Behind Windows

I recently traveled to Western Africa visiting Ghana and Nigeria with a group of admissions professionals.  I had never traveled on domestic airlines in a developing country before and the event described below happened after waiting in a non nondescript, non air-conditioned, over crowded gate area. All four daily flights to Abuja had been delayed and then forced onto 3 planes all on the tarmac at once late in the evening. In the chaotic rush after the call for boarding I had lost my colleagues and found myself telling the shuttle bus driver this was not my flight...

  “Just get on a plane”

He said to me, I couldn't believe it.

In the moment I really didn’t have much of a choice. In fact, it didn’t matter that this was not the plane for the flight I had a ticket for. It didn’t matter that I had no idea where my other 5 colleagues were, and it didn’t matter that I had no hope that I would ever see my luggage again.  I was sweaty, nervous and on an airport shuttle bus surrounded by tired, annoyed and angry Africans all just wanting to get on a plane and get to Abuja.  So I walked off that shuttle bus blasted by the steamy night; a collection of humidity, jet fuel and that high pitched whining of engines anxiously waiting to come to life.  I melted into the mass of people heading toward one of three planes on the airport tarmac in Lagos Nigeria at 10pm in the evening.  I did what any other exhausted American tourist, desperate to get to that next destination, would do, I got on the plane.

Sunrise over Boston

My 12 hour adventure to complete a 55 minute flight from Lagos to Abuja on Air Peace Airlines, (really that is the name), is something I will never forget.  It was but one piece of a wonderful trip to West Africa, to a place I’d never been.  However, my journey started in a much more familiar place, a hotel room in Boston, MA where Carney-Sandoe recruiting conference is held every year.  There 32 stories up I was able to witness the dawn through the window, the awakening of the city below.  An image that would be strikingly different from the view I would next experience out of my next hotel window in Accra, Ghana.

Accra, Ghana from my room window in the African Regent Hotel

One of the books I read on my trip was “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles.  For those that don’t know, it is a book about Moscow in the early stages of communism in the 1920s and the main character “Count Rostov” lives in a grand hotel in the center of Moscow. Like the "Count" for most of my journey I was an observer of that around me, separated by hotel room, limo, and van windows. Fences, armed guards and the clear, transparent, protection of glass between me and the world that is Africa.

Through the window. Sheraton Hotel Lagos, Nigeria

But as in the book, where the “Count” is on house arrest in this hotel, not ever being allowed to leave, I too at times felt confined to my hotel or at least at arms distance of the cities of which I would visit.  While I am certainly not the first traveler that has felt trapped in a hotel, the "Count" and I also shared another similarity of our circumstances. Both of us were in reality captives of our privilege, it was at once our savior and our captor.  The “Count's" privilege kept him alive because he agreed not to leave the lavish confines of the Metropol Hotel and it was his lineage that gave him the luxury of being trapped inside ever looking out his windows.  For me, my privilege was that which comes from being an American traveling in West Africa.  My privilege allowed me to be safe from the threat of danger as armed security guarding the fenced in American hotels reminded me.  But it was the fact that I was an American that made it necessary for this security and that ever present threat of danger was made more apparent with the kidnapping of another group of school girls in the north of Nigeria while I was in Lagos.

What I found outside of my hotel room in Accra was not that much different than San Salvador or India, it didn’t surprise me. The feeling of being a minority in a country is hard to ignore,  I noticed that everywhere I went.  But while I was alone in my "whiteness", I was also surrounded by people who wanted to wish me well and sincerely wanted me to love their country as much as they did.

I now realize that as I was boarding the plane in the dark evening of that African night, I was not an American trapped by his privilege, unless I chose to be.  I could have tried to complain and demand an explanation of the situation, refusing to board that plane.  I could have allowed my privilege to trap me in that airport gate.  But I didn't as it has been my experience when traveling that there are moments that happen, moments of connection with people and cultures, moments to really view the village or city, if you are truly in a position to see them.  If you are looking and seeking for that connection. I do know that in those moments surrounding that flight to Lagos, I didn’t feel at risk personally and I think in part it was because the people around me all shared the common desire and in those moments I chose to see that in them.  We all just wanted to get on a plane and get to our final destination.

Walking along the road to the Airport in Lagos, Nigeria

I am not the most experienced traveler and I certainly have been fortunate in these experiences that I have had traveling.  Each time I return I am left with the feeling that we have so much more in common with those we encounter when traveling than what seems to separate us.  The genuine welcoming that is a smile on the face of a child, or the sincere hope that we are enjoying our stay are those interactions that transcend our privilege whether here in this community or in our travels throughout the world.

I've come to realize that it is only up to our eyes to see the possibility that awaits and to not let the windows we look through be barriers to what we can truly see.

Fruit seller, through the cab window, Lagos, Nigeria

Semper Discens

The motto Semper Discens , is displayed on a wooden keystone in the arch of the stage in Fuller Hall at St Johnsbury Academy, a reminder to the audience and the speaker to be "always learning". 

In many of my chapel talks over the last couple of months I have shared my thoughts of trying to make sense of the world as I see it through my 51 year-old eyes.  In classic introverted fashion I have made the commitment to address many of these questions with two activities:  reading and writing.  As an engineer neither skill was particularly valued in school and improving them has provided significant challenges and lasting rewards.  

As was the case for many faculty, I passed time over the holiday break catching up on sleep, reconnecting with friends and family, and reading.  I piled through the backlog of New Yorker magazines on my shelf and then read Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.  It's a novel about awakening to the new reality that was for professional house staff in the post WWII era in England.  A beautifully written book, not for the multiple characters revealed or ingenious plot, but for the honest insight into finding a person’s sense of place in the world that is shifting under their feet.  I also have been moved by my reading on the Civil War as I study the foundations of racism in America.  The book Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson has many hauntingly familiar sections in the opening chapters.  We were a country utterly divided in the 1860s and those divisions once hoped to have been healed clearly had an infection waiting for the right climate to emerge.

Perhaps the bigger accomplishment was finishing Crime and Punishment.  I started to read the book at the recommendation of an ex-pat Russian studies major living in Kazakhstan whom I met in November of 2016.  It took me a long time to finish it and from some conversations I’ve had, I am not the first to struggle to do so.  It did seem particularly appropriate that I finished it during those ridiculously cold nights over the holiday break. I probably read faster or more attentively knowing the main character Rodin was heading toward prison in Siberia or some vast frozen wasteland.  I too felt I was there on those 25 degree below zero mornings with my coffee in hand on the couch under a blanket.  If I’m really honest, I kept pushing to finish the book because I really wanted to be able to say I had.   I asked for the advice and I felt I needed to see it through.  For those unfamiliar with the writing of Fyodor Dostoevsky or of the place that was St. Petersburg Russia in the 1860s, the scene is grimy, filthy, hot and cramped.  His 3rd person narrative style, with long passages of conversation and internal dialogue, are at once trying to read and perfectly important to setting the framework for how sinking in depths of humanity can reveal a path toward redemption. It is an engrossing book, but it is bleak and depressing as was the life of the poor and down trodden in Czarist Russia.  After 600 pages of 3rd person dialogue and description, of confusing and hard to pronounce Russian names, of pestilence, abuse, death and disease there were two short paragraphs that literally jumped off the page, like so much light that had been shone onto the window of that desolate landscape.  Dostoevsky wrote these words in the second paragraph...

”…but in these ill pale faces there now gleamed the dawn of a renewed future, a complete recovery to a new life.  What had revived them was love, the heart of one containing an infinite source of life for the heart of the other.”

I know its sentiment is a bit sappy, almost embarrassing, and for me I’m still struggling to find why it has impacted me so much.  Perhaps it was the gift of these words that was so surprising to me at the end of the book.  Perhaps it was the feeling of a just reward for pushing through it.  Perhaps it was the time of the year, the joy of family at the holidays, that made me bend to the sentiment.  Most likely it is that those words speak to who I am and how I want to live.  I’ve turned to reading to see if I can understand more fully the ground that racism stands upon in the United States and to find beauty and escape in others’ words.

It is the job of historians and novelists to capture our attention, to provide us facts to build our knowledge and it is our job to reflect that light on darkness in every corner where it lives.  Dostoevsky's portrayal of love is not for everyone but it is all the same a common condition of our humanity

While there is always the unexpected to be found in the repeat of history or in the revealing of a new window for us to see the world. I’m fairly certain that our members of congress are not going to be moved by the power of love that Dostoevsky describes.  And I am equally certain that Dostoevsky could clearly see the "axe" that is splitting our divide as a nation further apart for what it truly is.  I believe that it will be through our human emotions, the core of our human nature, that we find the beginnings of the path toward true healing as a nation.  For now I will continue to read to find the facts that are woven into the fabric of our society and to see the beauty and light that can be revealed to us through the power of those who choose the written word as their canvas.

This morning I’m glad I pushed through it, I’m glad I took up the advice of a stranger to delve into a piece of literature and I’m glad that those words have deeply moved me and left me seeking answers.

Semper Discens

Finding Something in the Game

One aspect of my job that I really enjoy is the time I spend observing teachers in their classrooms.  Yesterday I was observing our Residential Electricity teacher and his students working on a project renovating our historic Brantview dorm.  This was the chapel talk I gave about my experiences.

Walking into the dorm I came upon a conversation between the teacher and his foreman for the day,

“Yeah Mr. Roberts, I remember.  You told me about it on Friday!” 

It quickly became clear that this student, a junior, was referring to the instructions about wiring a specific outlet, of a particular type, in a certain room, which required a specific type of wiring and outlet box cover.  The comment hit me over the head like a sledgehammer…Friday? Really? he remembered all of that from Friday?  I often wonder if my Algebra 2 students remember what I say to them 10 minutes after they leave class!

This may not seem like such a big deal to you, and perhaps more context is required.  Brantview dorm is a shell only.  Behind that beautiful turn of the century gothic revival brick exterior, nothing resembles a dorm or a house, for that matter.  If you were to be invited into the dorm, and don the appropriate safety gear, you would see nothing but a maze of framed walls, made of wooden studs, with wires and pipes, snaking in every direction.  The floors are filled with students, contractors and vendors, buzzing all through the building.  It takes a few minutes to recognize that the collection of 2x4s in front of you are, in fact, a room.  I could not believe that this student could remember all of that wiring information for a connection two floors above us.  What struck me so profoundly, but simply, was this is what learning looks like.  A student engaged applying information in a real context. It was a wonderful reminder.

I was thinking about this interaction on my walk in the predawn morning and it reminded me of some of the things I’ve learned that I can’t forget. One that always comes to mind is the fact that all of the stars that I see when I look deep into those starry nights have burned out long ago, they don't exist now.  The stars have gone the way of super novas or black holes. Whether is it universally true or not, as I would imagine there are other ends for stars when they exhaust their fuel, you’d have to ask Mr. Vinton (our veteran astronomy teacher), but the idea gives me a great deal of understanding for the vastness of space and the universe.  

I also remember a time in college when a teacher, Michael Jackson (not that one), praised me for an answer I had given on an exam.  I had been the only one to realize that the constant given for the dopant in a silicon diffusion gradient problem was not correct.  I  explained on my exam that the answer could not be right even though it was mathematically correct.  It made a deep and lasting impression to me on the value of checking my work.  It helped me to form my thoughts about teaching and learning about, valuing the question, the process of understanding and its application; not just regurgitating knowledge. 

We all have things we remember that we were taught because we do them so often.  Tying the fly on the leader with a knot while standing in a stream, dribbling a basketball or remembering the difference between fewer and less than.  Yesterday I was reminded of the role of context in learning, of the application of knowledge, of the power of investment in the product that you are creating in a class.  But most importantly of the role of personal momentum in learning.  Often times I think we feel it is the teacher's responsibility to create this excitement to make these connections for us. But yesterday I saw that it is the individual learner that has the most direct responsibility for forming this connection and when it happens, the seemingly impossible, becomes reality. When the student supplies the momentum we see learning unfold and it sticks with the learner.

I knew a soccer coach that always asked his players during a game to “find something in the game”.  It was a reminder of their responsibility to be involved, to get themselves engaged and invested, to provide the momentum.  He had given them the tools, it was their game to play and to love.  Yesterday I saw many students in a shell of a 150 year old building finding something in their game, their interests, their jobs.  This morning I wanted to thank them for their lesson and allowing me to find something in their game.

One good day is not enough

I can still remember the first time I visited New York City.  It was in the early 80s, my parents brought us to see a Broadway show.  The sounds, smells and the lights assaulted my senses.  Time Square was dirtier and seemed a lot more dangerous to me as a teenage boy.   I knew then that I would never be a “city person” but that I would also love to experience New York again.

This summer I got back to NYC to spend some time with my oldest son.  Jeb had an internship at Mole House Production, an editing and post production film company.  He was living in a quirky old building in the East Village area of Manhattan.  After spending a morning at MOMA we decided to head up to the southern end of Central park.  It was a steamy summer day and we were looking for some shade to sit down and relax for a while.  As we focused in on an oasis on a nearby hill we happened upon a man selling maps.  The man asked us if we want a map of the park and we politely declined and kept walking, seeking relief from the summer sun.  When we felt cooled off enough setting off back toward the exit of the park we once again ran into the same man selling maps. 

He asked us if we wanted to buy a map and I told him,

“You know, you already asked us a little while ago.” 

He said "I’m sorry I don’t always remember who I’ve seen in a day."

 I said “No worries, have a nice day sir” 

He replied “Thank you but you have a good life, One good day is not enough.”

This summer I have spent a great deal of time thinking and writing about the world I live in. On more occasions than one I have felt paralyzed with angst and anger, with sadness and despair.  I have tried to find meaning in the struggle that we find ourselves involved in as a nation.  On many days I have felt helpless, caught between a visceral anger and a nagging knowledge that I can’t make sense of the changing world around me.  And some days I just need to be able to express that feeling or those thoughts and not be worried about what it sounds like or whether I have it all figured out.  On some days one good day certainly doesn't seem to be enough.

I don’t know how many good days that man selling maps has in a week or a month.  I don’t know how many he has had in his lifetime.  I don’t know how many good days the folks in Houston recovering from Harvey will need to feel safe again. But I know the wish of having a good life must seem empty to the 800,000 Dreamers living, working and going to school in our country as they see our President call an end to DACA. For that man selling maps, he may in fact need to know, to believe, that we all have the opportunity to have a good life. I can imagine that when you are trying to pull yourself out of poverty and homelessness that one good day is never enough in a string of bad days. And perhaps most importantly to me I saw in those words not only direction but I also saw hope.  I’ve seen it in the eyes of the children of the lowest caste in a rural Indian village and I’ve seen it the eyes of complete strangers as I did on that morning. I’ve seen it in my children, my students and my players.  We have all seen it countless times. It was me who left Central Park on that morning thinking, it was me who left that rural village moved to tears.  Those that had shown me something in a simple turn of a phrase or a look of sincere appreciation were not wanting for explanation. 

The funny thing about all of this is that normally I wouldn’t have said anything to the man selling maps.  I might not have even engaged him, my tendency, my disposition, my introverted nature pulls me from those interactions.  Perhaps it was that I was with Jeb, perhaps it was that I’ve been trying to change this that about me, about my inability to find some comfort staying in the situation, engaging at least to start.  But I did reply and I did get something in return and I didn’t buy a map.  I know I need to invest more in those moments, those openings with people who are near me and who I encounter.  I know I don’t always want to do it and I have started to realize that wants are very different from needs.  I need these interactions, we as a community and nation need these connections. I must find that willingness to see something in the simplest phrase or look.  We need to see the strength in each others eyes, to find comfort in their smile, to appreciate the gift of someone’s thoughts.  I don’t have any answers for you, let alone me this morning.  But I do know that navigating the world we live in is especially difficult in the best of times.  I do know the work that we have ahead of us in this school and in this country and in this global community will not easy.  But it is absolutely needed.

As I learned in my time in India, sometimes when we think we are the least able to help, to turn a bad day into a good one, is when we need to step in.  The man in the park helped me realize that sometimes the simplest act of support can turn that moment and perhaps that day for someone else.  It did for me.  What I do know is that I always leave these moments better than I arrived.  And as we think of all of those who are recovering from Hurricane Harvey and put in our thoughts and prayers those in the path of Irma, we also need to remember that no matter the situations we find ourselves our greatest gift in solving difficult situations and finding compassion for someone else is in fact our humanness.  It is not our age, position, title or station in life but the mere fact that we can look across that divide that we have imagined and felt and see in the eyes of that person something in us.

So this morning some of us will choose to focus on having a good life and some will choose to focus on having a good day but for all of us, taking those steps to make it happen are what really matter.  And as Mr. Bentley said yesterday, there isn’t an app for this.  It is human nature, to think, to interact, to think some more, we were born to do it.

Have a wonderful Day!

Walking with Indy

I have a new puppy in my life. A labradoodle we brought home in early June has engaged me physically and spiritually in these summer months.  At least two walks a day has become the routine and both of us have benefited.  For me these walks have become part of the fabric of my new empty nest, 50 year old life.  Chances to wonder deeply about myself as an introverted person in a world that seems to be screaming for extroversion every day.  I have journeyed in my early mornings with Indy into our town cemetery.  It is close and has wonderful paths through wooded and open terraces, hills and lawns, a brook to for Indy to grab a drink, and of course it is quiet.  It is quiet in the way that you would expect a cemetery to be but just behind the solitude everywhere you look there are stories that are asking to be told.  Names engraved on a multitude of stones, names that have a history all their own, Abel, Hattie, Edwin, Amos and Tilla names lost to us echoing of a different time . Pethena, Leonora and my favorite Trustum; Trustum C Haynes to be specific.  Where did Trustum come from?  Who were his parents? Was his name a comment on the times?  It has always seemed to me that names fit a person and maybe that is true but during my walks on these mornings I wonder how much of these names reflected what these parents hoped and dreamed to be true, true for their children.  Life was harder in the late 1800s in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and it seems none harder than for the family of the baby's Charlie.  While there are many broken grave stones and many suffering from the neglect of inattention, time has broken these two nearly in the same way, broken as the hearts of their parents surely must have been.

I have not been able to walk amongst the stories in the morning without wondering about my own story or what has been happening in my own story as this year continues to unfold.  And this morning more than any other, this morning after Charlottesville, I am haunted by something Bryan Stevenson said to a room full of independent school teachers and administrators.  Stevenson a civil rights attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative has spent his working life trying to bring justice to inmates on death row in the deep south.  Stevenson told this audience of privilege, this audience that works with the privileged young people in our society, that “we are all broken”.  In chapter 15 of his book “Just Mercy”, he continues, “…that being broken is what makes us human”.  Further he offers “We have a choice.  We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing.  Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity.”

Every morning when I walk by the two baby Charlies, I can’t deny the brokenness.  The stones scream out that pain that must have been so real and so much a part of life for so many in those days.  And on this morning I cannot deny the brokenness of this country as the images and stories from Neo-Nazi, Alt Right and white supremacists marching, as if going to war, race across the screens.  I can’t deny that I feel broken more often these mornings, I find fleeting comfort in the walks with my companion’s boundless energy, but it is not long before the solitude begs the question of loneliness, before my need for thinking and processing leaves me longing for connection, in a world that seems hell bent on fracturing a greater divide.

In his address to us at that conference, Stevenson, brought the issue of race relations front and center, this was two years ago, before the impossible happened, in a time where so many of us were so hopeful that America had turned a corner.  He talked to us of the failure of America to deal with race and the persecution of its people of color. He asked us to consider how other countries have worked hard to put aside their painful past and almost begged us to realize that we have never dealt with the atrocity that slavery was for us as a nation, that is was for our people, that it still is for so many.  He never said it but I can’t help but wonder, how many times he thought, that if we don’t deal with it, deal with our brokenness, find the will and the courage to come to grips with what slavery was and how it still holds us hostage, that the landscape that we call America would look like this on Sunday August 13th. 

There is nothing accidental in the events in Charlottesville, there is only the fact that we have refused to learn our history and now our history is teaching us a lesson and I, for one, believe deeply that Stevenson is right, we do have a choice.  Our choice must be to embrace our brokenness and embrace compassion as our best hope to start the healing.  Racism has no place in the America I love.  We are all broken and we are all human and believing in our humanity is the beginning of our long walk together.  It must start today.

Each of us ought to try…

May 9, 2017

This is my final chapel talk of the year and as usual I had too many things run through my mind in preparing for today.  On my walk in to school this morning I kept coming back to gratitude.  I am grateful for you all, my audience, as this year I have tried to become a better speaker and writer and any success that I have had in those endeavors is in part due to your patience, your humor and your willingness to listen.    As I close out my 8th year at St Johnsbury Academy I am reminded that in this class of 2017 are some of my very first students. Some young players who started kicking a soccer ball around in the spring while they were in 6th grade a group of which became the core of our team.  Some stayed with it, some did not, but each was a part of that beginning for me 8 years ago and I know I am better for it.

On Monday evening I had the chance to watch President Obama’s acceptance speech at the Kennedy Profile in Courage award ceremony, and I was moved by some of his words. Our 44th President is an incredible speaker.  Good, bad or indifferent as time will certainly judge, one aspect was clear in his presidency, he is a first class orator and knows how to bend a room to his voice.  Monday night, I was especially bendable given the current state of politics and some of his words echoed themes that I found particularly poignant for our newest class of “graduates to be” so I thought I would share them with you. 

This speech was an acceptance speech, but also President Obama’s first real speech since leaving office.  No doubt there are multiple audiences in these words, not the least the Kennedy family that gives the award but also certainly a message for the country is included.  I have two passages from his speech that I'd like you to consider this morning.

The first passage comes from a section of the speech where Obama was drawing on the theme that real courage is that which we see in everyday people and in everyday life.

"We lose sight sometimes of our own obligations, each of ours, all the quiet acts of courage that unfold around us every single day, ordinary Americans who give something of themselves not for personal gain but for the enduring benefit of another. "

“Not for personal gain but for the enduring benefit of another”  I have seen this selflessness that President Obama describes in you, the senior class, often over the past 4 years.  I have seen this through the smiles of young children with nothing in life but hope; smiles you gave them.  I have seen this in your willingness to sit with others at a lunch table because if you don't maybe no one will.  And I have seen this in your decision to pass up an opportunity on national stage for the benefit of a team and your teammates.  Over 4 years you have all given of yourselves through your time and community service, through your canned goods and resources, through your willingness to ask the simple question “How can I help”.  Our community has been the beneficiary of your gifts and I for one am thankful for it.  Obama, in this speech, was recognizing that deep human connection that has always bonded us together, regardless of race or income, despite differences in who we pray to or what we look like.  He was calling on us to see how deeply meaningful our lives can be when we just take a moment to look away from our own reflections in our smart phones and do something for someone else or to recognize those around us that show these little acts of courage as well.  It helps us understand our obligation to be our best for if someone else can do this, then so must I.

He concluded his talk building on the theme of America's experiment in democracy and the role that individuals play in shaping our democracy and our country.

"...that very Kennedyesque idea that America is not the project of any one person and that each of us can make a difference and all of us ought to try"

 To me, Obama is asking us to realize that our efforts and our character define us so much more than our achievements or abilities.  That our country is not defined by those in power or in positions of leadership but by all of us participating and making a difference in our own small ways.  I know that there is a diversity of intellect and ability in this class, of personality, confidence and humility, but I believe that each of us can be most accurately seen through our best efforts each and every day.  Most importantly for me this morning, Obama reminded us that we all can and should make the efforts to make a difference.  Perhaps over these past 8 years I have grown too used to the fact that you are quiet and patient listeners each morning.  To the fact that you give your all in class and on the stage and on the fields and courts of competition.  To the fact that you find time to support each other with kinds words, hugs and simple acknowledgments of good work done.  But this morning I am reminded that I have to remain inspired and grateful for this community.

This has been an incredible year.   I have been touched by the grace and hope of some of the poorest people in our world and I have seen the beginning of the second St Johnsbury Academy Campus in Jeju South Korea.  I have been witness to a 4 year journey of a group of girls through the beautiful game and I have been privileged to watch many of you grow-up in front of my eyes.  I have welcomed and said goodbye to colleagues and even been lucky enough to have a couple former students and players join me here in the North East Kingdom.  And all of that has been made possible and more meaningful by your efforts, the collective efforts of this St Johnsbury Academy student body. 

So this morning let’s give some of our attention to these thoughts from President Obama's message.

That we have an obligation to give of ourselves for the enduring benefit of another.

And that each of us can make a difference and all of us ought to try.

Seniors, you are a lucky bunch, a quirky and spirited bunch and I wish you all the very best of luck on your paths into the future.  Don’t be strangers!  You will be missed.

Ending Winter with a Smile

As I continue to try to make sense of the chaotic world around me I have come to a few realizations.  1st, Even though I think Rachel Maddow is brilliant, she is so intense that I end up exhausted, head spinning with conspiracies and rage each time I watch therefore I need to limit my time with Rachel for my own sanity.  2nd, I need to read more, I still haven’t finished Crime and Punishment and winter is waning. Can you read Dostoevsky in the summer?  3rd, I really like skiing and especially love a good powder day, and one in April!  Wow that was something.  But really, it’s enough of winter already let’s get on with Spring!  Right?

Well I’m not quite ready to give up on skiing just yet.  This was a winter to remember as Mr. Bentley reminded me yesterday, at least, that is, if you were skiers.  And if you are a skier you know there is nothing quite like the thrill of skiing in deep snow.  Powder days in the east are a rare occurrence not only as storms rarely drop 20-30 inches of snow, but when they do it is often heavy and wet.  Experiencing that magical feeling of weightlessness, the floating from turn to turn effortlessly depends not only on the snow but on the slope of the trail as well.  If the slope is too steep and the snow to light or not deep enough, you ski the bottom spraying the snow away with every turn.  If the slope is not steep enough and the snow is too dense or too deep you work too hard and end up punished by gravity.  But when you have the perfect combination of depth of snow, density of snow and the perfectly pitched trail, even these 50 year old legs respond.  It is as if you just need to think your skis into the next turn while world slows to a rhythmic pattern of left and right, moving from moment to moment on the equilibrium of gravity and friction, that you can instantly recognize as pure bliss and have to smile.  It is a feeling known the world over to skiers and one that most skiers spend their whole lives trying to recreate each and every year. 

This year we have had more powder days to enjoy than I can remember and that is certainly something to celebrate.  Some of my most lasting memories have come through skiing, teaching all three of my children ski, exploring the mountains of the West with friends and even getting sunburned to a crisp skiing a Swiss glacier in July.  I’ve broken skis and bindings, broken ribs when I should have been practicing basketball, and fallen headfirst off a cliff, head over heels, knowing for certain I would end up in a ski patrol sled or hospital or worse. 

Besides friendships and falls one thing that never gets old about skiing is witnessing someone experience the thrill of skiing for the first time.  On Saturday I did get a chance to witness some new skiers, Ayman and Ghena, come down the slope at the lower lodge with that all too familiar skiers grin.  As I walked into work this morning I recognized something in Ghena’s smile.  It was the fact that that I’ve seen it before.  In fact we’ve all seen it before and dare I say too that we’ve all worn that smile?  I’ve seen it in the classroom and on the soccer field. I’ve seen it from a player on the foul line with the game on the line and displayed proudly on the face of a young man in wood shop.  I’ve seen it on a student in Morse buried behind the wheel of an enormous press or the wheel of spinning clay.  I’ve seen it captured in black and white or vivid pastels and I’ve seen arrive across the face of a self-conscious student when that quadratic equation could be factored.  I’ve seen it so many times that some days I take it for granted.

And this morning, if I am lucky, maybe I convinced a few of you to learn to ski or to get back out on those skis and for that you’ll have to wait for another year because it is spring.  And spring is that magical time of year in the North East Kingdom that brings flowers from frozen earth, leaves from barren branches and smiles from the people around us.  It is our smiles that let us all know we are just a little proud of something we just did.  Spring is a time to try something new, to put away those winter clothes and look forward to the warmer days to come.  It is a time to push a little bit harder in your work, to try a new sport or a new club and to experience those moments where you do accomplish something you’ve always wanted to or never thought you could and to share it proudly with a smile. 

You can’t do both…

I saw my son Andrew this weekend.  My wife and I traveled up to Montreal for the night to see him and meet some of his friends who were with him on break.  "Reading period" as they call it in Canada.  After the pleasantries and introductions, Andrew asked,  “Dad what did you say in Chapel?”

It’s funny, I don’t know that anything I’ve said in chapel has garnered more attention than what I said last week and to be honest I’ve tried to say a lot of things that I wished would resonate more profoundly than the message about using cell phones.

It probably won’t surprise any of you that I pretty much did what I was told in my high school days at CVU.  I wasn’t a part of student council or an officer in student government. I wasn’t a star athlete or an outstanding student.  In fact until I was asked to be Director of Admissions at the Hyde School in 1994 I had never been in a “leadership” position.  I did however have a chance to be a leader in my senior year of high school.  I was asked if I wanted to be one of the captains of the track team.  To be honest I was flattered, honored and tremendously excited to take that step and I told my coach, Mr. Blechner, that I wanted to accept.  However, I told him, he needed to know I was going to miss some of preseason and a couple days of school as I was part of a soccer team that was traveling to Holland.  As I have said before on this stage in talking about this story, coach Blechner replied,

“Well you’ll have to make a choice because if you go on that trip you can’t be captain.  You can’t do both.”

Of course he really could have allowed me to do both.  But I know now that if he did that he would not have been taking his job seriously as a coach and a leader.  He needed someone to be an example of commitment to the team, someone who could do the work leading as a member of that team.  I realize after being a coach and a teacher that if he had allowed me to do both he risked sending a message to others who did not miss a practice or were not lucky enough to be selected to go on that trip that commitment didn't matter.  I believe it would have sent the message that leadership is a title to be given not a position earned and an attitude rewarded.  I do not believe you can lead if you do not participate, you cannot lead if you’re not willing to do the uncomfortable things and you cannot lead if your trying to have it both ways.

In my career as a teacher, coach and administrator I have tried really hard to lead by example.  I’ve often been criticized for not being visible or being too quiet. One of my biggest challenges over these 25 years as a professional has been to develop an understanding of how to be what people need me to be in order for them to be successful in their jobs as teachers, students and players.

I am confident that this will always be a challenge for me, perhaps due to my introversion, perhaps due to my personality, and I know that one thing I won’t do is take a title of leadership without being willing to model the responsibility of being a member of a community.  It is not glamorous or fulfilling to take cell phones and this morning I’m not interested in anyone's sympathy.  I know that doing what you are asked and following the rules is easier for some than others.  This morning I am interested in compelling each and every one of you to first lead yourself doing what is asked and following the rules in place for our community and in turn to lead your peers.  For I know that if you ask something of someone else that you are doing yourself, it makes leadership a shared pursuit and allows leaders to emerge where you might not expect it. 

A Road To Character...

This Chapel talk uses the "7-11" dilemma that I first heard from Malcolm Gauld at Hyde School in the early 90s when I was just starting out as a teacher. I don't know if he came up with the dilemma or if it came from his father but in either case thanks to him for this and so much more!

The 7-Eleven Dilemma

I thought this morning I’d take a step back and look at something that we talk a lot about in our chapel talks but have not talked too much about how it is developed.  This morning I need to set up a dilemma for you. 

Picture this:

You walk into a convenience store on a Friday afternoon.  You are in a hurry and just want get your Monster extreme energy drink and a bag of Doritos, you know that new spicy chili flavor.  You grab your stuff and head to the register.   There is a line of a couple people and it seems clear that things are slow because the cashier is new.  A few more due up behind you, one being a friend from school and then finally it’s your turn.  The clerk scans your items and the total is $4.35, you hand the clerk a $10 bill and the clerk counts back your change,

"$5 makes $10 and $10 makes $20, next"  and starts ringing up your friends items behind you. 

My question for you is what do you do?  Think about it, we'll come back to it.

I have been reading David Brooks' book “The Road to Character”.  A fascinating book which uses stories of how people cultivated strong character as a roadmap for the reader follow.  Brooks, a political pundit, is brutally honest in his reasons for writing this book.  In the intro he writes

“ I was born with a natural disposition toward shallowness.  I now work as a pundit and columnist…I’m paid to be a narcissistic blow hard, to volley my opinions to appear more confident about them than I really am, to appear smarter than I really am…”

he goes on to say

“I’ve also become more aware that, like many people these days, I have lived a life a vague moral aspiration—vaguely wanting to be good, vaguely wanting to serve some larger purpose, while lacking a concrete moral vocabulary, a clear understanding of how to live a rich inner life, or even a clear knowledge of how character is developed and depth is achieved.”

I found his honesty very refreshing.  He puts forth the concept of the battle it becomes for us to live in service to two competing ideals.  He calls them the resume virtues and the eulogy virtues.  Resume virtues being the accomplishments and aspects of career; the number of championships you won, the size of the company you over saw, the titles you have held. Where the eulogy virtues are those characteristics that you most hope would be spoken about you at your funeral.  As Brooks say, “the ones that exist at the core of your being, whether you’re brave, honest, faithful; what kind of relationships you’ve formed.”  Brooks further laments that fact that schools seem to be focused on the resume virtues.  I agree with him that for the most part schools do not do much to help you with the eulogy virtues probably because they are harder to teach, harder to discuss, harder to share.  I'm reminded that speakers often ask administrators the question, “What keeps you up at night?” lately for me it has been the topic of character.  Specifically, the lack of appreciation of character that seems to be flooding into our minds constantly from around the world.  The "me" centered narcissistic viewpoint where the most important thing I need to do is protect me, to worry first and foremost about my interests and my well-being.  The proud pronouncement of the importance of the resume virtues at the expense of the eulogy virtues.  The "what is in it for me" attitude vs  “developing an engraved set of disciplined habits developing a settled disposition to do good” as Brooks asks us to do.  As a teacher and leader in a school that takes great pains to engage in conversation about character, or eulogy virtues, I believe one aspect I can offer is my belief in the need to put students in situations to "test" their character.

Back to the 7-11 dilemma.  I really don't believe there is a right or wrong answer.  I would imagine I could change aspects of the story, the person behind the register, young old, brown or white, mean or polite and that would influence your response in some way.

I’ve heard lots of answers through the years." I’d keep it because hey it’s free money", "I’d give it back because I’ve been a cashier and had to account for the missing money at the end of the shift".  And many others.  Perhaps, this morning,  you are wondering what the best answer is that I’ve heard?  The answer I like best is “I’d give it back, I don’t know why, I just would"

For me, my life now is more clearly about the conflict between the resume virtues and the eulogy virtues.  Perhaps that’s my 50 year old angst coming through or the fact that my oldest turned 21 yesterday or a reaction to the tense state of mind I find myself in lately.   But if I am really honest, I know my life has been richer and more fulfilling in those moments when I have actively struggled with with what I want my life to look like and what I need in my life to be fulfilled.  It is about feeding this inner knowing against a world that is rewarding me for my external accomplishments.  It is about being forced to think about why I do what I do even when I can’t explain it.  It is about trying to lead a life that others around me will be proud to share because it is who I am, not what I am supposed to be.

Traveling to Philadelphia

What a month!  January was not a good month for introverts.  My habits of thinking through things carefully and slowly before I can express them has left me spinning in the mud.  Just when I think I’ve got a handle on my emotions, another issue comes crashing down on my bubble.  I think I need to start an introverts support group…Anyone interested?  But this morning with all of the difficult news, I thought it best to start with a story.  I think by now you’ve come to expect it.

"Sir come forward…" the TSA agent in Manchester said to me.  I approached with a smile and handed him my passport and ticket.

“Where were you born in Germany?”  he asked me.

“um.. uh.. Stuttgart” I said, a bit surprised, and a bit flustered…"my dad was in the military.”

“Oh ... an army brat” he said, smiling, waiving me through. 

I was going Philadelphia to do some recruiting for the school, interviewing prospective teachers.  Ironically enough, I was going to a Diversity Conference on the day the news of the executive order was released, affecting refugees and immigrants traveling to the United States. 

The plane landed, and as I left the plane, I grabbed my gate-checked bag from woman wearing a headscarf.  I hailed a taxi, and as he greeted me, I realized my driver was of middle eastern descent, I think Iranian.  The next morning I had some wonderful conversations with candidates.  One was openly gay, one woman was from Turkey, another woman wore a head scarf and was from New Hampshire and another was a gentleman from Atlanta, Georgia.  All around me people were engaged and excited to be talking about teaching and the work of schools.  As my day had come to an end I hailed another taxi, by this time the uproar had begun, people were protesting in airport.  Reports started to come in about people detained, turned around and refused entry.  People were hand cuffed, visas taken and some were held without representation.  As I settled into my ride, distracted by my Twitter feed, my cabbie broke from his conversation in Arabic and asked me a few questions.  He was eager to practice his English and seemed interested for a while, until his phone rang again. Arriving at the airport and after clearing security I bought some peanuts and water in a store before heading to my gate. As I approached the cashier, I could hear a reporter on CNN talking about the ban from JFK.  The cashier rang up my total.  $12.98! and as I handed him my credit card I looked up at him.  His name was Maroud.  I smiled, thanked him, and walked to my gate.

I would love to be able to say to you all today that I would have noticed all of these people who helped me along the way on any other day…but I’m not sure that that is true.   On this day I was irate, no honestly I was embarrassed, embarrassed for me, for us, and for our country.  I don’t know that these people were Muslim or from any of the countries on the list from the executive order and this is not the point really.  The point is they are all a part of our country, a country beautifully diverse and welcoming.  A country that embraces people from all walks of life, religions, and beliefs. These people and the multitudes the came before them are and have been part of the fabric of our nation, the nation I love.

I am a grandchild of immigrants, My mother's father’s family came to the US through Ellis Island from Sweden; my father's mother’s family came from Canada.  I would imagine that the vast majority of us in this room who are US citizens came from immigrants.  Truly there are only a few that I know of in this community that are from America; that are Native American.  We are from more than 30 countries around the world.  We are Muslims and Christians, Jews and Agnostics.  We are students here on visas, permanent residents and natural born citizens of the United States of America. 

NYC Women's March January 21st 2017 Image courtesy of Jeb Burroughs, jebburroughs.com

This morning I cannot tie this up in a neat bow regardless of how much my introverted self desperately wants to do.  But I can tell you that all in our community are safe.  I can tell you that the Governor of the State of Vermont has issued a strong statement in support of the rich and vibrant immigrant communities all around our state.  I can tell you that our school is confident of the safety of all of our students from all across the globe and that we will do what is needed to assure that for all of us.

This morning I can urge you once again to renew your investment to learn about our history, to dig deeper into your conversations about our government, its three, yes three branches, and our constitution.  I can ask that you seek answers, seek clarification and seek common ground.  This morning I also ask you to get involved as our democracy works best when it is a representative democracy, a process of action.  It does not matter what that action is; for some it may be marching in protest, for others being in thoughtful prayer.  Some of you may choose to write letters and others may call elected officials.  But one thing all of us can do is to offer our support to one another, with a smile, a hand shake and a simple question.  How are you doing?  For as I have witnessed in my trip to the city of "brotherly love" it does not take much for us to find a connection to one another. It does not take much for us to see what others may see as they move through our country, and it does not take much for us to realize that what we have here in this community and this state and this nation is worth fighting for.

Respect for the office.

I can remember holding my wife with tears running down both of our faces when our country elected Barak Obama.  I am a white, middle class, New Englander, who has been sheltered from issues of race and urban poverty for most all of my life, and I was very proud that we had elected a man who could move us with his words and deep belief in the power of the human spirit.  As the camera panned around the audience in Grant Park on that night, I saw the tears of joy and hope in people of all colors, and I know I was not alone in believing we as a nation had turned a corner in the march toward realizing Dr. King’s dream.

I took a group of students to Washington D.C. in March after the election.  We never met the President himself, even though we were guests of a one of his early cabinet members.  In the evening we hung our coats in the same closet used by all dignitaries for hundreds of years; we walked down the colonnade toward the Rose Garden; and finally we settled into the West Wing in a corner office.  We talked about the auto industry bailout and the fears of economic collapse that greeted the President in those first months.  A small group of teenagers, my wife, and I sat transfixed at what we were hearing, felt honored to be on that hallowed ground at a pivotal moment in our country’s history, and were awed by the torrid pace of which the wheels of democracy were turning.

I watched with jubilation when Obama was elected to a second term and hoped against hope that there would be some spirit of cooperation in a new majority.  But all I saw was politicians on both sides refusing to do their job, refusing to work together for the best interests of the entire country, instead choosing to be obstructionist, insular and consumed by their own interests.

On November 8th 2016, I walked in the cold damp rain of a German winter morning too afraid to speak to anyone as I could not contain my fear and heartbreak.  As I walked into the gray, overcast morning I wept for the soon to be empty West Wing and I wept for the message we sent to the nation and the world about the office of the Presidency of the United States.

Now I rage, I mourn, and I worry that we have given up the belief that the President of the United States must be a person of character, flawed perhaps, goofy at times, but one who deeply understands the importance of the role of protector of our democracy; that the President is a role model for all Americans; that he is most importantly deeply humbled and honored to serve our nation as the leader of our democratic ideals and processes. 

Our congress and senate have lost their way; they have ingratiated themselves by allowing money to be their motivator and by drawing voting districts so they can be re-elected.  We have allowed congressmen to be celebrated who call a President a liar; we have allowed senators to refuse to do their jobs as required by tradition and law, and worst of all we have made the mistaken conclusion that since all of this is so broken that the presidency must be as well. The people we have elected to office have shaped their jobs to their liking and do not uphold their most important role: to be part of a government, working together for all the people of the United States.  It is the fault of the people we have elected that our government is inept and ineffective, it is not the structure itself.

I have voted for Republicans and Democrats, and I have always voted, for the man or woman that would most honor the office of the presidency.  But even when my vote was not with the winner, I have never felt that the individual did not fully embrace the awesome responsibility of the task of serving something greater than himself.

The anger and frustration that we are seeing in protests and print is not, at its core, about Republicans vs. Democrats.  It is as it was in the election, about a visceral reaction to a candidate.  To the fact we have a man who has demonstrated utter disregard for tradition, for self-accountability and for the framework that is the foundation of the United States.  His words and his actions have driven a wedge through the heart of America: in a fracture not created by him, but split wide open only for his personal gain.  He refuses to accept that because all that have gone before him have held reverence for tradition and practice, that he should also.  He is president in title now and he must show us all that he is accountable to every American citizen and to the position of awesome responsibility as the leader of the most powerful nation in the free world. He is a public servant holding a temporary office at the will of the people.

People are angry and afraid in large part because respect, humility and human decency have been replaced by insolence, belligerence and shameful actions not befitting of our most important office in the land.  People are angry and afraid because we have allowed our system of government to become broken and now we have allowed that dysfunction to tarnish our most important democratic institution, the office of the President of the United States of America.

8 426 3.6 How much does one man need?

The net worth of the 8 richest men in the world is estimated to be $426 billion.

That sum is more that the sum total of the net worth of 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of the population on the Earth.

taken from article "World's Richest Have as Much Wealth as Bottom Half, Oxfam Says" GERRY MULLING Jan 16, 2017

I have been moved by many things in these last few weeks.  By reading about current events and plowing through Crime and Punishment.  Making turns in knee deep powder and seeing the appreciation of gifts given during the holidays.  I’ve been moved by conversations that we as faculty have had about teaching and learning, and I’ve been moved by my oldest son’s awakening desire to live in a world he can be proud of, a world that his generation will have to shape with their actions and words.

There is something truly important about so much money being concentrated in the hands of so few.  I cannot comment on the character of any of these men and to be fair, it isn’t even their fault that they are so rich… I am concerned for us, the collective us, the world-wide us.  I have witnessed poverty in a developing nation firsthand, and it is real and it is devastating.  Some of us know poverty here in the Northeast Kingdom and its impact is no different.  The corner of the world that we live in is the poorest in the state of Vermont, a state that ranks well into the top half of the US rankings of standard of living.  Some of our neighbors in this beautiful part of the state are on par with the poorest in our country.  We do not need to look to India or Africa to see the effects of the disparity of wealth on communities. 

I don’t have any answers for you this morning.  I am concerned that we as a nation and a world seem to be moving quickly toward repeating history.  Quickly toward a me centered, isolationist approach to the world.  Somehow we feel an obligation to only look after ourselves, and too often this means protecting and supporting those most like ourselves.  The ironic thing for me is that those 8 men that are on top of the heap of money have made it from all of humanity, not just one country's populace.  From a technology sector that has revolutionized the world but perhaps has only made a couple individuals even richer.  What I most worry about is we are creating wealth for individuals on the backs of not just Americans but the population of the world, and our country seems to think that now is the time to worry less about our collective role in the world and more about protecting our own backyard. Can’t we do both? Shouldn't we do both?

Our headmaster has raised our awareness of the importance of fact in discerning between fake and real news.  Never in my lifetime has there been a better reason to study history, never has there been a time to better understand the flawed nature of human beings crippled by their own bias, never has it been more important for us to challenge one another’s thoughts and actions in an attempt to know one another more deeply. 

"Intelligence plus character -- that is the goal of true education."  Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King was correct, we need, now more than ever character and intelligence.  We need to invest fully in our own education, for our communities, countries and world depend upon it. 

Turning 50

November 29th, 2016

It was a grey and rainy day, the kind of day where the cold seeps into you, the kind of day when you can’t decide whether it would be better if it snowed or if it rained and the fact that it did both just made it all the worse.  I moved through the Frankfurt airport avoiding tv screens and newspapers.  Trying desperately to distract myself from conversations I bought a big bag of "Allsorts" licorice and dove into reading “Boys in a Boat” until I could pour myself into my seat and withdraw as I traveled deep into the former Soviet Union.  9 hours later I stumbled off the plane grabbed my luggage cleared customs, walked out into the airport and there it was, the reassurance I needed, a man holding a sign with my name on it!  I had joked with my wife that if someone was going to kidnap me I would text her a few letters as a signal, at 2:30 in the morning in Kazakhstan, I was too tired to remember and followed him like a lost puppy to the car.  It was cold, it has to be right, I mean heading towards the Mongolian steps, visions of yurts and short horses and cold windswept plains was my image and after a few hours of sleep I awoke to this…

As an introvert trying to make sense of the world I could not have been in a better place.  Alone with my thoughts I could observe from a far, wander around a city that also seemed to share a longing for meaning as a former capital for many years.  There are vestiges of the Soviet Union around every corner and in those quiet moments where I could walk and take pictures and see something so very different I could also find hope in the solitude. And after nearly 48 hours without talking to anyone about the election I found conversation with a German consultant who was working in Canada.  I was offered refuge in a country in which I could not communicate and I was given a hug by someone I did not know but knew I needed one.

When I returned to the USA I had to face one more difficult task and that was to own up to the fact that I was going to turn 50.  The day was arriving no matter how ready I was for it.  I wasn’t really prepared for the party or the things that would be said and I worked as hard as an introvert can to get in a space of mind to be the center of attention.  There were moments I longed to be back in Kazakhstan, unknown and silent.  But it was something that was said to me, about me, that I want to offer to you this morning.  My son Andrew offered that St Augustine conceptualized love as weight and wrote,

“My love is my weight, because of it I move”.  

And it is not lost on many of you who know him that at one time many of us did not know if he would ever take his potential as a student more seriously than he did his social life.  In those moments as I was being celebrated I realized that each of my children have been nurtured and challenged in this community, that each of them move because of their weight, because of the love they have understood from their parents, their friends and their teachers. As an engineer and a lover of numbers and black and white, I too found the image of my love being my weight and being my reason to move inspiring.  I have found it important as I try to make sense of the world around me, as I realize love and inspiration in the actions of so many of the people in my life, I too know I am blessed.

The bleakness of my mood that overwhelmed me in my travels before break has been replaced by a movement in my heart and in my mind.  I have been buoyed by reading, by connecting with people through their thoughtful words and writing, not by tweets and nonsensical satire but by feeling through words that can only be realized by careful thoughtful reading.  Most recently I’ve been working through 16 essays from the New Yorker from writers of all walks.  And I’ll leave you with this one thought from John Chiang.  Chiang was a budget official in California that stood up to a decision he did not agree with, I’ll let you read the article to find out the background but Chaing was quoted in the piece by Evan Osnos to have said when asked why stood against a decision made by the governor.

“ At times, we will prevail; at times we will fail. But to stand and watch idly and do nothing—I think people will regret if things go along and they didn’t offer up their very best.” 

So this morning, I am moved by my weight, for this community, this state and this nation.  I am moved to think more deeply about the divides that are apparent in a way I never knew existed, I am moved to consider my actions and my words in ways I never felt I needed to do, and I am moved to ask myself how can the weight that is my love move me to action.  For me, it is the first time in my life that I am uneasy about the future and at 50 I know that I too cannot sit idly by, I need to offer up my very best.