Happy Father's Day

My life, as a timeline, certainly has a BC and AD split in it. The weird thing was I was completely aware I was in that moment before it was about to happen. Sometimes, these giant shifts happen suddenly and catastrophically. However, during my timeline split, I had much time to ponder my life until that moment. I was standing in a hospital hallway, and a set of double doors were closed, separating me from the operating room. I was in a full gown (over my regular clothes), slippers, and a mask. On the other side, my wife was being prepped for her c-section, and I was waiting for any moment when someone would appear from the room and invite me in.

Those closed double doors were my year zero. I was incredibly aware that my life was going to forever and significantly change once I stepped through those doors. I noticed my foot was shaking just a little bit, like it was tapping the ground to an unknown rhythm, originating from my nervousness. My wife was more prepared for the moment because she was growing Marshall inside her. Mothers have a connection fathers just don't have with their children pre-birth. My real first connection would be seeing and then holding him for the first time.

Those few minutes I had alone in the hallway were as intense of a feeling of life as I had ever felt. It was like I was having premonitions of what the future would hold for us while simultaneously tapping into an ancestral understanding of what fathers feel before the birth of their children. While this was a very singular event in my life, I felt connected to a network of experiences that I had not known or had not permitted myself to know until the moment was actually here. The gravity of the moment was like a reverse black hole, where the singularity was my son, and life was emanating from it.

And then the doors opened, and I was invited inside. What once was an eerie calmness in an emotional tornado turned into an orchestrated frenzy during the actual operation. It was like a pit crew in NASCAR. The surgeons and assistants all had specific jobs and roles with incredible efficiency. Numbers and statistics were being read aloud, tools were passed from assistant to surgeon, and I stood in the back, waiting. And then they pulled him out, and he looked like a miniature Buddha holding up his arms like the field goal was successful. Soon after, I held him for the first time, and he was real, and he was my son.

Fast-forward several weeks, and now this little man performs the bead chains for my mom. She was not supposed to film him in class because there is a "no phones" rule, but I'm glad she did. She caught absolute Montessori magic. He counts them, arranges them by order, and puts them back while using a new set of vocabulary words: first, second, third, etc. The finger swipe at the end is the chef's kiss for the final touch.

Over the summer, I am his guide, even though my wife affectionately calls it daddy boot camp. I get the summers to teach, work, and play with him. We create a massive list of things he needs to do that day, like household chores, playing outside, or practicing a work. Once the list is done, any remaining time in the day can be used for watching TV or playing on the tablet. I give him complete control over how he proceeds with the list. If he really wanted to, he could knock out everything in three to four hours and have an incredible amount of screen time if he wished. Instead, he will do things at his own pace, often taking substantial breaks to play with toys and orchestrate large battles between them. I do not pressure him to stop playing and finish his work; I just do my own thing until he wants to do something else on the list. The intended outcome is that he is off screens for most of the day during summer and, at minimum, doesn't backslide on what he learned the year before.

Something I take for granted as a parent is that everything is new. However, only for a moment because he learns, adapts, and grows. I relish listening to his unending questions and observations. When I give him an answer he was not expecting, observing his pause as he ponders this information, I can almost see the new neural connections being made like sparks flying out of his head. Sometimes, this leads to follow-up questions; sometimes, he is satisfied, but not for long. The feeling of discovering a new song you love is the same feeling I get when I see him learn something new or accomplish a task that was just out of reach yesterday. We get to know him better than anyone else because we have been there since literally day one of his life. He is a combination of us, but then he has his own "factory settings" that don't correlate to anyone else we know. It's just him. Luckily, my wife and I are thoroughly entertained by his shenanigans. I know the time will come when his friends become the most important part of his life, but for now, I will cherish this moment we have with him.

When I think of Marshall, I have such an array of feelings. We are so lucky to have him in our lives because he makes every day more fun. The person he is turning into is someone whom I admire and can't wait to see fully develop. When I think of how I feel about Marshall, I think of my own relationship with my dad, specifically when I was Marshall's age. I wonder what moments he remembers from that age that bring a smile to his face. I know I asked him a million and one questions, and I know that I made him laugh. I have a deep feeling of satisfaction knowing my feelings with Marshall were the same ones my dad felt thirty-five years ago. Happy Father's Day, Dad.

I will end this blog with possibly the most succinct soliloquy about parenthood I have ever heard from a pretty good TV show called Modern Family.

Happy Father's Day!

PE Teachers are Comedians

I am a huge fan of stand-up comedy. If you look at my Netflix profile, all it recommends are stand-up comedy specials. Stand-up comedy is a uniquely American institution. Stand-up comedy is similar to Jazz or basketball. However, like basketball, there is no denying that stand-up comedy is becoming an international phenomenon, and some of the best are coming from outside the US. I'm not sure where my love for this uniquely American institution started. I remember hearing George Carlin when I was younger; the wordplay entranced me. I soon learned that lots of my favorite shows growing up in the 90s were led by former stand-up comedians. 

Being a stand-up comedian is a weird job. Ask any comedian, and they proudly declare they don't have a "real job." Perhaps they've tried other paths, but they've always known that the corporate office life wasn't for them. Their personality and demeanor are not meant for "normal." Maybe the truth is comedians don't have "real jobs" because they love what they do. Mark Twain once said, "Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life."

Being a PE teacher is a weird job. I get to facilitate games for children all day. Plus, the perk of not working over the summer and having other significant holiday breaks is hard to argue. Some current teachers worked other jobs first but couldn't take the monotony and searched for something more creative. We know it's not the great pay that attracts teachers to the job. Good teachers really do love what they do.

I started in the Montessori classroom and quickly discovered I had a knack for creating fun games or simulations to wrap up a unit they were studying. I'm a fan of John Dewey, and I genuinely believe that experiential learning, or "learning by doing," confers many benefits. I know I am not the only teacher who does games and simulations, but I don't think it is common enough, and I wish more classrooms utilized this method. 

When I had the opportunity to become a physical education teacher at my school, I jumped at the chance. One of my favorite parts of classroom teaching, creating games and simulations, is now my full-time job! I get to create games that teach the concepts from the classroom every day instead of just once in a while. After six years, I have over 150 lessons in my repertoire, but the excitement of finding more makes me excited to come to school every day.

Crafting and delivering jokes as a stand-up comedian is a creative process, much like preparing and conducting lessons as a physical education teacher. Both professions demand constant honing of material and adjusting it based on audience reactions or student engagement. In comedy, testing and refining jokes is crucial, just as a PE teacher continually fine-tunes their lessons to ensure student understanding, participation, and, most importantly, fun. This level of creativity and adaptability is what excites me the most.

In both stand-up comedy and physical education teaching, the audience or students are not just passive recipients but active participants. A comedian draws energy from the audience's laughter and reactions, just as a PE teacher relies on student enjoyment and involvement to foster a positive learning environment. Taking questions from the audience is akin to 'crowd work' for a comedian, demanding quick thinking and adaptability to respond effectively, much like a PE teacher's readiness to address the random oddball question that always seems to pop up. 

When the kids are extra squirrely, and it seems you can't get their attention, this is similar to a comedian having a "tough crowd." An effective strategy for comedians is to acknowledge the awkward energy that the crowd is giving off. It's better to take what they give you versus plowing ahead with your predetermined set. I'm sure you have had an experience as a teacher having to scrap what you planned on doing and quickly pivot to something more effective with your students.

A comedian usually saves their best joke for the end. This is called their "closer," and this joke needs to leave a lasting impression that puts a bow-and-tie on the show. Arguably, one of the most critical parts of PE happens after they are done playing. A PE teacher's end-of-lesson debrief connects the day's activities to their classroom curriculum. This enhances that classroom content by embellishing it with play and personal experience. The children are more receptive to empathy with other cultures because they experienced a chunk of it firsthand by playing their traditional indigenous sport. Sports are a part of culture, and PE is a unique place to build awareness of culture through play.

Finally, to speak frankly, a good teacher better have a good sense of humor because those kids can say some pretty weird stuff. Days don't always go as planned, so being able to roll with the punches and laugh off a particularly tough day (bad set) is invaluable. However, our job as PE teachers is fun, and if the students know we enjoy what we are doing, they feed off that energy the same way an audience syncs up with a comic who is genuinely enjoying themselves on stage. So, I hope you finish your year laughing at and with your students.