It's no secret for anyone that knows me as a teacher, but I like to gush about the Beloit Turner Class of 2021. When you left the middle school to move aaaalllll the way across the hall to the high school, I wrote my first sappy, feelings-filled blog post. The next year when I left Turner there were plenty of reasons to write another sappy, feelings-filled blog post and the class of '21 was featured heavily again. Now it's time for Part III because it's the end of an era. You've graduated. In the midst of a global pandemic and going through another change of districts (to work across the street again, much like at Turner) there was plenty for me to worry about in my day-to-day teaching existence. One worry kept nagging at me throughout the 2020-21 school year though. I had a very realistic fear that there would be no graduation ceremony for this class. It was my biggest promise when I left Turner and I had every intention of keeping it. I also came across some of the letters written to me before I left basically saying I was coming to graduation and there would be no excuses. I doubt a global pandemic was part of the calculus in that, but luckily, vaccinations were doled out and health department restrictions were eased enough where I got the green light to attend. I went through my entire final week of school in DeForest thinking ahead to a return trip to Turner on Sunday, thankful for the opportunity. Everything about the ceremony was full of nostalgia. I found a spot way back in the staff bleachers with Mrs. Crull-Hanke and looked over at the high jump pit and saw so many kids jumping in my mind's eye. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the softball diamond, aka kickball diamond, and the open field where I played football every day at lunch with so many of the kids that were about to come out in their caps and gowns. Mrs. Warden told me how many views my YouTube channel was getting from her senior cohort and all of a sudden I was picturing Mrs. Crull-Hanke next to me in a Walter Payton jersey on a fake turntable in the middle of a line of dancing 7th graders. Then I snapped back to reality when everyone began filing into the field looking all tall and grown up even from that distance. Shaylie dropped a "Cordell's Corner" reference right away, and I could see the 8th grade dance and yearbook signing vividly as Maura retold the story. When each individual student walked across, I had memories of little moments or assignments you had done. Ryan Elliot's MUNAFL team, Kelsie Martin at the 8th grade speakeasy, David Guizar doing hilarious monologues on camera, all these little things that usually get pushed to the side by "bigger memories" were triggered in an instant by hearing your names. But it turns out the ceremony itself was nothing close to the mental and emotional trip of everything afterward. Walking to the field in front of the building, I spied Dr. McCarthy by the gym doors. He had so much praise for how the class handled the last year and a quarter of your K-12 careers. Make no mistake about it, that's not how anyone envisions their junior and senior years, and of course you handled it with grace. We talked about how the school will miss you all and how much you've accomplished. What I didn't realize was we were standing right in the path of everyone's exit from the building and all of a sudden I was surrounded.
This is where I need to apologize, because from that moment to the time I left, there were far too many people to talk to, far too little time, and far too many things I wanted to say, wished I could say, or needed to say to fit it all in. Selfishly, I wish they could have just let me "Feeny" for a day, which is how Mrs. Lowrey and I always referred to the desire to keep teaching you every year like Mr. Feeny in Boy Meets World. There were some conversations I'm very thankful for, like following up with Cam after 3 years of feeling like I hung him out to dry when he didn't realize I was moving until the last week of school, or the last convo with PK and Kade where we became the last men standing on the field by a good 20 minutes (and probably made PK late for lunch? Sorry). I didn't get to everyone though, and I apologize. It was never realistic to see everyone or hear from everyone at an event so short in time and with so many other friends and family around, and so many places to get to afterward. But the big takeaway from that time on the field was simultaneously the most joyful and most devastating. I moved three years ago, but you all stayed in one spot. When I came to Turner for the homecoming game the next year, you were all there in one spot. When I came to graduation, you were all there in one spot. Now it's all changing. You are all branching off into so many wonderful paths to do so many wonderful things. As I started keeping track of all the things you'd be doing and places you'd be going within a year, it dawned on me. This was truly the end of the line and it would never be the same. It's like the feeling after the 8th grade dance and yearbook signing, except, you know, for real this time. By the fall, some of you will be building houses, some will be learning to be electricians, some will be in California, Illinois, Missouri, New York, or wherever the Air Force decides to put you, not to mention Platteville, Whitewater, Madison, Milwaukee and Oshkosh. It's natural, and in this day and age you can stay connected to each other more than ever before, but it was very final and sudden to me. As I drove home pondering this, the tears began to stream. Bawling while blogging might be over, but crying while commuting might be its replacement. To be fair, they were happy tears. I've loved working with you and seeing you all grow and mature beyond my class and beyond the middle school. I'm done babbling, I promise. I'll just leave it with a congratulations, good luck, and the world doesn't comprehend what you're about to bring to it yet. Go do amazing things, love you all!
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Everyone is making their comparisons to one year ago... the last time it was normal and nobody knew it. I'm usually a go-with-the-flow kind of guy that will adapt to whatever and that's kind of how I approached the last year too. When I stop to think about it though, it's crazy to think that I changed schools and went through the agony of not saying bye to former students, then not being able to truly meet the new ones. It was hard. Maybe I should reflect just a touch. One year ago, it was the last day of school before spring break at Waunakee Community Middle School. We knew the Coronavirus was getting to be kind of a big deal, and we wondered if it was the last time we'd see each other for (gasp) 3 or 4 weeks! Alyssa was going to California and I remember being like "please stay away from people, come back healthy!" because you know, there were (gasp) triple digit cases in the U.S. by that point. Mrs. Keenan and Ms. Meier brought their kids into the DPRH to have a massive, multi-team contest each hour, partly for review but mostly for fun. We were going out in style!
Of course, I didn't realize I was truly "going out" at all. It was the last time I taught students in person at Waunakee. I look at this picture of the blueberry pie I got from Elena and Lily, and Noah's just chilling on his chromebook back there like always, and the corner has a wrinkled green screen and giant lights out ready to go at a moment's notice to film the Opportunity and Constraint video because we had been chipping away at it for months. This was first hour... 12 kids... the tiniest group I've ever had in a classroom and now it would be the largest number of students in the room for any of my classes. The DPRH flag hangs proudly, and this was taken during the annual Honiday season running from Constitution Day on March 11 to Founder's Day on the 14th (which was, coincidentally, the reason the pie was brought in the first place). This year Constitution Day came and almost went without me even remembering. It's hard to run a micronation when your kids spent 5 months never having visited it, only to come back and have me in there 1 out of four classes as we rotate. It's not just the way class is run and the activities we do that have changed. Everything about the job changed this year. In 9 years I never woke up and thought "I don't want to teach today", but that streak was shattered this year. It has absolutely nothing to do with the students, my colleagues, my administrators, my school, my district or anything else. It has everything to do with the limitations we've been forced to work with which are out of everyone's control. Now that it looks like things might finally, slowly, readjust to a point where school has a CHANCE to look like that picture again, I'm downright giddy. I never thought I took my job for granted. I've played dodgeball and attended dances at work, and I've always appreciated it. I never realized how much I would appreciate the ability to mix three classes together for a review game though. I never thought I'd appreciate safety protocol allowing something as simple as a blueberry pie to be passed from one person to another. I never thought I'd appreciate the mess of my own room that I stayed in the whole day. None of these things have come back yet, but they will, and I can't wait. To the Waunakee Class of '25, man I still miss you and wish we could've finished what we started the right way. To the DeForest Class of '25, man I feel like I haven't been able to give you everything I'm capable of. To the Turner Class of '21, life better get straightened out enough to host a Graduation Ceremony for more than family members in attendance. To all my future classes, I truly can't wait to savor every annoying, noisy, messy moment once we get them back. It's been a hard year. but I'd like to think we'll all be better for it. The ordinary will feel extraordinary, and we can't let that go away after we get used to it again. Note: This post was originally written as an assignment for my CAT 531 class through the University of Alabama Master of Instructional Technology program. Posted by John Honish at Tuesday, June 16, 2020 11:00:18 AM...
But why not throw it on here too? Entering my second year teaching in 2013, I wanted to find a way to integrate my affinity for video production into my instruction on a regular basis. I heard about the concept of “flipping the classroom” (using videos as direct instruction assigned as homework and using class time for group work with inquiry, problem solving and project based learning) at a conference over the summer and I was very intrigued. I researched further on my own and decided I would give it a shot. After devoting at least 60 hours of time to writing scripts, filming and editing, I had a collection of six videos to use in our introductory unit for Geography class. Clearly the first problem with this method was the amount of time it consumed, but now the economic theory of sunk costs came to mind, and I was not going to abandon the idea before even trying it! To make a long story short, over the next three years, I tried to create different activities and experiences for our class time, produced additional videos for other themes, and listened to the honest feedback of my students about the concept of flipped learning. All of that led to the conclusion that it simply was not working as intended, and by the end of my 5th year teaching I had all but scrapped the idea. With the COVID-19 Pandemic forcing class into a digital, at-home format, perhaps flipped classrooms could be more effective. Even when face-to-face class resumes, the tools used in the pandemic won’t be forgotten. (Burns, 2020) The reason I chose the topic of flipped classrooms is because I am at an ideological crossroads: Is it time I flip-flop on flipped learning? In order to successfully implement flipped classroom practices this time around, I would need to address a few issues that I encountered back in 2013-15 and that many teachers continue to mention as roadblocks to success. These are important considerations for any teacher considering flipping their class. First, I would need to produce video content in a more efficient manner. Programs like WeVideo and Screencastify are helpful for creating direct instruction videos in a timely manner. I would also forgo the frivolous jokes and graphics that took up so much of my time on the first round of videos and organize my content more manageably. (Creating Engaging Homework Video Lectures) Second, I would need to get buy-in from a critical mass in my student population. In my early experiments, the availability of technology and understanding of the process was lacking and therefore I never had enough students watching the videos before coming to class. It is not very effective to do a group activity based on background knowledge over half the students do not have. (Getting Students Ready for a Flipped Classroom) Learning at Home through the pandemic has increased student ability to use technology for direct instruction at home out of necessity, so perhaps it would be more successful this time around. I sincerely believe the time could be right to give the flipped classroom model another chance. Before fully implementing a flipped classroom setting, it would be wise to consult with the school district’s Acceptable Use Policy to ensure compliance in a few areas. Flipped Classroom content must always be created with copyright law in mind as some resources may not have permission to be shared across a school network. If there is any chance students will be responding to the videos with their own recordings, the privacy of their likeness and the security of their files must be guaranteed. As always, reviewing the AUP helps students make better choices with all their web browsing and assignment creation associated with the flipped classroom lessons. With renewed optimism, a change in environment, and an arsenal of new knowledge from the Master’s Program in Instructional Technology, it might be time to flip-flop on flipped learning once again. Resources Burns, M. (2020, April 10). Coronavirus has Changed the Game. Retrieved June 16, 2020, from https://flippedlearning.org/syndicated/coronavirus-has-changed-the-game/ Creating Engaging Homework Video Lectures. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2020, from http://www.firstyearflipped.com/zone-2-homework/creating-engaging-homework-lectures Getting Students Ready for a Flipped Classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved June 16, 2020, from http://www.firstyearflipped.com/getting-started/getting-students-ready-for-a-flipped-classroom It's been a minute since I've contributed anything to this blog page. I just never had the urge to write anything over the course of the 2019-20 school year. And yet, it seems like I just did this. Twice. This is a bitter-sweet post. It's an ode to a class of students that I love and feel like I didn't get enough time with. It's a continuation of the new theme of this blog in general, as it becomes a vast collection of my sappy thoughts that I cannot say in person. I mean, with quarantine and social distancing and online school for the remainder of the year, I can't say ANYTHING in person, but I did try to put this one into a video message and failed. So I guess this is the most fitting medium to share some pretty significant happenings in my life and all the feelings and consequences associated with it. Next year I won't be back at Waunakee Community Middle School. Most of you know I live in DeForest and my own kids attend DeForest schools, and I am taking a position at DeForest Area Middle School. It's not a decision I took lightly. It also doesn't accurately reflect how I feel about Waunakee or the students and staff I spent the last two years with. It is a family decision that allows me to invest my energy more fully into the community I live in, be on a common schedule with my kids, and opens up more possibilities for coaching and advising extracurricular groups. That's it. It's me, not the Kee. I will always look back on my time at Waunakee fondly, and I hope that the relationships I built over two years continue to grow. After all, DeForest and Waunakee interact very regularly as neighbors and rivals, so hopefully this is not goodbye for good.
When I announced I was leaving Beloit Turner, my students and I were able to really take the last few weeks of school and embrace the opportunity to enjoy each other's presence. We had so much fun the last few weeks of that year, and I have such great memories of our track season, filming our student news broadcasts, our last geography projects, end-of-year kickball game and awards ceremonies.
Now I feel like we are being robbed of that opportunity, and it makes me feel like I am abandoning you. Having no face-to-face school for the rest of this year now gives me a tremendous sense that I've let you down. A feeling that I am bailing out in an improper way. I know there are circumstances WAY beyond my control and nobody could have foreseen how this year would end back in the fall, but it doesn't change that constant gnawing in my gut every time I think about next fall. I haven't seen any of you in person since the first half of March. I haven't seen some of you at all since then, not even in video conferencing format. Early in the Learn@Home process, I looked ahead optimistically to next fall and a reunion of sorts. Of course I knew the class of 2025 would be on to 8th grade and you wouldn't actually be enrolled in my class, but I would be seeing you again and it was going to be fun. I wouldn't have even minded an influx of Class of '25 kids in my WYN sessions. And speaking of the Class of '25, I am starting to realize this post is mostly directed at you. By this point I feel like it's an open letter to everyone in the class. I really need to take some time to acknowledge just how fully robbed I feel by missing over a quarter of our year together and not having a chance to reunite next year. No disrespect to any other classes I've ever had... nothing can change how I feel about any of you (especially you, Turner Class of '21). However, the Waunakee Class of '25 is definitely a personal favorite. Quickly, not fully complete, and in no particular order, I love and will miss: The "Table of Death", Beekeeper by RASA, the crinkle of wrappers and way-too-noisy chewing of Nutrition Break... and even the Pringles... having WYN session taken over by Myla, new heads showing up with the world leaders on the back wall, dodgeball, Jungle Doors, 65!, loud marches to the LMTC, Animal Farm (and their lack of opposable thumbs), recess football, being on the girl's soccer team at Keva, photoshopped Jedi pictures and currency of Mrs. Loftus and I, Win The Whitehouse, blueberry pie, and working on the Hot Shower parody while knowing every single session that we would need more time to finish it. Speaking of... it is getting close to being finished, I promise. I am very thankful we had the opportunity to go on our field trip and have our Quizziz tournament against the other classes right before break. That still doesn't take away the sting of missing the end of year festivities. Everyone that's been asking what we're going to do about #classcomp champions and your Sevie Nation Army rankings already knows I don't have a good solution for how to approach the end of the year. All I know is that I'm struggling at this point of the transition. It is harder than I imagined to move on in the midst of this pandemic. Any sense of normalcy has already been stripped, and I can't fall back on any of those fun things usually associated with the end of the year to bring any comfort or closure to it all. If you've seen my homemade yearbooks from the last few years, you know how much I cherish them and how special that tradition is to me. This year there is really no opportunity to make a yearbook in the same way. I will not have a traditional #classcomp champions photo to post with the winners of previous years. I will not have an album's worth of photos from the last day of school to put on Instagram. I won't be able to hand out any goofy award certificates to any of you. We won't have one last recess football game... And I don't know how to replace or replicate ANY of it. And it sucks. It REALLY sucks. So I guess what I ask as we move forward into the last few weeks of the academic year is to help me do what we can. I want to celebrate our year. I want to celebrate you sticking with me through virtual learning. I want to celebrate all the great times we had before our world was turned upside down. I want to leave knowing we did everything we could to enjoy each other's company any way we knew how. Beyond that, I hope to still see you around when all of our restrictions lift. Maybe it will be at a middle school track meet, maybe in the crowd at a Varsity basketball game, maybe randomly out at a restaurant like that one time I saw Isabelle at Aranda's. I've told you before and I'll tell you again. I love you guys... I love you in an "I genuinely care about your well being" kind of way. I will still love you guys next year and when you graduate. I will miss you tremendously and wish you the best of luck next year and in high school. Thanks for a fantastic two years. -Mr. Honish Mrs. Keenan does the Wisconsin Ironman Triathlon every September. It is a grueling 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run, all done consecutively. I was excited to work with Mrs. Keenan because I do triathlons too, but up until this August all of mine were of the "Sprint" or "Olympic" variety. AKA way shorter than an Ironman. I was planning to eventually do a Half Ironman, (1.2/56/13.1) by 2021 after building up through more Olympic Races and something called the Loop Pursuit that included a 40 mile bike and 10 mile run. I think a combination of working with Mrs. Keenan for a year, feeling pretty healthy from my early season training, and the reverberating words of a Michael Matera keynote presentation with the theme of "Why not here? Why not now? Why not you?" all swirled together to change my plans. I decided to skip the Loop Pursuit and just do a Half Ironman THIS YEAR. Why not? There was a race an hour away and it was only HALF of what Mrs. Keenan has done EVERY YEAR for the past DECADE! I just needed to train more, no big deal! Narrator: But it WAS a big deal, and Mr. Honish found out quickly that he lacked knowledge about proper nutrition, had a bike saddle that was only comfortable for 30-35 miles, and could not run 13.1 miles if he did any activity beforehand. So yeah, enter the Growth Mindset... I know, if you were a seventh grader last year you probably heard about this way more often than you wanted, but I am telling you, it was a game changer. In my early training sessions after I decided to do the Half Ironman, I failed and I failed hard! But I found out there were two categories of failure I was encountering. Category 1: I Couldn't Do It (Yet) Category 1 was frustrating because I knew I was literally unable to accomplish something I needed to be able to accomplish in the near future. It feels like it is out of your control in the short term, and you need to implement a long term plan to accomplish your goal and trust you will eventually succeed. 4 weeks before the race, I intended to ride 40 miles on my bike and run 13.1 miles. I gave up after running 7 of them. I couldn't do it. I needed to approach that failure with a growth mindset to acknowledge that I had failed, analyze the reasons for it, plan a different approach for the next time and resolve to try again. I felt very hungry early on that run, and after looking at my breakfast (or lack thereof) and the fluids I had taken in over the bike, I knew I didn't give myself enough energy to replace what I had been burning. I consulted Mrs. Keenan for guidance on what to eat and drink, increased the size of my breakfasts and changed the timing of when I took on nutrition on the bike and run. I had also run a very fast pace on the first two miles of that failed run, so I set a time for a slower pace and attempted to stick with it from the very first mile. I analyzed stride data to figure out how many steps I took each minute running at that pace, then created a playlist of songs with beats per minute that matched my steps. RACE DAY APPLICATION: One of my favorite parts of triathlons is the general vibe from all the athletes around you. People are being really modest about their own skills while encouraging everyone around them. It is supportive. You cheer for each other and celebrate the success of others. 30 minutes into my bike ride, I met a stupid-head-jerk-face. I mean, I don't think he was really trying to be a stupid-head-jerk-face, but he was. I was sucking down my first gel to get some calories in me because I had adjusted my plan to do it every 30 minutes so I wouldn't crash on the run. This guy comes by on a bike that's worth more than my car and called over his shoulder as he passed "It's not that time ALREADY, is it?" Translation: "Hey wussbag, real athletes like me don't need nutrition yet, we just started this thing!" Having been through the trials and tribulations of failed training and poor nutrition management throughout the summer, I knew what I needed to do to be successful. I was following MY plan. He didn't know my plan. My plan was different than his plan. And you know what? My plan worked for me. I felt great off the bike. I had a strong first half of the run. Ironically, I struggled on the last quarter of the run largely because I accidentally skipped getting Gatorade and a gel at the last aid station for a 3.5 mile stretch because I thought there was another one just a mile ahead. Otherwise, my adjustments worked because I had gone through the trial and error process to make sure it would work. I just needed to block out the hater and suck gels when I knew I needed them. This was also a lesson in the multiple definitions of success. I was in this thing to finish. I had no ambitions of pushing my bike pace to stick with stupid-head-jerk-face. My success didn't depend on going as fast as him or racing on his plan. I was OK with following MY plan to MY success. Category 2: Way Too Comfortable Category 2 doesn't even seem like a kind of failure. It happens when you purposely set yourself up to avoid failure. The problem is, when you never fail you never have opportunites for growth. You have no mistakes to learn from. You have nothing driving you to improve. It creates failure in the long term due to the lack of failure in the short term. I set up many training sessions to go distances I knew I could accomplish. I avoided long runs right off the bike because I was worried I couldn't finish long runs right off the bike. I did short distances without amping up my pace or doing any intervals to build fitness. I was doing what I knew I could easily accomplish. In a way, the failed run I mentioned earlier was a blessing. Ironically, me giving up after 7 miles was also an example of Category 2 and being way too comfortable. Was I LITERALLY unable to continue? Would I collapse if I attempted to go another tenth of a mile? No. But I gave up because I was really hungry and tired and that was uncomfortable. RACE DAY APPLICATION Remember how I said I was struggling on the last quarter of the run? Yeah, I had to walk... ...or did I? Could I have continued slogging through the last 4 miles, shuffling my feet in something that resembled a running-ish movement, covering a mile every 11 or 12 minutes instead of slowing to a walk? Probably. Did I NEED to lower my heart rate to ensure a strong finish like I was rationalizing? Probably not. I hit the 12 mile mark of the 13.1 mile run and convinced myself that if I walked at least 0.1 miles, I could finish so much stronger. I was trying to be comfortable again. As I walked, I came across a middle-aged woman running in the opposite direction on the out-and-back run course. She knew I only had about a mile to go, because she had just come from the finish area, and unlike the stupid-head-jerk-face from the bike course, she gave me an encouraging "keep going buddy, you can do it!" accompanied with a high five. I started running the most uncomfortable mile I've ever run, but comfort is overrated. It's darn near impossible to achieve lofty goals without pushing past your limits. That finish line had been a lofty goal throughout the summer, and I needed to be uncomfortable to cross it. CLASSROOM APPLICATIONS Those two kinds of failure are everywhere in our schools. The whole process of learning and teaching depends on it! Theoretically, every student should be thinking "I can't do it yet" any time a new concept or skill is introduced. Moving from "I can't do it yet" to "I did it!" is what true learning is all about! More importantly, that process cannot happen at all if we never put ourselves out of our comfort zone and open ourselves up to the possibility of failure to begin with. Middle school is the age of self consciousness, a time when you don't want to draw negative attention to yourself and many would rather avoid something completely than risk feeling embarrassed by falling short in any way. Well, it SHOULDN'T BE and it CAN'T BE! PLEASE... this school year, remind yourself that it's perfectly OK to not be able to do something as long as you're willing to work hard to figure it out in the long run. If you fear being unable to achieve a goal and choose not to pursue it, you have sealed your own fate. There is no way to achieve a goal you never actually pursue. It is the definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In short, Failure is OK if you learn from it, and I am going to be reminding my students (and myself) of this fact all year long. As Ms. Frizzle said many times on The Magic School Bus, "Take Chances, Make Mistakes, Get Messy!"
Two years ago, the Beloit Turner Class of 2021 left for high school, and I wrote them an open letter and posted it here. It was the sappiest thing I had ever done in my entire career and I was nervous to post it because that didn't fit my persona. BUT, the response was overwhelmingly positive and I realized that it's incredibly selfish to keep those sappy reflective things internalized. Last year brought an entirely different wave of emotions as I shared more sappy and reflective thoughts as I prepared to leave Turner. So here goes, the third installment in what has now become a tradition...
Dear Class of 2024, You will automatically hold a more special and unique place in my memory simply because you're my first Waunakee class, but please believe me when I say that's not the only reason you stand out. There are a lot of things I want to take an opportunity to highlight and thank you for. First of all, thank you for thanking me. I remember the first day of school, Eli Stormer walked out of my class and said "Thank you Mr. Honish," and my gut reaction was to just blurt out "for what???" I was honestly perplexed. I had been thanked by students and parents before, but it usually came in the form of a Christmas card, Teacher Appreciation Week letter or yearbook signing... never at the end of a random class period. Eli wasn't unique in this though. I don't think a single school day went by when I wasn't thanked by at least one of you. I want to thank you for your flexibility. I was new to the building and my two 7th grade social studies teammate teachers were brand new as well. Mrs. Peters-Felice always talked about how we were "building the plane as we were flying it," meaning all your lessons, all your materials, all your projects and quizzes, the organization of your units, and EVERYTHING else about your academic year was made from scratch this year. That means there were certainly times we didn't even know how our own projects were going to go. We did not anticipate problems that arose. We NEVER knew what the plan was for next month, we often didn't know what the plan was for the next week, and sometimes we weren't even positive what the plan was for the next DAY! I was always confident that you'd roll with it and make the best of what we were doing though, because you proved incredibly willing and adaptable throughout all of it. I also want to thank you for your work ethic. As a relative outsider this year, I think a lot of people that have been in this school for a long time have started to take the high achievement of the students for granted. You're middle school students. There will be late assignments. There will be times you space out. I knew you would find unblocked chromebook games, and boy did you ever find unblocked chromebook games! I think others may see you as having much more apathy and laziness in you than they should. I was amazed by how detail oriented you were and how thorough you were in following instructions. Every time I was late for lunch duty because someone needed to ask some clarifying questions and every time I rolled my eyes when my watch buzzed notifying me of an email at 9:36pm I had to just shake my head and remind myself that this was an outstanding problem to have compared to so many other teachers elsewhere. A lot of that stuff is pretty academic though, and I want to make sure you understand that I truly loved getting to know you all throughout the year and forming so many bonds. I feel like I have a million little inside jokes that were all created over the last nine months. There are a couple secret handshakes, new nicknames, lots of begging for Instagram @'s and a fair number of Tik Toks featuring me in the background doing nothing. I "hit the no", smack talked with you over dodgeball and recess football, had one legendary run at Slope on the Smartboard, and I understand how my air conditioner functions. I've rocked out to JoJo Siwa and overheard more beatboxing than I ever thought I would. Thank you for welcoming me with open arms. I know in some ways you didn't have a choice... I mean, you were assigned to my class and as a seventh grader you kind of have to go to the classes you're assigned and deal with the teachers you're assigned, but seriously... you had to deal with a certified weirdo all year. Our room was a country. You were in a pseudo military and were forced to salute me to receive little slips of paper with your promotion badges on them. You had to listen to me profess my love of Alabama football and the Bucks, then deal with my anguish and sorrow as their seasons came close to glory but fell painfully short. You had to listen to me shout over and over that the surface of a sphere cannot be laid flat on a 2-D surface without distorting it. You had to watch standards based grades convert to letter grades in infinite campus. I pitted you against each other and dangled points over your every move for a team photo and a box of donuts (or doughnuts?) at the end of the year. You were asked to be on camera, asked to dance in educational rap videos, and asked to cover me on deep routes at recess ensuring you would be torched and embarrassed for being outrun by a 31 year old with creaky knees. I think one big reason I'm so glad you welcomed me with open arms is because I spent much of the year trying to figure out exactly where and how I fit in with this school, my colleagues, and the district. There was a learning curve and I had to find my people. It wasn't a completely new experience for me and I've been "the new guy" before, but the start of this year came with a lot of anxiety and unknowns. I had to figure out a lot of typical new guy things, like the bell schedule, using Infinite Campus, and navigating the building. Those things ended up being fairly simple overall (I mean, the building is just a series of rectangles... impossible to get lost...) but there was one adjustment that has continued to prove the most difficult. Waunakee has a completely different culture than anything I've ever been in before. That's what made it especially challenging to find where and how I fit in with the school and district and to figure out who my people really are. I'm not going to beat around the bush, it's a very affluent and privileged community overall, and I did not grow up or teach in anything close to this previously. You are all incredibly lucky to be in a district with the resources to support you and a community of families and neighbors that is heavily involved with your schools and does everything in their power to support your education. However, with all of those positives also come a different set of expectations than I am used to, and traditions and styles that are different than mine and were well established before I arrived. This is where I really need to thank you Class of 2024. Through all the transition, through the adjustment in culture and expectation, you have proven one of my core beliefs: Kids are kids. No matter where they are from, no matter what their background, kids are kids. There were a lot of adults making assumptions about what kind of kids you would be or what kind of kids I had at previous schools based on nothing but the backgrounds you all came from and the reputations that preceded the communities each school was in. Sometimes I think adults make really incorrect assumptions. I tried to go into the school year and approach each day with the attitude that we were going to get to know each other and learn about the world like any other group of 7th graders anywhere else, because you were 7th grade kids. You were my people. I had an amazing year and I'll miss you all incredibly over the summer. I will also become very bitter if you become too cool for me as 8th graders because you think you run everything. And of course, I love you all! Even if you'll roll your eyes and groan just as loud reading that as you do when I tell you in a classroom. Long live the DPRH! Have a great summer and 8th grade year -Mr. Honish I'm eating waffles with strawberries and whipped cream as I am writing this. I assembled my plate at the waffle bar that was set up in the Staff Lounge to kick off Teachers Appreciation Week. I love feeling appreciated, and I love waffles. It's nice to be appreciated. It's especially nice to be appreciated when you work in a field that is largely considered a thankless job and is notoriously short on resources, leadership and pay. However, of all the thankless jobs that are notoriously short on resources, leadership and pay, teachers have one of the largest armies of vocal support and action to further their cause. That's why as a teacher, I have a really unpopular opinion about Teachers Appreciation Week: I think we should chill out about the whole thing. Over the last few years, I've been a bit embarrassed by the social media presence of educators during Teacher Appreciation Week. Sure... you've got some really positive, uplifting tweets coming from educators reminding us what Teachers Appreciation Week is all about. It's comforting to be reminded that we are doing great things and even if they don't show it now, our students will possibly realize our impact later in life. The ones that make me uneasy are the ones that make us look like we are treating the week dedicated to appreciating us as nothing more than novelty, and that we expect full-time appreciation. They turn Teacher Appreciation Week into a platform to complain about how unappreciated we are the rest of the year. Like I said, teaching is considered a thankless job that is too often underfunded, short on resources, lacks quality leadership and a paycheck that matches the hours, experience, professionalism and skill of the people receiving them.
But don't kid yourselves fellow teachers. You knew all that when you signed up. I had no illusions of becoming comfortably wealthy in this profession. I had no illusions that every student would be a joy to be around 24/7 and would give their absolute best effort in response to mine. I had no illusions that I would be led by administrators and district offices with deep pockets and a willingness to reach into them. So on Day 1 of Teacher Appreciation Week 2019, I'll skip the snarky attitude about how little we are appreciated and share some more unpopular opinions about my chosen profession. Unpopular Opinion 1: I am OVERPAID. I get paid to play dodgeball sometimes. I get paid (extra!) to go outside at lunch and play football. I get paid to sign yearbooks and give awards and play kickball on the last day of school. Heck, I get paid to run a fantasy sports-themed current events program, like, for REAL CLASS. I get paid to make music videos with kids. I get paid to create fictional sports franchises and futuristic cities and zombie apocalypse survival plans. I get paid to pretend to be a dictator of my own made up classroom country. It's not like I'm against raising pay for teachers and it's not like I think teachers don't deserve it, but I also know that I my paycheck is enough to live on. I can meet my needs and that's more than people in some other professions can say. Unpopular Opinion 2: The "perks" make up for the lack of pay My health insurance could be better. Everyone's (outside of Finland) could be better. But when I look at it relative to other people, like self-employed dairy farmers responsible for paying their own way while doing a more dangerous job, it's pretty darn good insurance. I have never been forced to do work over the weekend. Outside of voluntarily coaching sports or holding events outside school hours, I have never needed to work nights. My schedule aligns with my childrens' school schedules. And I have a glorious summer off to hang out with my wife and kids and be a moderately successful amateur age group triathlete. Teachers work outside of contracted hours, but so do other people. And even though it's not truly a "summer off" (which I previously wrote about)... let's be serious, we get a couple months away from the regular routine. Unpopular Opinion 3: Kids are not any more difficult than anyone else's coworkers People tell me all the time how fast they would be fired as a teacher because they would swear at the kids, hit the kids, or do whatever else to the kids that would be one of many fire-worthy offenses in this profession. Again, it's not like we didn't know what we were getting into. Mrs. Honish makes realty look easy, and I don't think I could do it. I hate talking on the phone and I can't keep a mental schedule to save my life. She has to do those things constantly. If we signed up to work with kids, we shouldn't act like they are such a special and unique challenge compared to every other field. So Happy Teacher Appreciation Week. I truly do appreciate what all of my fellow teachers are doing, and I like to feel appreciated to. Those waffles were really really good! But I bet my garbage truck driver would like some waffles at work sometimes. I bet I earn more than my garbage truck driver too, and probably have a more comprehensive health insurance plan. The garbage is collected each week, no special summer schedule. There is no Waste Management Professionals Appreciation Week, but talk about a thankless job! So as the week progresses, let's keep it all in perspective, remember how amazing this job is, and not act like we need constant validation for our hard work every week of the year. Considering all the other fields with people working hard and doing important things to help humanity, in my opinion one week of official appreciation might already be a little much. And you can't make this stuff up... as I was finishing that last paragraph, a student walked up to my desk, handed me a box of chocolates and said "Happy Teacher Appreciation Week". I say again, when do the garbage truck drivers get their boxes of chocolates? I just figured out all seven seasons of Boy Meets World are available on Hulu. Obviously, I started from Season 1: Episode 1 immediately. Boy Meets World was THE staple of my Friday nights in Elementary school. I vividly remember calling my friend Tyler Goranson... at his parents' house... on a land line... after one episode in 4th grade because I couldn't wait until Monday to talk about it. I was crushing hard on Topanga Lawrence basically from 2nd through 5th grade. I even watched the Disney Channel Reboot "Girl Meets World" out of dutiful obligation to my BMW fandom. It was actually through Girl Meets World that I started thinking about the whole franchise in a new way. I was still following the life of Cory Matthews, who was a kid when I was a kid and now was a teacher when I was a teacher. During GMW's run, Sara Crave, a highly intelligent student I have great respect for once told me "Watching Mr. Matthews on GMW always makes me think of you in 7th grade." That quick comparison to a fictional TV character is legitimately one of the highest moments of praise in my career, but it really got me thinking back to Boy Meets World and the legendary Mr. Feeny. Mr. Feeny and Mr. Matthews (the teacher) are very different in age, but what they both did so well was turn classroom lessons into life lessons. As a kid, it was recognizable and apparent that Mr. Feeny was teaching Cory, Shawn, Topanga, Eric and everyone else about more than just the school curriculum, but in the 90's I was paying much more attention to how the kids were navigating life than how Mr. Feeny was teaching them about it. Now as I start the series over again, I find myself paying attention to what is happening through Mr. Feeny's eyes. As an adult teacher, that is the part of the series that is most relateable to me now, and it makes the whole series well worth another viewing from start to finish. I plan on adding to this series in future posts as I watch later episodes and find myself blown away by the undeniable wisdom of Mr. Feeny, but I will start with the nugget I was blown away with in Season 1: Episode 3... take a look below! Cory failed a test that he slept through after his dad woke him up to watch a late baseball game and spend some quality time together as father and son. Mr. Feeny originally was not going to allow a re-test opportunity, but as the clip shows, he changed his tune after doing some self reflection on the balance between school and life, the importance of each small individual lesson weighed against the importance of a 13 year schooling experience, and what his role as a teacher truly was in the grand scheme of it all.
WOW. So many times, we as teachers find ourselves making our curriculum more important than it needs to be. Some of it is plain old selfishness and pride. Obviously we all find our subjects to be deeply interesting and crucial to the success of students. We try to maximize the small window of time we have with each group of students as they pass through our grade or building. We have standards to teach, learning targets and objectives, essential questions to answer, standardized tests to give and professional goals to meet. It's natural that we hold students accountable to the often very demanding nature of our courses, and we want to push them to meet our high expectations. But that's not all our classrooms should be about. There needs to be that balance. Every single day of curriculum is not life and death. Sometimes it's OK to joke around as human beings and enjoy each other's company. Sometimes you need to escape by playing games. My colleague Cathy Keenan makes a point to set aside time each week to "tell me something good". The infamous Mrs. Dudgeon who I worked with at Turner might understand this whole balance better than anyone I've met and her "Family Days" are wildly successful by any measurement. As I watched Mr. Feeny drink apple juice with Cory and basically admit that his class wasn't as important as he always made it out to be, I was in awe. 3 Episodes in and I was already doing a lot of self reflection on my own classroom and my own career. Once again, Mr. Feeny proved he is the wisest TV character in history, and even though I remember basically every episode's plot from watching re-runs as a kid, I can't wait to see what Mr. Feeny teaches me next. Hello blog page, it's been awhile. I've been pretty consumed with all the things the December through February section of the calendar typically brings, and I have neglected you. I usually get caught up in the grind of the school year at this point, and then when you factor in like... the worst winter ever... I've really found myself in kind of a rut of simply surviving and existing.
This is the EXACT same problem I found myself in last year until Mrs. Dudgeon snapped me out of it at a fateful Thursday Coaching session that changed the entire course of my year, and maybe my career. I guess I didn't learn my lesson fully because I found myself slipping into that same rut again. I can't afford to mail it in or give anything less than 100% of my creativity, knowledge, energy and compassion as a teacher. There are too many people depending on me every school day, and I have just started to realize exactly how much influence I wield as an individual. Influence... the term actually registered with me at church a few weeks ago* and I took it as a challenge to acknowledge the amount of influence I hold and to do a much better job of leveraging that influence for good. I realized I directly influence about 110 kids every school day at a time in their lives where they are insanely impressionable. Who knows how many additional people I influence indirectly branching out from those 110 kids? There are parents, siblings, other students in the school that are not in my class, teammates from other schools, and endless others. If I am not thoughtful and intentional with everything I do or say or expect of someone, the consequences could be an unpredictable chain reaction. As I began pondering this, for a second I questioned the validity of the whole premise. Ok, I have influence and I come in contact with all of these people every day, but it's not like I have to put EVERY little thing I say and do under the microscope, right? But then I remembered something that happens to me every so often in class. There are times when a student brings up something I said months ago and brings it into the current situation, almost always with me having forgotten about it until they brought it up again, or having no recollection at all of saying it in the first place. I might not put much stock in every little thing I say or do throughout the day, but that doesn't mean someone else won't. I may not remember taking a detour from the class discussion to tell a story from my childhood or make some pop culture reference, but someone else might. I may not remember I ever told them my favorite candy (Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for the record), but they could have stored that away in their mental profile of me. The degree of influence I have is a powerful thing. Sometimes I am stunned by how well students might remember an academic concept I did not expect them to remember. This year I went into a lesson about the Sykes Picot agreement and how it separated present day Syria and Iraq. We started talking about why borders exist and how they are determined and a student said "wait, one time you told us about a time where a British and French guy basically just drew a big straight line somewhere because they were going to divide up the resources and it totally messed with the cultures and the ethnic groups there because they were being split up". Uhhhhhhh... yes... exactly, and that's the whole point of the lesson today and I forgot I mentioned this earlier, but I must have assumed you wouldn't remember all that by now... Sure, that influence is powerful, but it can be a dangerous thing too. One of the hallmarks of my teaching style is rapport and relationships, and I'd like to think I've been pretty successful overall but there's no way I've built a positive relationship with every student I've come across. I know for a fact, because once again I have praised Mrs. Dudgeon and asked how she was able to build a great relationship with someone I was never able to build one with. Maybe just as easily as someone might remember my casual remarks about my favorite candy or the intricacies of the Sykes Picot Agreement, they can also remember a time I didn't build them up when I should have. Maybe they remember a time I lost my cool and snapped at them that I've long forgotten. Maybe they are holding on to a comment on a report card or in a parent teacher conference and have taken it personally, while I have forgotten I said it at all. Therefore, the only option is to be more intentional and purposeful when wielding this incredible influence. And in order to be more intentional in wielding it, I need to be aware that as a teacher, everything I say or do carries the enormous weight of that influence. I need to influence people in positive, uplifting, loving ways. I need to tell my classes I love them more often, no matter how many eye rolls or groans I get. Hopefully that trickles down to everyone else in the chain of influence. The dream is just a massive chain reaction of positive influence, one person after another. But even if that is not very realistic, the alternative of a massive chain reaction of negative influence is too scary. Whether you're a teacher, student. parent, coach, or any other role in your community, I guarantee you have more influence than you realize. Be intentional and loving, and leverage that influence for the common good. *Yes, I am a public school teacher and I fully believe in/agree with separation of church and state... before you go down that rabbit hole, let me assure you I am not promoting any kind of religious belief here, simply providing context! This is part of a "blog exchange" program of dozens of educators around the country through the month of November. I will be posting many other posts with the theme of gratitude from guest authors on a special GUEST BLOGGERS PAGE, and highly encourage you to go read their work and check them out! I have failed to live up to my marriage vows.
Wow, that's heavy, but I'm pretty sure you're supposed to hook the reader in the intro of your writing, so I'm going to stand by that opening statement and you'll see what I mean in a bit. In the meantime, I want you to think back on something... What did you TRULY know about the personal lives of any teachers you had in school? It has occurred to me that students only know what a teacher shares with them, and that varies greatly based on the individual teacher. I felt like I knew Paul Stellpflug pretty well in high school because he wasn't afraid to let us know his political leanings, the journey of buying a house, thinking UW-Oshkosh was "Harvard on the Fox", and stories from his own high school days at Kettle Moraine. I remember the infamous "Ledger", a person that earned his nickname based on where he put... stuff... in the bathrooms of Kettle Moraine High School when I was in pre-school. The only reason I know about "Ledger" is because Mr. Stellpflug told us about him. So what do my kids know about me? Probably the basics, like my favorite sports teams, my general age (although they like to joke that they think I'm in my 40s...) and basic family info. But do you know what I realized? They don't know enough about Mrs. Honish. They don't know enough about Mrs. Honish because NOBODY knows enough about Mrs. Honish. And Nobody knows enough about Mrs. Honish because I really suck at telling people about how awesome Mrs. Honish is. I already posted a gratitude-themed blog for the month of November, but I kept it professional because it was for a blog exchange among educators and I figured the audience would relate to a piece on administration. For those of you that read that post already... too bad, you're getting another one. You're getting another one because what I'm TRULY most grateful for in my entire life is Mrs. Honish, and I have failed to share it and continue to take her awesomeness for granted... which I promised I would not do on October 29, 2011 in my marriage vows to her. So what have I taken for granted in the last 7 years? -She is a multitasker. She is a realtor, which means during the school year I rush out the door and I'm gone for the day while she does the full-time job of realty and the full-time job of parent. I might make a breakfast plate for my kids before I go, but she takes charge of shower time, backpacks, lunches, school transportation in both directions, scheduling of various appointments and school functions, and endless tears, tantrums and general little kid nonsense and shenanigans. I don't have to deal with these things every day because I am gone. She does it every single day, and for that reason it became normal and I overlooked it. The truth is, I appreciate it and I should be showing it more. -She has vision. She can see things that can exist where they currently do not, which is part of the reason she is a very good realtor. In our personal lives, I have acted negatively and shown skepticism to too many of her ideas and plans because I couldn't see a tangible result and didn't trust her vision enough. Time and time again, she has proven her plans and visions to be spot-on. Let me reverse engineer this to give you an example of what I mean. Right now I am trying to trust that vinyl plank flooring on a wall is a good idea. We are putting it in an entry way area that used to be a closet because she transformed it in a house we bought in DeForest which she thought was an option to live in when I only thought we would live in Waunakee when we moved to the Madison area to be closer to extended family and friends from our foreclosure we bought and fixed up in Beloit that I was deathly afraid to buy because it was not super pretty when we signed on the dotted line, but we were able to fix a lot of things, partially with money earned from selling a car that I had not considered we didn't need anymore. Everything in that long and rambling backwards story is basically something I doubted that she had a plan for. I appreciate these plans and I should be showing it more. -She is fun. One thing I am pretty sure I have told her several times is that without her, I would be the most boring and predictable person on earth. I would still be living in a small apartment in Beloit playing Playstation2 way too much. I would be eating cereal and frozen pizza and generally coasting through life on the path of least resistance. Without her, I wouldn't try new things, go to new places, or expand my horizons outside my comfortable little bubble. I appreciate her adventurous nature and the push she gives me to chase experiences rather than the tangible, and I should be showing it more. -She is a parent... and a darn good one. I kind of touched on this earlier with the whole morning routine and whatnot, but this goes further. Like, to the point where I need to understand that literally without her DNA my beautiful children would not exist. And without going into too many details, neither pregnancy was a piece of cake either. She sacrificed so those beautiful kids could even make their way into the world, and I need to remember what she went through every time Leah flashes her trademarked dramatic eyes or belts out "This... Girl is on FIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRE" with Alicia Keys, and every time Jackson mimics athletes on TV in our living room or sets up his wooden blocks with painstaking and borderline obsessive organization. Every time my kids say please and thank you, every time my kids clean up after themselves, every time they help in the kitchen, every time they do anything... I appreciate that it all traces back to their mother, and I should be showing it more. -She is a fighter. I've never met someone so tenacious. I've never met someone with such conviction and willingness to see things through. I've never met someone that invests themselves so deeply into things they care about. I've never met someone that so willingly sacrifices for the good of the family. I've also never met someone that can put me in my place so easily in a "discussion". But believe me, I need it. I was a total jerk growing up and assumed I was right about everything, and could usually talk my way in and out of any disagreement someone had with me. After I met Mindy, I got the (figurative) slap in the face I had so desperately needed. The pastor at our wedding told us if we would be just as stubborn about loving each other as we were about who was right and wrong sometimes, we would be great! Well, guilty as charged, we are both stubborn, but I appreciate her particular brand of stubbornness and how it has changed our lives for the better, but I need to be showing it more. If you've stuck with this blog post this long, maybe you'd be willing to read more, and believe me, I could keep going. This thing could be 10 times longer than this, but more than anything I just wanted to demonstrate one thing. My wedding vows were centered around a promise to not take Mindy Honish for granted, and I have failed miserably at it for much of the last 7 years. The day-to-day routine of life is no excuse for coasting when it comes to gratitude and appreciation. This blog exchange, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and everything else going on lately that has caused me to reflect on the concept of gratitude has made this blatantly obvious to me. Mindy, I am so very grateful for your presence in my life. Love, Me |
AuthorJohn Honish: Archives
June 2021
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