I post one blogpost and I feel like I’m yelling from a platform–with a bullhorn–at a microphone.
What? You can’t hear me? Oh. That’s fine. I tried. Bye.
I want to say that. After short efforts to put content into the cyberworld, I want to hole up back in my cocoon and be content with collecting and digesting ideas and information, occasionally creating something new, whispering it to the worldwide web, and calling it good.
But it’s not good.
I’ve learned too much about the projects I’ve tackled to keep the valuable information to myself, for just our little family, or for the teams and families I coach.
I am a writer, so I will write, but there is this other part of me that simply hasn’t been given space enough to grow as it should and I need to pay attention to the gnawing feeling I have to attend to it.
I need to teach.
I HAVE to try to share what I’ve learned in whatever media I can. So, I will try harder.
I will write more. I will step into those places I ventured once and build back up the teaching/presenting/consulting muscles I’ve let atrophy.
I heard a baseball coach interviewed this week and he spoke about the mantra they have for their team: “Work while you’re waiting.”
I am waiting to get feedback on my proposal, on queries, on the next steps for The Team Adult Playbook I need to finish, and I have chosen to work while I wait.
So, I’m working on defining and fine-tuning my Choosing to Grow brand. I wear a lot of hats for the various projects I pursue and I want to share the observations, research, and writing in all the ways I can.
I have been Choosing to Grow:Through Marriage for fifteen years now. I just completed the research for Choosing to Grow: For the Sport of It and The Team Adult Playbook is blossoming because of it. I am chronicling the ways I am Choosing to Grow: GREENER and writing ties it all together.
I wear different hats, and I am now standing firmly beneath my Choosing to Grow umbrella choosing to grow in the ways I offer up the fruits of my labor.
This week, I grew on a dandelion-filled soccer field and I grew to appreciate chaos.
For those of you who subscribe to my sports blog too, I apologize for the redundancy, but I can only do so much growth in a day, you know. 🙂
I spent some time this morning writing about what I’ve learned with regard to coaching young kids. I had a chance yesterday to join some of the staff from our kids school as they monitored a running club for kids ages kindergarten through 6th grade.
I’ve decided something: Helping kids to be active requires efficiently navigating chaos.
I am fascinated by those people who are so much better at swimming in that chaos than I am.
So for today’s WYGW post, I am going to direct you to the For the Sport of It blog where I talk about embracing chaos as the best way to teach kids, especially when it comes to physical activity.
I hope you’ll make a quick visit over there…maybe you’ll grow to embrace chaos too.
Where did you grow this week?
I’m always up for the chatter and conversation, so if you were really challenged by something, or you feel like you’ve moved to a new place of thinking because of an experience, I’d love to hear about it. Either comment here, or shoot me an email: choosingtogrow@meaganfrank.com.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you! Oh yeah…and take your fingers out of your ears too.”
As a parent with profound wisdom and insight to share (NOT), I really hope my kids listen to me when I am talking about something important (like putting their laundry away).
How do I teach them to be good listeners?
I know when they slink off into a slouch or physically turn their bodies away from me, they are doing everything they can NOT to listen. My instinct tells me to point out the behavior…which I do.
“Please sit up…I’m talking to you.”
This hasn’t worked as well as you would think. They have traditionally sat for a moment, and then before a full sentence has left my mouth, something jello-like takes over their organs and I have a puddle of a kid on my kitchen floor.
This intrigues me. They don’t do this for their teachers…or in the presence of other adults. I’ve NEVER seen them do this at a practice or a dance class. What is it about my voice that provokes this internal melting?
For those of you who have been reading my stuff for a while, you’ll acknowledge that I am forever conducting experiments on our children. Nothing dangerous (okay…so maybe a little dangerous because they are psychological in nature) but I am learning this parenting thing too, so how can you call what I do as a mother anything but an experiment?
Any-who…
I have spent some time the last few years investigating this listening thing. It’s harder than I thought…for me!
What I’ve discovered is that it is fine to point out the behaviors of good listening, but it is more important how good I am at listening.
Frankly…lately I’ve sucked.
I listen when they are saying what I want to hear.
I listen with bias and opinion already forming on my lips.
I listen in spurts between what I’m trying to capture in my writing or between glances at the emails on my phone.
I talk a good game, but these days I haven’t been playing the part of the listener very well.
I know I can be better…I used to be much, much more intentional about how I listened to our kids.
When our children were babies, I taught each of them sign language. I was fascinated by their ability to communicate before they could speak, and I would listen to them for hours.
Maybe I listened better when they were little because it felt like they were listening too. I would teach them something and hear. “red…square… bus… spider” in adorable little-kid repetition.
What I wanted them to hear would come back to me in validation.
Pre-teens are not great at validating.
So, as I’ve written through this blogpost, my challenge has become abundantly clear.
I need to parent my children with intentional listening. PERIOD!
These strategies are hard when the growing children in our house physically guard themselves against touch or Active Listening, but good parenting isn’t about what I need…it’s about what they need.
Don’t get me wrong, I deserve, (we all deserve) someone to listen to and validate our feelings, our experiences, and our ideas. I just have to stop expecting that from my kids…they need me to teach it to them first.
I need to seek and accept validation from somewhere other than our kids. It’s not their job right now.
That’s why blogging communities of mothers are so necessary. We are each other’s listeners…we are the ones who can validate, assure, and comfort. I’m better having gone through Momalom’s Five for Five challenge this week…not because I blogged everyday (although that provided much-needed distraction) but instead because so many of you listened…and for that I am truly grateful.
Mr. Jamal Abdur-Salaam, Wellstone Drumline Instructor Photo from "The Lab" blog
A reminder for anyone who cares about how children grow best…
Before he summons a beat…the stage is subtly littered with trash cans, lids, buckets, and drumsticks. It’s lined with chairs and the auditorium echoes silence.
Then they come. They come in from everywhere, funneling down near the stage, and settling near where he is. Except for a few who carry school books, their hands are empty.
It is recess after all.
The morning classes have ended at Wellstone Elementary School in St. Paul, Minnesota, and something special is about to begin.
It’s rehearsal time for the drumline, and they’ve come… to be with him.
On the day I visited, Mr. Jamal Abdur-Salaam, a Behavior Intervention Specialist at the school, was already in the auditorium with a pair of students. One student was outfitting the buckets with drumsticks, and another was playing a game of cards with Mr. J.
I quietly found my seat at the table of the card players, and it became immediately apparent that this was no ordinary game of cards. With each card played, I realized that I was watching a lesson in character. The young man who calmly listened to Mr. J talk about classroom expectations and how it was possible for reactions to be different than they had been in the morning…the two of them kept playing cards.
Not too long before the drumline members congregated in the auditorium, this young man was quietly encouraged to change his behavior for the classroom teacher. He smiled in agreement and headed back to class.
It was the second time I had been impressed by the effectiveness of this gentle giant. The first time I saw Mr. J in action, he was rapping to the entrance beat for the Wellstone Drumline.
His energy was apparent, his enthusiasm contagious, and there was something else that came through with every word he uttered.
I watched the performance with my daughters and on the way home I asked them what they thought.
My oldest daughter said, “I would want to be in that group.”
Her younger sister agreed, “I want to drum too.”
“What did you like about it?” I asked them.
“That teacher was really nice,” the oldest explained.
“What did you notice about him?” I pushed.
“He was so positive,” she said.
That’s what I had noticed too. He had a passion for music, an energy for drumming, but more than that he had a belief in every child in that group that was undeniable.
I had to learn more…about him, about the drumline, and about how teachers, parents, coaches and mentor adults can learn from his approach.
So I went to Wellstone the Friday before their spring break to soak in their rehearsal and more of the man who helped to bring those 5-gallon buckets to life.
The pre-spring-break energy was palpable, evidenced in the wriggling bodies and distracted attention. I marveled at how he quietly reminded them why they were there and pulled them in to connected concentration. The rythem started…the synchronized movement of arms and sticks that forced a welling-up in my own chest. Watching that drumline come to life is truly an awe-inspiring experience.
The drumline started in 2005 in response to a need for some of the older boys in the school. The building where Wellstone had been housed, did not have much room in the play-yard for the bigger more energetic sixth-grade boys.
“Recess wasn’t going the way it was supposed to,” Mr. J explained. A behavioral intervention was necessary and several of the boys were invited to join him at recess while he piddled on his drumset.
“Let me try!” they begged him, and slowly it became apparent that there was power in those drums. He let them take turns, but he realized he was going to have to find a better way to offer drumming to the number of kids interested.
So, the drumline was formed. The boys who participated that first year made music out of anything they could find. They generally had a 5-gallon bucket each, one drumstick and a free hand. They created beats, expended energy in that recess-time, and started to get good enough to share their talents with others.
After the first all-school performance, the music pounded through the audience, and it didn’t matter what anyone thought of them, Mr. J fondly remembers, “those boys became rock stars.”
Since that first year, interest in the drumline has exponentially grown. This school year, there are thirty members of the team, twenty-eight of whom were at rehearsal the day I visited. Eighteen boys and ten girls lined up next to one another. They seemed invested in their individual job and compelled by the energy of the entire group.
Erik, a two-year member of the drumline explained, “Drumming helps me to be a leader…be a role model for younger kids.”
Drumline “teaches kids how to behave in school,” Shacara agreed.
The drumline is no longer just an alternative to recess, it is a privilege earned by lottery for the oldest kids in the school, and it is too popular to let every kid interested take part.
It’s not just about the drums. With every instruction, Mr. J uses the opportunity to drive home positive character mantras. He asks them questions…and they reply in unison.
Everything you do is part of what?
A performance
Who are you?
WELL S-T-O-N-E
Why do you come?
To learn
And why else?
To figure out what we can do.
And why else?
To become.
The beat and the message are drummed in to the very soul of the kids who gather for drumline at Wellstone.
The students who are so drawn to this drumline know that Mr. J values each of them.
Caleb, a sixth grader who has been drumming with Mr. J since he was in second grade said, “He has faith in other people. He likes helping people.”
“He treats everyone like a niece or nephew,” first-year drummer Anthony explained.
And indeed he does. He wants to make a difference in the lives of these kids that goes well beyond the forty-five minutes he can tap out beats with them at recess.
“Even though we don’t always show it,” Erik said, “he helps us express how we are for real.”
The kids feel accepted and appreciated exactly the way they are. It is similar to the way Mr. J felt when he was a student in fifth grade.
Mr. John Mueller was a fifth grade teacher for Jamal who encouraged him and believed he could become something great. It is this belief that finds its way to the instruction that Mr. J uses with the students he teaches now.
“I want to be to them what Mr. Mueller was to me,” Mr. J said.
It is an effective teaching strategy that teaches so much more than academic content. It is a way to teach children to believe in their own potential.
And maybe that’s what we all need to be taught…that belief can come in five-gallon buckets and it can come in creating entertaining beats for a team. It can come in subtle investment in the kids in our lives as long as it comes from a genuine place of encouragement. Teaching, when done right, is too big to contain, and you never know how far it will travel…or how loud it will get.
Where’d You Grow WednesdayThursdayFridaySaturday SUNDAY?
I’ve grown musical…
Or at least my creative space has grown to include some musical instruments. Over the last week (give or take a few days) a transition has started to happen, in my room for sure, but in my mothering too. I went from a drill-sergeant-instructive mother of a reluctant- french-horn-playing child (Middle Sprout) to a flute-wielding music teacher of a music-loving-french-horn-enthusiast.
There comes a point in parenting when auto-pilot seems like a feasible approach.
“The kids are self-sufficient,” I justify.
“They are independent and competent, and they will most certainly be contributing members of society… if I just make sure they stay on track.”
That is a form of parenting… but it’s not teaching.
My husband is in the middle of his master’s courses in education, and we have talked regularly this past week about the responsibilities of teachers. I am challenged by so many of the things upon which we’ve agreed.
Teachers should be interested in knowing the children they teach. They should be challenged to teach TO that kid not AT them. Creativity needs to be fostered, not squelched, and that goes for both the instructor and the instructee.
The same line of thinking has gnawed at me with regard to coaching. I contend that coaches ARE teachers and by thinking like teachers it changes the entire approach to that role. Everything becomes a teaching moment.
So when I asked my daughter this week what I could do to help stop the fights over practicing her french horn, she answered, “I want you to help teach me.”
I sat with that request. I considered the fact that I’ve been trained as a teacher, that I consider myself a coach of people.. and I was failing her.
My first day with “music teaching” on my mind, I went in with Middle Sprout to listen to her practice. I realized that when she was in our front room, she could hear all the noise and music of her siblings in the basement. It was not conducive to her learning. So we moved. I helped her to set up her stand, chair, and instrument in the writing space of my room. An appropriate space for creativity, I thought.
She played. I listened. She asked me to play with her. So I dusted off my flute case, relearned the fingerings so I could play them an octave higher than her, and the flute/ french horn duet began.
I have practiced with her every day since. We are both getting better, and she has come to remind me to play instead of waiting for me to harp reminders at her.
We had a visitor to our music practice, yesterday. Big Sprout toted his violin case…the one that seems to have shrunken in the last two years…and he bowed, plucked and strummed. A guitar would be a better match for the music he is trying to make, and I’ll be adding that instrument to the room.
Music is meant to be shared, and I had been asking our daughter to hide herself away and practice regularly on her own. I’m a mom, but I’m a teacher too, and even if my investment in our children makes my blogposts late…we all deserve more music.
In addition to my new role as a music teacher, I had an opportunity this week to interview and observe one of the most inspirational music teachers I have ever seen. I’ll be writing a full piece about the Drumline teacher and coach at Wellstone Elementary school in St. Paul, but I’ll leave you with a slideshow/audio clip of what it sounds like to motivate 30 sixth graders to make music together.
Music depends upon the instrument…but it depends more upon the teacher. Music is shaping the lives of those kids at Wellstone…and I’ve made a decision to let the movement of music be a shaping agent in our house too.
If you have a good choosing to grow story, I would love to help you share it. Email me story ideas or links to choosingtogrow@meaganfrank.com.
Meagan Frank 