The Essence of Time

Time has taken on an entirely different meaning since the birth of my daughter. Not only is the time of day (especially on weekends) somewhat irrelevant, but time also passes and feels differently than it once did. Sleeping for a few hours at a time can be just as good as a night filled with slumber. Time goes quickly-- didn't I just change her diaper? Time is more precious, too. I try to get as much done as effectively and efficiently as possible so as to get home before the sun sets. Spending time with my daughter and wife is the most important part of my day.

I have come to realize that I do not have time to waste.

But, it's not enough to just spend time with them; I want to spend quality time with them. For instance, I'd rather hold Elizabeth than just be in the same room with her. I'd rather talk to my wife about her day than just passively watch another Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. I can hold Elizabeth in my arms while talking on the phone or packing my lunch (which takes a bit more than when I use both hands); however, I'd much rather watch her track me with her eyes, read her stories or pat her back to soothe a cry or encourage a burp. I am happy to at least be present. Just like there's a difference between lying down and sleeping, there's a difference between being present and being engaged.

Not to sound silly, but there's a difference between the level of commitment of the chicken and the pig in an eggs and bacon breakfast: the chicken was involved, the pig was committed.

When it comes to husbandry and fatherhood, I do not want to just be involved, I'd much rather be committed.

The same goes for my role as an educator. It's not enough just to keep students busy. It's also not enough just to cover the material. When it comes to teaching, we must be concerned with both the time on task of our students as well as the nature of the tasks on which we are asking them to spend time. Yes, we need to keep students busy; but, we must keep them busy on work that is worth doing.

One of the biggest indicators of student success is their time on task. The more that students are actively engaged throughout the course of a lesson or day, the more they are likely to have learned. This is extremely logical. If students are only on task for 4 out of their 8 hours in school, at the very best they can only learn 4 hours worth of material. Bump up the amount of time that students are being taught, working on labs, participating in discussions and producing work, and you will also increase the amount of learning taking place.

Similarly, we must ensure that this time spent on task is done on more than mere busy work. Learning must be focused on student-centered objectives. Activities must relate back to those objectives and lead to accomplishing others. Lessons should both spiral and scaffold, reviewing past concepts prior to introducing new ones and teaching lower order thinking skills (i.e. define, list, recognize) prior to reaching for higher ones (i.e. analyzing, synthesizing, comparing/contrasting, creating). In the end, students must be able to use their new knowledge in meaningful ways. Units should not necessarily end with a chapter test and the material forgotten after obtaining a particular grade. Students' knowledge should extend beyond the walls of the classroom and school and prepare them for a future of positively impacting our world.

None of this can be accomplished just by running in place or spinning our wheels through worksheets, end of the chapter questions and taking notes off of an overhead. An involved and well behaved group of students is a good first step, but it does not necessarily indicate the occurence of great learning. Not all students learn visually or audibly. Some require moving around (bodily-kinesthetic), incorporating music, working with others (interpersonal) or other non-traditional strategies to learn.

When it comes to education (or parenthood or even being married) time is of the essence. It's not enough to just be involved or present. We must take our presence a step further and be committed and engaged. Doing the first can lead to good things; doing the second can lead to incredible ones.

We must recognize that the essence of time is that it is a gift too valuable to waste.

Just be sure to make time for breakfast, even if it's just eggs with biscuits and gravy...unless, of course, it's chicken flavored.

It's Not About You

Last Friday, October 29 at 8:34 p.m., my wife gave birth to our first child, Elizabeth Anne Zelenka. Three things occurred to me at this moment:
1. There must be a benevolent God
2. I've never been more in love with my wife, Emily and
3. My life will never be the same.

While I won't bore you with the details of my reaffirmed faith in an Almighty, Loving Creator God, or how my love for my wife intensified because of the strength and love she showed throughout the labor process, I will focus on how my life, at that moment, was forever changed.

The night of Elizabeth's birth was a prime example of how my life is no longer about me. As I'm sure all parents can attest, that night was filled with tests and check-ups and heating lamps and measurements and inconsolable cries. In fact, our night was so jammed packed with activity that it was well after 3 a.m. on Saturday morning before mom, dad and baby finally got to sleep. The next day came just as quickly as the previous night was long, by 6 a.m. the Zelenka family was up once again and tending to her many hospital visitors.

Our 2nd "night" as parents was just as sleepless. But, even in a completely sleep exhausted state at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, holding on to my frantically crying daughter, I could almost hear God whisper to me, "Mike, it's not about you anymore." I knew I had to put my own need for sleep aside and instead focus on Elizabeth.

Our days and nights since our three night, two day stint in the hospital have calmed significantly, and Elizabeth, like her mother, holds the key to my heart. I absolutely adore her. So, even though my sleeplessness (and cluelessness) has dwindled, this idea of my life not being about me anymore has lingered.

During my prayer and reflection time over the past four days I have also come to sense a connection between my musing on fatherhood and my other vocation as a Catholic educator: "Mike, it's not about you."

I issue this same message to all Catholic educators-- teachers, administrators, support staff, even parents-- everywhere: "It's not about you."

Teaching must be centered on the student. Gone are the days of a taught curriculum, where the teacher merely covers the material, with little to no regard for individual student performance (that's what Bell Curves are for, right?). Instead, students must learn the material at hand. The central focus of a classroom cannot be the teacher/teaching; it must be the student/learning.

This approach to education puts aside many "old school" tactics: teachers lecturing from a podium and students passively taking notes, punitive pop quizzes meant to "get back" at students, failed tests being dismissed as a lack of student preparation ("I taught the material all last week!") and covering material from a textbook in straight succession from the introduction on page xiv to page 367.

The needs, backgrounds, abilities and temperaments of students must take precedence over the desires of the teacher, or any adult in the educational setting. Teachers must overcome tiredness, angry parents, riffs with colleagues and administrators, or a distaste for a particular subject for the good of student learning.

Time on task has a huge impact on student learning-- it must be maximized and not wasted on an abundance of study halls, homework time during class, or parties for every "holiday". The dignity and value of the student as a child of God must always be maintained, especially during disciplinary situations. Teachers must identify the ways that students, individually, best learn and differentiate their instruction so as to touch on these many and varied multiple intelligences. Lessons need to be analyzed, reorganized, and re-taught based on student performance. Each and every student must be challenged yet given the necessary supports to succeed.

When it comes to education, adults (teachers/administration/support staff and parents alike) must put aside their own egos and focus on the good of the child(ren). Because, much like being a parent, as a teacher it's not about, and can't ever be about, you.

Waiting for an Extra Marshmallow

This past Sunday was one of the fortunate times in the Celebration of the Eucharist that all three readings from the Liturgy of the Word followed a similar theme: perseverance (for last weekend's readings go to: http://www.usccb.org/nab/101710.shtml). God presents us with three wonderful images of perseverance: Moses straining to hold up his arms with Aaron and Hur helping to support his arms as Moses grows weary; an infant listening to the stories and lessons from Sacred Scripture, and a widow persistently asking a judge to side in her favor and eventually receiving a just decision. Our Heavenly Father explicitly tells us that we must persevere in our faith and that if we do, we will, like the widow, receive our just reward.

But, persevering in our faith (or in any aspect of our lives) is difficult. We live in a society and a world that demands speed. Diets should shed double digit pounds in a matter of days; exercise routines should shred fat within a few workouts; food should be received in a hurry, consumed in a hurry, and eaten in huge quantities (unless, of course, we're on a miracle diet promising double digit weight loss in a few days); abridged versions of books should guarantee the same substance of a novel in less words; music should be downloaded instantaneously; and all people should be reachable by cell phone or text at all hours of every day.

Constantly living by this modus operandi, is it any wonder that we expect the same urgency and ease from our spiritual lives? We want many things-- to win in battle, to be equipped for every good work, and for things to go in our favor-- but we do not want to work for them. Likewise, we do not want to wait for them either. Working hard and delaying the gratification of something runs directly against the current of our society-- get anything you want right when you want it.

Working hard was a principle upon which our country was founded. The Puritan work ethic believed that God rewarded those individuals who worked hard enough to deserve it. And whether or not God truly does shower blessings upon those who work hard, it makes sense that working hard toward the attainment of some goal gets us that much closer to achieving it. While we may not become the starting point guard or earn first trombone, working hard for something does pay off.

Similarly, delaying gratification is also healthy. We're taught to eat our food slowly and to wait 10 minutes prior to going back for seconds. If we're still hungry after that time, it's okay to have a second helping. Waiting overnight to press send on a scathingly drafted email response can also have its benefits; looking at our words with a clearer mind can keep us from forwarding an email we would otherwise regret. Holding off on a purchase can also yield dividends: it can allow the price to drop to a more reasonable sale and/or help you to realize if buying the item is really worthwhile. Patience, therefore, is not only a virtue, it can also lead us to success.

If we can just hold on, good things can happen. An experiment conducted in the 1960s at Stanford University revealed that there is a correlation between self-control and future success. The famous "Marshmallow Experiment" offered young children one marshmallow to consume immediately or two if they were willing to wait to eat the first for an undisclosed period of time. In tracking subjects, those who were able to delay gratification at an early age typically scored 200 points higher on their SATs than the impulsive children. Furthermore, the children who waited performed better in school, encountered fewer behavioral problems as adolescents, and led healthier lifestyles later in life. In this case persevering not only resulted in the gratification of another marshmallow, it was a predictor of future success in life. (Click on this link to see a humorous update on the marshmallow test: http://www.allprodad.com/page.php?id=164.)

Perseverance may also point toward another quality, and one of utmost importance to Catholic educators: holiness. For as St. Paul encourages the Hebrews (12:1), "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us." If we can persevere in our faith, and remain true to ourselves and our Heavenly Father in a world that encourages us to sell out and get the quick fix, our just reward will be well worth the wait.

If nothing else, it will be more than an extra marshmallow.

It's For Their Own Good

Last Friday, I had arthroscopic surgery on my knee to repair a torn meniscus. While I wish I could say that this injury was a result of some exciting feat of strength or daring act of kindness, I "tore" it by merely standing up from a squatting position. Torn last month over Labor Day weekend, I had adjusted my lifestyle to accommodate my limiting condition. Not being able to run or workout was initially a hard pill to swallow. But, over the course of the month leading up to my surgery I grew accustomed to doing one-legged workouts, going for walks instead of runs, and coping with not being able to squat past 90 degrees. In fact, in this short time, I became so comfortable with this new way of life that I was worried about this surgical procedure.

Thoughts of "What if something were to go wrong? What would the rehab be like? How much longer would it be before I'd be able to workout, or even just walk normally?" raced through my mind. Even though I knew that this surgery would put me on a path back to my pre-September lifestyle, I was reluctant to go through with the procedure.

Similarly, just yesterday I removed the very large post-ob padding and bandage that had covered my knee for five straight days. Even though I knew that this would be yet another step toward my recovery, I felt comforted by its protective covering and hesitated exposing my repaired knee. "Would I be able to sleep? What if a student bumped into the next day? Would I feel wobbly without it?"

These are two examples from the past week that point to a much more important issue than my pending rehabilitation: change, even change that we know is good for us, is often met with resistance.

Think of a new dieter and his/her attempts to steer away from sweets, the smoker doing his/her best to kick the habit, or even a child before taking the training wheels off of a bicycle. All of these changes are good; but all are also hard. They can also be scary. In many cases, the difficulty involved in making a change and the fear associated with the uncharted territory of change can immobilize us. It can keep us from changing. Or, mid-change, it can send us running back to the familiarity of our past selves.

But, as Catholic educators we must embrace change. We must fight the urge to announce "but we've always done it this way" and remain entrenched in our past mediocrities. We must embrace each new school year as another chance to improve on the successes of the past one. Much hype has surrounded the recent documentary, "Waiting for Superman" and our educational system here in the United States. Staggering statistics have surfaced: the United States ranks 10th in Reading Literacy, 12th in College Completion Rates, 17th in Science Literacy, and 24th in Math Literacy of all industrialized nations. 67% of our nation's 4th graders read below their grade level. 25% of America's seniors don't graduate from High School and of those that graduate, only 35% read proficiently.

This is not to say that every school, and more specifically every Catholic School, falls into these same percentages. However, our educational system in general is in dire need of change. Changes in our approaches to instruction, administration, parenting, grading, planning, discipline-- everything are essential if our students are to reverse these horrifying statistics. If we continue to do things the same way we've always done them, we should expect to get the same results we've always gotten.

We must be open to change and open to the fact that change, no matter how good it is for us or our children, will be difficult.

In the final chapter of John's Gospel (21:18), Jesus says to Peter, "Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." Jesus concludes this message to Peter by saying, "Follow me."

Luckily for us, Peter and countless other followers of Jesus were willing to change. We, too, must have this same openness of spirit if our children are to succeed.

Changing, in this case, is for their own good.

Intelligent, Backward Design

It's probably safe to say that in fashioning creation, God had a clear picture of His end products prior to starting. I firmly believe that humans (and all of creation for that matter) did not occur by accident. Rather, we were made in God's image and likeness. We were fearfully made. We were wonderfully made. We were made for a specific purpose or end, and this end was clearly known prior to our creation.

Even if you factor in the theories of Evolution and Natural Selection, God still has a place and His Intelligent Design is easy to experience. Look at any aspect of creation and it's easy to see that Something smarter than a human is responsible. The intricacies of cells and atoms, the complexities of life cycles and our bodily systems-- all point toward God's Intelligent Design. And since it's intelligent, it's also fairly likely that the end was known before He ever began.

Few culinary feasts are created without an idea of the sights, smells and tastes that those who will dine at the table will experience.

Few embark on journeys by plane, car, foot or even boat, without first identifying a destination.

You don't start training for a marathon without an understanding of just how far 26.2 miles really is. Likewise, you don't participate in the race unless you've undergone some sort of training.

While I could go on with other examples to demonstrate earthly examples of having the end in mind before beginning, I'd rather not completely reveal my lack of impulsiveness. In addition, I'd like to get to the purpose for which I started this blog entry: how this relates to Catholic education.

As Catholic educators we must begin with our ends/purposes clearly in sight: to educate life-long Catholics in such a way that they not only contribute to but also positively change society. With these goals in plain view, we can approach our lessons, plans, assessments, extra-curriculars and all that we do so that they further this mission. Anything not advancing this mission should be scrutinized as to whether or not it should be included in the school's agenda. Similarly, simply knowing our objectives as Catholic educators makes it more likely that we'll actually accomplish them.

A similar method must be used regarding instruction-- teachers must begin with the end in mind. Known as "Understanding by Design" or "Backward Planning", this method asks for teachers to start their planning by identifying those concepts they hope students will learn by the time the lesson(s) is(are) over. This approach also moves past checking off a list of standards to imparting enduring understandings, concepts and ideas that are much broader in scope and much more important. Units don't typically end with a chapter test (although they can). Instead, teachers end with an assessment that tests whether or not students are able to use their new knowledge meaningfully.

While much too complex of a technique to adequately cover here, Understanding by Design is successful for the same reason that a recipe produces culinary delights, Mapquest directions and GPS systems get us to our destinations and marathon training plans enable us to complete a distance that toppled Pheidippides.

It may be backward, but in this case doing things backward is smart...even intelligent.

Run, Run As Fast As We Can

My nephew Frederick will turn two years old later this month. His favorite things, which also happen to be his favorite words, include cars, trucks, cheese, boats, trees, sail boats, and dump trucks. He also runs everywhere he goes. Literally. At first I thought it was just to get his favorite toys, or to come to dinner (especially if cheese was on the menu!). But, this sense of urgency was apparent when cleaning up his toys, going down for a nap or giving hugs goodnight. He runs everywhere.

When I wasn't getting a good chuckle out of how fast his little legs could propel him, I was thinking about how different my life would be if I were to do this (and in saying this, I mean to live with such a sense of urgency-- if I ran everywhere I'd not only set a bad example for all of the students at ICS but also it would be entirely weird). Frederick made me think about how much I'd love to live with such passion, enthusiasm and zeal at every moment during every day of my life.

And why should any of us lack the fervor of a 2 year old? Despite the daily grind, which often wears on our hopes and dreams, we have few other valid excuses. For, since everyone has a purpose, everyone also has a limited amount of time to accomplish it. God has given us work to do that is worth doing. He's also issued a deadline by which He needs it done.

My intent is definitely not to offer a message of doom and gloom. Instead, it's intended to be a realistic reminder that we have little time to waste when it comes to doing God's work. Each day, we receive the gift of 24 hours. What we do with those hours is our gift back to God.

St. Francis de Sales put it this way, "Every moment comes to us pregnant with a command from God, only to pass on and plunge into eternity there to remain forever what we have made it."

Of course, we need to recharge from time to time. We also need time to rest. Burnout can and does happen. To avoid it we must be smart in our work. Not everything can be accomplished in a day, week, year or even a lifetime. But, each day there is good work to be done. We need to do all we can to accomplish it.

As Catholic educators we truly have good work to do. It is work that is noble and even heavenly in that it deals with things not of this world. Our mission as Catholic educators is both to educate and evangelize. Even if our purpose was solely educating our students it would still deal with material that is heavenly: children. It is work worth doing. It is work that needs to be done. It is work that needs to be done today and every day. God is counting on us.

The alarm is ringing. The bell is chiming. It's time to get up, to get to school and to start working. If we had the sense of a two year old, we'd be running to get it done.

"There is only one thing to do here below: to love Jesus, to win souls for Him so that He may be loved. Let us seize with jealous care every last opportunity of self-sacrifice. Let us refuse Him nothing-- He does so want our love!"

-St. Therese of Lisieux

An Attitude of Gratitude

In light of my most recent blog, I share this short video clip, forwarded to me through All Pro Dad's Email Play of the Day.

Enjoy, and be thankful:
http://www.allprodad.com/page.php?id=270.