If life were easy...

...we wouldn't call it strength...we'd call it easy...

It takes strength to be good...

Because...truth be told...it's a hard thing to do...

But we all get better at it...

With the freedom to be better...

So we can develop the strength...to make it so...

Love,
Ben

Belonging...

I'm working late on this I.E.P...on a night where I finally feel like I belong at this school...and on my team...

This feeling...of belonging...it's one of feelings that most of us want to feel, most, I think...so coveted...that people can and do use it to manipulate one another, all the time...when they're able...it's not good for us to do this with one another...but there we go and do it anyway...if we think it will get us what we think we want...which we often do...until the fantasy of that kind of life wears off...and the reality sinks in...

I was thinking, today...after reflecting on that meeting about the student resisting all the people trying to control him, right now...

That losing Brandi...as terribly painful as it was for me...

Was probably good for me...

To have to face my own control issues...

Issues that I will inevitably face with my own children...especially as they grow up...and move beyond my influence...

I handled Brandi's and my breaking up terribly...I was jealous and mean (inadvertantly...I wasn't trying to be mean) and angry and in so much pain I could barely stand it...I was making Brandi feel bad to avoid having her leave me altogether...more out of my pain, than out of any conscious strategy...

And it just pushed her farther away, every time...

And now she's barely even friends, really...more in name, than in reality...

She's not a friend I could call up...or email...or ever really get together with...or hang out with...sometime...when I'm thinking about it...

We're just people who used to be best friends...and who've just had this falling out...that just seems irreconcilable to one of them, right now...for whatever reasons...

I've apologized a million times...about things that she totally deserves apologies for...and I've apologized about things that, in retrospect, I think were foolish to apologize for...things that I think my instincts were right on, the first time...but apologies that I thought would make the peace...

I miss her...

But I think the whole experience has been a necessary learning experience...

Because God knows no book or no lesson preparing for such a situation would or could have ever really prepared me, I don't think...not totally...

It was just this really sad experience that I had to live through...to learn the lesson, I suppose...

But it probably was the hardest lesson I've ever had to learn in my entire life...

And I have no intentions of letting it go to waste...

When I have kids...and they begin to grow up...they're going to need space...and they're going to leave the nest...and I'm going to miss them...

But I need to give them the room to spread their wings...

As Brandi told me, right after we broke up...

She's a caterpillar...growing into a butterfly...and she needs the freedom to spread her wings and fly...

And I wish I would have given her that freedom, better than I did...I did my best...and I went to three therapists at a time, at one point, and read every psychology and relationship book I could get my hands on, to do as good a job as I could to let her go as well as I could...

It does bring you some satisfaction, I think, that when you fuck something up royal...to at least think to myself, "I know I did everything in my power to do that thing better...and there's just not much more that I think that I could have done better in that moment"...

I hope she knows that I did my best...that I did really want what was best for her...even as I was blinded by my own fears and pain and control issues...

Most of us are like this, I think, at some level...we fuck shit up all the time...and we just can't see it, sometimes...but we really do want what is best for one another...generally...

But Brandi did particularly well by me...and I wanted best for her, most of all...

And now, I think...maybe it was good...having to deal with all of that...

So that maybe it will be easier...when my kids leave my nest...

This feeling I have, right now...this feeling of belonging...with my team...and my school...

This was the feeling I had with Brandi...that we could fight...and disagree...and work together...and hurt together...and be all the stronger for it...

I wish I knew why Brandi...and Tom...and Jas...and all my friends feel like they can't reconcile in this kind of way, right now...in a way that makes us all stronger...individually...and together...

But...for whatever reasons...they don't...

When I feel these feelings...these feelings of belongingness...and listen to this music...I'll probably be listening to this Dar Williams live album all night, until I get this stupid I.E.P. done...

I think of Brandi...of especially that summer in 1998...when we were most in love...and the last time that this feeling was strongest...this feeling of belongingness...

I wish she could share it with me, right now...

I've got like 3 serious dating prospects...and several other women in the building interested in dating...

All of them are special in their own way...one of them, in particular, reminds me of Brandi...

She's a math teacher...who brought me calculators, today:):)...

But...truth be told...as pathetic as it is for my life...

None of them are Brandi...

I hope one day I can stop saying that...

I miss you, Fisher...

Love,
Ben

How adults get crazy about children...

We have this crazy situation with a student, right now...

We have this kid who isn't doing work, right now, in class...he's convinced that his teachers hate him...his parents are convinced that the school lacks enough consistent structure with home...the teachers are convinced that the parents are looking for excuses for this kid's behavior...

Am I'm convinced that this is a crazy situation...

Here's my take...

We've got a kid who's not doing work, right now, for whatever reasons...he thinks his teachers hate him...and I do have to say that they tend to ride him without much promise of letting up...though I do think that if they saw him performing better in class they would let up...

The teachers interpret what is going on as defiance...which it is...but it's also a healthy reaction, I think, on the kid's part, to being controlled too much by everyone...parents...teachers...administrators...
everyone...though clearly not healthy enough to get him out of the mess, which would involve taking responsibility for doing the work, doing it, and getting everyone off his back...a pretty tall load for an adult, nevertheless a 6th grader...

But that is the challenge...

I've been working with both the parents and grandparent and the teachers to get off one another's back...and to let this kid succeed or fail on his own...meaning...let him be...give him space to fail...and then him take responsibility for his success...which is the only thing that is going to work, ultimately, no matter how much we work around the margins...

The parents and grandparent are befuddled by the fact that this very educated family has this embarrassing situation of a kid who is not performing, even though the family values education...and they are making tons of excuses...it's a disability...it's the teachers...it's inconsisent structure between the home and the school (which is the oldest excuse in the world for why a parent is failing and looking for everyone else to repeat their mistakes so they don't ever have to look squarely at their failure)...

And this kid...is just kind of blowing everyone off...including me...though we're making some inroads on that route, as well...

The tragedy of the whole thing is that this thing could get very ugly...we have a family with a history of making such things ugly...a due process hearing could get really nuts, if that's where this thing were to go (which it doesn't look like where it is headed, at this point)...and the saving grace, at this point, is that I have a faculty that I'm working with to lead this thing in a better direction...and I'm working with the family to let go of the finger-pointing, some...and to get focussed on Matthew doing amazing with or without the ideal school support...and the most ideal choices on his part...

Here's the bottom-line on this thing, though...

It is not possible to make a kid perform, succeed, and definitely not excell...you can communicate with your conversations with them and with your behavior that you don't trust a kid to work on their own...and that they need to choose to be trustworthy...and they have to have space to fail to make that work...

But so many parents and teachers and others are so afraid of kids failing (which happens all the time, as is) that they'll try to find any excuse around their failure that they think will either avoid the issue...or...they try to find ways, fruitlessly, to force the kid to perform...which is a control issue on the parents' and teachers' parts...only frustrates the issue, since it limits the independence that the kid needs to their functioning in school and life...and which clearly does not work, to anyone with their eyes open around the matter...and, ironically, limits a teacher's ability to allow kids to fail...and to facilitate their taking full and free responsibility for their performance and for their life that, in the long run, is what allows really strong students and really responsible kids to really take off in their academic performance and in their lives...

It's a sad situation...and the great thing about the teachers, in this situation, is that they're not afraid of the kid failing, nearly as much as the parents, that is...

I think it will move in a better direction, generally...I notice my own control of kids all the time out of this fear of watching them fail...but I'm getting better at recognizing it...and just trusting them more...and letting them choose success and failure, more, on their own...and to make choices that often end up being better than I expected...and facing, more honestly, choices that I think will be better than end up being more of a problem...

And our team is getting better at navigating these issues on their merits...and letting go of the need to control kids, as much...though I must say that many of our teachers (like most adults I know, these days) still fruitlessly believe that they can control kids more than they really can...and their efforts to do so often lead to consequences that they say they don't want for kids...but which they get and will continue to get, anyway, until they take responsibility for their own behavior...nevertheless for the behavior of kids...

The situation is a little scary in the sense that it has potential that I don't think and I'm hoping won't be realized...to turn ugly...in a way that would be good for noone...

Especially for this kid...

Who just needs to space to fail and succeed on his own, frankly...and to have noone make any excuses for him...and to support him and let go of the desire to control him, as much as possible, while he makes his way to success...

I'm sure I'm screwing a million things up, right now, with my kids...there's always things we don't see...and our kids will help us see better our flaws, I'm sure, as they can make them clearer to us, as well...as I'm trying to do for and with the teachers and friends and other adults that I work with...as they try to improve their relationships with the children in their lives...

The best thing my parents and my dad, in particular, did for me...

Was give me space to grow...

To let me have a life that they did not have to be intimately involved with every aspect of every moment of the day...

And I would take that childhood...and that life, generally, over anything else in life...any money...any power...any prestige...anything...

That's why my primary goal, in life, is be an outstanding father...and is far more important than being a great teacher or writer or scholar or whatever in my life...

And great dads aren't remembered as great for controlling children...

They are remembered as great...by giving kids the most optimal freedom and engagement...to be the best people they can be...totally independent of a parent's own vision of what a kid's life should be like...

The best parents...are people who have children who are better than they are...not children under the thumb of their parents' own low expectations of themselves and their own potential...

And the best parents know they're screwing up...

Because the last thing they want to do...is foreclose on the opportunity...

For their children to be better parents than they were:):):)...

I've got an I.E.P. to work on:):):)...

Have a great day, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

More important to be a good man...

I wanted to write about Hamas winning in the Palestinian elections, today...the danger it poses...and the responsibility it involves by Israelis and the world to maintain a commitment to peace...with President Abbas still in his post...even with a partner in Hammas that there is very little reason to believe is in good faith, right now...

I still need to...

But before I go to bed...

I wanted to write about how deeply satisfying it is...to prioritize being a good man...above all other concerns in my life...

I can only hope...that my son...if I were to have one...will outdo me...and humble his old man...while he lifts him up...

I only hope...that I'll be that open...to that kind of humbling...

Like most things in my life...I don't know how to do that...

But I hope that I can be open to learning...

I understand, now, why that is so hard to do...

But I hope that I can be open to learning anyway...

Have a good night, everyone...

Love,
Ben