And I'm Still Working . . .

After 35 years in the classroom one would think I have enough "stuff" for my students to do and that I could just coast through the next couple of years. Phone it in. Slide by.

Not me.

Anyone who knows me well will tell you that's not how I am wired. So at 3:54 PM on a Tuesday when I could be doing anything else, I am sitting at my desk in a hot classroom  researching new ways to do an old project because I am still concerned about how to engage my students who have seemed disengaged this year. At first I thought, "Well, it's me. I must be doing something wrong." I quickly realized it's not me as much as it's them -- the kids just don't want to do anything. I am competing with cell phones and airpods. No matter how enthusiastic or excited I am about a topic, it doesn't seem to matter.  

So at 3:54 on a Tuesday afternoon I'm revising lessons in an effort to spark something when we begin the music unit. The opening topic is "Why Music Matters."

I'm not so sure they know the "why" behind music. All of them listen to music daily, yet I'm not so sure they understand what it is that music does for them. After surfing several sites and reading some fascinating research, I have been caught up in the whys behind music. The information is more than I'll be able to digest in a single sitting and I realize at some point I'll just need to stop. How can I get my students to dive into reading with the same passion I have for learning? How can I explain how intricately our brains are wired and music is an important part of development in young brains? How can I share my fascination with Alzheimer's research that indicates the importance of music in the lives of patients? How can I share how music can help students engage in stress relief? 

The topics are endless, but the question is the same -- how to get my students engaged.

I am also intrigued by "walk-through" feedback which indicates students are not engaged. Just how does someone on a 10-minute visit know that? More importantly, can the person explain to me how to get my students more engaged? That's the million dollar question.

How?

Being Authentic . . .

Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable.
Be honest and transparent anyway.

~ Mother Teresa

For all of you fashionistas (and those of you who are not) -- this is a REAL, authentic Louis Vuitton bag. It belongs to my mother-in-law, an unpretentious person who just wanted to buy the real thing with her own money and she did. As someone in her early sixties and un-retired, she still works hard on a daily basis as a medical transcriptionist and doesn't frivously spend her money. So it didn't seem odd to me that she purchased the bag; Mom spent a great deal of time thinking about it and living with the decision before she finally selected this one.

And the reason I took a photo of Jay holding it? To post in the store with the caption "THIS Is a REAL Louis Vuitton" to show my consignors who attempt to pass off a fake as real -- as if I've never held the true, authentic purse myself.

It's amazing how many people will bring me a faux purse, for example a Coach or Dooney bag, and attempt to convince me that it's really worth $300. "What do you mean you sold my real Coach for $20! I paid $400 for it!"

Come on. Get real. I see the "authentic-looking" registration inside that declares it was "Made in China." I see the glued edges of the lifelike "leather." Just this week a moderately good LV fake appeared in the store and I'm 99.99% sure someone paid over $100 for it. Upon closer examination I could detect the errors in workmanship, feel the inferior texture of the shell and ascertain that the hardware was just poorly-coated metal. It's further unfathomable that one of my consignors attempts to convince me she's paid over $700 for a real Louis Vuitton with no documentation, schlepped into the store in a tattered plastic Target bag to consign. A real Louis comes with a protective cover!

We're a lot like these women who want me believe they have the real thing when the handbag is an imposter. We spend hours convincing our friends that we're authentic -- the real thing -- when we're really fake. On the outside we might look like a $1000 Botega bag when we're actually the shoddy knock-off Birken. We might glitz it up like a Judith Lieber evening bag when we're nothing more than a dimestore bedazzled K-Mart bluelight special.

The lesson that Jay and I have been learning over the past few weeks of our Free journey at CR is this: it's always much better to be authentic like Mom's Louis Vuitton handbag. We are striving to be real people who connect to others in transparent, honest relationships without pretense and phoniness. We're not perfect -- far from it -- but we're discovering that our real friends accept us as we are, just as God unconditionally loves and accepts us. For too many years both of us worked hard at trying to measure up to what we thought others expected. All it made us was shoddy knock-offs of who we were meant to be. We'd rather be originals. Authentic. Determined not to pass ourselves off as anything less than what we truly are.

And it is incredibly freeing to live like that.