Work With Hope

On Saturday I was buying chocolate chips for Christmas cookies. As the (young) checker scanned these, she excitedly commented, “Did you see that they make these in butterscotch now?” I smiled and replied, “They have made butterscotch chips since I was a small boy, and before that.” Then I shared how my grandmother made butterscotch chip cookies more often than chocolate. She smiled patronizingly, clearly getting more information than she expected or desired, and wished me a good day.

Inspired by this memory, the next day I decided to make butterscotch cookies. To my surprise, I had to go to three stores before I found a package of butterscotch chips. There were milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate (?), peanut butter, and mini chips, but no butterscotch. When I finally found them, it was an off brand and not my beloved Nestles (from whom Grandma’s butterscotch chip cookie recipie originated). when I was young, there were two kinds of Nestles’ chips, semi-sweet chocolate and butterscotch.

All of this led to a question, What happened to butterscotch?” When I was young, butterscotch was a major player in the kingdom of sweets. Besides butterscotch chips, there was butterscotch syrup for ice cream, butterscotch hard candies, and butterscotch pudding, none of which can be easily found on store shelves (or ice cream parlors) any more. How many 20 somethings have ever tasted a butterscotch hard candy? When was the last time you were offered butterscotch anything in a restaurant?

For the time being, all of these things still exist, but they are getting harder and harder to find, crowded off the shelves and menus by caramel. While I understand that some people find these similar, the heavy, overripe taste of caramel cannot equal the light, sweet, subtlety of good butterscotch (and salted caramel is an abomination). Will our great grandchildren ever know the taste of butterscotch?

Do flavors become extinct like species? We have more options of food and drink than ever before, but do tastes die out along the way? In preparation for this post, I tried to think of other flavors that have disappeared or are disappearing. Certainly black licorice is on its way out as a candy, though the anise flavor continues in many recipes and alcoholic beverages. What else may be disappearing? I’m not saying foods, because food products and preparations come and go, but what tastes will not make it to the second half of the 21st Century?

I welcome your comments, memories, and flavors.

Image: Butterscotch sweets. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterscotch

First of all, for anyone who is saying, “It should be, ‘So shines a good deed in a weary world’!” I’m glad you enjoyed Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Now go read The Merchant of Venice. 😉

Today I began decorating my apartment. I wrapped lights around my balcony and hung a lighted garland around the walls of the living room. After finishing, I sat for a few minutes just to enjoy. There is something about the tiny beams of light piercing the darkness that reaches my soul like no other Sign of Christmas.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light! Isaiah 9:2

Looking at the lights, however, I couldn’t help think of the passing of President George H. W. Bush yesterday and his most famous reference to “A Thousand Points of Light.”

Anyone who knows me knows that I was not a fan of either President Bush. My political leanings are far to the left of his, and I know he suffered further in my estimation from my extreme dislike of his predecessor. I saw his policies as a continuation of the small government, let those in need take care of themselves philosophy, just dressed up in “kinder gentler” language.

But lives prove words, and by the dignity and generosity with which he lived his post-presidential life, staying out of the spotlight except to help others, and actively supporting the current president, no matter the party, have brought me to believe that he did believe in his words. He believed in the importance of individuals coming forward living lives of service and not forgetting their brothers and sisters. I believe that he saw those thousand points of light in his essential belief in the goodness of the American people.

I know this type of eulogy opens me to criticism by those on my side of the street. I know I am softening some ugly realities by focusing on a couple of phrases that were not always matched by his actions (and certainly not the actions of Congress). But none of us are consistent consistently, and taking the man’s life as a whole (at least what we know of it) he was a type of statesman we no longer see.

These words of care and generosity are such a world away from the rhetoric coming from the White House today, where such sentiments would be brutally mocked as unmanly. Will we someday look back at today and see it as a simpler, gentler time? I pray by all that’s holy, not!

There is value sometimes in just being a good person, not an ideologue; in looking out for the feelings of others, rather than mocking political correctness; and trying to find ways to be kind, rather than to win. Of course President Bush didn’t win re-election, and that speaks as highly for him as anything else.

As always, I invite your comments.

Image: Greg’s holiday garland 2019

The signs of a changing season are unmissable. Whatever the weather (and today it is truly beautiful here) the impending sound of jingle bells drones in our consciousness and our ears. Today I read an article about “last minute” Christmas gifts”!

It’s December 1, so for the seventh time I’m taking up my yearly sleigh ride around the world heading toward Christmas Day. For the next 24 days, I will write a blog post, following my usual, self imposed rules that each post has to be written on the day and about a topic that comes to me on that day.

Other years I have called this exercise a blogging “Advent calendar” and in a way it is, as I try to capture in blog form the many faces of the Advent and Christmas season as well as other random topics. I always feel that it puts me in closer touch with the season and, I hope, myself.

This morning, as I was preparing to start, I took about an hour to read through posts from the past six times I’ve done this. The first time was in 2011 (for some reason I didn’t write in 2012, I think I was still recovering from writing “30 Blogposts of Summer”). I was amazed by how different my life was then, how different I was then. I also was blown away by how many topics I’ve talked about in 144 posts. How will I find worthwhile things to talk about for another year?

This blogging Advent calendar looks right now like a very blank set of boxes waiting to be filled. My friend David suggested That I write about my suggestions for the college football playoff. Maybe not, but of course I have written about pooping statues in Nativity scenes.

I guess I’ll have to trust the process and trust the season to provide new material and new insights (I do believe I may have finished plumbing the depths of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” but who knows?)

I hope that some of you will walk this road with me. I can’t promise brilliance, or even fruit cake, but I will write about something every day, and I hope I can turn the blank calendar into something worthy of the season.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Image: Blank Advent Calendar (available from Amazon).

We have all been present at a professional development session, or a faculty meeting, or a parent presentation, where the speaker concludes with the stirring call to action to provide “21^st Century Skills” or “21^st Century Learning” to our students, so that they will be fully prepared for their future.  The call feels so fresh, so invigorating, so current that it is unquestionably applauded. 21^st Century Learning is our battle cry as we plunge boldly into the future.

However, this “innovative” battle cry is far from new, far from innovative, and frankly far from helpful in defining the needed learning for students of today and tomorrow.   The shine on this newness starts to wear off when we remember that we have been calling for these changes since the early 1990s.  Our futuristic vision is nearly thirty years old, and it is showing its age.  While any call to education reform and improvement is valuable, it is time to examine whether our focus on the 21^st Century might be starting to hold us back.

What’s in a Name?

What’s wrong with asking for 21^st Century Learning?  If nothing else the term is…accurate.  Who could disagree that students in the 21^st Century should have skills of their time?  All too often, though, the term is used aspirationally, rather than descriptively.  Virtually all K-12 students were born in the 21^st Century, so why are we still calling educators to strive to provide what should be the baseline expectation of 21^st Century schools?

It is certainly a term that has overstayed its welcome.  In the 1960s, 70s, and 80s we were not talking about giving our students 20^th Century skills, yet here we are nearly twenty years into the next century and calling for everyone to catch up.  Are we still going to be calling for 21^st Century Learning in 2020, 2030, 2050?  Children who are born today have every expectation of living into the 22^nd Century. How are we best serving them with 21^st Century Learning…if we ever get there?

What Are We Talking About Anyway?

There is also a slipperiness to the term.  For some, these skills are a nebulous future learning environment that somehow involves building robots with Legos.  But if we are to set something as our goal, we need much clearer definition Most would agree that base fundamental 21^st Century skills are

• Collaboration
• Communication in all its many forms (including digital communications)
• Critical thinking
• Ability to access and evaluate resources
• Self-direction and ability to learn independently

21^st Century Learning should promote, develop, and assess these skills using the communication and information tools that are available, particularly focusing on mobile digital resources.  Schools and school programs should be evaluated based on their ability to provide demonstrable growth in these areas.

How This Plays Out

So, what is the harm of a feel-good aspirational term?  The key drawback of the race for 21^st Century education is that it kicks the can of accomplishment down the road. If we are working toward 21^st Century Education, then we remove the urgency that we should be there already.  21^st Century Initiatives tend to be very milestone driven, often relating to implementation of new devices or software with little focus on how these will achieve the goals.  These goals delay the hard questions of how we will instruct and assess skills that are far less concrete that the rote memorization and compliance of 20^th Century skills.

Updating digital and curriculum resources is, of course, vital.  Too much of what is done in school uses skills and equipment that, if not outmoded already in the workplace, are on their way out.  However, true 21^st Century Learning cannot wait once we get the most up-to-date tools in place.  Chasing this “starting point” is a never-ending rabbit hole that ironically preserves the status quo.  21^st Century Education is what goes on in our classroom every day.  What we want is better education in our classroom, and we want it now.

Where Shall We Go?

The 21^st Century is today.  The skills, methodology, and learning of today should be the 21^st Century education we, our parents, and our students expect, not a lofty goal that can be held as a placeholder for future action.  School leadership must firmly embrace these skills as fundamental to the program and lead teachers in forming students for this century and the next, using the tools at hand while new tools to do this even better come into play.  Calling for 21^st Century Learning is no longer good enough; we need to have 21^st Century Learning.

Oh, the light was a New York Christmas baby
Snowflakes like diamonds in her hair
And we watched them all, sparkle and fall
Something almost true was in the air

“Tinsel and Lights”  Tracey Thorne

Many things have died in 2017.  One of the most obvious casualties of the year has been truth.  While I’m not one to suggest that we were well grounded in truth prior to this year, when #fakenews is meta-meme (people use it to say that the news is and is not fake) something has clearly been lost.

Before you stop reading, fearing that this is going to be one more diatribe about the evils of Trumpism, I want to focus on something much closer to home.  In our outrage and anger, something died in us as well (by us, I suppose I mean me, my gift is intended for me as much as anyone else).  It’s larger than a death of idealism (that really took it in the shorts), it’s a death of the ability to engage in the world with anything but the shield of deepest cynicism.  In the daily barrage of outrage we have settled into bunkers of depression.  Not only do we feel like we cannot win the big battles, we can’t do much of anything.  In the constant questioning of truth, we have also lost our own belief in truth, beyond terror at what may come next.

 But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.

A Christmas Carol Stave I

So my wish for you, for us, my friends, is that you may spend the next year rediscovering the essential truths that make our lives worthwhile.  May our Christmas impulses toward generosity, love, and joy flow through our actions and our hearts throughout 2018.  Fight the feeling of global ineffectiveness by doing something in front of us, whether it be visiting group homes, donating food weekly, or e-donating to charities that will be hit by the changes to the tax code.  Every light is a light, and a good deed shines brightly in a weary world.  Spend time and open our hearts to the people we love, and love the people who have been taken from us.  Feel joy whenever and however we can, and get over the sense that feeling joyful in a dangerous time is somehow wrong.  And while feeling this joy, look for our companions who are falling under the waves and bring them up.

This is the truth of life.  We lose it easily, both from the actions around us and the cynicism that we use to protect ourselves.  But it is still there, and we can see it, generosity, love, and joy,  a tiny bit clearer at Christmas.

Merry Christmas All!

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Well, it’s here already, the penultimate day of the 24 day challenge.  Traditionally through the past five years, I have used this day to reflect on the process, and then use the final day for my Christmas wish for the world (haven’t figured that one out yet…hoping for good inspiration tonight).  This month has gone very quickly…as month tend to do.

If I had to pick one word for this year’s entries, I think it would be personal. I know there have been a few people who have read and commented on some of the pieces, but by and large I feel that I’ve been writing for myself more than any year before.  There have been a few great pieces where I have opened up something that felt real and explored it just a little bit.  I spent two days talking about putting a playlist together, for goodness sake.

I barely wrote about education or technology this year.  I think this reflects the change in my job.  I think that with a new job I might be talking about very different things a year from now.  I’m starting to think that I have mined every weird Christmas tradition that there is, so I’m either going to have to leave that behind, or figure a new way to approach the same things (I could write about Victorian Christmas cards every day of the year!)

I think I focused on a slightly different audience this year.  Though I know a few readers have stuck with this yearly course, I know that a few people have joined for just the last few years.  Some days it is very disappointing that I felt I didn’t have anything to say that was worthwhile for anyone(though this year I didn’t have any skips…unless you count that day that I only posted a picture of my Christmas tree).  As I have said many times. I would write this even if no one read it, but I am grateful for the people who do. Susie, William, Jennifer, Don, Will, Michele, and everyone else who reads daily, I think about you every time I start, and to the extent that any of these are good, I dedicate them to you.

Another feeling I have looking back were the number of posts that were probably undeveloped.  I wrote late most days this year, and often the need for sleep overwhelmed the need to fully plumb an idea.  I might have to come back to a few of these ideas next year.

Last year I was feeling tapped out and truly wondered whether I wanted to keep this going another year.  I don’t feel that same weariness this year.  I think the next year is going to give me a million things to think and write about, and I’m looking forward to another opportunity to share them with you.

Now, if I can just figure out a Christmas wish!

As always, I welcome you comments.

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Today I am happy to talk about a Dhuyvetter web project about which I am very excited, but with which I have had no hand in creating.  My daughter Taylor moved to New York last spring to pursue her career as an actress and model in the creative heart of the country.  During the past eight months, she has experienced many of the transitional experiences that all young adults face, compounded with the challenges of starting in a difficult industry while 3000 miles from her home.  Though I have tried to be supportive through the past year, there have been many times when I have simply had to stand back and watch with terror and admiration as she navigates each turn.

A month ago she called me excited about a new project she was starting with a friend.  While my first fatherly reaction was concern over how she could do this project while working, auditioning, modeling, and (I hope) sleeping; but I heard in her explanation an excitement and passion that pushed me past my questions.

Around the first of the year, she and her partner will be launching a arts website called All of the Above.  Artists from their broadening circle will post audio and video, photography and visual arts, prose and poetry for exposure, feedback, and connections.  The website title came from the creators’ initial discussion about the siloed nature of arts sites and a need for a site to capture the eclectic reality of the artists with which they live and work.

The past month has been taken with creating the website (not yet launched) developing a logo (appropriately colored Millennial Pink), and developing the launch content that will set the tone for later submissions.  They have used the social tools of Facebook and Instagram (as well as traditional word of mouth) to herald the coming of AOTA, and have developed plans for marketing and monetizing the site.

As I watch the birth of this project with admiration and bursting pride, I also note how this illustrates a key reality of the digital world.  The gatekeepers between ideas and distribution are gone.  High level productivity is available to all for very little cost.  A website costs almost nothing.  The tools of broadcast are universal.  Now, which this has also allowed for an increase in wide spread poor quality work, it also gives the chance and a voice to every creator.  I hope that AOTA will become a long-term broadly used platform for artists and art lovers to voice and judge and criticize and applaud, but mainly to dream.

I will post the AOTA website as soon as it launches.  For a look at the preparations going into the site you can follow the Instagram Here

Today is the first day of Winter, the shortest day of the year, but also the beginning point of days lengthening. Daylight loss stops here and it will continue to grow every day until Summer 2018 turns it around in the other direction. On this day of new starts after a darkest point, I thought it best to talk about my new direction.

Nearly six months ago I wrote about leaving the job I had held for seven years and the career I had developed for thirty-five. These months have been an immense well-timed gift to me as they have provided me time to be present for my mother’s final days and to help my father start his own new journey. I have had wonderful experiences that would never have been possible without this time. However, the ticking of the clock in the back of my mind always reminded me that this was an impermanent state, a “curious interregnum,” as was stated in a book I read. There was another road out there, and I knew I had to find it. I participated in a few projects and considered several possible options, but by early November, I was fairly certain which direction held the most promise for me. I was fairly certain also that they were interested in me, and after a month of hopeful anxiety, I was offered and agreed to take a new job.

Begnning January 2, 2018, I will be working for a company called Catholic School Management. The company was originally founded in Connecticut, but has been recently purchased by Christian Brothers Services. I had know of CSM for many years, as they were working in my diocese when I first became Superintendent, though I was not aware of the corporate change. I had met and spoken to the original founder on multiple occasions through the years, so while I was exploring opportunities, I sent him an email like emails I had sent to other companies. While I received several positive responses to my inquiries, this was the only email from which I received the response, “Call me immediately!”

It turns out that in this transition to the new company, CSM was looking to add a full time executive. I was encouraged to send a letter that day. This letter led to steps too numerous and Byzantine to outline here, but at the end CSM and I decided that we were right for each other at this point in our histories. My position is currently called Chief Consultant, though relabling positions is in the future. Though any new position is less defined by the job description than by the first year of living it, I will have four main areas of duty 1) Field Work 2)Work with adjunct consultants across the country 3)Work on the management team 4)Writing for newsletters, etc. All of these are areas with which I am familiar, and many directions where my career has been heading for some time. Though there will be significant travel involved, I do not need to leave my beloved Southern California home base with so many people I love. On January 2, 2018, I will be flying to Chicago for orientation, and from there many new horizons await.

I smile at the number if people who confidently claim, “I never had the least worry about you.” Did I? Well, I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t worry, but I did feel that there was a direction to this whole process, and as the old days end their fading and the new days start to grow, I can’t help but believe that I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.

As always, I welcome your comments.

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Well, I’m twenty days into this thing, so it is about time for a good, old-fashioned Christmas rant.  For all the joys and wonders of the season, there are an equal number of sorrows, frustrations, and irritations that make their regularly yearly visit.  Many of these are purely seasonal and during the rest of the year, a cloud of amnesia comes over us, so that we are newly surprised by their lump of coal appearance each year.

I hate Command Products.  These unholy spawn of the 3M company appear each Yuletide season with promises of secure support without damage to walls.  Spokesperson MC Hammer (get it? You don’t need a hammer?) dons Santa suit for commercials extolling the powerful hold of these products for seasonal Christmas decorations.  You simply attach the adhesive to the hook and press to the wall.  After the season is over, simply pull the adhesive and the hook is gone and the wall is unscathed.

Which would be nice if it worked.  For the past two Christmases I have attempted to use Command Hooks to hold light objects only to end up with my hopes (and the decorations) on the ground.  Last year I tried to hold up plastic garland around the walls.  The hooks were falling as fast as I could string the garland.  Once it finally was completed (after many, many replaced adhesives), it sat for all of two hours before it fell again.  At this point I decided it was “hammer time,” and nailed in tiny hooks…which worked perfectly.

This year, the amnesia in full play, I decided that my mistake the previous year was over-complicating the hanging process.  The garland obviously created torque too complex for the adhesive to endure.  This year I was going to stick to simple up and down hanging…namely my Christmas banner.  It was within the recommended weight for this hook, and it hung straight down flat against the wall, clearly a task created for this tool.  Sick, hang, straighten, mission accomplished.

Until later that night, when I in my cap had just settled down for a late fall nap.  When what to my wondering ears should awaken, the banner was falling, the Command Hook (by 3M) forsaken.  In a true show of insanity, I decided to give it one more try…expecting different results (Note to self:  Whenever we think something is insane, we quote the definition of insanity…aren’t we doing the same thing expecting different results? Discuss).  As I stared at the pile of luckily unbreakable fabric on the floor only two words came to mind:  “Hammer Time!”

As always, I welcome your comments.