Time shifts

So when do you know it is time to quit? I still equivocate about whether this academic year should be my last or not. Right now I'm leaning toward all done.  We shall see what those who keep the records say. Sometimes what you think to be true, just is wishful thinking.At one point this fall, I discovered that a year of teaching I did in 1974 could be counted as a service year toward pension and retirement.  While the school district in which I worked claims they don't have records reaching back to my service time (3 schools, 3 towns, 12 grades and $6,600), the State of New Hampshire did. Hopefully that will be enough to prove I did what I've claimed to do. And will allow me to purchase back that year of service for more than I was paid during that one contract year.I'm not quite at that point when you know you're done. Often I have had to stop myself from thinking too far into the future. It's an odd feeling. When I put aside a unit of study, I've usually noted what I would change for the next year. This year, I make the notes, but with an asterisk... will there be another year to "fix" things?Maybe this post is a little dark and twisty. There's a dissonance to this school year because of many things. And jumping into a future of unknowns is among them. 

Outside Influences

This article by Catherine Gewertz and Lianna Heitin in Education Week caught my attention: Fourth Graders Struggle With Icons, Directions on Computer-Based Tests.Can we all let out a big DUH?The students surveyed, an admittedly small sampling, all claimed to have access to computers at home. The students knew some very basic functions, but some others (see figure 2 in the article) like using a drop down menu were not. Oh and reading directions? Well fourth graders apparently are a mirror of what most of the rest of us do - they didn't read them.So why did this catch my attention? Well, several reasons. When administering computerized tests, is there some thought given to what tools are developmentally appropriate for, say, fourth graders or is everyone expected to use functionalities the same way adults do?Secondly,not every one of my own students has ready access to computers. While improved on prior years when perhaps one of 24 students had a working computer at home, some do and some do not. So, that means, the understanding of these icons and keys on their assessments will make for lots of interesting results - not necessarily about the topic being assessed.This makes me wonder: to what degree will students' familiarity with technology tools affect their performance? And since student performance on tests is also associated with my evaluation, how will this skew things?

And so it goes...

Yesterday, after 360 days together, my students and I said good-bye. From here on, they are off to Middle School and, in all probability, we will not cross paths again. It was, for me, a bittersweet moment. And perhaps it was for some of them as well.We've had our share of challenges and our share of triumphs. In our Morning Meetings over the last week, the kids and I shared what we are most proud of accomplishing and the times when we've been embarrassed. Sometimes I'm grateful Teacher does not see everything.For me, I am proud that the kids have learned that I expect them to persevere. We don't give up. I think that was embodied by their effort in our school-wide tug-o-war. The kids had a strategy for pulling together this year and, even though one class member might have wanted to be in the coveted anchor position, together they decided who, for the common good, would be the best in that position.During the awards assembly, they clapped for each other, congratulated classmates from other homerooms. They made me proud to know them, even for just a little while. When I took a last snapshot with my phone yesterday, the kids insisted it wasn't a "selfie"; it was an "us-ie".So, we go on about our lives. We take different pathways and maybe once in a while we will stop to remember each other and the special two years we spent in each others' company.

Time to un-hibernate

The weather in this corner of the northeast has been a real challenge. Since January 1 we've accumulated 4 school snow day cancellations; thank goodness this week was a school vacation week or we'd be adding at least one more snow day to the list.Spending your vacation at home is not very exciting. Yes, we got some things accomplished, but there were no adventures for us this week. Unless you find shoveling heavy, wet snow up and over your head onto snowbanks the size of Mount Washington adventuresome. Or you think chipping 3 inches of ice off the driveway is fun.It is hard to be spiritually uplifted when everything around you is the color of slate, crusted with sand and embedded with the roadside detritus tossed by commuters on the way to somewhere. The endless supply of grey, overcast sky seems to be a constant lately.Yesterday, badly in need of a break from all this winter ambience, I took a detour from my to-do list of errands and ended up at a local garden greenhouse, miraculously open at this time of year. Oh, the beauty of the greens - ferns, prayer plants, coleus, African violets. There is something about the smell of the wet soil that is heavenly.And so, I've declared this the end of my winter hibernation. We are moving toward spring, even if the spring is within the walls of a greenhouse.And my soul is filled with promise and hope. 

Unintended consequences

Most of the time when I see this phrase, it's not a good thing. Today, however, there was an unintended consequence that fell into the plus side of the education balance sheet.In anticipation of state testing, my students have been practicing writing to a prompt for a couple of weeks. This week, we practiced using this prompt from MCAS:

Think about a memory you have of a teacher. The memory could be something funny your teacher said or did, something your teacher taught you, a field trip you teacher took you on, or a time that your teacher made you feel proud.

Many children wrote about their Kindergarten teacher, or First or Second Grade. But one of my quietest students, unexpectedly wrote about me! Since the essay is about 6 pages long - dialog included - I won't subject readers to the full writing. I certainly did hear my own voice projected through this student's writing - some of the dialog describing a multiplication lesson seemed to come right out of my mouth with amazing accuracy! Hmmm, maybe I should be checking for recording devices?

But the words that this child wrote, the words that expressed this child's feelings about me were that Mrs. Bisson "teaches in a funny way and gives you advice on how to remember important things". What more could a teacher want than this?

After a difficult, stress-filled week at school, this child's test prep (!) essay had the unintended consequence of lifting one bone-tired teacher's spirits.

A New Voice for Education Reform

A colleague and friend shared this article from the Washington Post this week.James Meredith, a hero of the Civil Rights Movement, is proposing another kind of education reform - one that is based on equity, on the idea that everyone - not just those who can parse the vagaries of charter school or private school lotteries and applications or financial good-standing - is entitled to a quality education.Notice that high-stakes, one shot tests aimed at further alienating the haves and the have-nots is not on the list of the America Child's Bill of Education Rights.  Of the 12 points - and I agree with them all - Number 12 is, for me, the most critical:

12.  A 21^st Century Education: A school and a nation where children and teachers are supported, cherished and challenged, and where teachers are left alone to the maximum extent possible by politicians and bureaucrats to do their jobs – - which is to prepare children for life, citizenship, and careers with true 21st century skills: not by drilling them for standardized tests or forcing a culture of stress, overwork and fear upon them, but by helping them fall in love with authentic learning for the rest of their lives, inspiring them with joy, fun, passion, diligence, critical thinking and collaboration, new discoveries and excitement, and having the highest academic expectations of them.

Are you listening Mr. Obama and Mr. Duncan?

January

I used to love the month of January. Not the weather, the concept of the month.It was a month for new beginnings. For resetting classroom routines. For trying out something new.Not any more.Now January is a month of drudgery. Of test. After test. After test.This week, I mapped out all of the assessments being required of my fourth grade students. It was shocking to write them down in one place: 2 days of ACCESS testing for my ELLs plus 15 minutes per student for the ACCESS Speaking subtests (about another day), Math pre- and post- module tests, Math Benchmark test, Scholastic Reading Inventory, Science District test, Scholastic Math Inventory, and a Writing On Demand test.That's 10 mandated tests in 20 days. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?January used to be fun for kids and for teacher. It used to be full of teachable moments. Of going outdoors on a cold day and exploring what happens to bubbles when you expose them to cold. Of celebrating the 100th day of school by pretending it was 100 degrees outdoors.  Not any more.Now January is a month of tests. I dislike January. A lot. 

Cooking and the Zen of Teaching

Since it is a vacation week, I find I have time to do a little cooking. Cooking is something I enjoy, but for 10 months of the year (and you can draw your own conclusions about which 10), I have little time to do it well. Hence the lack of posting on my other blog.One of my less endearing habits is that I tend to latch on to the latest and greatest cooking gadgets. Oh how I love getting a catalog from William Sonoma, Sur la Table or Crate and Barrel.  I could spend significant time (and money) in those stores.So what does this all have to do with education? Well, as I was chopping up some parsley this evening, I pulled out a kitchen gadget that I haven't used in years - a parsley chopper.As I started to roll my rediscovered gadget on a handful of beautifully fresh Italian parsley, the darn thing just would not cut. It mangled, it left cut marks, but it did not do the job anywhere near as efficiently or as well as if I had just simply used a knife and chopped by hand; which is exactly what I ended up doing minutes. later.This seems like a metaphor for the current state of education. Teachers all are given - and forced to use - some new gadgets or tools to improve their "performance": a data collection program, a new curriculum.New ideas aren't all bad, but with increasing frequency it seems that a lot of the new gadgets meant to help educators might just be meant to help some corporation bottom line first. Those are the ideas - and gadgets - we need to be wary of.This week I heard a fantastic quote by one of my education heroes, Richard Allington. The quote said "if your teachers need a test to tell them how their kids are doing, then you hired the wrong teachers."To which I'd like to add and if you need a gadget to teach, then perhaps you've hired the wrong teacher as well.

Newtown, A Year Later

Just the thought of Newtown makes me weep. I cry for the babies who were taken from their families on what should have been an ordinary school Friday with the excitement of a week's vacation looming in the future. My heart breaks for the families, for the adults who tried so valiantly to keep those children safe and, despite Herculean efforts were unable to do so.Because of Newtown, we have practiced newly revised procedures for the what-ifs. In my own classroom, I've thought and re-thought. What could I do to protect my own students should such an unfathomable tragedy visit my school, my classroom.It angers me whenever I hear some talking head spout off that teachers "should be armed". I  don't own nor have I ever had interest in having a gun for one very personal reason; I have no intention of shooting another human.  Period. Weapons belong in the hands of those who are trained to use them. They belong to those who know the consequences of firing a weapon - not the sanitized version of violence that is presented for "entertainment".Just 364 days after Newtown, yet another gun in yet another school. Where and when will this end?I wish I knew the answer. I wish I could promise my students that we would never again be weeping over families torn apart by senseless violence.UPDATE 12/19/2013In an act of brazenness, there was a shooting about 15 minutes after dismissal directly across the street from my school this week. As part of protocol, the school went into a hard lockdown.Rumors fly, of course, but the truth of the situation was that most students had been dismissed (all buses had left) and the students who were still in the building were either late pick-ups or with the after school program. There were still staff in the building; I had just left the parking lot and, through a stroke of luck ended up on Lincoln Street driving away from the violence.  Some of my colleagues, however, were not so lucky and are naturally quite shaken.The brazen aspect of this shooting is that it seems to have been some unconnected (to the school) violence taking place in close proximity to a school in the middle of the day. And that the alleged shooter did what he did in full view of many people.While cautious and aware that violence can rear up at any time, I do not feel fearful walking around this neighborhood. My own affluent surburban neighborhood has also experienced gun violence in recent memory.No one, no place is immune.News article from Lowell Sun here 

The Joy of Learning

In another life, I was a classically trained pianist.  I loved the challenge of performing Bach or Scarlatti or nearly any other Baroque composers.So yesterday when I was searching for something new to listen to - my playing days are now well behind me - I discovered a version of Couperin's Les Barricades mysterieuses. The precision, the beauty of the melodic lines, the mathematics of the composition fascinated me, particularly because the version I was listening to was not on a harpsichord, but on a classical guitar.Benjamin Verdery talks in the clip below of discovering the joy of performing such pieces on guitar, of the slow, methodical process needed to coax his fingers produce the notes and how he practiced and practiced and practiced until one day, he could perform the piece as you hear it. The satisfaction of that effort, as is often the case when presented with a learning challenge, stayed with him.For me, the message is not found simply in the music. The message is that anything worth doing well takes perseverance. And that, my friends is the joy of learning.[youtube=http://youtu.be/TdvJKT50794]

Be Extraordinary

Some of my favorite episodes from Grey's Anatomy were those in which Ellis Grey, in real life Sybil Burton, appeared.  The bristly nature of that character often led viewers to think Ellis Grey, who on the surface seemed hard and unfeeling toward her daughter, Meredith, was without maternal instincts.However, in one of her final appearances, Ellis's true feelings for her daughter become apparent as she charged her with the words: be extraordinary.As the mother - or is it the queen? - of Room 206, I find myself cajoling students to take risks and chances in learning situations. And, unfortunately, I sometimes end up accepting mediocrity.Time, outside forces beyond my control, arbitrary rules and regulations, can impede the vision of what I want for "my" kids. I know that given the same opportunities that students from more comfortable, language rich environments, my students can fly, they can be successful at whatever their heart desires. They can be extraordinary.And for that to occur, I need to be extraordinary too.

This is why I teach

Last Friday, just before we dismissed students, one of my charges folded a piece of notebook paper and slipped it into the correction basket.  I discovered it this afternoon as I did my Sunday prep for the week ahead.

Today was the best day ever. We had popsicals (sic) and extra reacess (sic) and I couldn't do it without you.

On Friday, my students who had followed classroom and school rules - "stayed green" - for the entire month of September, were recognized with Popsicles and an extra 20 minutes of recess. For this student, it was the first time she had accomplished this goal since the beginning of third grade.No doubt, she would have accomplished this on her own. I don't do this job for the accolades. But this note made my day. It will be a while before the grin is wiped from my face.

An Invitation

If you believe everything you read about education, you would think that public schools have been taken over by slackers only interested in making a quick buck, the "generous" benefits, and extra long summers off.If you truly wish to know what really happens in a public school classroom, go visit one. Seriously. And be certain you go to a PUBLIC school, not a charter school funded by the public and run by for-profit corporations. Then write about what you observe.So many private sector business types want to "improve" education by standardizing it. They figure that if clueless educators know what the expectations and goals are, the students will naturally perform better on standardized tests. They conjecture that making teachers accountable for the standardized test scores of their students, by quantifying a teacher's worth with some "value-added" metric, the challenges of education will be solved. And it won't cost a penny.These ideas are coming from the very same people who give themselves 6-figure bonuses, but won't up the minimum wage.How I wish that those experts with the answers to all things education would step into a classroom for a couple of hours before spouting off! But then, those that don't see a need to provide a living wage to their company's workforce would probably not notice the child who can't focus because food is in short supply at home, or the child who needs glasses to see, but whose parent can't afford them, or the child whose culture and gift for speaking in a language other than English needs a more time to learn the nuances of English - the test language under which they will be assessed for the whole of their education.The experts and pundits probably would not see that the social challenges of families living on or below the poverty level are nearly insurmountable in this "ownership society".  Own what, I might ask. Well unless you own a big fat CEO-style paycheck, you are basically screwed.It's a lot easier to pontificate about what is "wrong" in education, to advocate for a program which just happens to provide some investment opportunity which may become a "profit center", and to ignore the neediest of our society.Everyone deserves an education. That's right. E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E. How can this be called a civilized society if only a select few are allowed the advantages of learning?So if you ever want to take me up on that challenge - to see what it is truly like to teach in a PUBLIC school classroom, my door - and the invitation - is open.

Consistency = Success

This is a parallel story.Last year, I spent a frustrating year teaching mathematics. Frustrating because, despite what I knew to be good practice, my students' test results were not stellar. In fact, much of the time, my class averages were below every other class on the team. In the data-driven environment in which we teachers work, that is not a good feeling.Still, we continued to work consistently addressing standards.As I prepped to close out the school year, I printed the growth report in mathematics for my students. And here was the surprise: 78% of my students had made high growth! Of the 78%, half were lower achieving, but their growth in Grade 3 had been significant.  If the growth had been high, those consistent teaching practices had been successful.Now the parallel part of this tale:This week, I had been feeling pretty low about my fitness and conditioning achievements. I belong to a fabulous gym where the owner, Sherri Sarrouf, and all of the trainers, encourage each member to be the best they can be. This is the most supportive fitness environment I have ever been part of - me, the queen of gym-avoidance; I love going to the gym!So I emailed Sherri and told her I had a concern that I wasn't moving forward. And Sherri, being the caring person that she is, wanted to meet with me asap.Sherri had some data for me too. I had beginning BMI data taken when I first joined the gym. Sherri did a BMI right then and there. I lost pounds, I gained muscle, my metabolic age went down, fat - down. The evidence of success was right in front of me.I have been consistently going to the gym - mostly because it is so FUN - and the data was there to show I was making progress.So just like staying the course in mathematics last year, staying the course in my personal life, that consistency, had made a difference. Sometimes growth is subtle.Consistency = success.

Change is good

Like lots of teachers, I am burnt to a crisp mentally by the time June arrives. Some years, this happens sooner - usually those are the years that can be identified as curriculum change years.This year has been a particular challenge. You see, this year, everything was new again. I have been teaching for a l-o-n-g time and while I never teach the same things the same way twice - which makes sense, the kids are different and have different needs - one would think there would be something that would be connected to prior years.Not true of the academic year that has just ended. We were charged with changing our math curriculum, our science curriculum, and our English Language Arts curriculum. The level of discomfort with curriculum was pretty high.The amount of time preparing was off the charts. Why? Because anyone in the education field can tell you that those Grade 3-6 materials suggestions are often (mostly) directed toward students in the middle of that grade span.  In other words, we - my grade level team and I - spent inordinate amounts of time trying to find comparable materials to teach our students.My husband tells me that I'm a "magic bullet" kind of person. I am continually looking for the just right solution.  To this end, I discovered a great book by Mike Anderson and published by ASCD: The Well-Balanced Teacher.  If you are a study-guide kind of person, here is a link you might enjoy. FB fiends (guilty!) might like this page.It has been an eye-opening read. And somewhat comforting to know that there are plenty of other educators feeling the same way I do about the need to work smarter and be more balanced.  Ten months of 10- to 12-hour days does not make for a happy, creative teacher.Summer is a time of renewal. A time to reset those parts of my life that have gone out of balance. It is time to make change good.

Making Lunchtime Civilized

About six weeks ago, I found an article in the Washington Post that caught my attention: School Lunch Can Be A Teachable Moment.Does the institutional nature of school lunch periods make a difference to kids? The idea that using place settings to create a more civilized lunch period sent me straight to Home Goods (our local source of discounted home furnishings).Our school days are short of time; devoting time for students and teachers to eat together as the author of the Post article advocates just doesn't seem to be possible. But there was something I could do. My idea? To use one lunch period each week to each with a small group of students.The environmentally-unfriendly styrofoam trays, and plastic baggie filled with a spork and paper napkin were replaced with actual silverware, plates, napkins and place mats. Each week we pick a day for a group of 4 students to eat upstairs - fancy lunch.It has been such a fun experience for all of us I think. First of all, the calmness of eating in a classroom was not lost on any of the students. Each group has commented on the quietness of eating together, of having quiet conversations.Many of my students don't eat at a table with the family for dinner or supper. They shared that they often eat in front of a television, in a living room, using finger foods. We practiced setting a table with silverware, we learn to utensils, we learn to cut food into bite-sized portions.We are learning to enjoy a meal together.

Life's Lessons in a Commencement Address

Recently I happened upon a video of Steve Jobs giving the 2005 Commencement address at Stanford University.  Having sat through a number of such addresses - and well aware of how rare is the speech that is remembered 30 minutes afterwards - I was curious what, beside the celebrity of the speech-maker, might be the substance that made this video worth watching.If you have 15 minutes, the video is posted here, but there is also a transcript link here.The take-away? Three of life's most powerful pieces of advice - trust your own instincts; don't settle, pursue your dreams; live your life as if today was to be your last.In the current education environment under which I work, it is difficult and near impossible to follow this advice. My instincts tell me that trying to squish a load of (ahem) stuff into the heads of young learners isn't working. It is making for miserable kids who don't excel in the learning mode that is required to perform "successfully" (quotes on purpose). I wonder what the percentage of students who just plain give up might be.I worry a lot about the future of education. Imagine a time when a student being able to pursue the study of something like calligraphy either in high school or college, just because. There is far too much pressure on students and on their training to be successful after graduation(s). Had Steve Jobs not taken the path through college that he did, Apple's dedication to elegance of design in all things Apple, from fonts to hardware, may not have happened.I am at a turning point in my career - I don't have many years left to do this thing that I love so well. "Don't settle, pursue your dreams...." and "live each day as if it were your last." Is what is happening in classrooms today the way I want my students to remember their early education? When the answer is no, there is work to be done.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

And that's a wrap....

Yesterday, we - my class and I - wrapped up our standardized state testing for 2013.  What a long, strange, trip it has been.Starting last March with our Reading MCAS test, my students have been demonstrating their knowledge of third grade skills.  That's right, last March, when we were 7 months into our academic year (minus the week of snow days), my students had to demonstrate their end of year proficiency in Reading.  I may not have been the best math student on the planet, but I know that 7 months does not equal an entire school year.Yesterday, students completed their Mathematics tests. They worked so hard it is easy to forget that they are not taking the SAT or PSAT; they are 8- and 9-year olds performing on tests that take unbelievable amounts of stamina even if you are older.Kids are kids. While one child finishes a 45-minute test in 20 minutes, another will take twice or three times that time. One student completed the test twice - she literally went back to each question, reworked the answer and then wrote a sentence or two explanation for why her math was correct.  Two and one-half hours later, she finished this 45-minute test. After months of telling kids to "check, check, and double-check" your answers, I certainly was not going to discourage her effort!We had the usual events out of our control: no glasses.... sick.... Hopefully the impact of those variables won't be too great; however, my experience with MCAS - and now that it plays a part in my own teacher evaluation this becomes more important - is that it can have an impact and I do need to document just in case. Sad but true, MCAS is not just about student achievement.So yesterday we put a period at the end of "MCAS 2013", and today we return to our regular classroom routines. I can't put a quantifier on it, but the classroom mood sure seems a lot lighter. 

The Aftermath

Their uncle called them "losers".What can make a difference in the life of a youth whose behaviors are at once destructive to humanity and self-destructive?We hope and wait for answers to the "why" of the Marathon tragedy; those answers may never materialize. Why was there such a disconnect to the rest of humankind? Why would creating bombs and firing guns be an answer?Last year, Adrien worked to photograph a wonderful organization working with Lowell area youth. The group, UTEC, (United Teen Equality Center) has the mission to "ignite and nurture the ambition of Lowell's most disconnected young people to trade violence and poverty for social and economic success".  Listen to the stories these young people tell of how they were once disenfranchised and the difference UTEC has made in their lives. The following short video and the story of the project are the results of Adrien's association with UTEC last summer.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJDkEJ8XgNE&feature=youtu.be]

At this time when we are wondering what triggered the Tsarneav brothers to disconnect from humanity, it makes me pause and wonder if there was a moment that might have changed their course as well.  This is, of course, a mammoth leap of speculation.We may never know that answer to why the Tsarneav brothers did what they did, why their uncle called them "losers". But we can be thankful for the UTECs of the world who help the disenfranchised become successful members of the world in which they live.

Tell Me About The Good

It has been a hellish week, this vacation week that so many of us in Massachusetts looked forward to. Today we are about and around in sunny, but unseasonably cool spring weather. The grass has finally decided to green up, daffodils feel safe poking up from the damp earth. Most of our routines have returned normally - things seem the same, but they are forever changed.In New England we continue to feel pain. Words fail most of us. So we hug, we cry, we read - and some of us write, or at least try to do so.Yes, the suspects - or at least the ones who seem directly connected by evidence - of this heinous atrocity seem to be either dead or locked up. But I defy any human not to think of the four victims of Marathon Monday's bombing without an indelible sadness of 4 lives that were cut short too soon. Or the lives of those people who, simply by going outdoors on a fine April morning, now have the climb of a lifetime ahead of them. Will we ever feel safe again in a crowd?Yesterday, a priest at St. Irene's Church in Carlisle gave one of the most powerful homilies about evil and good that I have ever heard. At the end of his talk he read this Facebook posting from Cam Siciliano, which I quote here:

I don't want to know his name. I don't want to see his face. I don't want to know his life's history, his back-story, who his family is, where he went to school, or what he liked to do in his spare time. I don't want to know what "cause", if any, he was fighting for. I don't want to know why he did it, or may have done it, or what possessed him to carry out his actions. I don't want to know. Because that's what he really wants. I'll be damned if I'm going to give him what he wants.Put him on trial, but don't cover it. Tell me when you decide to jail him for three lifetimes - because that number matters. That's the number of lives he has to now pay for. That's all I want to know about him. Nothing else.Instead, tell me about the first responders who ran towards the fray, within seconds, fearless. Tell me about the ones wearing the yellow volunteer jacket, or the neon police vest, or even the ones in the regular everyday t-shirt who became a helper. Tell me the story about the first responder who held gauze over a wound until they made it to the hospital. Tell me the story about the volunteer who held the hand of the injured spectator until they got into the ambulance. In six months, tell me the story of those who lost a limb, who beat the odds, pulled through countless surgeries, and are learning to walk again. Tell me the story about the love, the compassion, and the never-ending support of thousands, millions, of people who support the victims here. Tell me their stories. Tell me everything you can, because they are the ones that matter. Tell me of the good that they have done, are doing, and will continue to do, regardless of... No, not regardless of, in spite of. In spite of that someone who would do them harm. Because that's what freedom in this country means. It means coming together in the hardest of times, even in the face of unfathomable adversity, to make life better for all those around us.Tell me the good stories. That's all I want to hear.

I know that at some point I need to learn about the two alleged perpetrators of this atrocity. If there is something that can be gleaned from their self-destructive path that will help the disenfranchised students that I often-times see, I will need to reflect on that. Maybe there is some connection that can be made, maybe not.But for now, I too, need to hear about the good, the kind, the compassionate humans who rose above the evil that we have just experienced this past week. Don't we all?