Dear colleague,
If you've been trying to access my website during the last 10 days or so, chances are it's been spotty. Sometimes folks ask me, “Dave, how do you do it all?” And my answer is always “Um, I don't.” I'm really good at a couple things, but average or below at most things.
One of those “most things” is the realm of managing the technology my website is built upon. So whether it's a band of AI raiders or aging plug-in infrastructure or whatever else, the short of it is that my site needs some love this summer and quite possibly a new, less-tech-knowhow-needed home. Thankfully, my summer vacation has begun, and I can start to attend to this.
So, that's the bad surprise. Doing website stuff was not on my summer bucket list. 😭 Please bear with me as I get after this so that you (and I!) can access the rich archives of ideas and encouragements you've helped me build over the past 14 (!) years of blogging.
BUT that's enough on the bad surprise spectrum. Let's end with a good surprise.
In the final few weeks of school, I saw a remarkable maturation in my students' Pop-Up Debates. On one particular day, I remember being blown away by third hour's debate — like near tears at the beauty and whimsy and grandeur — and then deeply frustrated by fourth hour's. But then the next day, fourth hour showed depth and wisdom, too. And it just reminded me that, 20 years into teaching, I can still be surprised by the things that happen on a given day of school. There are just so many factors at play in any moment in the classroom — all the past lessons, all the life lived by students in the moments we're not together — that you just can't accurately predict what's going to happen when you do something like open up the floor for a Pop-Up Debate.
Their PUD progress this year was more like a maze than a line. But by the time we got to Pop-Up Toasts, man…life on the other side of that maze had whiffs of the dancing trees of Narnia. And it's just nice to be surprised by this work and to leave for summer knowing that more surprises are in store.
Some of the surprises will be bad, yes. But even reminding myself of that can help me to be less surprised when it happens. It can be less, “OMG THE WORLD IS FALLING!” and more, “Yeah. That's all part of it.”
I know you, dear reading colleague, have had your share of ups and downs this year. Me too. But may we don’t let the downs keep us down.
Entering summer right beside you,
DSJR
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