Sea Monsters in the Orchestra Room

     This year, one of my duties at school is to cover classrooms for teachers who have been called into middle-of-the-day meetings. 

    That is how I found myself in Terra Incognita last week. That is, the undiscovered territory--noted on maps of the school by tiny pictures of writhing sea monsters twined around a compass rose.

    You know, the fine arts hall. Specifically, the orchestra room. Staggered semicircles of padded chairs and spindly music stands, faded indoor/outdoor carpet that probably has an acoustic-masking spell interwoven. Oversized cubbies jammed full of violins and violas and flutes and horns and the like. Against the wall, a double bass or four. (Also called a stand-up bass by those who equate them more with the Stray Cats than Beethoven's 5th.)

    So I started the string section of the first-year orchestra off on their daily exercises. As God is my witness, one of the tunes in the exercise program was "Hot Cross Buns". All we needed was to imagine a section of 3rd graders on plastic recorders for me to journey back to the particular hell of Hot Cross Bun Week on the bus. Scads of hyperventilating 8-year-olds huffing and piping and moaning into the windpipes, their mouths engulfing the tunnels like as many Coke bottles.

    So back to last week: Among fades, sustains, and vibratos, I raised my line of sight to an astonishing vision. Across the cabinets snugged into the cinderblock walls were arrayed row upon row of trophies, some three feet tall and begilded with adornments and embellishments. There were so many awards that they had spilled onto a cantilevered shelf added to the adjoining wall.

    Awards for individual soloists, for the entire orchestra, for the directors that have led the orchestra since McMeans' establishment in 2000. Creating a monument to achievement that would make Mr. Holland stop mid-Opus for a sigh of pride. I was so inspired that I captured a 10-second panoramic scan.

    We all get tunnel vision. Over time, everything fades into the environment. Even people dear to us. That is how we start taking the people we love for granted. Forget how they enrich our lives.

     Forget also the pride and exhilaration of our accomplishments. The daily grind is just that--a rasp of donkeywork in the face of which all that is exciting and inspiring recedes to a fuzzy out-of-focus sepiatone picture of ages past.

    That is why it is so important to open up to new angles new facets new opportunities new inspirations. To recast your eyes and mind, to be newly stunned by wisdom, beauty, emotion. Not to forget what it is that makes us spectacular.

      In this case, 25 years of stupendous achievement.

      I try to ask myself every day--What else am I missing in front of my eyes because I have willed it into the environmental background of busy-ness?

 

    

    

    

Tale of Two...Trophies?

     Okay, so this story starts with boredom. Not the deep boredom of existential angst, but the simple boredom faced by every sentry on guard duty.

    What to do while guarding the perimeter?

    In this case, the perimeter is the entry corridor to my school. The sentry duty? Patrolling the main entrance, in front of the trophy cases, and ensuring that students without good reasons to be in the hallways before the bell (tutorials, nurse) stay in the gym or cafeteria. Otherwise, gangs of roaming kids get into mischief and stop the Serious Business of teachers prepping for the day's instruction.

    So--mornings at McMeans I am stationed in front of the trophy cases. Full of the boundless energy of a daily coffee addiction, bouncing back and forth. Between challenges to students trying to sneak in to wander the hallways aimlessly, I read all the club notices posted on the walls, look at the decades of choir and orchestra awards, try to pronounce the names engraved on the Athlete of the Year trophies. 

    Separated from the main trophy wall by a cross-corridor and facing the industrial wing of the school--meaning the woodshop, the engineering lab, and the home ec kitchen and sewing room--is a small and mostly overlooked trophy annex. Annex, meaning an addition to the main structure. Just a couple of shelves with a few miscellaneous plaques and trophies. Something something Lego challenge. Another confusing plaque, something to do with a cheer challenge, but separate from the main cheer trophies positioned in the fashionable center.

    And a couple of Quiz Bowl plaques. First place in a tournament from 2011. Fifth place in 2014. 

    Quiz Bowl? So at one time McMeans competed in academic competitions characterized by buzzers and arcane knowledge. Did quite well, judging by the awards won. 

    I was intrigued.Why did we drop the program? Who was the sponsor? Does Quiz Bowl still exist?

    I did some investigation, spoke to teachers who had been around at that time. And struck out. So I called in the deep magic.

    Two doors away is the former principal of my school, Dr. Rice. She hired me then retired a year later, and she was definitely at McMeans during the 2010s. So I knocked on her door with my questions. She was not positive, but she suspected that the teacher who sponsored Quiz Bowl transferred to another campus and no one else was willing to run the club. Extracurricular clubs do pay a modest stipend, but the amount is not enough to tempt you unless you are already inclined to sponsor. At that time in the 2010s, all the attention was focused on robotics and STEM.

    With no sponsor and no interest, Quiz Bowl just...disappeared.

  

    While playing Sherlock Holmes in solving the Case of The Disappearing Program, one of my conversations was with a friend who heads up Destination Imagination, a STEM challenge program. Sam Jow, who places a winning team in the finals more years than not, is well-connected across the district, and he connected me with our new GT facilitator, who had recently resurrected Quiz Bowl programs at some of our sister junior highs.

    Which is how I found myself signing on as the new sponsor of the McMeans Quiz Bowl team. Downloading practice questions, adding quiz apps to my phone, posting flyers around the school, adding daily announcements and lunch screen scrawls. Ms. Ratliff, the GT coordinator, recruited players from her GT classes, and we found ourselves with a room full of smartypants kids eager to compete.

    As part of my first coaching speech, I fetched from the trophy case that dusty old plaque from 2011 announcing us as the winner of the Katy Middle School Challenge. To show the kids we had been champions. Would be champions again. 

    That is what coaches do.

    Only two practices into the year, we enrolled in a small tournament at our feeder high school. Told the kids we were going for practice, to get experience. Low stakes. No pressure. For fun. We had 9 volunteers for that September 19 tournament.

    We won. 

    With one veteran player who moved here over the summer from a long-established competitor as the outright individual scorer, and with another player also landing in the top 10, we won the division on our first outing. Unbelievable! Incredible!

    

    So, well before we had planned, I opened up that dusty old trophy case and made room on the now-reserved QUIZ BOWL shelf. Taking pride of central position, slightly in front of our historical forebears from 2011 and 2014, is our shiny new September 19, 2026 plaque. Every practice, I tell them that we have proven ourselves-that we can compete with all the other junior highs around. But we have to practice daily and diligently. Work on strategy. Learn buzzer discipline. Diagnose our shortcomings and overcome them. 

    Because that is what coaches do.

       

 

He called me a tattletale!

     I chose junior high education due to my experiences as a bus driver. In the early days, before I got a route of my own, I was a pool driver-waiting in the break room each morning to cover absences. With 100 drivers based out of my transportation hub, there was always someone out, so I got to cover all three types of school. Elementary. Junior high. High school. Although I enjoyed both my elementary and high school passengers, it was junior high students that proved to be my tribe.

    

    But elementary students were mighty entertaining.

     One of my most entertaining students was also one of my youngest and smallest. His initials were CJ, which was what he preferred to be called. A kindergartner in 2013. And a typical kindergartner, energetic and emotional and impulsive. 

    His seatmate and best friend was my most mature kindergartner, maybe the most mature kindergarter I have ever known. He spoke three languages, had hundreds of followers on social media where he created videos about robotics, and knew the Latin names of all the dinosaurs. His name was Aiden, and he is probably in a premed or pre-engineering program at Harvard right now. Not exaggerating.

    So these two were seatmates and fast friends. A normal high-energy little kid, and a middle-aged professor hidden in a 6-year-old body. They got along despite obvious differences. Usually.

    

    Until the day that Aiden brought a new dinosaur book on the bus. A coffee-table book, full color with glossy illustrations and crammed with scholarly articles on the differences between saurischians and  

ornithischians. All in tiny 8-point font. Aiden, of course, was studying it in silence, head bowed close to the page as we jumbled over the bumps on Westheimer Parkway.

    I guess CJ had been asking to see the new book and was frustrated at being told no, because he finally appealed to me in frustration: "Mr. Barber, Aiden won't let me look at his book."

    Well, I know that sharing is a big big lesson taught in kindergarten, but enshrined in our Constitution is the right to property. So, as kindly as I could, I explained to CJ that Aiden did not have to share his book with anyone, but maybe he would later, given enough time to look at it himself. 

    There was some hasty conversation between the two, with a sharp comment from Aiden at the end of it. Consideration from CJ, then another appeal to my authority as el Capitan of the Bus. 

    "Mr. Barber, Aiden said I'm a tattletale."

    Well, that is a fine kettle of fish to intervene in. Encourage kids to protect their rights by speaking up. But also leading them to realize that there is a difference between protecting those rights and--well, tattling. Snitching. 

    This is one of the challenges of teaching elementary kids, teaching them about tattling while also making sure they speak up when appropiate. By junior high, most kids have learned the difference. 

    So how was I to negotiate this minefield between two fast friends? Respect feelings but also acknowledge that this report was not covered under safety or fairness?

    CJ solved this problem for me, thankfully. His next question, as I threaded the bus between parked cars, came while I composed a considered and scientific reponse.

    "Mr. Barber, what is a tattletale?"

       

    A snort from Aiden, nose still in an ankylosaurus' thagomizer (credit to Gary Larson, there). 

    Ahh, here was an escape. If I spent enough time sociologically and philosophically defining the unknown term, maybe I could blunt the impact on CJ's feelings. So I explained at length the most accepted definition of the word

    

    someone who tells a teacher or parent that someone else has done something bad, in order to get them in trouble

    For a few moments, silence. Educators call this processing time. Not the time it takes to return your passport, but the time it takes a student to understand the nuances of newly presented information and internalize it. Fit it in with other facts.

    Maybe 30 seconds later, CJ erupted into a forlorn wail. Gouts of hot tears on his cheeks, face red and flushed. 

    "Mr. Barber, I AM a tattletale!" This moaned in agony of self-realization. Never an overly sensitive student, CJ now proved himself to be keenly aware. And miserable.

    Well, although I had to keep my eyes firmly on the road as I kept from breaking out in laughter, his outburst had a happy outcome. Aiden raised his face from his obsession, shoved the book over with a grunt, and turned his face resignedly to the window. CJ wiped ribbons of snot from wet cheeks with the back of his hand and forgot his emotional torment in the mysteries of the sauropods. 

    And I was thankful that I was spared a big discussion about whether or not it is the right thing to do to tell on someone. At their best, kids are good about making their own decisions about their behavior.

    

Beagles and wizards...

    Growing up, there were only two beagles--or Beagles--I knew of. One was the redoubtable Snoopy, lazing on his doghouse roof unless chasing the Red Baron in his Sopwith Camel or dancing riotously to jazzy Christmas classics on TV specials. The other was the HMS Beagle, on its five-year mission to explore strange new worlds and to seek out new life...wait, that is a different intro. Well, its five-year mission was to investigate new lands for scientific and mercantile reasons, so there you go.

    Anyway, sometime during my adolescence, a new Beagle crossed my path. This was one Peter S. Beagle, known to me now as an author of fantasy fiction. Most notably The Last Unicorn,which is a cartoon suited for an audience of children in the same way that Watership Down is a cartoon suited for an audience of children. Meaning, not so much.

    But Peter S. Beagle was to me in those days just a guy who wrote the introduction for my version of Fellowship of the Ring. Describing his search for the novel as its acclaim grew by word of mouth and a significant newpaper review by W.H. Auden, Beagle concluded his initial premise with a sentence I have remembered ever since. He termed J.R.R. Tolkien "the magus of my secret knowledge." Nice ring, that phrase has. Magus--magician or sorcerer or wise man--who speaks to my hidden heart. 

    Some things resonate with your passion---your identity--your authentic self--and shake you by the scruff of the neck.

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    Back during the 2010s, ABC Family ran a Harry Potter Weekend from time to time. All eight films run over the course of several days. These days, there is no ABC Family channel, and the time committment of watching 8 movies consecutively just isn't going to float, but Harry Potter films still pop up occasionally thanks to HBO or Peacock or even the DVDs I have shelved next to my Band of Brothers box set.

    So it was that I slipped into cueing up a couple of Harry Potter movies last month. Mainly as comfortable familiar background filler, creating atmosphere for the backdrop of my weekend. Just drifting into and out of the living room, carrying groceries to the kitchen or laundry to the bedroom, not really paying attention.

    Shaken by the scruff of the neck? That is an apt description of how I was stopped in my tracks just a few minutes in. As Robbie Coltrane in the role of his life as Hagrid, having flattened a door in a lonely lighthouse, tracks down just-turned-eleven-years-old Harry to present him a slightly damaged birthday cake and intone, arched eyebrows and all:

    "Yer a wizard, Harry."

    

     

       I've heard this line, watched this scene, read this passage in the book more times than I can count. So why did I stop where I was and swivel to watch enraptured with pulse pounding and goosebumps rising on my forearms?

    Why am I flushed with emotion now remembering it?

    Other scenes, other visceral reactions. Harry meeting Ron and Hermione, their first glimpse of Hogwarts.

    The first encounter with Snape, his sneering menace covering a complicated and tragic backstory. I cannot ever again think of Snape, even in the far simpler context of his introduction, without bringing together the chaotic threads of his story. To coalesce into the one proud and mournful word that stands as his epitaph:

   

                                                    <<shiver>>

    Just as Peter Beagle noticed in 1973, there is a hunger in us to connect to transcendence. We resonate, our heartstrings quiver to that kernel of authenticity embedded in the best of literature, music, art. Our best selves tremble to be included, to understand and to join in the song. As C.S. Lewis realized in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, it is that Deep Magic written in us all. I think that is why fantasy has become such a commanding genre of literature and film.

    And that is why fantasy particular forges such devoted fans. Why conventions and cosplay are rife with fantasy themes. Why authors such as Tolkien and Rowling and Riordan dominate cultural discourse. Why families visit theme parks and spend thousands of dollars for admission, then spend ten bucks a pop on Butterbeer. 

    And why grown-ups weep during the scene when Dobby draws his last breath......proclaiming

    Dobby is happy to be with his friend, Harry Potter

    

    

    

    

    

Hanker for a hunk of cheese

    Drive down I-10 in Houston approaching Katy, and you will see no shortage of billboards trumpeting our school district. Katy ISD (Independent School District, for those who are not familiar with how Texas school districts work) is one of the top-rated school districts in Texas. Currently, the highest-rated large district in the state. My school, McMeans Junior High, is often the top junior high in the district, and is usually in the top five in the metro Houston area.

    That is what keeps property values HIGH HIGH HIGH in Katy. Houses sell quickly when everyone wants to move in so their children can attend desirable schools.

    Some families come for very specific reasons....

    As the head of the ESL department, one of my responsibilities is to attend progress meetings for students that are dually served for both language needs and special education considerations. To navigate the ins and outs of designing an individual education plan for a student that is not proficient in English and that also needs other learning support requires all hands on deck. I am one of those hands. My role is to interpret the results of yearly language testing and discuss what the developing English skills portend for academic achievement.

    That brings me to today. 

    Over the past decade, Katy has become a destination for kids needing special education services. People move across STATES to come here. Not exaggerating. Not. At. All.

    The subject of our most recent meeting had recently moved from another school district to Katy. Don't know if the family expressly came due to our reputation, but the little girl's father was clearly relieved to be here. Of course, he spoke of academic achievement and rigor and all the other educational buzzwords, but he was most concerned about acceptance.

    At the previous school, his daughter did not have any friends among the students. The teacher was the only person she felt comfortable with. 

    She had lunch with the teacher in a quiet classroom every day.

    If the teacher was absent, she would stay home. No one to have lunch with.

    Forget the rigor in the classroom. Dad wanted his kid to have lunch with other kids.

    Maybe take the bus, too. Ride the cheesewagon home. Loud and crowded and noisy.

    Like in the movies.

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    Don't know how we do things differently in our district, at our school. Never worked in another district.

    Never worked at another school. 

    Only know how McMeans does it.

    I know that other districts are smart and well-funded. I know they employ teachers and aides that respect and love their special needs kids just as much as we do.

    But whatever is different about our system or plan, it worked. It works.

    Within a week of the young lady starting classes at our school, her teacher realized that the student did not belong in a self-contained classroom. (A self-contained classroom is the environment for students with the highest needs.) Physical or cognitive or behavioral.

    Maybe all three.

    The students in these classrooms, with the highest needs, receive a ROBUST level of support. But with no peers who are nondisabled.

    Within a couple of weeks more, her teacher was contacting the parents to suggest a switch into what folks in the education sphere call a 'least restrictive environment', which in her case ended up being a class with both disabled and nondisabled peers. Oh, she gets speech therapy and occupational therapy and plenty of help in English, math, science, and social studies from teachers and aides. Paraprofessionals, or paras as they are invariably nicknamed. Paras are the backbone of the classroom; they work where the rubber meets the road.

    But what else does she get? 

    She gets ART.

    She gets PE. Coach was in the meeting to report on her progress.

    "Yep, she dresses out on time every day. Participates in activities, gets along with the rest of the kids."  Like everyone else.

    She gets the first lunch wave.

   Not a lonely lunch in the self-contained classroom.

    In the cafeteria. Noisy it is in there. Crowded. 

    You remember.

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    Every educator knows that social engagement drives academic progress. Kids help each other learn. So little wonder that only a month into the school year, in classrooms with new friends, she was already hitting the goals on the educational plan she walked in the door with. So, McMeans being McMeans, she is going to get pushed to the next level. Going to unlock a new level.

    Her dad was excited about her grades. But he was really excited when the occupational therapist proudly related that when asked for the umpteenth time to practice cutting circles out of paper to practice fine motor dexterity, she rolled her eyes in exasperation to her new best friend, sitting at the table next to her. Normal. American. Teenager. 

    The dreaded eyeroll.

    But how would you feel if the eyeroll meant your kid was taking a step you had little dreamt of a year earlier?

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    There is a multi-step agenda process to these meetings. More TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) and educationalese that become a comfortable cadence as decisions are made and put into effect. Assurances of least restrictive environment must be read, minutes reviewed and approved, assistive technology and test accommodations discussed. Is there enough evidence for further evaluation? As the meeting winds down, the facilitator starts to dot the i's. Cross the t's.

    Is ESY (extended school year) recommended?

    How about Special Transportation? Does she require the chair lift, ride-along attendant support, or seat belts that are the hallmarks of the special needs bus?

    What do you think Dad said?

    "Oh, no.

    She takes the regular bus."

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    That is why I love what I do, and love McMeans. 

    From her previous school....

    ...she moved from a solitary lunch...

    ....just her and one teacher...

    ...and now she's eyerolling..

    ....riding the bus.....

    

    

No stories yet?

     In 1910, Bud and Temple Abernathy, brothers, rode on horseback from Okalahoma to New York City to meet President Theodore Roosevelt. 

    At the time of their cross-country adventure, Bud was 10 years old. 

    Temple was 6. 

    Reaching New York, they were celebrated as young heroes and took place in a parade, riding their horses right behind the President's auto. To return home to Oklahoma, they shipped their horses by railroad. Taking a cue from President Roosevelt, they bought a car of their own which they drove the thousands of miles back home.

    A couple of years later, they bought an Indian motorcycle for another grand tour. Camping out as they went, maintaining their machine. 

    By then, seasoned travelers, they were 13 and 9. 

    Proof, as the publisher of the book Bud & Me: The True Adventures of the Abernathy Boys emphasized, that in 1910 Oklahoma, boys were men.

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      Boy, have things changed.

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      During my own childhood nd through adolescence, it was normal or natural or common to spend a lot of autonomous time. Many kids my age were more or less responsible for 'entertaining ourselves' or 'finding something to do.' 

    So we spent a lot of unstructured time wandering around neighborhoods, riding bikes across town, finding ball games to get into, or investigating whatever forested areas were nearby. There were rules, to be sure-come home for dinner, stay in a certain area, don't do anything foolish (more an overall warning than a specific list of prohibitions).

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    Definitely not having a grand old adventure riding horses across the country and making camp every night, but still-if you were relatively adventurous you could find something to do.

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    Over the last forty years, expectations of what kids can and should do radically changed. What happened? 

    A push toward safety, for one. Remember the missing kids featured on the sides of milk cartons? Whether or not kids were really being snatched off the streets, it was natural for parents to show more concern over knowing where kids were and what they were doing.    

    Technology made it easier. Baby monitors, phone trackers, airtags, cameras everywhere. First pagers, then cell phones made everyone reachable all the time. Makes it a lot harder to go off on your own and 'have an adventure'.

    Ask any hobbit-adventures can be dangerous. Risk of dragons, make you late for dinner.

    More options for planned activities, also. Sports leagues and playdates and art classes and School of Rock. There is a whole slice of the economy devoted to offering enrichment skills and courses to kids. 

    Video games, streaming libraries at your fingertips, and nonstop social media engagement also consume a lot of time that was formerly available for roaming around. 

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    Not that I am a doom-and-gloomer--a lot of this is positive. Like leash laws for dogs. Whatever dogs have lost in freedom to roam freely, they have gained in extra years of life. When I was a kid, dogs rarely lived to their full lifespans. Yes, it was absolutely common to see dogs that had been hit by cars dead on the side of the highway. Missing legs from tangling with cars, missing ears or eyes from tangling with other dogs.

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    But there is a sense that we have lost--something--along the way. I have a young friend, just graduated high school. Brilliant with language, a budding writer who is working on his first novel. Plays trivia with us on Mondays. 

    Compared with the 'adventure stories' he has heard from parents and older friends, he feels an impoverishment of his own experiences. I think he has had a remarkably secure upbringing, with opportunity for travel--which many of us Gen Xers really missed--and camps and classes and such. He is just about to enter the work world, while most of us by his age had to take early jobs from necessity. 

    Everyone gets to their own story at their own pace. This generation of young adults can be more intentional and thoughtful about life than previous ones. We rushed--and were rushed--into adulthood before we were really prepared for it. Sometimes the learning curve was brutal. Some of us compounded mistake upon mistake at breakneck speed. Given a new opportunity, I for one would let the concept of 'mindfulness' guide me rather than...well, chance. Or panic.

    Mercy, I remember how confusing it is to be 18. Everything happens at once, and you little understand that Newton's physics that speak of action and reaction are also going to apply to your metaphysical life.

    There is plenty of time, I told him, to create his stories, and the benefit is that he has opportunity to plan and to design. 

    And anyway, what 18-year-olds aren't aware of is that we have had decades of experiences to distill into war stories. Plus opportunity to recount until they are cohesive and entertaining. Sometimes it is only from a vantage point of 20 years that we even realize what we were going through at the time. 

    

    

    

    

From debt of honor to glory

    George Washington did not have biological children.

    When he married the widowed Martha Custis, he became stepfather to her two children. His stepdaughter, Patsy, died of an epileptic seizure at 17. His stepson, Jack, died of "camp fever" right after the Battle of Yorktown, the final battle of the Revolutionary War that saw the final surrender of British forces under Lord Cornwallis.

    While George and Martha Washington were unable to have children of their own, good fortune can provide what nature denies. 

    So it was that one of the most enduring stories of the American Revolution is that of the bonds of duty and affection between Washington and Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier.

    Most know him as the Marquis de Lafayette.

    The young and idealistic son of a noble French family, the young Lafayette became convinced of the righteousness and justice of the American Revolution. He was exhilirated by the thoughts of a people fighting for liberty and the right to self-rule. In his personal philosophy he celebrated self-determination, fairness, and duty--a true Enlightenment man!

     Hearing that the Continental Army welcomed French volunteers, he purchased his voyage to the New World. Landed in South Carolina, made his way to Philadephia and was commissioned an officer by Congress by influence of his advocate Benjamin Franklin and by virtue of his French military training since the age of 13. 

      Under Washington's command, Lafayette took an increasing role in command of American forces. At first not allowed direct command of troops due to being foreign-born, he rose by dint of distinguished service, battlefield prowess, and injuries in the cause of liberty to one of Washington's most trusted and valued staff generals. 

    Lafayette it was who rallied the troops at the Battle of Brandywine, turning a rout into an orderly retreat even despite being shot. During the winter of 77-78 at Valley Forge, he shared the privations of the starving army during "the times that try men's souls". After returning to France to solicit increased military aid for the colonists, he returned to America and commanded a division of troops in the defeat of Cornwallis that ended the War.

    During and after the War, Lafayette was the most visible symbol of French support and comradeship. Washington viewed him as an adopted son, and his letters to the young Frenchman show a warmth and affection that are significant given Washington's formal and proper manners with others. The still-preserved Washington estate at Mount Vernon features a "Lafayette Room," with a famous portrait of the young general in military uniform painted by eminent artist Charles Wilson Peale. A family portrait of the Lafayette family once hung in the front parlor of the estate. 

    Also featured prominently at Mount Vernon, in the main hallway, is the key to the Bastille presented to Washington by his friend after the fall of that prison at the outset of the French Revolution. It was sent as "a tribute Which I owe as A Son to My Adoptive father, as an aid de Camp to My General, as a Missionary of liberty to its patriarch."

    Another tribute he paid to General Washington?

   He named his young son Georges Washington Louis Gilbert de La Fayette.  Georges was born in 1779, during his father's military service in the Continental Army. Like his father, he became a friend of America, and like his father, he served various heads of state in France.

    Because of his republican principles and because of his service in America for liberty and equality, Lafayette was one of the few nobles to survive the French Revolution. He served the French people through the Napoleonic period and the Bourbon Restoration, and frequently returned to tour America.

    He was called The Hero of Two Worlds.

    So it is no surprise that when, in 1917 at the height of World War I, the Allied Expeditionary Force under General Pershing landed in Europe to take up arms alongside France and Britain, we Americans remembered the debt of honor and brotherhood from the 18th century.

    The first contingent of American troops marched through the streets of Paris with General Pershing. Their march ended at the grave of Lafayette. There one of Pershing's aides, Colonel Charles Stanton, delivered a short and heartfelt address:

    "The fact cannot be forgotten that your nation was our friend when America was struggling for existence...that France in the person of Lafayette came to our aid in words and deed.

    Therefore it is with loving pride we drape the colors in tribute of respect to this citizen of your great Republic, and here and now in the shadow of the illustrious dead we pledge our hearts and our honor in carrying this war to successful issue:

    Lafayette, we are here."

Every four years

    Every four years-here we go again.

    ...endless ink will be spilled.

    May even see families and friends split one against the other.

    Continous news cycle dealing win-loss scenarios around the clock.

            *        *        *        *

     Okay, so I have been subtly dealing a bit of misdirection.

    I am talking about the World Cup.

    See what I did there?

           *        *        *        *

    Like the Olympics and like election cycles, the World Cup offers uninterrupted spectacle, sage commentary from various talking heads or pundits, and new opportunities to embrace Cinderella stories. Climb to the top fueled by gumption or chutzpah and relentless hard work. 

    Maybe with a bit of luck thrown in.

    Except this time, the competition has returned to America for the first time in more than 30 years.

    Since 1994. 

             *        *        *        *

    Seems that soccer-futbol, excuse me-has been a growing sport on the cusp of national fervor as long as I have been alive. Maybe home turf will create a new opportunity. 

    Similar to how the 84 Los Angeles Olympics captured the whole country as Mary Lou Retton-Michael Jordan-Greg Louganis-Carl Lewis dominated their events.

    But what has been captivating me is the human interest angle of these games, the way America has responded to strangers flooding into its stadiums and arenas.

            *        *        *        *

•     Teams from around the world have made their base camps in American cities and towns large and small as they train and prepare. The Algerian national team is quartered in Lawrence, Kansas. The nearby University of Kansas has a large population of international students, so the town is accustomed to welcoming folks from all over the world.This explains the embrace of the visitors:

            Storefronts have been DRENCHED in the Algeria's colors.

            Local kids have flooded the free soccer clinics put on by the stars

            Local batting cages invited the players in for a swing or two at OUR national sport

            The University of Kansas marching band quickly learning the Algerian national anthem. Of course they did.

            Traditional Algerian music was blasted from street corners. The whole community rallied around them. Algeria were underdogs who fell to juggernaut Argentina. Alas and egad. What a Cinderella story that would have been, had they won....  

    Maybe the Algerian national motto "by the people and for the people" also explains why Algeria seems to be kin to the people of Kansas. 

    Shades of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address:  "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."    

    I just reread that last Lincoln quote to myself.  It resonates like our national DNA. 

            Shivers up my spine

            a flush of emotion constricting my throat

            goose bumps on my arms. Shall not perish from the earth, indeed. 

•     German soccer fan and influencer Freddy has been posting rapturously about Buc-ees and Waffle House, paying homage to the hugeness of America and cultural icons we all know.

•     Japanese fans, following their tradition that follows the saying "a bird that flies never leaves a trace", pulled trash bags out of their purses and pockets and cleaned up their stadium after their first match. This so moved commentator Jameis Winston that he pitched in, too. Later, one Japanese fan visited his first-ever Mexican restaurant. Was nonplussed by the basket of chips-unordered and gratis-that was delivered matter-of-factly before his food arrived. 

   "In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation... Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.  This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you...the trust of a nation is in that salsa.."

•    Scotland's Tartan Army drinking Boston dry over a weekend-more pints consumed than St. Paddy's and the SuperBowl-and taking over Fenway Park, belting out a spine-tingling crowd performance of "Take Me Home, Country Roads."

•     And home sweet home, my personal favorite, Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium playing host to Argentina v Iceland. Right before the match, the crowd was treated to the inspirational unbound Eagle Flight of Aurea, War Eagle VIII. Circle circle circle the stadium swooping over the crowd spiraling ever lower until the last glide to land midfield as the crowd volume swells to the drawn-out battle cry "Waaaaaar Eagle, Hey!"

    The crowd went wild.

    And went wild later when superstar Lionel Messi subbed in for Argentina and made his first score of the tournament.

    

    The last time we hosted the World Cup, we set records for per-match attendance and kick-started Major League Soccer. This time, it seems we are winning hearts and minds from around the world.

    Being won over by fans from around the globe in return.

    I can't help but reflect, in this 250th year (semiquincentennial) since the founding of our country, that we are once again transforming the heritage and history of the rest of the world. In sport as in history, we have taken the best and brightest, added our unique interpretation, and gifted it back to the rest of the world. 

    Sport, at its best, unites us in the desire for victory, in the recognition of shared striving, and in the admiration of human achievement on the field of competition. From the Olympics of ancient Greece to today, we delight and share in spectacular feats and accomplishments. 

    We all feel a part of the triumph and drama happening in stadiums around the country.

    

    

    

THAT was motivating

     Persistence: To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first

    Stay positive : Work hard : Make it happen

    Such are the typical motivational posters found plastering the walls of junior high schools. Fading into the background-a week after they are tacked up, they disappear into your subconscious never to be seen again. 

    The best of intentions-inspire the student body. But rarely is there an impact where the rubber meets the road.

    Until this year-when our brilliant yearbook sponsor brainstormed a new wrinkle-to rip down the generic "hang in there" dangling kitten posters

and replace them with quotes and photos of current students. There has been a lot more interest in the hallways since real people saying real words started making their appearance. 

    Student engagement-check

    Entertainment value-check

    **************************************************

    ....enter Tomas. He entered our school as a squirrely 6th grader with a penchant for elopement. In the world of educational jargon, elopement does not mean "escape to Las Vegas to be wed by an Elvis impersonator in a neon chapel." Instead, it refers to a student that leaves class without permission. Absconds. Escapes, even.

    In other words, Tomas was a runner. When the going got tough--well, he got going. That first couple of months was a huge adjustment for him and the staff alike. He was assigned a pass to a cooling-down room that he could use instead of taking to the sidewalk. We learned to read his moods and to de-escalate tension to keep him in the classroom. Meanwhile, we focused on accelerated instruction in English to bring him up to his academic capacity.

    He was a bit resistant to learning. By that, I mean "almost totally uninterested in anything beyond Marvel comic books and Naruto anime." Dinosaurs, maybe. But math-science-social studies? Oh, not at all. He dug in his metaphorical heels and sat in class like a man of stone. All that 6th grade year.

    Seventh grade saw small improvements. Strategized bribery worked pretty well-given a list of what to accomplish at the beginning of each class, he would get it done to earn five or ten minutes of free time. But he rarely ventured into learning more than the absolute required minimum. Especially if it did not fall into his specialized fields of interest.

     And then, sometime over the summer between seventh and eight grade, his maturity switch flipped on. Along with growing a couple of inches taller, he developed an appetite for completing all of his work. For staying caught up in all classes. In answering questions posed by teachers in group work. In fearlessly taking on new projects even if unsure of how to begin.

     It was downright inspiring to everyone to see how a couple of years of hard work turned him into a success story. His 6-grade social studies teacher, who was also his 8th-grade technology teacher (and the aforementioned yearbook sponsor) was so amazed at his academic about-face that she awarded him her student-of-the year honor. 

    And featured him on one of the motivational student displays in the hallways.

    "Be Brave" proclaims the header, over a photo of Tomas cheekily typing on a keyboard "step outside your comfort zone."

    In smaller script below:

    "Take the leap, try something new

    and discover what you're capable of becoming"

    Tomas was grinning like a Cheshire cat both in the photo...

     ...and when he saw the poster for the first time in the 6th grade main hallway. The one across from the counselor's offices, next to the clinic and the teacher's lounge. The high-traffic area of the school where EVERYBODY passes every day.

    So of course I snapped a photo of it for him and sent it to his mom and dad. You'd want to see that if it was your kid, right? 

    Of course.

    And of course mom and dad were overjoyed to see him celebrated before the entire student and faculty population.

    Still-sometimes a hurried snapshot does not do true justice to the real McCoy.

    Which is why on this year's awards night, I snuck Mom and Dad into the school proper, past the double doors that separate the cafeteria/event stage. Down into the main hallway. To see their son splashed in glorious Technicolor on a 3 feet by 6 feet glossy poster, a testament to hard work and family support and triumphant redemption. 

    Must have been overwhelming to them--there were tears in evidence. The requisite shot was framed of him standing in front of his poster gesturing possessively towards it. 

    This is the glory of teaching-to watch struggle turn into jubilance.

    I wish every kid I teach could be like Tomas. 

    But the fact that they are not makes him all the more memorable.

       "Take the leap, try something new

    and discover what you're capable of becoming"

What's for lunch?

     Third day in.

    New school.

    New language.

    New country.

   

    Of all the uncomfortable and novel situations that I witness students engulfed in, the Late Arrival seems to carry a heavy burden. Junior high is such a transitional phase that it's inherently chaotic. Human bumper cars in crowded hallways. Navigating six or seven classes a day. Mastering locker combinations, changing into and out of PE uniforms in just a jot of time. Deciding which tribe is yours, and fitting into it. Already a dog's breakfast of anxiety and isolation.

    What if it is worse? What if you are new to the school, without even a group of friends to ease you in?

    What if you are new to Texas? To America?

     To speaking English?

    

    So, about a month before the end of school, we enrolled another Newcomer. Meaning Katya tested on beginning levels for speech, for listening, for reading, and for writing. Since the Newcomers are marked by a need for accelerated English instruction, they are grouped in the same class regardless of grade level.

     Originally from Kazakhstan, the last constituent piece of the USSR to break away as the Soviet Union crumbled. Speaking Russian. 

    Katya came in to a class with no common ground for her. No other Russian speakers.

     No other 6th graders.

     No other girls.

    

    So we assigned her a buddy for the first couple of weeks, a girl in the same grade, a native-born Texan whose family speaks Russian and who could thus bridge the gap for her. Show her where her classes are, how to open her locker, and how to get through the lunch line. Host Katya at her lunch table and involve her in the lunch community, hopefully sponsor some friendships in the group.

    What's that Robbie Burns said about the best-laid schemes of mice and men? Yup, third day in, the buddy got sick. Like out with a fever for a whole week sick.

    What was the most critical part of the day that Katya and her buddy shared? Not getting to class, she already knew her way around by the end of the second day.

    Not opening her locker.

    Not remembering which binder to use for each class.

  

    Rather--what to do about lunch? Where to sit? How to be accepted somewhere?

    We decided to ask the buddy's group of lunch friends to let Katya sit with them It would mean reaching out to several students and asking them to welcome our stranger to lunch. With her dozen or so words of English.    

   

     Only to find my efforts were not needed.

    

    Only to have my thunder stolen by a delegation, no less. 

    

    Between classes, I was visited by a solid half-dozen 6th grade girls who told me they would be coming by at the end of the next class to gather Katya so she would know where to sit for lunch.

    

    I am sure somewhere there is a motivational poster with those girls on it. Right between the one of the cat dangling from a branch that say "Hang on" and the one of impossibly neon lemons that instructs you to make lemons from lemonade. 

   

    Because there is little that is more "motivational" than a group of youngsters actively setting out to make the world a better place.

      

    One good deed at a time.

    Have I mentioned before that I am constrantly gobsmacked by the prosocial behavior of youngsters? I seem to have a perpetual lump in my throat, awash in inchoate epiphany. 

    

    Who better than a bunch of junior-high kids to understand how important it is that everyone has a place? 

    

    A place for lunch.

    A place to belong.