This old dog is trying to learn some new tricks.

 Reflection and feedback are the keys to growth, but as I found in my time in the educational world criticism is usually what people view as direct feedback. Don't get me wrong I'm not suggesting that all feedback should be positive. What I am suggesting that behaviors that are critiqued should be related to  the behavior and not the person.  This is a fundamental tenet of restorative practice for student discipline and should be an integral product of all feedback. 

It appears to me that in the world of adults this is sorely lacking in the work place. Back channel gossip, grumbling, and ultimately disgruntled managers and employees are the result of people being able to disassociate behaviors from the person. Far too often this results in what we classify as, "poor communication," and leads to dysfunctional teams, lack of results, and retention issues. There are no shortage of books and research on the culture of teams, but I have yet to see one make this connection. 

Separating the person from the actions, behaviors, or work products allows the room for growth. It allows people to view how they relate to a team and more importantly how their actions affect their results and the results of the team. Talking about how things make us feel is fine, but does it address the issue? To say, " When you do this, it makes me feel            ," only associates work with feeling and eliminates the ability to disconnect the person from the action. It is a winner take all scenario. The only options are to either continue the behavior and damage the relationship, or stop the behavior to satisfy the feelings.

Relationships are the key to success in a work culture, that is undeniable. What if we surrounded our work culture in talking about the work? What if we could say instead, "when you do this, it makes us feel        , because effects this process?" This gives the person receiving the feedback a connection to the work. It avoids the winner take all approach to feelings and provides a path forward for increasing productivity, or any other work process. 

I am trying this these days and I will completely acknowledge that it is hard. To be able to address things that make me crazy by directly associating it with the work forces me to investigate whether there is actually anything negative happening, or if it my insecurity, idiosyncrasies, or other items. It has produced some interesting results as well because it is not typical. 

We shall see how it turns out. Time will tell

Making it work - Update

      It has been more than a year since I have typed anything in this blog. This was my tool for therapy when my life was in turmoil and I needed some way to step out of myself and examine it from outside the situation.

Since I have moved here and restarted my life I have learned one thing, make it work. When I first moved here I spent the first part of my time turning around in circles looking for things to grab on to to feel stable and give myself direction. At first, I focused on old relationships and spent large amounts of my time reaching out to them to try and rekindle friendships that I cherish but, haven't nurtured or kept going for a long time. I found out rather quickly that while I got along with those old friends, and we could reminisce with the best of them, we all had different lives now and were living and operating in separate circles. These friendships were based on memories of who we were instead  of having the structure and stability of who we are.

Then I turned to my work. Work has always been something in which I could bury myself. The minutia of the tasks would mean I didn't have to acknowledge the rest of my life with any real investment. I could do all the things, make dinner, hug, bathe, but, it was part of the work. It was just my second job. My only investment was in keeping moving and making things continue to happen in a quasi-normal existence. When I moved here it allowed me the luxury of starting all over in a work capacity and made it easy for me to have something else to devote my time into other than my thoughts and feelings as a person.

This was all I knew until - I changed my perspective, or, I might say opened my heart and met the most amazing kids.

These kids taught me real perseverance, poverty, and acceptance when I moved here and it stirred inside me a new feeling which I hope to foster and grow for the rest of my life. This feeling led me to get involved. Something I was never interested in before. I went back to church. I tried really hard at understanding kids and how they felt and what they were going through. I learned that growth can happen at any age and is devoid of anything but the desire to try harder and do something, anything.

I also learned to relieve myself from things like - drama. I noticed the modus operandi of people who were like toddlers wailing and crying into their hands only to look up and see if anyone was noticing before they continued. I noticed that some people have a deep need to create something that they need to be saved from, or, to save someone else. - My whole first marriage was because of this so I am as guilty as anyone else.

Now, I am having the time of my life supporting teachers in their pursuits to help these amazing kids. My son is doing amazing and makes my heart shine with pride everyday because of his kindness, curiosity, and unwavering optimism. I am now in a loving relationship with an amazing woman who wants to be my partner, hold me close, and still be as strong as anyone I know.

All of this because I met some refugee kids and taught them some music. They taught me so much more and I am forever grateful. I know now that God has a plan for me and as long as I don't give up and I keep going he will get me where I need to be.

It has been a long time. A lot has happened.

 So like the title says - "It has been a long time."  Since I last posted to this blog I have met a wonderful woman, married, changed jobs three times, and moved halfway across the country. I have also become a step father to a little man. 

All of these things present their own challenges in different ways.  Through all this change and perpetual movement forward in life I have learned so much, made mistakes, and ultimately developed a new philosophy on life and my place in it. 

When I last used this virtual chronicle of my thoughts and feelings I was living in the midst of confusion and mending from a past that proposed to scar my heart and thoughts to the future. I was clamoring to be a dad and learn a whole new life path in a new city. While the option to close up shop on matters of the heart and devote all my energy into the raising of the boy, a simple camping trip completely turned my life into a roller coaster filled with emotions new and old all while slowly developing me into a happy fool willing to take on new adventures. It turns out that dancing in the kitchen can mend a hearts deepest wounds and teach us that the simplest of eases can be welcomed when not previously experienced. 

This development of my new family and finding comfort in discomfort has helped me in so many ways. In education we use the phrase purposeful struggle as a discussion point to make students work towards solving problems. It turns out life itself is a purposeful struggle and to be open to allowing yourself to experience new things, fail, try again, fail again, and develop new strategies to solve the same old problems can really be fun, frustrating, and so rewarding it will make your heart want to burst with love and gratitude for the opportunity. 

Trying to Process

It has been almost 24 hours since I got the call that one of my friends from college had passed. This was a total shock to me and I have spent the day trying to process the information and in typical fashion I chose to put it down on "paper" so I could think it out and help myself understand what I am thinking and hopefully allow me to at least feel something about the situation.

Tony was an indomitable spirit from the first time I met him when he was still in high school. At first I didn't like him at all. I know the laws of kindness say I am not supposed to say that but, it is true and there it is. Tony was the polar opposite of myself, you see I took myself too seriously even then. He was always in the moment and it seemed he never took anything seriously. This made me CRAZY! In truth I was always a little jealous of him. His ability to turn anything into a joke, a good time, and he was never short on his witty retorts to anything. I wished that I could be that way, but, only when I wanted to which doesn't work at all.

After a time he and I became good friends and we spent a significant amount of time in each other's company. He would still make me absolutely crazy to the point of me wanting to "Nelson" shake him and at the same time he could always make me crack and smile because his joy never let up. We could also find the most fun in the silliest of endeavors. I remember once we rented the Madden football game and played it for 24 hours straight just trying to see how many awful, catastrophic collisions we could make happen. No score, competition, or even full games - just " Ok this time when you run jump into me and I will hit you from the left " - for 24 hours! I will remember it forever.

His death, this thing that has happened, has shaken me to the core. He is the first one of my close friends to pass away. I have been exposed to death. I have lost students, grandparents, aunts, and uncles but, this is different. It is the first sign that the immortality of youth is over. Life can touch us and our memories and make it hurt, really hurt, and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. Life has dictated that we have all chosen different paths and we have moved down those paths with different speeds and trials. The minutia of the ever-present has caused us to look back fondly but not take action in reaching out to make sure that the connection is still alive and working. This is a shame and I am going to make a concerted effort to at least keep in contact with those I care about more frequently.

I wish I could say I am going to miss Tony, but, I am not going to miss him. With all of the miles between us and the time that has past most of my connection with him is in memory of us and what we were and who we all were. This "band of brothers" that spent a brief time as everything to each other. We were colleagues, a support group, room mates, friends, and we took care of each other. SO, I won't miss Tony. I will forever hold him in in my mind as the guy who was always there with a smile, who would be silly when he shouldn't and didn't care, who could show real compassion, and who could make you forget to take it so seriously, if only for a moment.

Rest my friend, and know that I will forever think of you and smile.


Love Always,

JABBA

Worrying

     It has been a long time since I have made my self sit down and type out a blog post. This used to be my cathartic way of rationalizing my crazy life without completely going crazy and running with scissors or some other destructive behavior.

I thought that was all behind me ..... well not so much.

     It is true that my daily dose of drama has substantially subsided since moving away and I no longer have to deal with people consumed with the need to create catastrophes in order to be saved form them by someone else. It sounds as crazy as it is and it continues still today with the same crowd. The only difference is I don't have to subscribe to the pay per view or, be a participant. I can just pretend it doesn't exist like professional wrestling. It happens, I know it happens, I hear about it happening, I know the people involved, and even with all of that knowledge I couldn't care less.

    My new neurosis is worry. I worry about being lonely because I am lonely. I worry about my health because I am fat. I worry about my son. I worry about my job. I worry about what to do next with my life. I worry.

All that being said, I am not currently doing anything to remedy any of these situations in any real or focused way. I clamor around to put out whatever fire is in front of me at the time and then stand stock still until I smell or see the next flames. It is exactly like the feeling you get when you look at your to do list and it is so long that you say, "screw it. " and go drink a margarita at 2:30pm on a Wednesday afternoon for no reason.

This "worry" has become a constant in my life and I am on a mission to fix it. I'm not sure how (even though I am sure a multitude of well meaning people would be more than willing to tell me how immediately causing my natural defiance mechanism which in turn means I will automatically not do that whatever "it" is) but, I am going to try and figure some way to tackle this beast.

I have to.

I made it out of hell. I can make it out of limbo too....

Why I do what I do.

I had a fried post online a question that totally rocked me the other day. A simple question that I haven't thought about in so long that it startled me.

Why do you do what you do? What makes you tick?

This got me thinking in a million different directions at once about

•  my personal life
•  my professional life
•  my relationships with students  

Naturally because of the relationship with my friend and the things we do there are the cliched responses but, I decided to really think about what made me tick professionally. Here's what I came up with.

Being part of something bigger than yourself.
I want to teach students that being a part of something bigger than yourself is rewarding and requires sacrifice. That the feeling of being able to look to your left and the right and the people may not be the best but they are giving everything they have not only for themselves but for you and the group. 

Music has power.
   Real power. It can do anything from put a baby to sleep to create a national movement. It reaches the very part of us that is in constant touch with who we are in our most real selves. 

That music is one of the few things in this world that is fair.
     It is one of the few places where the work is essential and it doesn't matter if you are black, white, blue, rich, poor, fat, skinny, or whatever your can succeed at some level if you are willing to put in the work. 

The music theory of relativity. 
     One of the most appealing things to me about music is that in a performance or a class time is irrelevant. While you are playing, if you are doing it right, it is truly a vacation from the world. The only thing that matters is the present. There are no power bills, no high stakes testing, or anything but the investment in the  the performance, and your relationship with the other performers.

These are things that make me tick and my vehicles for doing what I feel is a real service to the world. Lots of things teach you to work hard. Lots of things can teach you responsibility, higher order thinking and all the other selling points people like to use. Music has intrinsic value and we should celebrate its value not make it fit into slogans and talking points.

When I am gone I hope for just a few things. That I was a good father, friend, that my students knew I loved them, and that for one shining moment I was able to be a part of their lives and teach them about the greatest thing I know - music.

Be. Here. Now.

A couple of things have happened in the past couple of weeks that have me thinking and reassessing some of my habits. 

The first was a trip to the Discovery Science Center and the second was an Easter egg hunt at church.

Both things are super fun and a great way for my son and I to spend time together. 

When we got to the science center my boy ran over to the first station and proceeded to start having fun and doing exactly what we were there to do. HAVE FUN. I however, did the thing that has become entirely too familiar. I whipped out my phone, made my son pose, and tried to get him wrangled in to take his picture so that I could share with my "friends" how MUCH fun we were having. I did this a couple of times throughout the place and the day as I had done a million times before. 

I posted the pics and periodically marveled at how many "likes" and "comments" were made about the super fun times we were having. This is a  thing that has become too typical in my life and outings with the undisputed most important thing in my life. 

The next event however, changed my whole perspective hopefully forever. 

We arrived at the egg hunt, helped out a little, got in line for our picture with the bunny, did some crafts, and waited for the big event all the other families. My boy was playing in the floor with a hot wheel the bunny just gave him  like it was both indestructible and made of gold at the same time. 

To watch a boy play with a hot wheel is a beautiful thing. So much joy, and imagination in how they play. They fly, fight, go underwater, become life saving crews and armed forces vehicles in seconds. All with a seamless transition that all the others understand and accept like I accept that air conditioners make air cold.  I don't know how and don't care. They make air cold and I am thankful for it. 

Anyway, I digress. Back to the task. 

I noticed a familiar behavior from all the adults in the room. It was the same behavior I had done a million times and had done the same just day before at the science center. They were all manufacturing fun and living this moment through a view finder. They weren't present. They were hours or minutes ahead of themselves and already sharing magical moments and memories without having any.

When I was a kid my parents had a camera and we took pictures but, there was a magical substance which made those pictures limited and precious. FILM. It was expensive to take a million pictures and even more expensive to get them developed. So pictures were precious commodities for only the most special occasions. I am thankful for this now. 

Now pictures aren't special. My son will have his whole life chronicled digitally, and stored, not in shoe boxes where he can find them and go through them when I pass, but on a digital cloud. 

Our lives have become too shared, liked, notified, and checked in. We share our dinners, who we are with, where we are every minute of the day, and how we are feeling about everything. Nothing is precious and / or special any longer. 

Well not for this guy any longer! 

I am going to try and be here now. BE. HERE. NOW. 

Oh and by the way, make sure to like and share this on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and anything else you can think of.  Insert clever emoticon here!