Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Read Before SOL Testing

Dear students,

Let me tell you a quick story about my son, Ben. He's in second grade, has big dimples and is super fast. He also dabs so much I had to create a rule: "No dabbing at the table." He is competitive and plays anything and everything with great joy and serious gusto. He's played rugby, run cross country, played basketball and soccer and takes swim lessons because I make him. But baseball is his true love.

Another thing about Ben: He can get really, really nervous. We all do, but whereas you and I might have a few butterflies fluttering around in our stomachs, he's got a massive swarm. And all his faith in himself POOF! disappears into thin air. It's hard to watch as he falls from confident to worried in a matter of seconds.

One more thing about Ben: He's pretty lucky to have a wise big sister named Lorelei.

Last week, before a baseball game, his nerves zoomed in from out of nowhere and took over. As we drove to the game, his dimples disappeared and his lower lip trembled. Lorelei looked at him and asked, "You know what Ms. Logan tells us to do before a test?"

He didn't say anything, but he turned his soggy eyes to her.

"She says to stand up next to our desks and pose like a superhero. She said that tests have shown that kids are more confident and do better when they do that," she said. "Maybe you should try it when you head to the plate."

Ben said nothing.

About an hour later, when the time came for him to grab his bat and head to the plate, Lorelei and I sat and watched him take some practice swings near the dugout. Then he put his bat in his right hand and strode towards home plate. He got to the batter's box and dug his right foot in a little, then placed his left foot. The kid-pitcher looked at him, and Ben looked back.

But then Ben took a step back, out of the batter's box. He put his legs in a wide stance, made fists with his hands and put them on his hips. Ben pulled his shoulders back and puffed out his chest. He lifted his chin another inch and I honestly thought a superhero cape was going to POOF! appear out of nowhere. (It didn't.)

He picked up his bat again and took his stance in the batter's box. The kid pitched, and the ball whizzed by. Strike one. The kid pitched again and WHACK! Ben connected his bat with that ball and it flew. And then Ben flew. His legs pounded towards first base, then rounded the corner to second. He saw that the outfielder was fumbling with the ball and he knew he could outrun the the throw. He had the guts and the confidence to keep running. So he did, on to third, and then he went for it--but the outfielder finally got his act together and threw to home.

But Ben made it first. And that was his first home run ever in a baseball game.



So my suggestion before this little test is this: Stand up, shake off the stray butterflies or whole swarm that might be in your limbs or in your stomach, close your eyes, and embrace your inner superhero. Give me a stance. Maybe one more.

Now sit down and give that test all you've got.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Expectations, and Getting it Right

Expectations are difficult, if not impossible. This is what my best friend and I have concluded in the past few years. It seems difficult, if not impossible, to hope for the best and maybe anticipate a little goodness out of something or someone, without full-on expecting a certain result. And when that result does not happen close to what we've got in our minds or hearts, the bitter taste of disappointment courses through veins, telling us we got that whole hope and expecting thing wrong again.

I seem to be an expert at this hoping-too-much stuff, and that disappointment taste is a familiar, biting shot.

But I think I got it right this time.

I just weathered my first winter here in the Pacific Northwest. I wish I had a dollar for each time a person told me, "Hope you like rain!" when I informed them we were moving out here. We knew 14 months in advance, so there was plenty of time for people to say, again and again, how wet it is out here. Having gone to college out here, I had a good idea about the rain and the mindset it requires.

So I faced the winter like I would face a tough wind: I leaned into it, tasting a lot of that bad weather stuff on my face as I did, but most of it rolled off my coat (purchased at REI, of course, by my husband, so you better believe it was a high-quality one). I faced the winter again and again, usually with the cute rump of a yellow lab trotting in front of me, her tail up and happy, loving being out, not caring too much what the weather might be throwing our way that particular walk. It was still a chance to breathe fresh air, stick up a stick or two, jump up on a neighbor, pee in someone else's yard, and--wonder of all wonders--poop and have her mom pick it right up.

Honestly, I can think of only four or five walks this winter when I was truly miserable. I wore rain pants, my husband's insulated rain boots, a long rain coat, baseball cap and hood to guard against the wet. But I tried to trick myself into thinking they were fun--puddles and a puppy helped.

And suddenly, I find myself here. In April. On the other side of my first winter. My friends keep saying how rainy the winter was--the worst in recent memory. Locals keep grumbling about how bad the winter was--a man on a street corner told me it was like "that one Sigourney Weaver movie when she's taken over by aliens and it won't stop raining."

Um, huh?

Whatever this guy meant, it is Spring. And we made it.

Yesterday as our whole region smiled up at the sun, Sunny and I trotted along the sidewalk, I realized that I finally got this whole setting expectations thing right. I expected gray and dismal and tough, and any time it was not that gray or not that dismal and not that tough, I noted it. And was happy about it. A little celebration, actually. When it went back to gray and dismal and tough, I got into my lean-into-it stance. And the cycle continued--of keeping my expectations realistic and low, but being happy when the weather was better.

There's something to be learned from this. It might take me a few more winters to practice this new skill and carry it into other parts of my life besides walks with my dog. But, I plan on sticking around.