Jess Banks schools you.

I attended an event hosted by Aotearoa Educators Collective recently. They screened the excellent documentary “Multiple Choice”, directed by Ted Dintersmith, which explores the unique execution of combined academic and vocational training at the John Handley High School and Innovation Center in Winchester, Virginia. After the film, a panel of guests addressed the ways the movie’s message related to the current shifts in Aotearoa New Zealand’s curriculum under the current right-wing government. 

After some discussion of the ways education has been used as a political football (both in terms of knocking it all over the field as well as point-scoring opportunities), an audience member asked the guests, somewhat desperately, how to keep politics out of educational policy. I jolted in my seat as my brain shouted out, “You can’t!” 

Now, I have about 45 years experience at masking these intrusively loud opinions (okay, that’s entirely debatable—I know plenty of people who’d say I’ve never mastered that skill completely), so I was able to mostly keep my mouth shut. I did whisper to my companion, “That’s the wrong question,” but otherwise held my tongue until my chance to contribute to the discussion.

I absolutely get where this person was coming from. It seems wildly illogical that educational content and funding get shoved back and forth by every change in the political winds—why shouldn’t enough money for schools and teachers with the highest standards be a nonpartisan issue? Why don’t education experts and subject specialists design curriculum that everyone can agree does the best job of helping kids learn what they need to be good citizens with a bright future? I mean, it only makes sense! Why does politics have to enter into this at all?

I regret to inform you, however, that politics is all over this and always will be. Politics is about deciding who a government should serve and how best to collect and distribute resources to perform that service. The differences among parties and politicians come from the different answers to all the things that go into those decisions: taxation, budgeting, social programmes and services, among many others. As long as there is disagreement about these things, politics is going to influence education.

The current right-wing government believes that if corporations are doing well, New Zealand is doing well. Corporations want lower taxes, government subsidies, and access to more resources to expand so they can raise their profits. Those profits flow to their C-suite leaders and shareholders, not the workers or communities who provide the material and labour that actually generate wealth. 

That labour is where education comes into the picture. If the corporations, and the government that prioritises them, want schools that churn out labourers that are most easily jammed into the system as widgets to keep the gears turning, that’s the kind of education policy you’re going to get. It’s going to be light on critical thinking so workers can be more easily influenced and exploited by both corporations and politicians, and it’s going to be heavy on standardised testing so workers are accustomed to low-creativity tasks and politicians get sound bites about success or crisis.

Why would politicians want a crisis in education, you might be asking? Fair question. The answer is that crisis provides more opportunity for change than success does. Naomi Klein’s analysis in The Shock Doctrine looks at government regime change and opportunities for economic exploitation, but the same principles apply to other places people operate on the “move fast and break things” ethos. It’s harder to drum up a sense of urgency for continued improvements when things are going well than it is to make sweeping revisions if it seems like the system is failing. This serves the corporate masters who are served by messaging that education needs to be continually pared back to just literacy and numeracy because we’re not meeting those basic standards. How do we know we’re not? The testing regime whose data are analysed and publicised by the same politicians who benefit from them–there’s no incentive to do anything but report small gains to claim success, but continued failure to keep the crisis motivation for increased change. As education expert Diane Ravitch says, “Public education is in a crisis only so far as society is and only so far as this new narrative of crisis has destabilized it.”

It also serves the idealogues who feel that a broader, inclusive, creative kind of education violates the social norms that their sense of nostalgia for a time when “the right people” were in charge of things. Make no mistake: “back to basics” always means means back in time. Testing shows that kids aren’t learning to read very well? It must be all the Māori words in their primary school curriculum. Statistics show that fewer students are succeeding at university? It must be the focus on inclusion and applied cross-curricular learning instead of sticking to the Western Classics. 

Even the fatigue among educators serves the political mission of the current right-wing government. When curriculum is constantly changing, teachers have less time to create thoughtful lessons that challenge their students to think critically. That leaves them open to two corporate interests: curriculum factories that churn out ready-made material that a teacher only has to read out, and the AI tech lords who offer their products as the answer to a time-poor profession—just put in the concept you need to teach tomorrow, and AI will produce a full lesson plan, complete with activities, slides, and assessments. And so what if the fatigue and lack of agency drives educators overseas or out of the field entirely? There are always more low-quality workers who are happy to get paid to read out their soulless scripts and create another generation of low-quality workers to succeed them. It even degrades the quantity and quality of future educational experts who might develop the critical evaluative skills to challenge the status quo and offer up innovative strategies to expand the possibilities beyond the narrow parameters they’ve been sold.

There are only two ways I know of to combat what every educator feels is a backwards slide. One is agency. If teachers have control over their classrooms, they can choose the best way to teach their students. If that means spending a little longer on one concept to make sure everyone gets it before moving on, they can make that decision. If that means changing something that hasn’t been working or feels out of date, they can make that decision. If that means having a stronger voice in school policies, that’s their choice too. People who feel like they have power over their work find more joy in it, and their standards and performance rise accordingly. Teachers will never have enough time for everything they want to do—that’s as much a part of the job as running out of whiteboard markers and fighting with the printer. When you’re empowered to think creatively, ideas pop up faster than you can catch them. Teachers are eternal tinkerers—a good lesson can always be better, can reach more students, can make more connections. We can only get better at the job if we have the freedom and agency to act on those innovations and improvements.

The second way is the answer to the question at the beginning of this essay: it’s politics. It is not unprofessional for educators to engage in political activities when politics determines what they’re told to teach and what resources they’re given to do it with. We should expect teachers to have opinions on how to draw the best results out of their students—they’re the experts, in the classrooms where learning does or doesn’t happen every day. As they say in community organising circles, if you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu. Much as the current right-wing government may want to tell us otherwise, it’s not a conflict of interest for educational experts when they get involved in policymaking. They’re the people we want making the curriculum, based on the best evidence-backed methods, even if they include things the people in power don’t feel serve their corporate or ideological priorities. 

And the only way to guarantee we have a government that puts those people in charge is to make sure voters elect the people who agree that it’s the government’s job to provide schools that give every child the best, most fulfilling future. That means taxing the people who can most afford it to fund public services like the education system. That means making a budget that adequately equips every school with the resources it needs to support its children, generation after generation, not year-by-year. That means paying teachers like the essential experts who are entrusted with our most precious resource, which attracts the best, most dedicated people to the profession. That means investing in research to keep education effective and responsive to changes in the world, whether that’s new technology or economic shifts. 

None of this happens on its own. It all depends on politics. There’s no way to disentangle political motives, actions, or speech from education. And we need to stop wasting our time and energy trying to. 

Six years ago, I became a high school teacher aide. I knew how to teach, and I’d had kids who’d benefited greatly from the help of a paraprofessional, as teacher aides are called in America. I figured: I can aid teachers and students, right? How hard could it be?

The answer was, of course, really hard. But also really easy. I just listened to the students when they told me what was difficult, what they wished they could understand or do better, what they felt like in classes and classrooms that didn’t give them everything they needed to succeed. Then I tried to fill in those gaps. It was important to me to not only help the kids learn what they’d missed, but how to weave their own safety nets of self-advocacy and understanding about how they learn differently than their peers.

When I talked to my colleagues, though, they were astounded. How did I figure these things out? How did I know which questions to ask? Most of all, how did I get the kids to tell me these things? It definitely wasn’t because I had any experience with special education. And it wasn’t just that I’m weirdly good at making people feel comfortable. I work hard to be a good listener, and I try to pay attention to the whole person, not just the part that’s talking to me at the moment.

But then I realised: I wasn’t just asking them the questions I thought would get them the help they needed. I was asking them the questions I wish someone had asked me in high school.

I was one of the millions of girls who was never diagnosed as neurodivergent in the 1970s and ‘80s. Autism and ADHD were seen as “boys’ things”, and for a girl to even get assessed, they had to have pretty significant delays or disabling characteristics. The rest of us were just dubbed “sensitive” or “chatty” or “quirky”, or my mother’s particularly cutting compliment, “Jess is intellectually far ahead, but socially backwards.”

The signs were clearly there, though. When I was finally assessed for ADHD this year, I went looking through the scant documents from my childhood that I have here in New Zealand. Among them was the report from the testing done when it was being decided which grade I should start school in. The researcher’s comments were the purest distillation of “Tell me she’s neurodivergent without saying she’s neurodivergent.” 

Who knows what my future would’ve been like if I’d been recognised as autistic and ADHD while I was still in school? Would I have been in so many clubs and activities and advanced courses to satisfy my bottomless need for stimulation, but also be so stressed that I was ill almost constantly? Would I have had my special interests fueled by teachers instead of being told “no more book reports on American history”? Would I have been as vulnerable to relationship abuse if someone had filled in the gaps in my social awareness and emotional intelligence? Would I have finished my Ph.D. with adequate support for my physical and neurological disabilities?

I can’t answer those questions, but I suddenly found myself in a place where I could give a new generation of students the recognition and support that could’ve changed my life. What’s more, I could help other teachers learn how to recognise and support their neurodivergent students, their neurodivergent colleagues, and even themselves if their story mirrored mine. The average teacher may only receive a few hours of instruction about learning differences and neurodivergence—for any more than that, you need to do postgraduate education in special education. That absence of information leaves them poorly equipped to understand how to meet their students’ needs for sensory, socio-emotional, and academic support. And far too many of the kids I was meeting as a teacher aide were telling me things like “You’re the first teacher who’s ever said they can tell I’m smart.” I don’t want to believe that’s the case for a 16-year-old student, but if teachers aren’t being taught to perceive all the forms of invisible intelligence kids have, it seems sadly possible.

I made it my mission to fill in some of the gaps for my colleagues, so I developed my first professional development seminar on how to support neurodivergence in the classroom. Something about the way I explained neurodiversity to my neurotypical colleagues, from the perspective of lived experience but in the language of education they understood, somehow made it accessible and engaging. I was asked to give the presentation for more people, from student teachers to heads of Learning Support departments. I was asked if I had more presentations available, so I made more, focusing on the specific experience of neurodivergent students in the classroom and how simple accommodations could make school less hostile for the kids, their neurotypical peers, and even the teachers themselves. I’d become the Neurotypical Whisperer. 

I wasn’t surprised by how many veteran teachers came up to me after my presentations to tell me they’d never learned any of what I’d told them, but I was impressed by how many of them wanted more information. It was the kind of intellectual curiosity and desire for growth you’d hope to find among teachers. We’re in a notoriously time-poor profession, so requests for references and research rabbit holes tell me they thought it was something worth investing in. 

The real shock was how many people came up to me after my presentations to say I’d just said what they had desperately needed to hear when they were in school. A lot of these were women, and a lot of them had tears in their eyes as they told me their stories of being overlooked, misunderstood, and often, both underestimated and overestimated at the same time. We talked about the burden of masking: the exhausting practice of creating a physical and social façade that allows neurodivergent people to “pass” in the inhospitable and overwhelming world of neurotypicals. And we talked about the relief of connecting with someone who shared the experience of what it’s like to walk through life feeling so much and understanding so little about the unwritten rules and unmarked roads that neurotypicals seem to follow so easily. I’ve kept in touch with some of those people for years. Some of them have washed out of education, finding the sensory and energy demands overwhelming without wider acceptance of the need to accommodate neurodivergent teachers as well as students. But they still express gratitude for the recognition and acknowledgment they felt as they heard me say they mattered and they had untapped gifts they could offer their students. 

I had no idea the title “teacher aide” could mean helping teachers become their whole selves, but it’s a job I’m proud to have had.

I can do a lot of things. I bloody well should, considering how old I am. I can read sideways, upside-down, and in several languages, though not all at the same time. I can do a tidy dive and a messy cannonball. I can make about fifty different kinds of soup. I can sing harmony to every Christmas carol. I can make a baby smile from across the room. I can give good advice, and I can keep it behind my teeth when that’s the better choice.

There are plenty of things I can’t do as well. I can’t play video games (even the nicest ones give me anxiety attacks).  I can’t read just one book at a time. I can’t keep a tidy house. I can’t balance a checkbook. I can’t fall asleep without white noise. And of course, there are all the things I can’t do anymore because while the spirit is willing, the flesh is very weak: eat spicy food without regrets, walk or stand for more than an hour, stand up or bend over without groaning.

There are, however, a few things I can’t NOT do. You know, the things that, try as I might, I can’t purge from my behaviour. They’re like reflexes: able to be suppressed with effort, but it feels unnatural and unsustainable. For example, I can’t not move. No matter how still it looks like I am, some part of me is moving just a little bit, even just my toes flexing inside my shoes. (It’s a neurodivergent thing.)  

I can’t not swear. Yes, I’ve tried, and yes, I have good control over the when/where/who of it all. But curse words are an essential part of my vocabulary, and I can’t fully express myself without them. 

And I can’t not speak out when I see injustice. I’ve tried that too, but it’s just impossible for me to ignore the pain and suffering of others and try to do something. I’m partial to marches and protests and community organising, but I know every shared petition or resource has the power to change the world, even if only for one person.

Most of all, though, I can’t not teach. When it’s not my job as a university lecturer or teacher aide, I find other ways to teach people new things. I train volunteers in activist skills like phonebanking or de-escalation. I demo card games at conventions. I show people how to use the self-serve kiosk at the airport or McDonalds. I share unsolicited informative asides at the museum or bookstore or a cultural attraction. I sprinkle conversations with my family with relevant facts or topical insights. Not all of these are met with the enthusiasm I’m looking for, but I persist. Sometimes, they just want me to pass the salt, not tell them that the word ‘salary’ comes from the Roman practice of paying its soldiers with the stuff. 

My chronic inability to stop teaching is directly related to my inability to stop learning. I’m constantly reading and listening and absorbing information in any format I can find, on more topics than you could imagine. I take year-long correspondence courses in other cultures and languages. I consume audiobooks and podcasts while I drive and cook. I watch documentaries and video essays while I stitch and fold laundry. And what I understand and find interesting, I immediately want to share with others. It’s not that I feel like I’m a better vector for learning than other sources of information–I just need to share my enthusiasm for knowing things. I’m like a missionary who’s seen the light, except I’ve seen so many lights, and maybe just one of them will illuminate something for someone else and help them find a thing they’ve been looking for. My sermons in this ministry most commonly end in the words “Isn’t that cool?” or “So now you know!”

All of this is to say, I started a graduate diploma program to get my certification as a high school teacher at age 50. There are some who would say I’m finally getting around to what I should’ve done straight away, and they’re not wrong. Looking back, it seems like I was fated to be the kind of high school teacher I most admired: the ones who loved their subjects, who loved their students, and wanted to help each of them find the thing that would reveal something about themselves or their world. All my time in grad school was ultimately about trying to become a professor who would do those things, and I was doomed to failure when I realised that university jobs are more about politics and independent research and the publication and grant-writing hustle than teaching. My favorite jobs have let me do the core job of enlightenment: lecturer, audiobook narrator, radio newsreader, teacher aide and tutor for students with learning differences.

So here I am, full circle and halfway to becoming a high school teacher in Aotearoa New Zealand. I’m concentrating in History, Social Sciences, and English, but with my educational background, I’m eager to try my hand at Classics, Media Studies, and French too. I’ll never be able to work more than part time because of my cursed, haunted, chronically in pain body, but I know I can create the kind of space where students walk in the door as their whole selves and walk back out understanding something more than they did before. I can be the kind of teacher who creates a safe space where some fragile and misunderstood kids might relax and bloom. And most of all, I can go to sleep at night, knowing I can wake up and do the thing I can’t not do all day long.

I didn’t set out to be a Woman of Mystery. Really, I didn’t–I’ve always thought the whole thing with secret identities was super-hokey.

But it appears that some folks don’t actually know what all I can do. That probably has a lot to do with having a number of different jobs, some of them concurrently. So I thought that maybe I’d write a post that just stands as a more chatty sort of CV, for future reference. I know I’ll be back in here to fiddle with the things I’ve left out, but this is basically me.

EDUCATION

I have 15 years’ teaching experience. Most of that is at the university level, but I substitute taught for middle and high schools for 3 years, where I was a special favorite of the foreign language teachers. I also have experience teaching short-term history and foreign language courses for homeschool collectives where kids to get instruction on subjects a little more technical or diverse than most parents can provide.

I’ve written whole courses, including websites and primary source collections, for Western Civ, Intro to World Religions, Women in Religion, Early and Medieval Christianity, and Rhetoric and Composition. I lecture, I organize group activities, I lead discussion groups, I write and grade exams, and I give one hell of a test prep session. And I am exactly the person you want to bring along on a trip to a museum or an historical site. (I may not be the person you want to go see a movie about medieval times with, though.)

I can train folks on skills commonly used in (but not exclusively by) community organizing. I’m a good consultant on issues of diversity, especially women’s and LGBT issues and neurodiversity, because I can effectively articulate the reasons why things do or don’t work.

EDITING/PUBLISHING

I offer professional services in copyediting and proofreading, as well as art direction. I edit for content, consistent style and voice, continuity, and flow. I can also check formatting in academic work using MLA or Chicago style. I’m good at highlighting problematic topics and language that might not be accessible or welcoming to every reader. And I’m like the kid from The Sixth Sense when it comes to proofreading: “I see typos. Everywhere.”

I have had paid gigs editing and/or proofreading academic papers, roleplaying games, board game instructions, marketing material, self-help books, and SF/F novels. I’m eager to branch out into editing more genres of fiction (I would rule the world at romance novel editing), and I’m looking forward to my first paid job translating a major work from French to English soon.

I adore doing art direction, especially for RPGs, because I get very clear images in my head from the text, and I’m good at describing them for artists to interpret. I include copious photo references (all digital links these days) for people, places, correct period costumes, weaponry, and other relevant details.

CREATIVE

I crochet, knit, cross-stitch, sew, and make jewelry, as well as a number of more or less useful one-off crafts. I brew herbal medicines in my kitchen, including “magic stuff” which may be the most useful substance ever invented. I perform tarot card readings (yes, it seems to work equally well over Skype, email, or Twitter). I blog, and I write short- and long-form fiction–I would dearly love to participate in an anthology. I can design meaningful multi-faith (or no-faith) rituals for any occasion, like weddings, memorials, or baby blessings. I’m good at public speaking, and have performed speeches, sermons, and MC duties. I’m designing my first card game; I’m also writing a roleplaying adventure that teaches social skills to kids on the autism spectrum.

I’ve been on hiatus here at the blog for a while, as summer (and more specifically, con season) made all our best laid plans gang well and truly a-gley. Having been deprived of Gen Con, I set out to give the boys a few firsts, including first time on a horse and first time in a human-propelled watercraft. They both went surprisingly well.

I’ve also been doing lots of work with Minnesotans United for All Families–not particularly more than before, but the campaign has reached critical mass, and every day it seems there’s movement or news.  I had to tell the boys to stop yelling excitedly every time they see an orange “Vote NO” lawn sign, as they started springing up like mushrooms all over Saint Paul, and I began to rapidly lose my hearing. There’s great cause for hope, but it’s going to be close, and we’ll be working flat-out right up to the night of November 6.

(Wo)manning the MN United table at our apartment complex’s National Night Out event. Picture by Griffin.

The heart of my work is having conversations with Minnesota voters, and teaching others to do likewise. It’s so different from other political advocacy I’ve done in the past, as I’ve described previously, and instead of coming home exhausted and drained, it usually takes me an hour or three to come down from the adrenaline high after a phone bank or training. I’ve met fantastic people of every age, faith, place, and life experience, and whatever the outcome of the election, I believe we’re fundamentally changing the way Minnesotans think about each other, about marriage, and about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, for the better.

Time and again, though, in my own conversations and the ones I’m training people to have with their friends, family, and neighbors, this question comes up: “What do you say when someone says marriage has always been that way and starts quoting Scripture?” To which I always reply: “You’ve got to bite your tongue, just like I do.”

I know, you’re saying, “You, Jess? You just bite your tongue when it comes to a question of religion and history?” And yes, I really do, hard as that may be for you to picture. In fact, that’s the major skill set I’ve been working on personally in this campaign, and I’ve made real strides in this department.

But why, you ask? Why don’t I lay The Almighty Bible-quoting, chapter-and-verse, dates-and-names-and-edicts-and-Supreme-Court-cases Smackdown To End All Smackdowns on them? I admit, the urge is strong. Sometimes, it feels like a whole segment of the population is just BEGGING me to teach them the history their schools and churches have failed to teach them. It seems like a personal sign from the universe that my particular combination of research is meaningful and needed, right here, right now.

But I’ve discovered something else that’s meaningful and needed, right here, right now: I’m not going to win a single vote for marriage equality by “changing minds,” which is what I’d be trying to do if I gave in to the impulse to lecture. The only way we’re going to defeat this hurtful amendment is to change hearts, and all the knowledge in the world doesn’t even scratch the surface of that mission.

I just finished reading a fascinating book by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, called The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. I haven’t felt like assigning required reading to everyone I meet in a while, but if I could buy this book for everyone I know–especially those on the campaign with me–I would. Haidt makes the case for a hybrid definition of how the human mind works, somewhere between Plato’s assertion that emotions are the servants of Reason and Hume’s argument that Reason is a slave to our passions. Haidt says a more apt analogy would be an elephant (our emotions) with a rider (our intellect). The rider can make suggestions to the elephant and looks like he’s in charge, but ultimately, if the elephant decides to head a particular direction, all the rider can do is say “I meant to do him to do that.”

Haidt also shares the results of his research into the moral foundations on which the edifices of conservative and liberal thought are built, and his conclusion is that part of the success of the modern conservative movement is based on the fact that conservative ideology appeals to a broader array of moral options than liberalism does. Since liberals often think of conservatives as “narrow-minded,” this sounds counter-intuitive, but really, it’s not. Liberals, Haidt demonstrates, derive their moral judgments almost entirely from whether something cares for or harms other beings, or whether it seems equalizing or discriminatory. Conservatives, on the other hand, respond less strongly to equality and care/harm, but additionally respond to messages of proportionality (more/less work=more/less reward), loyalty (to kin and other identity groups), sanctity (upholding standards of purity or pollution), and authority (respect for institutions), while many liberals actually perceive a threat from high degrees of those sources of morality. I think he’s really on to something, and I agree with what I heard Howard Dean talk about in a speech at Penn State, all the way back in 2004–that progressives won’t be able to accomplish their goals until they learn to articulate the morality of their position from all of these angles, and tap into the emotional heart of their message.

So when I talk to people about the anti-marriage amendment, I’m consciously talking to the elephant, not the rider, because it’s the elephant that will check a box on the ballot November 6. What does that mean, practically? It means I ask voters how they feel about love, marriage, and commitment, not how they think. I ask them if they’re married, if they’ve ever been in love, if they’ve ever been to a wedding, and how those things felt. I ask them whether they know any gay people, and how they feel about them if they do. If they say they don’t, I ask if they’ve ever felt excluded from something they wanted with all their hearts. And I don’t take no for an answer, because that experience is just as universal as love.

What I’m specifically not asking about is what they’ve been taught, what they’ve learned, what they know about the law and history of marriage. I’m not informing them on marriage’s roots in civil, economic, contractual law. I’m not engaging in Dueling Scripture Quotations. I’m not expounding on the long, twisted history of suppression of rights for groups that aren’t rich, white, male, or Christian. I’m not doing any of that, because it’s an absolute waste of my time, and I don’t have a minute to waste between now and the vote. There’s no point in convincing the rider, because there’s no way he can convince that elephant to squeeze into the booth if the elephant’s not into it.

The way we’re going to win is make the elephant want to get into the booth, and the only way to do that is to tie marriage equality to something the elephant already feels strongly about. Everybody wants love; nobody wants to be told they’re not good enough; we feel strongly about commitments to the people in our lives. Occasionally, I’ll come across a person whose church is democracy, whose scripture is the constitution, and for them, talking about rights and fairness is as persuasive as showing them how this amendment harms the people they love. But that feeling isn’t nearly as universal as the desire for love and the dream of celebrating that love in the sight of family, friends, community, and (for many) their god(s).

So I bite my tongue, and the teacher in my head jumps up and down furiously at being stifled. But the blood I taste is worth the stories I hear, the hopes and fears people share, and the wonder of creating a connection where there wasn’t one before. Those are the things that will get the elephant in the booth, and help generations of Minnesotans know that they are welcome, valued, and loved in this beautiful state of ours.

Reverb Broads Summer, Prompt #3: Who are your role models? (by Dana at Simply Walking on this Earth)

As I got thinking on this question, I realized that my list of role models was, in fact, very short. This is not to say that I’m not surrounded by a beloved community of inspirational people. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of people whom I admire more than words can express, from Nobel laureates, to fellow parents, to brilliant academics, to powerful advocates for a more just and loving world.

But I make the distinction between those whom I admire, and those from whom I’ve consciously modeled some part of myself. I’m not much of a follower, even for people I admire–it must be the mile-wide anti-authoritarian streak in me. I’m a weird, idiosyncratic independent, and while I synthesize lessons from everything I see and learn around me, I almost never seek to fit myself into anyone else’s pattern.

The only case I can think of where this is not the case is in my teaching. I’ve been inordinately blessed by an abundance of phenomenal, life-changing teachers throughout my academic career, and their styles of imparting knowledge and wisdom (not the same thing) were hugely influential in the formation of my own teaching style.

When I moved to Whitewater, just before fifth grade, I’d only had one teacher who had rocked my world: Mrs. Smigelski, the Gifted and Talented coordinator at my suburban Milwaukee elementary school. She introduced me to ideas like brainstorming other uses for completely mundane objects, like a row of cardboard egg carton bumps (what, they’ve got a better name?) or the empty bubbles cough drops fit in. Sure, it sounds hokey, but it was a break from the soul-crushing boredom of constant work on academics I’d mastered before I’d ever darkened the school’s doorway.

The teachers I encountered when I started in Whitewater exploded every idea I’d ever had about how school was supposed to be. Both my fifth and sixth grade teachers were men–a novelty in my world so far. They used games to teach, lots of games, from weeks-long roleplaying games about early American settlement and Western expansion, to intensely strategic board games about Roman chariot races, solving mysteries in Victorian London, and World War I aerial dogfights. With these tools, they got a level of attention and work out of 10- and 11-year-olds that, faced with my own son of that age level, I find frankly astonishing. And, among all the games and lessons, they found little ways to introduce us to culture that most kids don’t discover for decades. We thrilled to some of the most terrifying ghost stories I’ve ever come across. We listened to Bill Cosby records and read funny stories by Patrick McManus. We watched episodes of Sherlock Holmes Mysteries, the pitch-perfect Jeremy Brett ones.

From these teachers, I learned that games and humor could teach just as (if not more) effectively than rote memorization. I learned that an anecdote that humanizes a concept or a period of history sticks with students far longer than dry recitations of names and dates. And I learned that good games not only teach about their setting, but they teach about being a good person–learn the rules, take your turn, think creatively, work together, win and lose with grace and empathy.

When I got to high school, I encountered teachers who further shaped my idea of how the mentor/student relationship could be. Much of this was due to the extra work they put in, far above and beyond the school day bounded by bells. Our social studies teacher was also our yearbook editor, locked into the school weekend after weekend on interminable deadlines. Our English teacher was also the drama program director, supervising endless rehearsals and set-construction sessions. Our French teacher helped us organize the annual Mardi Gras dance, and bravely ventured across France with about two dozen high schoolers. Our Band director was also the one who pushed us around the field to learn marching band drill, and coordinated our enthusiastic efforts for pep band during basketball season. And our Choir conductor (also my church choir conductor) baked us treats and prepped us for contests and musicals.

And for all their time and effort, they got shenanigans. We called them by first names and nicknames. We pulled pranks all the time. We signed such luminaries as Han Solo, Mickey Mouse, and Elvis Presley out of study hall into the yearbook office. We talked Madame into letting us play petonque in the classroom, and go Christmas caroling in April to the Spanish class next door. We sang Monty Python’s Lumberjack Song in the football stands while waiting for the marching band halftime show, hoping to earn that quelling look from our usually unflappable band director. We put Cheez Doodles and Dr. Pepper into the yearbook index (Doodles, Cheez and Pepper, Dr., respectively).

The shenanigans weren’t the point, though, and the teachers saw clearly that our hijinks were a sign that we loved them and trusted them to know that we didn’t lavish our twisted affections on just anyone. And I learned that you don’t have to sacrifice authority or respect when you reach out and befriend your students. If kids love you, they’ll do extraordinary things, without the teacher even needing to ask. And if they trust you, you can go places–talk about awkward subjects, teach sensitive lessons, confront harsh realities–that a safer relationship couldn’t support.

So I’ll be my own kind of parent, and friend, and activist, and writer–I’m never going to be quite like anyone else, and I’m good with that. But as a teacher? I want to be just like my role models.

I’m a documentary whore. I absolutely adore them. Can’t get enough. The more esoteric the subject, the better. I’ve always enjoyed them, even as an admittedly weird kid, but I really fell back in love with them right after my second son, Griffin, was born. He was not what anyone would call “a sleeper,” and I found myself awake in the middle of the night more often than not. Fortunately, there always seemed to be an HBO documentary on demand, and I started actually looking forward to those sleepless nights when I didn’t have to relinquish the TV to children’s programming.

I like to keep my classroom style varied, and video is instrumental in demonstrating concepts with a single clip that it would take me an hour to explain, and even then, the students wouldn’t know what the thing I was describing actually looks like in practice. This is especially true in my religious studies classes. Being able to immerse them in the sights and sounds of holy places, and hear everyday practitioners and learned experts alike reiterate what I’m trying to teach is priceless.

I’ve assembled a list here of films that I find particularly good at demonstrating core concepts of the philosophy and practice of religion. Many, I’ve used in class; some are just personal favorites. They’re organized by topic the same way I organize my Intro to Religious Thought classes. This is just a handful of the amazing, thoughtful, incisive, unsettling, critical films being made about religion. Some of them are available on Netflix or Amazon Instant Video; many are commonly stocked in libraries. All are worth tracking down.

Sacred Time

The Last Wave, dir. Peter Weir (Criterion Studios, 1979) — And, of course, I start with a movie that’s not a documentary at all–I’m just that perverse. This is a weird, dated, surreal Australian film by the same director as Witness, Gallipoli, Dead Poets Society, and The Way Back. Richard Chamberlain (The Thorn Birds, Dr. Kildare) stars as a Sydney lawyer who takes on the case of some Aboriginal men accused of killing another one. Chamberlin starts dreaming of a huge flood, and his clients disclose tribal secrets that help him decode the dreams–he’s dreaming of the end of a cycle in Aboriginal time, when they will step into the Dreamtime, leaving the white world to be washed away. It’s a confusing, circular movie, but it’s the most effective demonstration of the Aboriginal concepts of non-linear time that exist nowhere in any society outside of Australia or Africa.

Sacred Space

Ganges, dir. Tom Hugh-Jones (BBC Warner, 2003) — A beautifully filmed look at the centrality of the Ganges River to India as a continent and Hinduism as a faith. They explore the river in its environment and its religious functions, all the way from its disputed origins high in the Himalayas, down to the rich delta at the bottom of the subcontinent.

In the Light of Reverence, dir. Christopher McLeod (Bullfrog Films, 2001) — This film is difficult to find, but so well worth it. The three chapters show the importance of the land to three different Native American groups, and how difficult it is to preserve them with their inherent worth isn’t visible or understandable to Anglo-Americans, who think there has to be a building or monument for a place to be holy. This movie will make you scream and cry, and maybe get involved in the fight to preserve these special places.

Sacred Acts

National Geographic—Inside Mecca, dir. Anisa Mehdi (National Geographic Video, 2003) — I had actually wanted to use the BBC documentary Hajj: Journey of a Lifetime, but it wasn’t available on DVD when I went to teach. Now, wonderfully, the whole thing is free on YouTube. But the National Geographic film is great, too. Only Muslims are allowed in Mecca during Hajj (the annual pilgrimage that’s part of an observant Muslims obligations, at least once in his/her life), so an entirely Muslim crew was assembled for each of these two films. They follow a variety of Muslims from all over the world through the hard physical and spiritual work of the Hajj. It’s fantastic for basic literacy about Islam, and experiencing such a moving journey.

Jesus Camp, dirs. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Loki Films, 2006) Even if you’ve grown up Christian, you may not know that places like the Bible camp in Colorado that’s depicted in this film exist, or what goes on inside them. It’s a harrowing look at the pressure put on kids as young as 5 and 6 to conform to a pretty extreme brand of Christianity. It raises some important questions about how and when to impose your own beliefs on children.

How to Cook Your Life, dir. Doris Dorrie (Lions Gate, 2008) This is a delightful movie about a Zen Buddhist monk and a chef in San Francisco. It perfectly demonstrates the idea that the most mundane, pedestrian things in our lives can become sacred acts with the right mindset. Don’t watch this if you’re hungry.

Sacred People

The Buddha: The Story of Siddhartha, dir. David Grubin (PBS Home Video, 2010) — A lovely documentary blending legend and history to tell the story of Siddhartha Gautama, the Indian prince who achieved enlightenment and became the Buddha.

10 Questions for the Dalai Lama, dir. Rick Ray (Monterey Video, 2007) — This is a very personal film, and though the narrator occasionally gets a little annoying in his self-centeredness, the Dalai Lama is so wise and happy and brilliant and wonderful that everything else fades into insignificance. He talks about the situation of his people’s exile from Tibet, the importance of science, and many of the central ideas of the Buddhist world view. I could listen to him talk forever.

The Devil’s Playground, dir. Lucy Walker (Wellspring, 2003) — This movie follows several Amish teenagers as they launch into a practice known as “Rumspringa,” when they leave the cloistered communities they grew up in and fully experience the “English” world. They swear like crazy, use drugs, go to drunken parties, drive cars, smoke, get jobs, wear jeans. It’s shocking to learn that every Amish person–people we think of as so sheltered and devout–intentionally tests the things of which the Amish life would deprive them. Even more surprising is how many of them choose at the end to leave it all behind and go back to their communities. It’s riveting.

Sacred Words

National Geographic: The Gospel of Judas (National Geographic Video, 2006) — Most people think the Bible has always looked the way it does now, but this film explodes that notion for once and for all. It tells the story of a remarkable document, which purports to be a Gospel written by the disciple Judas, whom the traditional four Gospels of the New Testament says betrayed Jesus to his death. The text is one of the gnostic gospels which interpret the lessons and life of Jesus very differently than the orthodox ones do, and it radically challenges our understanding of the Bible stories everyone hears every Easter. There’s a lot of dramatized action, which always rubs me a bit wrong, but the experts in the video and the story of the text itself more than make up for it.

Sacred Events

From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians, dir. William Cran (PBS Home Video, 2004) — This is a very long, four-part documentary, but it throws into high relief precisely what a messy, confusing, unpredictable origin Christianity had. It gives a ton of valuable information about the Mediterranean world Jesus was born into, the political and social climate that led to his death, the wildly varying (and competing) interpretations of Jesus’ message and life, and the weird horse race to become the “official” version of Christianity that the Roman Empire eventually embraced. It also features most of my favorite historians of Christianity, and it’s a good way to get to know them; many of the authors on last week’s book list are in this film. All this flies directly in the face of the tidy, sanitized, fait accompli history Biblical literalists would have you believe, but the truth is always messier and more interesting.

The Mormons: A Frontline/American Experience Special, dir. Helen Whitney (PBS Home Video, 2007) — Especially in this election year, it’s really important to know the origins and evolution of the only American-born brand of Christianity. This documentary talks to both the officials and the faithful of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints today, but also its critics. It grapples with both the problematic aspects of Mormonism–such as its attitudes and actions toward Native Americans and African Americans–and the very troubling exercise of federal power to exterminate the Mormons.  Whether you find it silly or compelling, it’s all American, and the imprint of this country’s ideals on the Mormon faith is indelible.

One of the hats I wear upon my surprisingly pink head is that of a religious studies scholar. Believe me, I’m as shocked as anyone that I ended up that way, but there you have it. It’s mostly the fault of medieval studies–it’s pretty much impossible to become educated about the Middle Ages (not just in Europe, but in many cultures) without learning about the religions and the institutions they create.

But I started my inquiries about religion much earlier than grad school. When I went through an abusive relationship in high school that ended in sexual assault, I knew from my mother’s and grandmother’s examples that that was when faith was supposed to kick in and help guide me through dark times. But it didn’t, and I didn’t have a good reason why it didn’t, except that I hadn’t accepted my Methodist upbringing as deeply as I’d thought. Sure, I was Bible Trivia CHAMPION, and sang in choirs and ensembles from the time I was five, but when it came to unswerving belief in the tenets of Christianity? I just didn’t have it.

A lot of young people go through a crisis of faith like this at some point, and it’s pretty common for them to swing way out to the most diametrically opposed idea of religion that they can imagine, then gradually work their way back in to something pretty close to where they started. A kid raised Lutheran may flirt with Quakerism or (gasp!) atheism in their teens and 20s, but usually drifts back as they establish a career and family, ending up with, say, United Church of Christ.

Griffin says, "The Doctors are going to church." I guess Time Lords and Silurians are Unitarian Universalists too (note the flaming chalice, our religious symbol, in the center).

Did I do that? Oh, no. That would’ve been too easy. In my weird Asperger’s brain, I decided that I must have missed something in Christianity, so I set about re-reading the Bible, and a bunch of the Church fathers and modern theologians. When that didn’t yield an answer, I thought maybe Protestantism was the problem, so I looked into Catholicism. Nope, not there either. Maybe Jesus was the hitch? Judaism was fascinating, and I loved the ancientness of its traditions, but no, no faith there. I expanded my search gradually outward, into Asian religions and secular philosophy, in an ever-widening circle of texts and ideas. I loved so much of what I found–the beauty, the ritual, the breathtaking elegance and complexity of both physical and spiritual architectures–and I saw the pathways light up with common themes and practices. I found my own truth in a completely unexpected place, and years later, shocked myself right down to my boots by discovering an actual church home in Unitarian Universalism.

That bright skyline of connections stayed with me, though, and when I began my grad work in medieval Celtic history, I was drawn to the messy intersections where politics and faith collided, maneuvered, and eventually negotiated a common space in medieval culture. The space between what the Church was officially teaching and what the Irish people appear to have believed practically leapt off the page, and I started to pick at the stitches of Irish syncretism, or the meeting and merging of the island’s pre-Christian faith with the new Mediterranean import. Without the official government structure of Ancient Rome for support, and eventually to be co-opted by the Church, Ireland was a weird, awesome case study. I eventually found another, similar collision, on the other side of the world in medieval Japan, where Buddhism slid into Shinto like so many tectonic plates.

In my teaching, I returned again and again to the common threads among religions, which seemed so much more important and interesting than the differences. Even when I was teaching Early and Medieval Christianity, I found I couldn’t, in good conscience, teach about events like the Crusades without giving my students the basic grounding in Islam that they weren’t receiving anywhere else, even at a major university like Penn State. I made this a feature of my classes, and the students seemed grateful to be getting that information, especially post-9/11. A few students took exception to my treatment of their scriptures as, first and foremost, historical artifacts, rather than the direct word from on high; others might have been jolted by the way I talked about saints and wise men as both mortals and archetypes, instead of the uncritical figureheads populating their stories of faith. But, year after year, kids and adults alike told me how they’d gone to church their whole lives and never heard voices like the ones I brought into the classroom, or understood what sacred texts meant to be saying, and I’m proud and hopeful that the historical perspective prompted their own inquiries.

In a time when so much of our society and politics are influenced by the often-radical views of loud religious minorities, I think it’s worth shining a little light on the ideas and practices that bind us together. I want to share some of the sources and stories I’ve taught over the years, and I’ll probably end up doing it in roughly the format I designed for the last general religion class I taught: around the common themes of sacredness in terms of space, time, people, deeds, texts, and events. Let me make this clear: I’m not looking to change anybody’s mind, or convert anybody from one thing to another, or even challenge anybody’s faith. I have no agenda beyond asking the questions, and hopefully giving others a glimpse of that intricate web that connects us all. I’ll primarily talk about religion, which is the structure of beliefs and practices, as opposed to faith, which is the intellectual and emotional resonance of the truth humans seek. I’m always open to questions or counterpoints, but I want the dialogue to be open and respectful. Hopefully, we’ll all be able to see the value in each others’ values.

When I hear about a rally or a march or campaign that stands for something I believe in strongly, I say, “Uh-oh. Time to lace up my Protesting Boots.” This is not an idle statement, nor a clever euphemism.

These are my protesting boots. I bought them at Shelly’s of London. They’re actually Tank Girl boots. There aren’t laces in them at the moment because they were needed for a science experiment, but note the speed-lace loops.

They’re not pretty boots–I didn’t buy them to be pretty. They’re scuffed, and the little metal teeth on the toes are rusty. But they’re padded, and comfy, and heavy, and just right for kicking ass. I love my Protesting Boots.

I’m not really sure where my mile-wide activist streak came from. I come from a family of selfless volunteers and helpers, determined to contribute to any and all communities of which they’re a part. My grandma taught Red Cross first aid and gave swimming lessons to disabled children, when she wasn’t running inner-city Girl Scout troops. My mom was PTO president and ran the Sunday School program at the church I grew up in. Now, she’s a dedicated member of the 501st Legion (TR7084, Florida Garrison, Makaze Squad), and despite two artificial hip joints, she troops at every fundraising march to which they’re invited. (My stepdad and brother are also members.) Most of their commitments come from genuine Christian charity and human compassion, the spirit of which I’m immensely grateful to have had modeled throughout my formative years.

But none of my immediate family is particularly activist, or politically inclined. The first real activism I engaged in was a fight against the school board, to keep them from moving our beloved band director from high school to elementary after he returned from his sabbatical (during which he worked toward his Ph.D. in trombone performance). We got our parents all worked up, and we packed the meeting room the night they were supposed to consider teacher placement. But just before they started in on the topic, they announced that they’d reconsidered, and Don would be returning to the high school the next year. We were relieved and excited, but humming with the unspent fight we’d girded for.

My first real experience protesting was against the First Gulf War. In fact, I ran all the way home from the college protest meeting to tell my parents to turn on CNN because they’d started bombing Baghdad. I was one of a small group of students at my school who got in trouble for refusing to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance, if only because we couldn’t see how we were being disrespectful to a flag that they thought was fine to sew onto all the disgusting, sweaty athletic uniforms, or to fly over battlefields where we had no business being.

Later, the school tried to crack down on boys wearing of cutoff t-shirt sleeves as headbands. (It’s a skater thing. It’s probably on Wikipedia, or in the Smithsonian, by now.) Targeted at friends who were routinely threatened, even beaten, by jocks who called them every homophobic slur you can think of, I naturally took exception. A bunch of us invoked Title IX, took it to the administration, and organized as many girls as we could into wearing them too. Such a silly small fight, but as I look back now, I see the pattern developing. My stepdad actually understood this piece of me better than anyone else; he’d flirted with Quakerism, and was at the March on Washington for civil rights to hear Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream.

In my adult life, I’ve volunteered for numerous causes, if only because I have more time than treasure to support the campaigns I believe in. I gravitate toward issues of human rights, free speech, justice, and democratic (little d) freedoms. I canvassed so much in 2008, with 2-year-old Griffin in his stroller, that every time I reached for my purple clipboard with all the campaign materials and lists on it, Griff would groan, “NOOOOO OBAMA!”

But the single greatest protest experience of my life was the 2006 March for Women in Washington, D.C. I went with a group of friends from grad school, and it was the very first night I’d spent away from Connor, who was nearly two. I have only the vaguest memory of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and Cybill Shepherd, speaking on the National Mall, but what’s indelibly etched into my most 3D, high definition, full-sensory memory is walking down the dotted line in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, holding high a sign that said, “Pro-Choice, Pro-Child.” Because I was, and am, and in that electrifying moment, I was more sure of my own power and identity than I’ve ever been, before or since. I owned that street. I could change policy, I could influence outcomes, I could stand for the silent. I was mighty.

And once you’ve had that drug, once you’ve danced at the victory party, once you’ve cried as election results rolled in, you just can’t get enough of it. Currently, I’m working as a team leader in Saint Paul for Minnesotans United For All Families, the organization fighting the proposed amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriages. It’s going to be a lot of work between now and November, on top of the other political work I’ll no doubt take on, but I can’t imagine writing injustice into the permanent guiding principles of any state or country.

I wrestle with being the parent and the activist. My heart aches for the tiny children I see holding horrid, hateful signs they couldn’t possibly understand at funerals and Planned Parenthood locations. Sure, I gave my 2 1/2 year old a sign that read “Bush Is Scary, Vote For Kerry” at a rally in 2004. And when a MN state legislator slammed Neil Gaiman for “accepting” a 5-figure honorarium from a community library for doing a book talk and signing (“accepting” is in quotes because he turned right back around and donated it to a library support organization, as he often does), I didn’t give my family any choice about whether we’d go to the Read-In for Civility on the capitol steps. But I want them to grow up with their own priorities, their own causes, their own voices.

I want my kids to grow up thinking it’s worth the effort to stand up, be heard, and work for values they believe in. I want them to grow up knowing that it isn’t acceptable for one group to oppress another, or to silence a voice just because it disagrees with someone powerful. I want them to open their hearts, to make themselves vulnerable, by caring about the fate of humanity and the planet. If their values don’t always match mine, I’ll talk to them to find out where they’re coming from and make sure they’ve got all the information to make an educated stand, but I won’t make them back down. They have the same rights I fight to ensure for others.

And some day–maybe soon–I’ll take them shopping for their very own Protesting Boots.

We spent most of Saturday in the park. I know, it’s not very glamorous, but you see, we were celebrating an anniversary.

Now, some of my friends no doubt spent this remarkable centenary in the dark of the theater. And at least two I know celebrated it in truly lavish style, dressing like their counterparts a century ago and eating the very foods on which they dined that historic day.

But our anniversary didn’t celebrate a shocking tragedy that cost scores of lives. We were marking the 100th anniversary of my grandpa John’s birth. The fact that he was born on the exact day that the Titanic met with that fateful iceberg only made it easier for me to remember that historic event. I only ever saw one of those things as worth celebrating. [Note: my mom just corrected me about something rather embarrassing. My grandpa’s birthday was actually April 5, not April 15. April 5 is the date the Titanic launched, which was the source of my confusion. The sentiments that follow remain true, but for future reference, I am A Bad Granddaughter.]

The Kresser brothers: Fritz, Rudy, John, and Augie

Let me tell you a bit about John Kresser. He was the first child of his family born in America–his parents and older siblings moved to Wisconsin from southern Germany (technically part of Austro-Hungarian territory) a few years earlier. He was one of ten children who lived to adulthood, five boys and five girls. They were too poor to keep the milk their cow produced, so rickets gave him bowed legs like a cowboy forty years in the saddle. He went to work after he finished fourth grade. When the Depression hit, he went into the Civilian Conservation Corps in upstate Wisconsin.

John met my grandma, Nell (of whom I’ve written before), and they dated briefly before marrying in 1935. During the courtship, he would take her out on Friday nights. He offered to buy her ice cream; she suggested that they should go out for a beer. It wasn’t until after they’d married and she started turning down beer when offered that he thought to ask why she’d always suggested it for their dates. Her answer: she figured that, as a German, he’d much rather have a beer after a hard day’s work. His answer: no way, I’d have much rather had the ice cream! 62 years together wasn’t nearly enough.

He worked at Ladish Company for 40 years, pulling seamless rings of burning steel from beneath the four-story pneumatic hammer that pounded them flat. Even on the hottest day of the year, he had to cover every inch of his skin in at least two layers, to prevent burns. These were the days before OSHA regulations, and he suffered significant nerve deafness from the constant percussion of the hammer. His fingers were gnarled and crippled like jagged bolts of lightning. But those hands were capable of great skill and delicacy. He tied his own fishing jigs and lures, and crafted wooden fittings and furniture.

My grandpa, holding one of his salmon next to my brother Tim

Quite simply, nature was his domain. He fished for coho salmon on Lake Michigan in his 15-foot aluminum canoe, and the ones he brought back often overhung the cooler on both sides, 22 inches of flashing silver wrested from the deep. He hunted deer every fall, and nothing ever went to waste. He grew dozens of beautiful flowers, but his irises and roses were stunning. Vegetables flourished in the backyard all summer long, a lush backdrop to his Wile E. Coyote-like battle with the squirrels that feasted at his birdfeeders.

In every undertaking, he fretted, tweaked, measured, re-measured, jiggered, and planned until the product was meticulous. It drove my grandma, with her Irish practicality and genius for the slap-dash and shortcut, rather mad. But the combination of them was just about perfect, and they played a huge role in raising my siblings and me. Weekends, vacations, long summers–any stretch of days was an excuse to hitch their pop-up canvas trailer to the car and head for parts unknown. We cooked over campfires, read by kerosene lanterns, and slept in sleeping bags with the skies of mountains and deserts, coastlines and great plains above our green canvas tent.

They showed us the wonder to be found close to home, too. They would take us on long, rambling nature walks in the birch forests on the cliffs above Lake Michigan, letting us collect treasures like the armloads of wildflowers I would amass (even though they made us all sneeze), while teaching us the values of preservation and the beauty of a thing in its proper environment. My grandma named the plants and animals for us; my grandpa named the trees and tracks.

My grandpa with (L to R) my cousin Star, my sister Jenn, and me

While he was a man of quiet dignity, faith, and pride, he was happily a fool for his grandkids. He rode sleds, roller coasters, and water slides with us. He ate every dubious baking effort, accepted our art projects like treasures of the western world. We’ve got Super 8 footage somewhere of him playing with my cousin in Rocky Mountain National Park. She’s from Florida, so snow was always a special treat. In the film, she decides she wants to slide some snow down Grandpa’s pants, so she sneaks up behind him and starts trying to cram a snowball past his belt. But Gramps was a skinny guy, pants always tightly cinched, so there’s nowhere to slide the chilly bundle. Not wanting to disappoint her, the film shows him unbuckle his belt, undo the top button of his pants, then hold the back open for her. In goes the snowball, and my cousin claps with glee, as Grandpa does a herky-jerky dance of put-on shock and discomfort. Anything for the kids.

So it was a no-brainer to celebrate his birthday out in nature. We talked of him as we walked to the park, as I named the trees with their buds unfurling. I watched the wind in the branches as I sat beside the playground, and I thought of what he would have made of my two bright boys. What hijinks they would talk him into. What wisdom he would etch in their hearts. 100 years after he came into this world, I still look at it the way he taught me: with reverence and gratitude for all its gifts.