stories

The Drive Home

~ teacherdan ~ Leave a comment

10/13/2024

Usually when I am out and about this time of year I end up struck in the moment by the way the view and vista hit my eyes. Winding and rolling roads framed by treelines and a glimpse of a distant horizon can make what I’m seeing look like a painting I’d like to paint.

That was the primary reason for the picture above. I was driving home, the sun was shining, I had some coffee in me, and I saw this. I pulled over and put the camera I’d borrowed to good use because I saw what could become a painting. And I want to paint more.

And write more.

So here I am, I guess, writing and hopefully getting around to the painting thing at some point.

But there are other things I want to be doing more of as well.

I’ve gone on a couple recent weekend driveabouts with Dad, usually around the places where he grew up, places where I spent a lot of time when I was a boy. The stories that I tell and write, at least some of them, happened in and around these places. Often they happened to me, because of me, or happened with me there to see them and participate in them.

Or I heard them from the people who lived them. Sometimes the stories are from my father’s youth or ones his father (my Grampa) shared. Sometimes guys my dad knows or knew are in the stories, other times they were telling them…

It’s these stories I’m after. Other stories too, but it starts with the ones I already have and know-filling in gaps and finding out more.

Maybe I make some shit up or dramatize a bit, especially when I am sharing the stories of me showing off for my elementary school crush. Okay, maybe I almost always dramatize, but the people in my stories are real, the stuff I tell about really did happen, and the places exist. In fact, I am getting to them as much as I can and bringing my father along. He’s the source for a lot of the stories that happened around these places from my childhood. The stories are a little wild sometimes because these people are wild and the stuff they’ve done is wild.

Gathering and sharing these stories is my mission.

So Dad and I ride. Nearly to the other end of the county from where that very first picture was taken just yesterday. The picture above shows one of those places from my childhood, and another is shown in the picture below. It’s just up to the corner of Lake Como Road, then a right turn and a mile or so down the road. It looks nothing like it did way back then so I have to rely on my memories.

That’s why I like hearing and telling stories. People who do this preserve memories that would otherwise vanish. So I dig up mine when I can, and ask for those of others.

And Dad’s.

The Bee Tree

That up close tree is the “bee tree”. Or at least, it was when I was a kid. The old small barn/garage thing on the right was always there. Ever since I can remember. That mostly roof’d thing back and to the left? That wasn’t, but it’s been sitting like that for some time now. In fact, I went back in time looking for images of the house that once stood in the empty foreground of the picture, and found an honest-to-god street view of this spot. And guess what?

Back in 2021, one of those Google spycars went rolling by that very spot!

There was someone building there!

But here we are, near the end of 2024, and little has been done. It has me wondering. Mostly, though, it has me remembering back to when that new thing wasn’t there.

Back to when that tree in the first pic of this property really was the bee tree.

(Insert that mystical, tinkly, Wayne’s World sound that means we’re traveling back in time)

Little Little Danny: Off to the Races (A totally exaggerated version of imaginary events that really did almost happen about the way they’re being retold)

Little Danny stepped up to get his sled. His cousin Brian stepped up with him in the other line and the two prepared to rocket into the record books on the “alpine slide”. And to think they were getting ready to just run around Gram and Gramps just whacking the bee tree and waiting for someone to get stung. This was way cooler than that.

Not that the bee tree thing wasn’t interesting. Every year that giant pine tree was humming with hornets, and they were all around the house, and everywhere in the yard. There were no popsicles in peace or ice cream cones in the occasional calm. The sugar would bring ’em. You’d be stung for sure. That’s why it was starting to get interesting. Someone was probably getting stung, and each boy was pretty sure it was going to be the other, but neither really cared. It happened every year, a few times anyway.

It had started with “Go run around the tree twice and then back to the porch,” progressed to three times around, and even to the next difficulty level: taking the thin, yellow, wiffleball bat and whacking the tree before dashing back to the porch. That’s when the hornets became more interested. Up until then, whichever waited on the enclosed front porch would see a wisp of hornets pull away the way smoke above a candle does when your hand passes through. A few hornets would trail after briefly and then return to the tree. The bat was another story. A handful came all the way to the door and almost made it in before the runner closed the door. It was a whack-run-watch.

Still, it just seemed not quite dangerous enough for a couple of men like them. They climbed onto roofs. They snuck beers and cigars. They let Grandma drop them off at bible camp, but only because it was a chance to sneak away from campfires and songs and into the woods with church girls. So they decided the real danger from bees and such might only be elevated if they smelled more flower-like during their assaults on the bee tree. Before they could thoroughly douse themselves with their grandfather’s green, Skin-Bracer aftershave (that being the most smell-good thing a couple stinky boys could think of) the call to load up into the family wagon came. They were heading to Song Mountain and the Alpine Slide!

This brings us forward in time to Little Danny, atop his sled, at the top of the mountain, ready to ride the Alpine Slide. People have had to be airlifted away from this ride! Little Danny thought. Which is probably why the teenage kid at the top did the safety thing he did every single time to every single person, probably every year Little Danny had been coming. How to stay on the track, don’t stop in the middle, how to push the lever forward to go faster, how to pull back to…

Little Danny pushed off fast before Safety Boy could finish. Sure he was probably five or six years older, 18 tops, but he clearly didn’t know how big boys played.

 “I’ll be waiting for you!” he yelled as he pulled away from his cousin and any advice about slowing down.

He picked up speed quickly but heard Brian come up from behind on the track to his left. The wheels made a steady click-click-click when they rolled over the seams in the concrete sections of cement quarter-pipe and the curved pieces they use sometimes in the bottoms of ditches. He was ahead and laughing as Brian yelled something about cheating and racing again. That was fine with Little Danny. As many times as they wanted today, they had one of those all-day tickets. Ride as many times as you can, and five rides on the go-kart race track!

“That’s where the real race is going to be,” Little Danny thought to himself.

The jump was approaching and the cart was rolling fast. The head start Little Danny had helped, and to him, it seemed his cousin Brian was falling farther behind. Now it was time to play it smart, and Little Danny knew it. He caught just a little air, and came back down straight and true onto the cement slide, then heard that same moment of silence and then the impact of Brian’s cart behind him.

That spot wasn’t meant to be a jump, but it was a sudden dip that caused the carts and riders to lose contact with the track if they were going too fast. There were DANGER signs and WARNING signs letting riders know the spot was coming. Little Danny was pretty sure there was a CAUTION: HUNGRY BEARS sign too, but he was usually going too fast to see it clearly.

Slowing you down was the point, Little Danny knew. Making riders more safe on the track and keeping them from losing control and jumping off the track was the idea. “Safe,” Little Danny said to himself, “slow!” he laughed out loud. He leaned forward on the lever for maximum throttle.

By the time he hit the deep left curve, he was probably going faster than he ever had at that spot before. His mind had also begun to wander.

He wasn’t sure if Brian was behind him anymore. Maybe he had gone off the track already. Maybe he had rolled off and skidded into the trees.

“Maybe a bear got him,” Little Danny thought. 

He was imagining a search party coming back to find Brian, after rewarding Little Danny with some trophy for winning the race, maybe a medal or two for speed, but finding nothing but a torn-up Batman t-shirt and one Converse hightop with a perfect bear bite mark taken out of it. Maybe an ankle still sticking up out of it.

Little Danny was probably laughing at the thought of his cousin Brian getting bear-bit…a way better story to tell than getting a little stung-up by some angry bees when he felt the cart kick out from under him. Suddenly he was grinding the upper right edge of the slide with the sled-bottom while his left elbow took all his weight on the other side, grinding on the cement slide as his forward motion and gravity pulled him along. He fought to stay on, to control his cart and pull it back under him.

Maybe he shouldn’t have cheated at the ready-set-gone line. Probably he should have slowed down. Okay, so he shouldn’t have imagined his cousin Brian jumping the track, rolling into the woods, and being eaten by a bear-nothing left but a gnawed ankle sticking up out of a foot still stuck into a chewed-up Chuck.  Whatever cosmic confluence of coincidences caused the conundrum, Little Danny was locked in an epic battle with the sled, trying to force it back onto the track, with his left elbow leaving some of itself on the cement slide in the struggle.

The pain in his elbow was a fire begging to be put out, pleading with him to stop, but Little Danny knew there would be no stopping today. He already had a new goal in mind. He was going to win this race, and get to the go-kart track first-where he would win again! He gave a tremendous pull back toward the center of the track while pushing off with his elbow. The wheels of the cart took back to the slide, his hands took back to the controls, and he was off again.

“Still no Brian,” he thought, as the steady clicking of his sled picked up speed and no sign of his cousin came from behind. While he began planning to check with the emergency crew to see if they could go find Brian he noticed a warm, wet sensation on his left arm and saw the red drips on his shorts. His elbow had been torn up pretty good. 

“Uh oh. If the bears smell blood I’m a goner!”, thought Little Danny, and he was extra cautious the rest of the way down. 

When he got to the bottom, the teenagers taking the sled back hesitated a little, his face going white other than the two patches of panic pink on his cheeks when he saw blood running down Little Danny’s arm, all over the left leg of his shorts, onto the sled and onto the slide. From a little hut nearby, a man came out with a worried expression and a toolbox full of bandage stuff. He patched Little Danny up, and by the time Brian rolled down, thoroughly uneaten by any bear, Little Danny looked like a brave soldier who had done battle with the slide and survived.

The two ran together to the go-kart track with their all-day, 5 tickets to drive pass, Little Danny thinking “This is gonna be good!”. 

Using Mindful Structure, Stories and Enrichment to Build Both Culture and Community (and maybe improve attendance?) in School

~ teacherdan ~ Leave a comment

My name was used as a verb recently.

The person that did it told me so. She even described the context in which she used my name when I asked. Maybe she was going to tell me anyway but I was so excited I jumped in and asked to hear the whole story. I mean to think: my name as a verb!

Like a force of nature almost.

Like some dynamic that might influence the world or instigate some movement or something!

Okay, I’m getting carried away. But wow. My name as a verb! 

I guess it came out sorta like this:

“I don’t mean to ‘Dan McConnell’ this, but…”

Of course, thinking back I realize I could have been the in absentia butt of some joke. Like when someone says Boy you really Shleprocked that! But in this case, I asked for an explanation because I sensed that it was a good thing. This person and I are pretty tight philosophically and ideologically, though there is a disparity in the intensity of our deliveries.

Turns out it was pretty good. I was proud to have had my name dropped in this situation.

So in just a moment here, I’m going to give my impression, like an impressionist would, of the conversation in which my name became definition worthy. But understand it’s before 5 AM right now. The sun isn’t up. My coffee has slid from out-of-the-pot hot to piss warm and I need to think it out before I write it out, which isn’t usually my way. So you aren’t going to see this happen but it really is about to: I’m going to “freshen up” as real men say.

Hey, you’re still here and my coffee is once again hot! Win-win I say. But back to that conversation where my name became a verb (because in a bit I’ll take another break to crack today’s WORDLE).

It was a conversation where one side represented an insistence that there be more lockstep alignment and assimilation, where everyone was doing the same thing, was on the same agenda, same page, and everyone knew exactly what everyone else was doing and when and how… Essentially “you will be assimilated”, join the Borg collective or the consortium, or whatever you want to call it. 

An important aside here is that in my mind, teamwork is vital, and I am not opposed to a shared agenda. In fact, if all involved in the endeavor to educate were empowered to share the agenda to actually do what’s best for learners, especially our youngest learners, I am 100% on board. But when predetermined structures imposed from outside and above demand humans be viewed and valued first by the statistically normed assessment data they produce, and diminish the value of learners and professionals who know better, you’re not doing teamwork. You’re doing surrender and compliance.

That “mindful structure” in the title gets turned into a functional structure. It’s how you set up efficiency and cost-effectiveness first and tweak for obedience and performance, not how you grow minds and culture, and community. It’s the way you train dogs and tune engines, not the way you should raise or educate young people.

And here I’m getting ahead of myself again, goin and gettin’ all preachy.

When it’s about children, learning, and people in general that happens. So here’s my description of how this man became a verb. I may lean into the drama, sure. I know I think through my feelings filter a lot when I should feel through my thinking filter instead. But my god it makes life worth living.

My name was used to put words to the thinking that children and people be treated more like the varied, beautiful individuals that they are and that maybe that is the truer path in the human endeavor to educate. 

Use my name as that sorta verb every day of the week.

Now, here’s the thing. Education isn’t simply a “human endeavor”, as in some theoretical warm-and-fuzzy concept, or one that can be allowed to be discussed in broad conceptual word-strokes.

Education does need to have a purpose, and it needs to serve a purpose. In order to meet these purposes it needs to have structure and a plan. Using Mindful Structure, Stories and Enrichment as the path, with the plan being to empower learners to engage with culture and build community, we could start making education actually feel like the human endeavor it is supposed to be.

Okay, I’m chopping here. There’s a bunch more typed below but I have edits to make, coffee to warm, lunch to pack (NYS Math test day 2…ugh). What comes next is me describing the structure I have used and like to set up. For my own daughters, for my students, and for the zone I operate in. Pretty simple, really. Simple rules, close observation and facilitation, and plenty of out-of-the-box opportunities…

I really hate them boxes. I work with roundy pegs. Okay stop, WORDLE time.

Storytime: How our Stories Echo

~ teacherdan ~ 1 Comment

Chloe was home from college on break. This past Thanksgiving, maybe. She and I were watching the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and near the end, at the point where Hector Barbosa gets shot, and is first dismissive of Captain Jack Sparrow, almost condescending-believing his undead status provided him protection at that moment from such foolishness as being shot.

“Ten years you carry that pistol and now you waste yer shot,” he says.

Here, an echo.

If you’ve watched the movie you know that Barbosa himself gave Jack that pistol with that one shot believing that the madness and suffering of having been left stranded on a deserted island would lead Jack to use that pistol and that one shot. On himself. To end his own suffering. Instead, Jack uses the pistol and his one shot to shoot Barbosa.

A moment he’s waited ten years for.

Of course, Barbosa is mocking and taunting at first, it’s part of his charm. But then he realizes Will Turner has dropped the last cursed coins and a bit of blood onto the stack gathered, finally breaking the curse that came with every one of those coins. Barbosa stands frozen in place. A remarkable moment of blaring silence following the hectic and fast-paced fight scene involving multiple participants in a cave holding untold amounts of pirate treasure, including the cursed gold that the Black Pearl and its crew had sailed the world to retrieve.

Having torn his coat open to first see the blooming flower of blood soaking through his shirt, and then lifting his chin to stare off at some nothing in particular beautiful thing, the pirate has an expression owning his face. There was a split second of surprise, maybe. He’s been bested. But his expression changed into something else.

And then he says “I feel…”

It is at this moment that Chloe hits PAUSE, freezing that face to the screen.

Another echo.

“Dad, I remember sitting on your lap watching this with you when I was like four or five years old, and you stopped it right here and asked me ‘What do you think he’s feeling right there?’” Chloe said.

“What was your answer?” I asked.

“Happy.”

We had a brief conversation at that moment, about that moment in the movie. About that expression, what it meant, the amazing delivery of actor Geoffry Rush… Even more important: we talked about the connection between the there-it-was-again frozen moment on the screen and it happened-back-then earlier moment. How when you pay attention, you hear those echoes.

Engaging with these moments when they arise, with intent, is a powerful technique for growing a mind. One of my favorite things to think about, talk about, and write about is taking advantage of the earliest opportunities to do this with young learners because it’s vital for building that brainpower. Especially as a parent in the earliest years up to five years old, but then as an educator- in that 5 to 10-year-old zone, those elementary school years.

What I really love is using it to plant those moments that can become echoes, to drop a thought, a question…to set up the moments still to come.

There must be a sense within that young mind when it dares to reach out and then makes some independent discovery.

An “Aha!” turns into an “I did it!”, an intrinsic reward and a sense of accomplishment that leads to self-motivation, an “I can do it!”. I had stopped to explore this Barbosa thing with the four-year-old Chloe in my lap, she had seen the connection to an earlier story moment, and here I was exploring it again with an all-grown-up Chloe who had paused it herself, just as I once had.

That earlier moment in Barbosa’s story, and in our story, had echoed.

As my little stinker grew into a thinker she began to see this type of connection on her own, without having it pointed out to her. She has become a brilliant writer and storyteller. We can now discuss moments like the Barbosa one in the context of technique and purpose- how similar intent applies and is evident in other movies and in other stories. Making those connections had become a collaborative exercise.

While the more formal learning environment of school doesn’t offer all of those opportunities, connecting ourselves as human beings to each other and engaging in narratives together, through our observed, lived, explored, and shared stories, is vital in providing a true education.

Once young learners become adept at engaging with stories and making all those connections with the others around them, of seeing how stories and characters evolve and how their own stories develop, they also become more prepared to generalize the skills employed to their own lives. They are better able to understand how actions and plans can be means to some ends: in-the-moment decisions, day-to-day decisions, and maybe even long-term plans.

Practicing with learners how to slow down to explore that dynamic in fiction, with fictional characters in fictional situations, and then connecting similar themes in plotlines in real-life stories around us, spotting how actions come with consequences or rewards…

It might even show that motivation and unwavering commitment can pay off!

Just as it had with end-of-movie Barbosa.

The earlier movie event in Barbosa’s character trajectory was after the crew of the Black Pearl had raided Port Royal, called there by the power of the last gold coin. The character of Elizabeth Swann, a prisoner of the pirates for having given the name Turner instead of Swann, stabs Barbosa. Much like in the later scene, he is dismissive and even menacing. It’s about to be revealed to “Miss Turner” that these are no ordinary pirates.

Barbosa says:

“Look! The moonlight shows us for what we really are. We are not among the livin’ and so we cannot die, but neither are we dead. For too long I’ve been parched of thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I’ve been starvin’ to death and haven’t died. I feel nothing. Not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea. Nor the warmth of a woman’s flesh.”

There is real desperation in the man’s eyes as he tells her this. He isn’t relishing the murderous spree and pillaging. He is desperate to truly live again. To feel.

That moment when reflected back upon makes the final “I feel…” There was an echo for Barbosa there. He lamented the “too long” he had gone without feeling a thing, and now he was almost euphoric, realizing that he could finally feel. There was an echo for Chloe and I as well. The powerful moment in the movie had woven itself together with a powerful moment of ours that echoed from the past where we had shared it all then in a way that helped us to share it again nearly twenty years later.

So how can educators use this idea of echoes and connections to benefit their students in school?

1/23/2024 This is an edited version of the original.