Sure enough, there was the rest of the family right behind him.  They were on their way back stateside and were eager to find a way to help.  We ended up giving them the number of a fellow teacher to contact, and that teacher was able to contact the local hospital and start the process of sending an ambulance 3 hours down to the border to pick up our guys (I was unaware this was the plan for many hours).  As they were preparing to leave the scene and complete their mission, the dad came back to me and handed me several large bills "just in case".  Turns out I didn't need it and was able to mail it back, but it was a generous gesture.  They also kept in touch over the next two weeks to make sure everyone was doing okay.

The closing story might be the most impressive, and requires more scene-setting.  So our first two cars had continued on unknowingly.  Our third car was totaled.  Our fifth car had arrived and turned back to the border in search of a signal to contact the first two cars — to let them know what happened and form a plan.  Now, our fourth car left to follow the ambulance to the hospital.  Keep in mind that all of these things had happened as people made decisions independently.. it resulted with Eric and I being left at the scene with no way to contact anyone else.  Side note: neither Eric or I was ever looked at by medical personnel.  Side-side note: all-in-all, looking back and knowing the different paths our extremely large group took in the wake of the emergency, we did quite well.

I had been hoping that the carload that left to make a call would come back and pick us up, but that was not the case.  Now the police were telling Eric he had to come to the police station to fill out paperwork.  I had the option of going with him or staying with the luggage/gear on the side of the road.  A guy named Jay with a big truck had stopped about half an hour earlier and offered to help transport our stuff wherever we needed, whether that was back to the border or on to Puerto Peñasco.  He was unbelievably generous and even offered to take the luggage to the house then drive back to the border.  Eric and I decided the best plan was for me to go with the luggage, and once I got to the house I could notify the group that someone needed to pick Eric up at the police station.

The main problem now was that I didn't know how to get to the house.  We drove to where Jay was staying, an RV campground with his family, found wifi and called the landlord to get new directions. None of those tasks were as easy as they sound. By the time we got to the house it was close to 9:30; I'd been covered in blood for almost 6 hours.  I was unable to contact anyone else during my brief wifi connection, and I still didn't know 1) how bad the injuries had been determined, 2) if Eric had contacted anyone to pick him up, or 3) if anyone was still at the house or 4) if the trip itself was still happening, which seemed to depend on 1).  I had hit a wall after the adrenaline wore off and I was operating on reserves.  When we got to the house no cars were there. Once we got everything unloaded and thanked Jay, I sat on the concrete floor, too exhausted to shower but too conscious of my filthiness to lay anywhere else.  Eventually, I found out the first two cars had gone out for dinner, and I found energy to shower.  The rest of night was spent trying to fill in the gaps in my information and resting.  Eric had ridden back to Phoenix in the ambulance with Joe and John.  The 4th and 5th cars had stayed at the "hospital" until the ambulance transfer took place, then stayed at a hotel in Ajo north of the border since it was so late.

I decided to leave the next morning.  Getting back into a car was the last thing I wanted to do, but I had to see how John was doing so I just pretended I didn't have a choice.  Plus, I could take the other guys' stuff back to them.  Joe was released the next day, but John had four surgeries on his arm in the next three days.  Once I checked in with him and made sure the proper people had the proper information and were taking the proper steps, I decided to drive back to Mexico and try to relax for a few days. In what was the most-lasting benevolent act, a teacher named Heidi - a co-worker of Eric and Joe - essentially adopted John and visited him multiple times per day when no one else was around. At the end of the week, John's sister flew to Phoenix and helped him fly back to Austin.  I finished out the week trying to ignore my survivor guilt and relaxing, mostly successfully, then drove by myself back to Austin.

Part III: The After-Aftermath

I'm not an expert on car wrecks.  I was in one other wreck when I was a kid.  My mom was driving our Ford F-350 and a car turned in front of us when we had a green light through an intersection.  I was sitting in the same spot: back seat middle.  I don't remember many details but I had the same experience of seeing it coming, waiting through the squealing tires with an intense fascination, and not being injured.  Later, I remember one morning when my mom woke me up by saying my dad was in a car accident and was okay.  In the same truck, my dad was driving home late at night on icy roads and had spun off the road and hit a tree.  In the months afterward, my dad would often take the longer way home and avoid the site of the accident.  I have always been slightly obsessed with efficiency, and even as a young kid I remember wondering why he was taking the long way so often. It was a significant moment in my development as a person, and the humanization of my father, when I made the connection between the route and the accident.

When I was sitting on the floor in the Mexican mansion alone and covered in blood, I started googling data on car accidents.  I couldn't believe I was alive, much less uninjured.  A few stats I noted in by brief research: only 2% of accidents involve rollovers, but over 1/3 of car accident total deaths are from rollovers. The only type of accident more deadly are head-on collisions, which we narrowly avoided. Seventy per cent of people who die in rollovers are not wearing seat belts. I was also curious about the safety of the back middle seat.. my instinct is that it's the most dangerous in a head-on collision, and safest in a rollover, but I couldn't find data.  I just had the strap across my waist — no shoulder belt. I have very little doubt that if we had hit head-on, or rolled into oncoming traffic rather than away, or contained anyone without a seatbelt, it would have been deadly.

In the wake of life-changing experiences, it's easy to look back and obsess over little details that you would have never noticed otherwise.

• Lynzy originally assigned John and I to two different cars, until I pointed out John didn't know anyone else yet and we'd prefer to ride together at first.  She quickly switched people around and put us in the Explorer.
• The left backseat was packed with luggage, meaning that I couldn't sit there. Why left?
• I chose the backseat middle.  It made sense for John and I both to be in the back, and John is significantly taller than I.  It was logical for me to get the worst spot, and I took it.
• Due to the tight quarters and sweaty conditions, every time we stopped and got out caused a hassle to put our seat belts back on. There was one three-mile stretch between getting insurance and stopping for gas where I decided it wasn't worth the hassle.
• Though the accident was not our fault at all, I was SO glad I had not opened that beer in the backseat (it is legal in Mexico btw).  Having an open container somehow would have smeared our innocence, in the same way that smoking weed makes someone untrustworthy or wearing immodest clothes makes someone a target for rape.  It's not rational, but it's a real perception by large demographics.  

When I get into a car now, I think about the safety of each seat in comparison to each type of accident it could get in.  There is no solution, but I think about it anyway.  I also have started imagining what it would take for the car I'm in to flip over in various situations.  When I'm driving on a two-lane highway, I assume every driver coming my way is asleep.  Driving home from Phoenix, the last three hours were on two-lanes in the dark.  When an oncoming driver turned off their brights, or turned with a curve in the road, I decided they were probably awake and only then was I able to relax.  Still, I would much rather drive than be a passenger..  

The day before the accident, I was involved in two randomly related conversations with students.  In the first, a group of students were geeking out over Pi Day the next day.  One girl out the outskirts of the conversation looked at me and said "I don't get why it's such a big deal" and I said "yeah, it's just another day, really".  I don't know what it was about that interaction, but she paused and said "I just realized nothing matters, because we're all just going to die".  ...I'm unsure how often teachers encounter this type of moment, but it's not the first for me. I have a highly-tuned sense of the importance of this thought, how it is expressed, and how I respond.. and keep in mind this was at the beginning of another teacher's class as I was exiting the room.  Hallway conversations are so hard..  "Well, either nothing matters, or everything matters" was the best I could do in parting.  I'll try to continue the conversation at some point later.  In the second, a group of students was talking about how they want to die.  [Yes this is the same day. If you're wondering if this is normal behavior for 7th-and-8th graders... I don't know what normal is.] At one point, one of them asserted she would prefer to die in her sleep, then turned and asked me what I thought.  "I would want to see it coming." My tendency toward hyper-self-awareness means that I distrust sleep, the act of turning off my consciousness. And, having nearly gotten my wish, I wouldn't change my stance.  Looking back, those conversations seem much more significant.  

We like to believe we are in control of our environment, and I would bet I feel that more strongly than most.  That's why I prefer to be behind the wheel — I like to be in control; I like to make decisions.  It's an illusion, though.  Our force of will is nothing compared to a flipping car.  A flipping car will crush you as if you weren't there and never think twice.  John's arm was shredded with less force than it took to shatter a headlight.  Our grasp on this world is weak regardless of how much we exercise our minds or bodies.  

From early-Saturday afternoon to late-Monday afternoon, over 72 hours, I thought of nothing else but the accident. My mind had nothing to distract it, and I didn't have time to be distracted anyway.  When I was driving back to Mexico Monday afternoon, I was motivated by getting to the house and collapsing somewhere out of sight away from everyone for days.  Then Eric called me and asked me to stop by the police station in Mexico to look for the police report.  It was almost the straw breaking the camel's back.. I was only functioning because I had promised myself I would stop functioning once I got to the house.  Now I was faced with an additional task, and everything in me wanted to turn it down.  The problem was, it clearly made the most sense for me to stop as I was passing through.  I spent nearly an hour in the town driving around and looking for the police station, asking people on the street, and got nowhere.  Not being able to find a police station in a small town.. that's Mexico. Anyway, the point of all this is that as I pulled up to the house, the group was getting ready to play a game of ultimate frisbee on the beach during low tide.  All I had wanted for days was to cease acting, end the burden of responsibility, but I couldn't say no to ultimate frisbee.  And it was perfect.  Everything about it was exactly what I actually needed.  Physical exertion after dozens of hours in a car, the joyful appreciation of still being able to run and jump and play, and losing myself in a competitive game.  It reminded me stress relief/resetting mentally is an often overlooked benefit of exercise and competition. It also shed new light on the conversation about the value of sports as entertainment, and the discussion about how teams/players respond in the face of tragedy.  

From what I've seen, the death of someone close to you or a near-death experience often changes your perception of your life and your priorities.  Something about daily life and small unnoticed changes and influences put our minds on cruise control and take us places we never intended to go.  It takes a jolt to wake us up.  I know someone who was mugged in a third world country at knifepoint and promptly came back and quit his job, because he realized it wasn't what he wanted to do with his life.  He had been a teacher.  One of the refreshing aspects of this experience is that my mentality has not changed.  My approach to life was tested by an experience I could never simulate or imagine, and it passed the test.  I'm on the path I have chosen, my priorities are the same, and it's rewarding to have that assurance.  More than anything else, I'm overwhelmingly grateful to be alive and exceedingly motivated to live a good, examined life.

As free as you'll ever be

When you make decisions, many of them are influenced by who you are with, or even those in the same environment.  One of the understated difficulties of teaching is that it requires an awareness of the mindset of every person in the room.  A good teacher has a relative awareness of who is engaged or not, and why or why not. For P.E., that's 50 students. 

This is exhausting.

I never realized how abnormally autonomous and independent I was until I joined a fraternity.  All of a sudden I had to sit though inefficient meetings and accept group decisions that I disagreed with.  My decisions now had to account for a larger group of people than ever before, many of which I had never consciously chosen to be a part of my life.

I'm somewhat in tune with how the people around me feel, and I try to act accordingly.  It's not always inconvenient to adjust my decisions to suit other people or a group, but I'm aware of when it happens.  It's a normal part of life.

Spending three weeks alone in Brazil last summer was the most exhilarating freedom I've ever experienced.  

All that weight, all that awareness, gone.  There were times when it was more intoxicating than others, and there were times when I got lonely, but it was incredible.

Can you imagine a day where you are unaccountable to anyone for anything?

My every decision was mine alone.  Every choice was mine to weigh, to evaluate, to process.  Sometimes I made bad decisions, but even then I learned from it and owned it entirely.

I had a daily routine, regardless of the city or hostel.  Upon leaving wifi, I would start "Stay High" on Spotify up in my headphones, and feel my heartbeat speed up as I silently and ecstatically merged with the flow of the city, on my way to adventure.  It never got old.

I felt like I had trained my entire life for that experience.  Traveling, decision-making.  Analyzing the data available and making the best choice in that moment.  Calling audibles, disregarding norms, calmly and efficiently.  

It felt so pure, so clean.  Thrilling.

Looking back, I don't know anyone that would have kept up with me on that trip.  Maybe Vincent or Mark or Brian.  I was sleeping irregularly, eating irregular things irregularly.  There was a stretch where I didn't sleep in a prone position for three nights (two busses and a small couch).  There was a morning where I bought a package of unlabeled meat for my entire day's sustenance, unsure of when I would eat again.  I got to push all the limits I would be hesitant to suggest to anyone else.

Obviously this says a lot about me.  The thing is, I honestly didn't know how I would respond to traveling by myself, beforehand.  I've always traveled to see people I love, or see things with people I love.  Creating shared memories.  But that's the thing with traveling; you discover yourself.  I'm not going to go out of my way to be alone on future adventures, but I won't shy away from it either.

Gratitude

I have a theory on gratitude.  You shouldn't be surprised.  The theory is that gratitude breaks Newton's third law..  Not every act that deserves gratitude receives it's just due. It can't, and often it shouldn't.  This presents a problem (gift pun alert.. moving on).  The problem is that the argument for human cooperation is often simplified down to something like "if you want to get presents from your friends on your birthday, then you need to get them presents for their birthdays".  Everything becomes a trade, where we expect to see the physical payoff of any and all effort.

Fact is, many gifts cannot be fully appreciated/reciprocated.  Great gifts require research and time and thought and sacrifice and things that can never be completely represented in the actual item.  There is something lost in the transaction.  Let's say the receiver of the gift grasps the full extent of the love put into the gift: how can they express their gratitude? It's impossible in that moment to show  understanding and appreciation.  Of course, it can be shown later, by returning the favor, but not all gifts provide that opportunity.  

This means that love is lost, or it appears so, if you're counting.  If you put a number on your sacrifice, and numbered the return you witnessed, it would not add up.  Humans dislike this, as a rule.  We like thinking that things balance, or even return a profit to us.  

I'm using gifts at Christmas as the analogy, but my theory is quite broader.  Let's take your parents.  Say you're an odd child, and you are aware of the sacrifices your parents make for you.  You can express your gratitude, but does the mere expression balance the equation?  The sacrifice, the "gift", is a one-way street, at least on the surface.  

Teaching.  If you go into teaching thinking that your effort and sacrifices will be matched by each of your students (the sum of your students?), you are not going to be teaching for long.  It simply does not work that way.  Teachers, like parents, have to latch onto any speck of gratitude they can detect, and cherish it until the next blue moon (and I'm saying this as a teacher who has had more appreciative students than most).  I'm by no means complaining.

This partially comes back to the seen and the unseen (and what doesn't?).  Despite my status as a cold-hearted economist, I'm not going to break down how parents care for their children because they've calculated the long run benefit to themselves, and, in my experience, teachers aren't just trying to make the world better in a vague sense, but trying to impact individual lives.  They sacrifice out of love.

I don't think I'm breaking new ground here; Christmas is a Christian holiday, and the idea is pretty fundamental to Christianity.  A sacrifice that can never be repaid.

  

The ground I am breaking is this: give love without expecting it to be returned in equal measure to you.  Do not attempt to compare what you give with what you get.  Once you start calculating and tabulating, you will become dissatisfied, because your powers of observation are too feeble to understand the true effect, and honestly, even the true effect doesn't always benefit you, the initial actor, equally.  The effect could be spread to other people at other places and times.

It's also a warning.  Don't expect the gratitude received to match the effort, and more urgently, do not depend on it, do not do anything solely for the thanks you expect to receive.  You have to keep your focus at all times.  If you find yourself justifying a sacrificial act with a tangible short-term payoff, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.  Imagine someone who works for a company for twenty years, stays on weekends, etc.  You have to know WHY you are doing that, and you have to know the company/people in it are incapable of thanking you for your service — their gratitude cannot be why you're working.  At best they will pause their day when you retire and share a cake.  It would be unfair to resent them for that; your expectations were unrealistic.

If we stopped our lives to fully appreciate every thoughtful and generous act, the person being thanked would have to thank those thanking, and thankers thanked for thanking thankees; it would soon lose all meaning.  The very idea of human progress is dependent on people doing good things for others and not getting the recognition they "deserve".

It's true that if you look at the world, you will see many people who seem to give all the time, and you will see many people who only take.  I think most people are in the middle, though.  The ones who expect a balance.  You should consider which you are.  Givers, don't give up.  Balancer? Think more broadly.  Taker?  Merry Christmas, you filthy animal 

Basketball changed my life.

Basketball changed my life. (Part I: my experience)

I went to a basketball camp in 6th grade-ish.  I don't remember anything except that I went because my friend was going, I had never played before, and I was repeatedly embarrassed by not being strong enough to get the ball to the rim from the free throw line.  I'd only played soccer up to that point; my arms didn't have what it takes.  The next year I joined the basketball team, again because of a friend (no, a NEW one!).  I was the last player on the bench.  I didn't get much better over the course of the year, either. I barely played and only scored 10 points in the season, but it awakened something in me.  For the first time in my life, I knew what I wanted.  I wanted to be good at basketball.

I don't need to go into the details, but basketball dominated my life for the next five years.  Looking back now, it was an unhealthy obsession.  And, oddly enough, it was all mine.  My parents supported me whole-heartedly (my dad bought me a hoop and paved part of our gravel driveway, paid for summer camps, etc), but it was almost as if I were possessed.  My family didn't follow sports at all, and for several years it wasn't uncommon for me to have to explain the basic rules of the game.  Yet, they took me to practices, helped drive the team to our games, and were proud of my successes.  I can't imagine how that feels as a parent.  Your kid just takes off in a direction you've never prompted?  Is entirely self-motivated by something you don't fully understand?

When my high school playing "career" ended, it nearly broke me.  I had nothing to guide me.  In the previous five years, I had never looked beyond that last game.  I wasn't ready.  I had a few college opportunities, but as I evaluated my options and slowly accepted it didn't make sense for me to chase a college roster spot out of desperation, I faced depression.  What had I spent the bulk of my teenage life thinking, dreaming about? How many hours had I spent with only an inflated rubber sphere for company? To what end had I practiced daily? The crazy part is I was playing for a small Christian school.  We weren't competing for a state title.  We were struggling to compete against other small private schools.  Yet, it was all I thought about.  That was a good lesson for me, looking back: it doesn't matter how much you should care, or how much others think you should care. It only matters how much you do care, in that moment.  There's not necessarily a rational connection between your emotions and what is at stake.  It's easy for an outsider, or even current me, to look back and say "why was winning the HCC basketball championship the most important goal in your life" but ultimately the "why" doesn't change anything.  I had never wanted anything more; I knew nothing else.

Now, I recognize that I would be a far lesser person without that experience (and I'm also thankful I wasn't a scholarship athlete in college).  Basketball, and sports as a whole, introduced me to the world.  I was about the shyest kid you could imagine.  Homeschooled, quiet, with a handful of friends from church or other homeschooled families, mainly both.  I played for the community soccer league but I was a complete outsider.  My teammates went to school together and played club together.  I showed up to practice, hardly said a word, and went home, no less silently.  The hospital my dad worked for once made a documentary about our family (he's an ER doc), and when the video team was trying to interview us individually, and I would not say a word to them.  My older sister spoke for me a majority of my childhood.

Then, basketball.  I was getting better.  Sophomore year I was a co-captain, along w/ my friend David (the reason I had joined in 7th grade) and a star senior point guard, Caleb.  I had never wanted to be a leader, I just wanted to be good.  You can't really separate the two in a team sport, though, especially in a small environment where skill is hard to come by.  Being good meant being a leader.

Like most kids who fall in love with basketball, I loved to score.  The higher the level of difficulty, the better.  Early on, basketball was mainly about the obvious glory, points, and maybe steals.  It wasn't until I became a skilled player, and was looked to as a leader, that I started to understand the rest of the game.  The responsibility of leadership forced me to recognize the importance of the little things.  Boxing out.  Communication.  Ultimately, what I wanted to do was win, and I had to find the best way to do that.  When we lost, I blamed myself.  It was not uncommon for me to cry in the locker room after a loss, feeling the weight of the final outcome on my shoulders.  By my senior year, I had reached a point where I took more joy from managing a game than I did from making a difficult basket.  I still took most of the shots, but if we had a better strategy, I was willing to employ it.

So, basketball not only turned me into a leader, it turned me into an competitor.  I loved to compete and played every sport our school offered, meaning I ended up a relatively well-rounded athlete, even though I specialized as much as I could in basketball.  This gave me practice applying diverse strategies across many sports, and starting to think more like a coach.  It also meant I was a captain essentially year-round, giving me plenty of time to learn how to lead (and also inflate my ego to nearly irreparable levels).

Being a go-to player develops a certain mindset, and I didn't resist it.  I thought I was hot stuff for a while.  Part of me recognizes a significant part of my adult life has been spent recovering from the hubris I succumbed to as a big fish in a minuscule pond.  It does weird things to your head, being worshipped.  Ask Alexander the Great, or Matt Munsil. Basil Inman. Or literally any 21st century celebrity. That being said, I'm convinced having a healthy amount of confidence is about the hardest thing for an individual to attain, and a tightrope that requires constant focus.  If your choices are being insecure or prideful, I'd rather have to talk myself down than talk myself up.  Now that I'm rationally detached from the person I was in high school, we've arrived at a mutual understanding of sorts (me and myself).  Last Christmas I dug up a few old HS tapes, and honestly, they were tough to watch.  Current-coach me is not a fan of high-school-player me.  But, I did the best I could with what I knew at the time, so. What can you do.

All that I set out to say is that I can look back at that experience as a whole and I'm awestruck by the impact it has had on my life.  The good outweighs the bad, and it's not even close.  How many of our current high school athletes will be able to do the same?  How many kids that I've coached will be able to look back at their playing experience and identify watershed moments that helped define the person they've become? Sports reveal character, and allow you to build on it.  Competition is a test, and there is no substitute.

Sports are part of education. (Part II: maybe a kinda-sorta rant)

You know the part in The Fault in Our Stars when ex-basketball star Augustus Waters somewhat bitterly points out the absurdity of practicing throwing a sphere through a circle?  John Green is basically throwing a bone to everyone who doesn't "get" sports.  "Haha," they think, "he's right, sports are pointless."  The joke is on them, though, because Green doesn't mean it; he thinks that version of Augustus is wrong about basketball.  Have you seen Green's sports Twitter account? He's a rabid sports fan.  Augustus is only at second-level thought, in that particular instance.  If you love a sport, at first you just play, or watch (level one).  Then, at some point, hopefully, you question it (level two).  Questioning things is easy.  Teenagers specifically and Millennials in general are prone to mistake skepticism for intelligence.  I could take anything you do in a given day and point out the absurdity of it all.  You can do it for what you learn in any class in school.  The point where you come back around and recognize the deeper, perhaps even universal and eternal value to our particular actions is when you start to transcend absurdity (level three).  I've gone through the same perspectives Augustus had towards basketball, but I managed to come back around on a higher level.  That's a big reason why I'm not an advocate for any particular sport, but rather try to promote physical activity and competition of any kind.  To me, the value of basketball is ultimately not in the specific rules and regulations of the sport, but simply the fact it is a physical challenge with benefits across the entire spectrum of life, long-term.  

This is what bothered me about Scottsdale Prep's approach to athletics.  It felt like the people in charge were settling for Augustus' perspective: "For some reason kids enjoy running in circles on a track and it doesn't make sense but they'll definitely be mad if we don't have a track team so well I guess we should have a track team."  I'm exaggerating, but it felt like lip-service at times.  It felt like our administration knew they had to say certain things about sports, but ultimately they didn't get it, or worse, didn't care.  The best way to summarize it is that the athletic department was swimming against the current: we had to fight for everything we got.  It's not just important to say athletics are important, they are important in and of themselves.  I've written before about the false dichotomy between being an athlete and being a scholar.  Because we tend to stereotype and generalize, few athletes become teachers and few teachers respect athletes.  This is true everywhere, not just Great Hearts, yet I believe that a general apathy from school faculty toward athletics can be overcome by a proper outlook from the top; the administrative vision is vital in bridging the gap.  And I'm not suggesting that every school administrator have a significant background in sports, but merely that, if they don't, they should understand that they need to allow people who do, like the Athletic Director, have a significant role in policy forming.  At least recognize there is something you don't fully understand, and trust someone who does, rather than acting like there is nothing to understand.

P.S. the solution to the Great Hearts athletics "problem" is not to merge schools.  It's to give anything more than the minimum level of attention and commitment to athletics.  The problem is the opposite they pretend it to be.  They are acting like it's their students who aren't capable of competing, but it's them who are placing their student-athletes in a position to fail.  If you scare away quality athletes by 1) revealing your apathy (it's obvious to those who know what to look for) and 2) pretending like the curriculum is harder than it is because you want to build your "brand", and then 3) you don't provide basic necessities like FIELDS or decent pay to attract quality coaches for the students who do choose to stay, all while frantically spending $$$ opening as many new schools as you can across the country, guess what, your sports programs aren't gonna be great and you're not fooling anyone.  Well, you're not fooling me.

Unfortunately, since classical education and Great Hearts draw academic types like a moth to a conflagration, even less of them know what it means to compete: to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield — on the field.  You cannot understand something you have not experienced, and too many school faculty have not experienced the glory of sport.  No sympathy was shown for those committed to extracurricular endeavors.  Teachers often treated early dismissal as a personal affront.  Athletes who missed their class were targets.  Sure, we can agree that it's not an ideal situation to miss school for sports, but that's our reality.  The presumption that what you had to say in sixth period Tuesday was unquestionably more valuable than the experience of competing, of striving for greatness, of being part of a team?  I just wanted to scream.  It's not just a GAME.  This isn't RECESS.  This is war and peace, this is life and death, this is bigger than you; this has every opportunity to be as life-changing as discussing the rage of Achilles in Book 1 of the Iliad in Humane Letters.

I should not feel obligated to qualify anything, but I do.  I totally get both sides, I really do. I've been both a high school athlete and a high school teacher.  They are both wrong, to some degree.  It's true high school athletes would nearly always choose playing a sport over attending class, and rarely have long-run awareness of the value of what they are doing — not in the way I'm describing, at least.  And it's true that it's tough on teachers to have students miss material.  But, really, is it that hard to see the other side's perspective?  It is that hard for teachers to recognize that their students have slaved and sweated and cried and given everything they have for their school? For their teammates? Their colors?  Instead, sports are commonly treated as a diversion.  A distraction from what truly matters, whether that's learning Latin or reading Dostoevsky or singing in the choir.  If you've never played a sport, what do you think happens at practice?  Do you imagine it to be relaxing?  Refreshing? Not in my experience.  Practice is work, whether or not you enjoy it.  And no I'm not saying athletes should have less homework or anything like that.  Just don't act like what students do outside of school hours isn't difficult and important and rewarding, too.

To elaborate, there are plenty of extracurriculars and hobbies students do that are beneficial to them, and should be treated with respect.  What I'm pointing out is the tendency for adults and teachers to dismiss anything they don't value personally.  Because of my focus on community, my own bias is towards school-sponsored activities, and anything done within community.  So, yes, given the choice I'd promote participation in a school group over an outside solo project.  I think sports get a bad rap for many reasons, and admittedly some of those are because of the kids themselves.

No, if you grabbed a student-athlete who was boarding a bus for an away game and asked him what he was gaining from this, he would probably say something about being willing to do anything to get out of class.  Girls say the same thing, of course.  I'm not faulting teachers for knowing that is the answer to their question, I'm faulting them for believing it.  When you're an athlete, every game, every play, is an opportunity to learn something about yourself, an opportunity to pursue excellence, a chance to change your stars.  That's a fact, whether or not the athletes are capable of communicating it at the time.

It's hard to sit by and watch a school say they're committed to athletics while simultaneously handicapping every team's potential.  How do you tell your bosses they don't understand? You don't; you leave, frustrated.

What is Physical Education for? (Part III: my attempt to justify PE classically)

Is it so students have an energy outlet and can be calmer for their real classes? Is it to burn calories the students would otherwise collect to their detriment? It is to learn rules of sports many students have no interest in? Is it to smear the queers? Note to self, don't put that last one in the syllabus.

What is the goal of physical education, really.

This is what I need to be able to explain to middle schoolers.  Not that they're looking for an explanation.  But still. They should be.

I think we've lost sight of the physical aspect of being human. When I saw "we", I think I mean academics.  Teachers.  When we ask what it means to be human, how often do we mention being physically active? Competing? Courage, maybe?  Too rarely, I think.  And too often, we associate intellectuals with overweight bearded fellows with thick glasses scribbling unintelligibly on a whiteboard.  Are those the people living Socrates' idea of the examined life? I've never thought so.  At Hillsdale, I always had immense respect for the professors who were physically active.  There were some I played basketball with occasionally, others I saw in the racquetball court at the gym, and of course plenty who told stories about bicycling or cross country skiing, etc., over the weekend.  One of my econ profs was an ultra-marathoner, appropriately named Dr. Steele.  That, I thought, is the good life.  A balance.  Mind and body.

So why doesn't anyone else think this way? What's wrong with us?

We've taken specialization too far.  We're surprised to see professional athletes reading books (Shane Battier, anyone?), and the idea of a NFL player retiring in his prime to pursue a Ph.D is beyond comprehension.  We are shocked if a high school teacher can make a 3-pointer (Kirsten Byers?). We settle.

The Greeks are at the foundation of the Western Tradition.  They have some of the greatest thinkers in history to their credit, and their society also produced the Olympics.  Homer's Odyssey was a mix: an epic poem advancing through physical action.

Plato, the Greek philosopher, talked about something called "thumos".  Ever heard of it? There's no word that directly translates to English, which supports my overall point, methinks.  It means something like "passion to defend what you love", or "spiritedness".  It's usually used in context with soldiers and war, which in the ancient world meant hand-to-hand combat.  We don't do that much anymore.  In some ways, I think Ray Lewis might have been the male embodiment of "thumos" for the early 21st century.  Or maybe the entire New Zealand All Blacks team.

I'm not saying those guys are role models, necessarily.  But isn't thumos undervalued?  Where do we even have an opportunity to display "thumos" anymore? When a guy makes a move on your girlfriend, do you punch him?  No, that's too macho.  Outdated.  Or maybe she's not worth it?  I tend to be pretty old school in those matters.

So, the sporting arena is one of the few places left where "thumos" is valued and appreciated.  Fact is, many of our greatest competitors are only great because of their capacity for "thumos".  Muhammad Ali ("I am the greatest").  Ricky Henderson ("I am the greatest of all time").  Or, more recently, Richard Sherman or The Mountain (I AM THE FUTURE OF STRENGTH).

The Richard Sherman interview after the Super Bowl is a great example.  It's one of the rare times we didn't let the professional athlete come down from the mental high he generated in order to make a great play.  And in the aftermath, we revealed our hypocrisy.  We want the performance, but not the backstory.  In order to compete at a high level, you must have thumos.  But if you verbalize your mentality, you are rejected by society.  I'd be willing to bet Sherman understands this.  Many professional athletes do, but few are willing to run the gauntlet.  Society yearns for greatness, even just to witness it (why else do so many people watch sports?), but if you presume to think you're better than someone else, there's something wrong with you.  On the field as a competitor, Peyton Manning thinks more like Richard Sherman than he will ever show you.  He has to. He expects to complete a pass every time he drops back. But Peyton's never going to say it, because he knows how humans work.

Thumos is morally ambiguous.  Having it isn't necessarily good or bad.  We should be able to agree, however, that thumos can be misdirected and unbalanced.  An excess of misguided thumos is why we get high school linebackers trying to choke out school nurses. (At the beginning of this school year we went through a training session where the nurse claimed three different football players had attempted to choke her over the past 10 years. Because they were mad at their teachers.)  And of course there's the obvious connection to the domestic violence issue in the NFL.

The character closest associated with thumos might be Achilles.  He was a hero in Homer's epic poem The Odyssey.  If Achilles were alive today, I don't know that we'd call him a hero.  It's more likely we'd call him an asshole.  He's reckless and arrogant.  When he kills Hector, the greatest warrior of Troy, he shows no respect for his defeated opponent.  He can't turn it off.

The man I named as the modern embodiment of thumos, Ray Lewis, may have murdered someone.  That's not good.

So can thumos be good?  Well, it leads us to greatness, doesn't it? Excellence?  There's an obvious relationship between excellence and Truth, Beauty, Goodness.  And no one can deny that thumos is distinctly human.  Nothing else in nature demonstrates the quality.

Where am I going with this.  Thumos used to be part of the human experience.  It's more rare now, and nearly exclusively combined to athletic competition.  Like anything else, it needs to be moderated, but we can't ignore it completely or pretend we've moved past it.

At risk of turning this into a thesis, I want to briefly say that thumos is a valuable trait for females to possess as well.  There are fewer obvious examples in pop culture, but I can name any number of girls I've coached who demonstrate the quality.  Girls who won't back down from anyone, who expect to beat the best their opponent has to offer (even if their opponent is their own body), and actively use this mindset to pursue greatness.  In fact, it may be more natural for girls to moderate thumos, which we why we have fewer examples like Ray Lewis on the female side.

So, without drawing any particularly controversial conclusions, I'd like to suggest that sports provide us a unique opportunity to tap into our humanity.

Now, the flip side.  While thumos is great for developing confidence, self-reliance, and a desire to be challenged and prevail, it's primarily an individual thing.  The beauty of sport is that it also the best place to learn teamwork, trust, and sacrifice.  When teaching Economics, I frequently highlight the choice between cooperation and every-man-for-himself.  Playing a team sport can be one of the earliest opportunities to break out of the seemingly default perspective that the world exists for you. The first time you realize the team comes before everything else, your perspective is altered forever.  It's not about you, it's about something bigger than you.  Sometimes that takes the form of a team, and I have often starting seeing kids start to understand that on the field.

I know I've already said more than you care to read, but here's a few more things in passing.  Discipline & time-management.  Self-control.  Mental toughness.  Shared experiences and memories.  I don't think I need to carry out the arguments for those benefits of playing sports and being on a team, they are relatively self-explanatory.  And finally..

Games teach us about justice.  Often our earliest experiences with unjustice involve someone breaking a rule on the playground, or cheating at Monopoly, even.  If you're an 6th-grader and the high schoolers keep making rules to their advantage on the four square court, you know it's wrong.  That is an introduction of sorts to natural law as well as the importance of the rules we live by.  In Book VII of Plato's Laws he points out that "the character of the games played [in any given city] is decisive for the establishment of the laws"... The games we play say a lot about us individually, but also as cities and nations.

Again, to clarify, I love the liberal arts.  I love reading, I love learning, and I'm seriously considering pursuing a PhD and someday leading a school.  You can't get much more academic than that.  I had a educational "conversion experience" in college, and attending Hillsdale College is possibly the only decision more influential in my life than playing basketball in 7th grade.  But I'm passionate about both (all) sides of the equation.  If I were living in a community where academics are subverted and athletics are highlighted, I would be writing from the opposite perspective.  As it is now, I cannot ignore I am the product of sport; basketball changed my life.


Sources:
Should We Teach Plato In Gym Class?

"On the Seriousness of Sports" by James V. Schall

Nightcap convos with John Peterson

Mission statements by Founders Admin

Tammy Sanders

Endings matter so

Conclusions are important.

The end of the semester is one of my least favorite times of the year, both as a student and as a paren- I mean, teacher.  I began typing "parent" unintentionally. Foreshadowing? What? No. What? Finals start, and everyone is locked in on doing what they have to do to survive, then finals end and the semester is just over.  There's no time for reflection, no appreciation, nothing.  At Hillsdale, my friends finished finals on all sorts of days/times, and it was likely a majority of the friend group left town before anyone really acknowledged they were leaving.  You have a plane to catch, or a long drive ahead, and you don't have time to hunt everyone down and say goodbye, and the people you hunted down might resent you interrupting valuable study time, so you just hug the people you see on the way out and justify the rest by saying you'll see them next semester.  It's unfortunate, but unavoidable.

My worst semester ending was my first at Hillsdale.  I had pulled multiple all-nighters during the week (Thurs - Wed), and my last final was 8 a.m. Wednesday. Calculus. I finished at 10 a.m., and all my friends were gone.  I hadn't even been aware of the passage of time or what day it was; everything blurred together.  Funny story: I may have dozed off during the math final and scrawled some nonsentence about Dante's Inferno as an answer (my previous final had been English).  Thankfully I woke up and realized the potential disaster, pulled myself together, and finished the test with mostly number responses.  I can only call it a funny story because I still pulled out an "A" in Calc that semester (Calc 2 is a much different, much longer, story).  Also, it's important to note that I learned from that experience.  I got better at finals, and sleeping, later.

My master plan called for me to move dorms (from Simpson to the Suites, long story) by myself, then drive the 8 hours home (by myself).  I had no one to help me move, so this involved several car trips in freezing weather on no sleep.  There's this one brutal scene where my biggest piece of furniture (a papasan) won't fit in my car so I'm balancing it on the roof as I drive through the snow. A combination of all the most horrible things in life: moving, sleep deprivation, cold, solitude...  Between every trip I would collapse on the sheetless bed and give myself a pep talk to keep going.  More than anything, I just wanted to make it home and sleep in my own bed.  The worst part was, they were closing down the dorms so I couldn't have stayed if I wanted to.

Once I'd moved everything, I started driving, made it an hour or so, then pulled over and slept in a parking lot.  Remember, I was going on no sleep, a math final, and moving by myself.  The only reason I woke up was because my body was slowly freezing (try napping in a car for an hour when it's 10 degrees out), but my extremities somehow resisted hypothermia and I made it the rest of the way home.

The same thing happens now as a young teacher... everyone just wants to get home, and very few of my friends are actually from Phoenix, so that means the last few days are full of trips to the airport and hasty goodbyes.  Different schools end at different days/times, too, which doesn't help.  My only warning that Travis was leaving for good was that he yelled "Merry Christmas!" as he slammed the door on his way out.  I was left on the couch thinking... "hmm, that's unusual behavior, I wonder when I'll see him again..." Sub-optimal for sure.

It's obvious that the finals system is to blame here, rather than a lack of planning ahead on our part. Tongue-in-cheek?  Either way, the solution is far less obvious.  In fact, as a teacher I've been just as frustrated.

I have two scenarios.  First, Economics.  Their final is group presentations, and it takes the entire period.  No opportunity to address them one last time, and I won't teach them again in the spring.
Then, Medieval History.  I give them a final and they usually have some time left at the end of the period, then I will see them again next semester.

Economics was tough because their presentations ran long this time, meaning the whole class had to stay over the assigned hour forty-five slot.  So, our last experience together was a majority of the class getting stressed/annoyed, with a few unlucky students up front attempting to finish their presentation after the bell rang.  There's no way I could keep them longer and attempt to give a few final thoughts or even to thank them for a good semester, it wouldn't be fair.  It really bothers me that, after a semester of teaching those two sections, now I'll never have a chance to address that group all at once again.  Even though we had a great semester, I don't like the last experience, and that takes away from the overall experience.

Medieval is both more and less tough.  There is a lot of variation between when they finish the test, so the first student may be done a solid 30-40 minutes before the last.  In that time, my main requirement is to keep the classroom quiet.  Some kids are fine; they bring study materials or books, but most of them are as restless as you would imagine being after finishing a final exam.  So, they end up being loud, and what usually ends up happening is me rebuking/threatening the students for the last part of class.  I can't even realistically threaten them with detention, or send them out in the hall, or any of my go-to disciplinary tactics, because its the end of the semester.  It's a lose-lose situation.  Even if I were to settle them down successfully and talk to them the last 10 minutes before the bell rang, they wouldn't be listening. At all.  Which, would make me even more frustrated. I know because it's been a failed strategy in the past.

During that last week or so of school, the momentum is building so quickly that it becomes impossible to stop, or even slow down.  Ideally, I would be able to find a time to have a brief heart-to-hearts with the section, to review the semester and summarize a few takeaways, or things to think about for next year.  I failed this year, and it's on short list of things I haven't gotten better at over the first few years of teaching.  The closest thing I've come to a solution is note-writing... this year I managed to write a note to every student who brought me a gift, plus a few extra/special students.  The way I see it, if I know there won't be an opportunity for us to pause in the chaos together, I can pause it in writing on my own, and they can pause to read it later.  An imperfect solution, and not one I'm satisfied with.

The importance of endings is related to the "What have you done for me lately?" mentality, which says that a multitude of positives can be blotted out by one negative, if the negative comes at the end.  It's both entirely unfair, and entirely understandable.  I know its the way my memory works, and it takes a Herculean effort for me to see things in a more rational, balanced perspective.  One thing I'm good at is viewing other people in the long run.  Rather than judge them on their last interaction, I can average it out to have a more accurate opinion of them.  I'm much more hard on myself, though.  In each of the first two quarters, the worst week for me was the last week, and that has been driving me crazy.  It makes me feel like a failure.  I can't get around it.

Now for the sports analogy that you've all been waiting for!  It's not at all necessary, but it's a good story, and it's Christmas.

My freshman year, there was a quite open four-way race to be the 5th starter on the varsity basketball team.  Me, my two best friends (both named David), and my best friend's older brother, Bryan, who was a senior.  The coach used it as motivation the whole pre-season, and didn't tell us who'd he picked for the spot until the practice before the first game.  He picked me.

We were basically a two-man team, so the last three starters were very much role players, but still.  Starting varsity was a big deal, especially when you're beating out your friends.

I had played basketball for the first time in 7th grade, and I was the last player on the bench by a wide margin.  For whatever reason, I fell in love with it, and basketball became the single biggest focus of my high school life.  I wanted to be good at everything, but basketball more than anything.  Getting named a varsity starter as a freshman felt like all the work I'd put in over the previous two years was paying off.

I was unbelievably nervous/excited for the game.  It was an absolute disaster.  I had three traveling violations (4 total TO) in the first half, and I started the third quarter with another traveling call.  Kobe can get away with those stats, but not a freshman role player on a HS team coached by a lawyer.  I guess that's what happens when you spend your summer practicing without referees around and have an infamously quick first step.

So, there's me, sitting on the bench for the rest of the third quarter.  Was I crying, you ask? Yes.  I had just squandered my chance, everything I'd worked for was wasted.  The immensity of the failure was impossible to ignore.  I didn't start another varsity game that season.

That's a sad story, right? But, I skipped the ending.  I didn't tell you what happened in the fourth quarter.

By the fourth quarter, our team had opened up a lead, and the coach decided to give me a few more minutes.  I came into the game knowing I couldn't play worse than I had.

I got a pass on a breakaway and made a layup. Then a jumpshot from the left side.  Then an and-1 (FT good) on another fast break.  Then a 3-pointer (one of those that looked bad the whole way before kinda swishing through the side).  Then, I was fouled on a jumpshot and made 1-of-2 free throws.

11 points in the 4th.  More than any other role player scored in a game the whole season (with one exception).

The story isn't sad anymore.  I wasn't ready for varsity pressure, but I did have a high ceiling, potentially.  The coaches changed their approach to me as a result of that first game.  I was going to gain experience playing JV primarily.  So, freshman year I was the go-to guy on the JV team, and it made me an immensely more confident player, and a leader.  The next season I was a co-captain on the varsity team.

Fun game: you can measure how well you know me by the point in this blog where you realized it wasn't going to have a conclusion.  Before I started writing? Tom Sawyer level.  The title?  Jon Gregg level. The first sentence? No excuse for missing that cue, folks.
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Fine. The point of not having a conclusion?  If you feel somewhat robbed by the lack of a cohesive ending, that's the same feeling I get at the end of the semester.  If you feel like a lot of potential was lost, yeah.  And, obviously, these last few sentences are the filter through which you will view the earlier thoughts.  Now, whether you want to call this paragraph explaining why there's no conclusion a conclusion is up to you.

Did you see that coming, Tom?

How bout that?

The end.

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Just do something.

It seems like there should be a small gap between the thought "X should happen" and "I will do X".  All too often, that thought process is hijacked after "X should happen" into "Somebody should do X".  And when everyone is thinking "Somebody should do X", more often than not, "X" doesn't happen.

There's a term that applies to this, more or less: the bystander effect.  If you scroll down to the examples on that Wiki page, they are nothing short of shocking.  Twenty-five people walked by a man as he lay dying on the sidewalk, having been stabbed in NYC.  Eighteen walked by a toddler who had been hit by a truck in China.  Essentially, the more people observing a situation which requires action, the less of a chance any of them will act.  Everyone thinks someone else will do it.

This rationalization is even easier when you have reason to believe it is someone else's responsibility.  Why would you stop a crime if you aren't a police officer?  Why would you save someone drowning if you aren't a lifeguard?  We love to segment responsibility to justify inactivity.  There's plenty of evidence, for example, that people donate far more to charity when the government isn't involved in a cause.  Once the government takes on Hurricane Sandy relief, everyone else stops giving.

Students and schools provide another great example.

I've noticed over the last few years that our high school students complaints had a general theme to them: there is a lack of school spirit and very few non-academic extra-curricular outlets.  Basically, they felt as if the school asks them to go to class, do homework and go to practice, then sleep and do it all again.  Everything they do for the school is exhausting, mentally and physically.  Playing sports and doing Jazz Band and attending Quiz Bowl events are enjoyable, but they also require hard work.  It comes down to the "All work and no play theory", ultimately.  Is "play" necessary? What is play? Where does it come from?

The normal school outlets such as football games and dances have historically been poorly attended by our students.  We are a relatively young school, so many of the customary high school spirit traditions haven't been built up yet.

When this came up in the past, I always tried to sell it as a positive.  If we don't have traditions yet, that means the current students have the opportunity to shape the school into what they want it to be.  I always told them the change had to start with them.  They had to set the example, not wait for others to lead.

Anyway, I had that conversation many times with students last year.  But, I didn't really see any notable/systemic changes in behavior.

So, the problem we've identified is an absence of school spirit and extra-curricular activities/distractions of the "fun" variety.  Here's where the "bystander effect" comes into play...  All sides - students, parents, teachers, administration - can see and acknowledge the problem, but no one views it is part of their "job description", so to speak. Administration has more important things to worry about, Parents don't have the access required, Teachers don't have the time, and Students don't have the mindset/authority.

I am totally committed to Scottsdale Prep.  At the same time, I'm close enough with my students that they feel comfortable coming to me with their complaints.  So, it has been really hard for me to see my students so unsatisfied, especially in an area that seems so fixable, and feel powerless to help them.  Am I powerless, though?  Of the four sides, it seems like teachers have the best opportunity to make a difference.

So, to recap.
Year 1: Too overwhelmed to recognize any problems, much less attempt to solve them.
Year 2: Acknowledge legitimate student complaints, verbally guide them toward solutions.
Year 3: ???

In short, my mindset entering the year was to be the catalyst for the students.  When I heard/thought "Someone should...", the someone is always going to be me.  I was going to help make ALL the "X's" happen.

There are a few reasons I had this mindset.  First, no one else came to mind to fill this leadership role (the Myers-Briggs personality test has me pegged as an INTJ (introverted, intuitive, thinking, judging) — one of the major characteristics is being reluctant to lead but capable when necessary. ..(Seriously, skim over that INTJ description and you will understand me so much better)... Secondly, the DO ALL THE THINGS mindset was at least partially leftover from our month-long Europe trip.  When you're traveling, you live every day as if you may never come back.  Mainly because it's true. That is only sustainable over short periods of time, though.  When I look back at Europe, I'm still amazed at how much we fit into every single day.  A day in Europe is like 4-5 days of a typical summer schedule, maybe more. Anyway.  Finally, this was the first year of teaching that I wasn't going to be coaching a fall sport, so I figured I had some extra time to work with.

Here's the list of extra-curricular accomplishments from the 1st quarter:
-Created a Spartan Twitter account so that game updates could be sent out instantaneously.
-Sent out updates from the Twitter account nearly every day.
-Oversaw an unofficial weekly group of students discussing God and religion.
-Started Four Square Club, which now has 30+ members and weekly "meetings".
-Assigned an economics project to see which section could get the most people to a football game
-Designed/ordered the t-shirts for Homecoming, which had been an area of complaint last year.
-Made the playlist for home football games, and DJ-ed games.
-Put together a weekly Athletic Update sent out to all parents w/ team summaries.
-Started a weekly Ultimate Frisbee game that turned into an Ultimate Frisbee Club.
-Facilitated a game of Senior Assassin which is now running smoothly w/o me.
-Advised students on the best way to get a "Powderpuff" (girls flag) football tourney going.
-Applied to Guinness World Records for a chance to beat Longest Marathon Four Square game (29+ hours).. response pending.

 All of this is in addition to attending multiple school athletic events per week, often volunteering, always tweeting updates.  Twitter alone has provided a visible boost to school spirit this year so far, in my opinion.

Oh, one example from before this quarter.  When I coach Sand Volleyball, we have open practices on Saturdays.  Anyone can show up and play, which I like because my girls get to play against guys and beat them. This is doubly worthwhile because it puts the boys in their place and gives the girls training playing against unusually athletic competition.  The tradition continued after the season, and there was a whole group who got together and played regularly over the summer.

In a few of those examples, I had significant initiative from students, but I took the step to give them the responsibility.  I specifically asked a few students to help design the homecoming shirt, with great results.  I helped create the rules for Senior Assassin, which are currently being enforced by an alum.

I abandoned many other aspects of my life in order to accomplish these things, but teaching was not one of those aspects.  In the first quarter, I was by far the best-organized and prepared I have been as a teacher so far.  I also managed to work out regularly, which I've found vital to maintaining high energy levels from day to day.  Beyond that, I didn't have much of a life.  Many of my relationships suffered, and my focus on building community amongst the faculty wavered.  I was not paid for accomplishing any of those things on the list, which is especially painful considering I actually lost money from not coaching and many of my friends spent the quarter prepping for the GRE.  So, was it worth it?

I'd like to think I've had an impact on the students' school experience this year, and I love that I can provide immediate help for the students that I've known for years and care so much about.  Without those connections, I certainly wouldn't have considered this project.  But, my goal is also far more wide-reaching than just this year.  I want those students to get to a point where they don't rely on other people to make things happen.  They need to become self-reliant.  High school is such a crucial time in realizing this and making the leap to be an initiater.  Once that leap happens for them, it will benefit them the rest of their lives.  I suspect it comes naturally to me because my own high school provided so few possibilities, and we all had to make our own fun.    If our upperclassmen can get over the mental hurdle and begin taking more initiative, the rest of the students will follow their example, and I won't even be necessary.  Not only that, but if I can build the framework this year for activities that are repeatable next year, we may even start having a few traditions beyond studying for final exams every semester.  Again, the reason I can justify doing all of this volunteer work is because I think the impact will continue beyond this year.  Our school has a great curriculum, great teachers, and great families.  I'm trying to build a sense of community while correcting the belief that an academically rigorous school cannot be fun.  If we can have both strong academics and genuine school spirit, Scottsdale Prep will be unstoppable.

The best example of the full spectrum of change so far is Ultimate Frisbee club.  There's a senior who had mentioned the possibility of an Ultimate Frisbee club to me for a couple years.  My typical response: "Get it started, and I will gladly be the faculty advisor."  Well, one day he brought it up again and I just said: "Name a time and place. Okay. Now tell all your friends."  Well, he did, and I told my classes, and that was that.  It was huge for him to realize it didn't even have to be a club.  They didn't have to jump through tons of official red tape hoops to get together and play frisbee regularly.  Since then, the senior has turned it into a real club, contacted another Great Hearts school with a club, and scheduled a game — all without my direct influence or input.  The game was played while I was out of town.  Scottsdale Prep won.