What I Have Learned in 2014

I stole this from a friend a few years ago, and it is part of my holiday traditions.  So here goes:

1. That the West Side of Lane Stadium is more interesting than the East Side.
2. That football fans will pay big $$ for season tickets and then not come to games.
3. Other fans will sit and watch the action on the big screen and not on the field.
4. Even if you never post anything, Twitter is a great way to keep up with what is going on in the world.
5. There are great advantages to teaching the same group of kids two years in a row.
6. I can take a day off and the world not come to an end.  (My workaholic friends will understand.)
7. Fantasy football is just a glorified, stat based, football pool, and something I do not have time for.
8. The College Football final four selection shows that in many things it is always going to be about your name and not what you have accomplished.  (Hear me Buckeye fans.)
9. That a kid who has to stay home from school to look after younger siblings is being cheated.  First by not being given the chance to get an education.   Second by having adult responsibilities put on them when they should be allowed to be kids.
10. In spite of all of our efforts there is tons of misinformation being spewed out as fact.  It becomes tiring trying to dispel the intentional and unintentional drivel that is spewed over the Internet.
11. No matter how hard I work to get kids motivated to learn, I do not have the ability to overcome the external factors of culture and poverty.
12. With $1.5 billion spent on the most recent Congressional elections, it is safe to say that  political speech belongs only to the very rich.  As an average citizen, without the $$$ to make my opinions heard, I am voiceless.
13. There is a certain joy that I get as a teacher in watching kids evolve from awkward 6th graders to poised 8th graders.
14. It is ironic that I live in a state that has prided itself on politics and government that does thing the right way, and will have its last Governor sentenced for taking favors from a guy of questionable ethics; and elected a Governor known for his political fundraising.
15. We are reaping the harvest of privileged and entitled generations. It is becoming hard to find people whose default reaction to every situation is not in your face anger.
16. As I get older, I care less about the opinions of others.  (As if I have ever much worried about such things.)
17. Good instruction has little, if anything, to do with the latest trends.
18. Whether my kids pass an end of the year assessment is less important to me than them understanding that history is about learning from the past so that we can prepare for the future.  Their understanding that nothing happens in a vacuum, and that when they can find the threads that connect past to present, they will better anticipate the future.

Grateful

I have for years had the ironic title of "Mr. Christmas."  Those who have known me for more than few years are aware of my antipathy towards the holiday.  As a Christian, I have long have had a problem with the misplaced emphasis on the holiday.  We Americans have turned the season into one long commercial and the the key to our economic prosperity.  People obsess over buying stuff.  I am never sure if it is about giving the perfect gift of just about acquiring stuff.  It seems to be about coveting and not much else.  The quiet moment of acknowledging the birth of our Lord and Savior gets lost in the non-stop commercial onslaught.

For those of you who have heard that before, what follows is going to confuse you.  I will carry on with the message and in the end you will see the point. (Unless, I fail.)

For the past few years, I have been getting a child from the Labor of Love Mission and buying gifts for them.  Susan and I have done Angel Tree kids for years, but the difference with the recent ones is that I have gone and done all of the shopping for them myself.  My reason is that it makes the giving more personal for me.  I need this for my soul.  We try to do things to make the world a better place, but most of the giving is just that, stroking a check.  By going out and doing the shopping, I feel more engaged in the effort to make life a little better for one person, even if for only a day.

As a teacher, I have come to accept the fact that some students want to do something for their teachers at Christmas.  I have always been uncomfortable with this, as I know that there are so many who need far more than I.  I had a conversation with one of my classes right before the holiday and it went a bit like this:

Student:  Mr. H what do you want for Christmas?

Me: I really don't want anyone to buy me anything.  I would prefer that they go out and do something for someone and think of me when they do.

Student:  What if the person we want do something for is you?

Now first of all, I was gobsmacked by the concept.  It never occurred to me that people might get the joy of giving by giving to me.  For years, I have asked that my family do something good for others in my honor rather than buying me something.  When they do, I feel good knowing that something good is being done in my name.  So how can I not appreciate the person who wants nothing more than the joy of doing something nice for me.

Another problem I have personally had with the holiday is that there is so much pressure on all of us to be happy and cheerful.  I have a problem with forced, or faked happiness.  Not everyone has positive Christmas memories and many struggle to get through the season, including me.

So enter Christmas epiphany number two.  While driving through the holiday lights last week, Hayes Carll's "Grateful For Christmas" came on the Holly XM Channel.  The gist of the song is that every Christmas is different.  Some are great and full of joy and others hard and sad.  But as long as we have friends and family there is something to be grateful for.

So in the end, what I came away with this year is that there is more to the holiday than just the religious and commercial aspects; and I have been ignoring the fact that there is much more than just the birth of Christ.  It is far more important that we be grateful that there are people who care enough about us to want to do something for us, and for the opportunity to connect and spend time with those truly care about us.