Birthdays and Anniversaries or How I Started Reflecting on My Work

I started a chat a while ago. It is educational in nature; it is goofy by design --

No no. That's not the angle. Let me start over.

My youngest turned 6 this week. I'm struggling with the words. He's one of the Lunatic Brothers. He's got the greatest laugh you've ever heard. When he doesn't like what's happening, his whine will cut through you like icy, December winds. He routinely makes me question who I am as a father - how I react to behaviors, how I support him, how I protect/overprotect/underprotect him, how I encourage/push/allow him to grow. He's makes me smile. He's made me cry. He's made me want to be a better man.

It's no small thing, this young man turning 6. Most of my jobs didn't last this long. My wife and I look at each other in amazement, and we discuss how the time passes. "The days are long and the years are short," a wise man once told me. It's a phrase we have latched onto as we think of all the pressures we face day-to-day. The grind. The hustle we went through trying to find the right day care centers for the boys. Two and three jobs and trying to be on time for all of them. 3 seasons of coaching, complete with all-day Saturday track meets where I didn't see the boys. Grad school with both boys under the age of 3. All the stresses we had then, and we look back at them now and think, "Do you remember when...?"

In a way, this is how #totallyrossome was born. It was actually far less planned than either of the Lunatics. I wanted a way to reflect on the number of different hats that educators wear at any given time, because in my conversations, I have found that no one seeks balance. To balance is to take from one area to give to another, and that's not what we do. We're all, or we're nothing. Discussing how we approach these areas of focus allows reflection of exactly how well it works.

Sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes, because we're looking at one aspect of our life with such focus, other areas fall short. I've felt like a failure as a parent because I was keyed in on work. I've been made to feel like my work was falling short because I was choosing family first. The truth is being totally committed to the hat I'm currently wearing forces me to be less committed to one of the other hats. 

That's where #totallyrossome became a lens through which I was able to look at my work. Things that happened at work became topics for my weekly chat. Challenging myself to write questions that would lead participants down a path forced me to think about what I ask my staff to do and how I asked them to do it. Weeks that I was unable to be there, and Justin Schleider, Amanda Rogers, Samantha Bates proved the value of being connected by running the chat, I was able to look inward that I'm not alone on an island in my day-to-day work. There are people there I can count on. The weeks were the chat fell short (or flat on its face - remember the Mad Libs open letter to testing? I do) reminded me that every swing is not a home run, every shot doesn't go in, and every golf movie isn't Caddyshack.

Tuesday marks the one year anniversary of #totallyrossome. To all of you who have attended over the past year, I thank you. Without you, the chat would be the musings of a madman who wonders how The Goonies connect to education. With you, the chat became my way of looking at my work and finding ways to try to keep getting better. 

Thanks for making #totallyrossome a thing.

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#totallyrossome happens Tuesdays at 9 PM EDT. Stop by and say hi.