Hey, all. Not even sure where to begin. For a time, I was not even sure I was going to begin. But I am here, and I have begun. Even if it’s three days late, Project 180, Year 5 has begun.

And what a beginning. Of course, it’s not the one I had hoped for as we wrapped our strange time up last spring. I had hoped, then, that we would be back to normal by now, but that hope never happened. The world is still strange, and I still find myself at a “distance” from my kids.

Here in Cheney we have started the year with a hybrid-distance model. Students and families could select a teacher-paced or a self-paced path. I only have three classes (90 minute periods), but we will get a year done in one semester. I will have the other half of my kids next semester. Two of my classes are teacher-paced. The other class is self-paced. This week, we have started the year with three days of orientation meetings on Zoom. But I didn’t realize (in the strangeness) that we had officially begun; thus, the delay on getting started with my Project 180 posts. Sorry that I wasn’t on top of it. But as I have said, and as you know…well, things are strange.

But, we’re gonna be okay. And I believe that. Things are gonna be tough for awhile, but I am not going to let that ruin the year before it’s even begun. In 180 fashion, things will get better because that’s what we do, and even though we will struggle in the days and weeks ahead, we will struggle forward to “better” for our kids. I believe in better. I believe in us. And that’s why I know we are going to be okay. And that is the message I tried to send to my kids in the letter below.

And the journey has begun. And, as always, I am grateful that you have joined me here again this year. I am sorry I was absent all summer, and I am more sorry that I didn’t start on day one. But I am here now.

Have a great day, all. Hope you find a better.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.

Once upon a time.

The End.

It seems some pages are missing. I looked for them. I even tried to write them, but try as I may, I couldn’t really recover the nearly seventy pages missing from our story. And it was going to be such a great story. Terrific twists and tantalizing turns. Complex character arcs. Dynamic dialogue. Captivating climaxes and rewarding resolutions. But it never came to be. Our story cut short.

Oh, we tried for awhile. We really did. We tried to make it up as we went along, pretending and playing that is was the same, but our imagination did not endure, and we soon realized that our story no longer fit the script. So, we abandoned it. We had to. And the story, without our consent was written for us, for the play had to go on, and it did, but it never really felt like our story, and here at the end, it seems an unauthorized account of something sacred, a tarnished tale.

But like it or not. It’s what happened. It’s what played out, and as we look back and learn from this time, it is my earnest hope that we hold dear to the truer tale from our beginning and let go the stranger saga at our ending. It’s still our story. It’s just not the story we could have written once upon a time with a far better end.

Happy Friday, all. Thank you for being me with me this fourth year of Project 180. I thought to write a different story here, too. Thank you for limping through this time with me. Next year is supposed to be the end of my five-year commitment to the Project, and I hope it lends itself to a more satisfying story and conclusion than this year. Have a wonderful summer and please stay safe. Thank you for being here. I will be back in the fall, and I hope you will join me again. Take care.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.

Day Sixty Eight. Heading to my classroom today for the first time in over three months. We have scheduled times to go in (to maintain social distancing) and prepare our classrooms for summer. I imagine it will be like stepping into a ghost town. I don’t remember how I left things. It will be a strange moment in an already strange time. And as I begin to hear about re-opening regulations for next fall, it may be stranger times are yet to come as the ghosts of classrooms past haunt and hint of what may never be again. I miss what was. I really do.

Happy Thursday, all. Man, I am scraping to find material to post about. Sorry. Glad tomorrow is the final day. Stay safe.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.

Day Sixty Seven. Morning, all. WiFi’s being a little wonky this morning, and I haven’t a lot of patience. Beyond that, I really am ready to take a beak from posts. So, I am going to wish everyone well today, and I will limp through two more days of posts. But it’s time to call it a year.

Happy Wednesday, all. Sorry I couldn’t muster a post this morning.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.

Day Sixty Six. Morning, all. Thought I would share another passage from a learning letter. I believe this young lady captured the essence of what this shutdown has felt like for many. I found it particularly poignant and compelling.

“Now just because I lost motivation doesn’t mean I’m not worthy of an A. Let’s say you’re a fisherman, and you only catch fish for 8-9 months out of the year. Yet you always caught really nice big fish. This happens consecutively for 9 years, and then one year, the season opens and for a solid 6 months you were catching wondrous fish and you had no doubt of anything else. Then towards the end of the season the water gets colder, covered in ice, and the fish start to swim elsewhere. Which is very weird because you live in Ecuador, and have NEVER experienced this, so you are trying to follow the stream and fish whenever possible. But since you have barely any understanding nor experience of any sort, you begin playing a harmless game called,”trial and error” but at the end of the day there is only so much time to play this game before you lose hope.”

She’s right. We have never experienced anything like this. NEVER. But we (all of us) did our part to keep fishing, though the waters strange, the fish scattered, and the bait spoiled. And our collective trial and error did not necessarily stand the test of time as our hope ebbed and flowed, leaving us listing in uncharted waters towards the unfamiliar sunset now upon us.

And as the sun sets on this strange season, she will get an A. She is worthy, even if the “record” in Skyward tells a different tale. But as she and I know, for I have been clear all year long, in my class, grades do not exist until the end, until the learner has had her say, told her story. She has spoken. I have listened. And though her trials found error this season, I believe she will go on to catch wondrous fish again.

Happy Tuesday, all.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.

Day Sixty Five. Happy last Monday, all. Though we still have “school” this week, it’s largely a formality. Kids will have some “last minutes” to get things in, and I will post final grades, but the work is largely over. And as I pause to think about the work we’ve done these past three months, I am more pleased than I thought I might be when we first started down this path sixty-five days ago. The kids and I found our way. And their “learning letters” help hit this home. Here are some lines that hit home with me as I learned about their learning during this strange time.

“In your class I have learned more about Language Arts than any other class. Not because you crammed things in or put a load of homework on us, but because you understood that not everyone learns the same way, and that some people need more time than others. You didn’t force us to do a lot and told us that a grade shouldn’t only define what you did right or wrong, but if you learned what you were supposed to, even if we weren’t always correct the first time.”

“I rarely like being formal, but I feel as if I owe it up to you as my teacher, and the work that I have not been getting done. I procrastinate and I fail to do something on time. However, I still learn. Although it might not be at that exact time or exact moment you would prefer me to get it done, I still learn. So this weekend, I am going to go and get done all of the previous assignments I did not do. Most importantly, I am going to go and learn the material this weekend. That is my promise. Thank you Mr. Syrie for teaching me and trusting my promise.”

“It felt like all outside cliques, all dumb ideas of popularity and status even, just kind of went away when we went into your class. And it sounds pretty cheesy I know, but that was a really big thing for me. I started to really feel connected to classmates that maybe i’ve been going to school with for a long time, but have never really felt like I could be friends with. And we learned together. We had amazing discussions that helped me really think about things, and want to participate and learn more. And it was really really hard to keep trying to learn when that was taken away.”

“Your view on learning and teaching really helped a lot of us. It helped me. It helped me let go of my grip on grades and just learn. So thank you for this year.”

“For example, without even knowing it, your class made me think more about how I feel and what’s happening with the pandemic and now with the Black lives matter movement. I found myself wanting to use the things that I learned about ethical appeals and sentence structure and write something. I wanted to use the knowledge gained from your assignments to write my own take on this pandemic. I wanted to write about the black lives matter movement, and I did not only want to write about it but I also wanted to share it. I kind of wanted to be heard for the first time (and usually I’m fine with being in the background). Knowing that I wanted to write an essay about those topics and not get a grade out of it, I think is not only somewhat of academic growth but also personal growth. It shows that I started to apply the things I learned to real life.”

I am proud of my kids. I am proud of their words. I am proud of their wisdom. They came to me learning. They are leaving me learning.

As I try to talk and also try to walk in room 206, learned is an end. Learning is a road. Have they learned? I don’t know. They kept moving. Are they learning? They must be. They are leaving. And only they know what they are taking with them.

Happy Monday, all. Have a great week.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.

Day Sixty Four. The drought continues. Well, that’s not entirely true, I suppose–and it is not my intent to be disingenuous–for there are some things welling up inside right now, but I do not know how to express them in a manner free from the emotional rawness I am experiencing regarding some doubt I am harboring about collaborative culture. I have some doubts, but those doubts seem sacrilege in a world infatuated with the “perfect paradigm,” so I will not speak them…yet. But, I am not sure I can avoid them forever, for my doubt usually springs from my word well. But for now–until I am past the emotional edge–I will suppress what I cannot yet express.

Sometimes, it seems, when we look, the glass is neither half-full nor half-empty, it’s just empty, and we sit in the drought of our own doubt.

Have a great weekend. Sorry for the dry post today.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.

Day Sixty Three. Morning, all. The words just aren’t showing up today. Feels like there’s something lurking, but I can’t quite capture it. Maybe I only have 180 days worth of words. Maybe now that I have crossed the line, I am supposed to stop.

I won’t, of course, especially as I continue to reflect on and process these past months, looking for “betters” from this strange time that is likely to continue–in some capacity–into the foreseeable future. When I find the betters, I will share the words. But for now, I will accept that the betters–and the words–lie beyond.

Happy Thursday.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.

Day Sixty Two. Okay, it’s not really day 180. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my count got off as we continued through Spring Break this year, and well, I just went with it. And that’s kinda how it’s been during this odd time. I have just gone with it. The good. The bad. And the ugly. And the beautiful. Let’s not forget the beautiful. I can’t. My kids won’t let me as they share their stories.

“My story is also our story. You taught me, Sy, not just about language arts but what it’s like to be a part of something and understand more of the people, the places, and the world around me. It is our story because not only are you a part of it but so are my classmates. All of this has made me grow and become a better version of myself. That is my story.”

There is beauty in this. It’s not the flattery (and I am flattered). It’s the discovery. There is beauty in discovery. She discovered us. She discovered herself. And by the time she got to her grade, it was clear to me that she had discovered the beauty of learning beyond grades.

“That might be my story but that is not my grade. Except, my grade is a part of my story. It’s not a big part, but it’s there. There wasn’t much that was new to me, or rather I grew from my previous years’ roots and there is still much more room for me to grow. Knowing you, my grade could be argued to be an A, or possibly higher. Although, I won’t argue with it. I might have grown but there are still kinks to work out- no one is perfect. I would say something along the lines of “I don’t deserve an A” or “I didn’t really learn much, I just drove down an unpaved road adding to the wear in the ground”, but I did learn. I learned a lot, and I tried my absolute best. That’s why I do deserve an A no matter how much that voice says I don’t.”

Their learning. Their stories. The best part for me? Discovering their discoveries as they share their stories. There is beauty in that.

Happy Wednesday, all. Hope you discover some beauty today.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.

Day Sixty One. Morning, all. Wanted to share some exciting news with you. My wife is the 2020 Washington State Art Educator of the Year. So proud of her. And I am so pleased that she received this much-deserved recognition and honor. I know a lot of educators, but few, if any, are as dedicated, hard working, supportive, and kid-affirming than the lovely lady I am lucky enough to call my wife. She really is a bright light in the lives of so many. Thank you for shining and showing us the way. Proud of you, Sher.

Happy Tuesday, all. Take care.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.