The Dream of the 90s is Alive in My Parents' Basement

Now that I have a house of my own, my parents are trying to get rid of all my stuff they've saved over the years. School papers, photos, toys, books—even after multiple moves, they've kept even more than I'd thought. There are quite the time capsules saved in their basement.

There are several photo albums, mostly blurry shots of unknown subjects taken by me, but some pictures of me and the family through the years.

Here I am with my great-grandfather in Greers Ferry, Arkansas. 

Here I am with my great-grandfather in Greers Ferry, Arkansas. 

I always liked the first day of school. I'd guess this was second grade.

I always liked the first day of school. I'd guess this was second grade.

They also saved a bunch of my toys, thinking that some day my children will want to play with 25-year-old action figures.

A case of Star Trek action figures. I was pretty cool. 

A case of Star Trek action figures. I was pretty cool. 

I did not predict a live-action Ninja Turtles movie in 2014. 

I did not predict a live-action Ninja Turtles movie in 2014. 

And of course Transformers, something else old that's new again. 

And of course Transformers, something else old that's new again. 

They also seem to have saved every school paper from third grade, and quite a few from other years all through high school. Here's a book we all got at our eight-grade graduation.

One of my eighth-grade classmates correctly predicted what I'd be doing in 2007.

One of my eighth-grade classmates correctly predicted what I'd be doing in 2007.

And this should earn me major credibility from my Latin students.

Again it goes without saying, I was pretty cool and popular. 

Again it goes without saying, I was pretty cool and popular. 

And not only did they save my letterman's jacket, but it still fits. I can finally prove to my students that I was a varsity athlete.

I'm sitting here, wearing that coat and humming, "Glory Days."

I'm sitting here, wearing that coat and humming, "Glory Days."

I don't really hope to fill my new basement with this detritus from my life, but I did take pictures of some of it so I could still have the memories. (And my wife does want to save some of the toys for our future children.)

A Future Not Our Own

I wrote a dozen letters of recommendation for seniors this year, more than In years past. Fortunately, most of the students who ask me for a letter are students whom I have gotten to know well, because I taught them in multiple Latin classes over their career. And while I of course mention all their achievements in my letter, I try to keep it future-focused: why am I so confident in this young woman's future success? Yeah, she's done good work in high school, but what about her specifically makes me think she will do well in college and beyond? That can be a tough question to answer, not because of the individual student (there are plenty of nice things to say about all our students), but because sometimes I feel woefully unprepared to recommend them for a future that I can't easily imagine.

My father has spent 35 years at the same company, working his way up the corporate ladder. Lately, he has unfortunately received several reminders that the loyalty he's shown over those three and a half decades isn't reciprocated. And for my students, odds are pretty good that they will not be working at any one company for 35 years. The days of finding a job right out of college and retiring 40 years later with a pension are over, and have been for a long time. (Unless somebody gets a job at a Jesuit high school–those people tend not to leave.)

I think this uncertainty is what makes me so wary of those who push a more utilitarian approach to education, advocating for business or computer programming classes over history and Latin. In my advocating for the humanities, it's not that I'm against studying any of those more "useful" topics, I just don't have nearly the certainty that others seem to about what actually is useful, let alone what will be useful in ten, twenty, thirty years.

Given that none of us can tell the future with any certainty, many have advocated for the importance of teaching skills like problem-solving, collaboration, critical thinking, and clear communication. In my mind, those skills can be taught in a variety of ways, but a humanities education, precisely because it is so broad and all-encompassing, is better-suited for that than the alternatives. I know, I've said all this before, but as I've been thinking about my students' futures, I can't help but reaffirm that.

When I sit down to write these letters of rec, I spend a lot of time trying to imagine each girl's future. Which ones will be doctors? Teachers? Politicians? And then I go back and review the time they spent in my classes. How did I ready them for those (or any other) careers? There are always things I wish I could have done better: more time writing, perhaps, or in-depth analysis. But generally speaking, I feel comfortable that I've done what I can in Latin or World History class to prepare them, and can find stories to illustrate that.

I sometimes joke with them that I will write about the time(s) they farted in class or how annoying they were as freshmen, but fortunately for them, I can generally remember stories about when they have shown passion, grit, creativity, and humor. I feel confident they were at least as well-served practicing those traits in my classes as they would have been in a business class, but I won't really know unless they come back and tell me in twenty years.

There's a prayer that's popular among teachers in Jesuit schools, that contains the line, "We are prophets of a future not our own." As I wrote those twelve letters of recommendation, and then again at graduation as I send our seniors off to college, that line rings particularly true.

→ "Teaching Kids 'Grit' is All the Rage. Here's What's Wrong With It."

Good counterpoint at New Republic to those advocating more formal "character education."

There are three major problems with the new character education. The first is that we do not know how to teach character. The second is that character-based education is untethered from any conception of morality. And lastly, this mode of education drastically constricts the overall purpose of education.

"Grit" may be important, but there's still a lot of work to be done researching how (and if) these traits can be taught.

→ "Multitask Masters"

When I call out my students for being distracted in class, the most common response is, "I'm multitasking!" I generally point out that multitasking is a myth. This article from Maria Konikova at The New Yorker gives me the science to back that up.

Strayer believes that there is a tiny but persistent subset of the population—about two per cent—whose performance does not deteriorate, and can even improve, when multiple demands are placed on their attention. The supertaskers are true outliers. According to Strayer, multitasking isn’t part of a normal distribution akin to birth weight, where even the lightest and heaviest babies fall within a relatively tight range around an average size. Instead, it is more like I.Q.: most people cluster in an average range, but there is a long tail where only a tiny fraction—single digits among thousands—will ever find themselves.

I taught about 80 students this year, so according to this study 1.6 of my students are actually capable of multitasking.