Diary of a Sweaty-Toothed Madman

  "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right- here I am, stuck in the middle with you."          -Gerry Rafferty and Joe Eagan Earlier this week, I posted something on social media about the most recent school shooting, and I knew it would be a lightning rod for argument.  I still think the post was appropriate, and I still think the sentiment was true. It took all less than 3 hours for the conversation on the post to degenerate into name-calling and generally awful things being said about groups of people, and I just took the post down.  I long for real discussion, but I hate the new American political "debate" where the other side is always wrong, always stupid, and always evil.  It's a way to dismiss arguments we don't want to consider.  It's a way to dehumanize and silence the opposition. It's a way to stop conversation and limit ideas.  It's personal, it's brutal, and it's awful.   It feels like it is only ok to h...

  "Teaching is the greatest act of optimism"    -Colleen Wilcox I think, more than I probably should, about the end of my career.  Next year will mark 30 years of teaching, and the end of the 30th year also marks my eligibility for retirement.  I'll be very young to retire, but eligible, nonetheless.   It is both terrifying and exciting.  I am tired.  I'd love to be done, or more honestly, I think I love the IDEA of being done.  But, then I think about the REALITY of being done.  Can we afford for me to stop teaching and live on the pension?  How do I get insurance for 10 years until I'm eligible for Medicaid?  And... What would I do with my time?   I have said for years I would love to just go camping and play my guitar.  I really think I'd like to do those things, but I also think it would make me happy for a few months, and then I'd be bored.   But I amf tired.  As a teacher, I'm just tired...

"I'm writing a poem that will change the world, and it's Lilly Wilson at my office door"          - Like Lilly Like Wilson by Taylor Mali Tuesday was, apparently, World Poetry Day.  I did some poetry in class with my group of mentoring students.  They are competitive speech kids, so it's not a huge surprise that they really enjoyed it. It did get me thinking about poetry.  I actually think about poetry quite a lot. Maybe too much?  I enjoy classic poetry, but I am a huge fan of spoken word poetry.  There is something amazing about poetry which was written to be done out-loud for an audience.  It's probably my focus on oral interpretation as a career path, but I just love spoken poetry.  The power of the advocacy in much of the spoken word poetry is incredibly appealing to me.  It is poetry which gives a voice to the marginalized in some amazing ways.  Maybe it is just the reality that the earliest forms of poetry in h...

" The fear of violence or the stress involved in preventing it sometimes factors into teachers leaving the profession -- or students from entering it in the first place."            - Amie Baca-Oehlert, president of the Colorado Education Association On March 1, 2023, the school where I teach fell victim to a fake "SWATTing" call.  Our building locked down, and we ended up releasing school in the wake of the call.   It was gut-wrenching.  It made me feel afraid and powerless.   It made us imagine a world where the call was real.  We had to imagine it was real because it could have been real.  Because it has been real in so, so many places.  Because when the call came over the intercom system, we all remembered Columbine,  and Sandy Hook,  and Stoneman Douglas,  and Olathe East,  and Robb Elementary,  and Uvalde,  and... Too many more to list.  According to an article in sec...

  T'Challa: . I am not ready to be without you. T'Chaka: A man who has not prepared his children for his own death has failed as a father.                Have  I ever failed you? T'Challa: Never.”                                        - Marvel:  Black Panther I was in a bicycle shop in Colorado Springs today when my son called.  "Dad, I have bad news. You need to call and check on a former student."   "Why, son?" "Her dad, he died this morning. It was unexpected. You need to check on her." This after the tragic death of one of Debbie's former students, who was also her cousin's daughter, in an accident on Monday.  16 years old, and gone in an instant.  No rhyme or reason.  My wife is definitely feeling this one deeply.   In the aftermath of Covid, it seems like we ought to all be...

Home, it's been so long.  I'm not sure any of us still know where or what home is.      *Harlequin (?)       *definitely mangled/paraphrased from George Herman's "A Company of Wayward Saints" I'm in Colorado Springs.  It's the first time Debbie and I have gotten away, just to get away, since before Covid.  I am a flatland boy, but my wife loves the mountains.  So, we choose this for a getaway. I find I have a good number of classmates who live in this area.  Escapees from the High Plains, I suppose.  Tonight, we are having a meal with two of them. Richard and Leandra, and one of their lovely daughters.   Modern life is strange, in this particular way: I am more connected NOW to many of my classmates than I was THEN.  Social media has made that possible.  Leandra and I were really little more than kids in some of the same classes in school.  In fact, the most time as we ever spent together was our j...

"The new dawn blooms as we free it, For there is always light, If only we’re brave enough to see it, If only we’re brave enough to be it." “The Hill We Climb” by Amanda Gorman Across 30 years of teaching and coaching speech and debate, I have told hundreds of students to start with a quote, and to give the context of the quote.  I know the context of Ms. Gorman's poem was the Biden inauguration, but I  also know it says something about the way I feel about this process.  For many years, I've written poems and "rants" as a way to process my feelings.  Ironically, for a person who teaches spoken communication, I seem to process many things better through writing.  I sometimes post those ideas on social media.  Uncomfortably often, someone will say, "Have you thought about publishing?"  "Thanks," I say, "but I just don't think anyone would really read it."  But I do wonder.   The truth is, I wonder often.  It isn't really I...