The Big O

This was the week that the three weeks of orientation (yes, I know we must be the most and best oriented school on the planet!) finally melted into the first week of school. That first day that is the joy of joys!

But before we get into blogisodes about the new school year, I want to dwell for a moment on this year’s orientation. We went from orientation for senior staff, department heads, new faculty, returning faculty, student proctors in the dorms, new students and finally, returning students. Whew! But the other day came one of the most fun things I have done in our time here at KA. Julianne, the intrepid and fearless Dean of Students wanted to foment a little inter-dorm competition as we got set for school. She came up with the idea of “Madaba Games,” an Olympics-style competition that would accrue points for the top 3-placing dorms in a variety of competitions. Not just physical competition, although there would be that, she came up with a science competition in the form of a Project Egg Drop, and a crazy hair-styling competition, and an art competition and skit competition and music competition and a bake-off competition.

She asked me if I would spearhead the Chocolate Chip Cookie Bake-Off Competition for my Nihal dorm and I enthusiastically agreed. However, on the day of the Madaba Games I started to wonder, what in the world were we doing with a bake-off? What boys would want that choice of competition and how would it work? I guess I didn’t think about it too much, but then Monday afternoon came and all of a sudden I had two hours to fill and two hours to bake award-winning chocolate chip cookies. Julianne got the idea for this partly from a great year at Hackley, maybe around 2003 or so, when the faculty there indulged in several heated food competitions and bake-offs. They were immensely fun as entrants brought their selections and a team of judges picked the best. Our friend Mike always wrote a hilarious commentary afterward about the proceedings, the corruption among the judges, and the rancor amidst the entrants. It was great.

So as the Nihal dorm boys split up into what competitions they wanted to do, I found myself with 12 boys who wanted to help make the best chocolate chip cookies in Jordan. We met at my apartment, the baker’s dozen of us, and I still wondered, “Are they going to just watch me bake these cookies? How should we run this???” As I walked in, cranked up the air conditioning, I thought, “Let’s have this be a cooking class and somehow we all have to be a part of this baking experience.”

First I read them the criteria by which we would be judged—four points,
(1) Taste (2) Texture (3) Presentation and (4) a WOW factor. So we started by talking about criteria factors 2-4. What did they know about texture in a cookie? How should we present our cookies? Then I went on-line and looked at recipes from food.com and suggested we use one that was called “award-winning chocolate chip cookies.” That sounded hopeful. I mentioned that I had purloined a silver tray from the Dining Hall and we could serve the judges the cookies on that. But we needed to think about the presentation later.

As we got going, Mohammed Attar ran into my apartment a little late to join us. He had brought a present for me, an orange tie box from Hermes. A real tie from Hermes! I opened it, and thanked him for the exquisite black silk tie, and then said, “Guys, this orange box—hey, that’s our dorm color. Let’s wrap the cookies up in this box and present it to the judge. Wait—Mohammed, I’ll bet you have a tux, right?” This student is one of the most suave and debonair students I know—I figured he had a tux. He did, and I suggested that Mohammed get in his tux for the judging portion and present the fancy box of cookies in our dorm color’s box.

Okay, okay, we need to get going. I divide everyone up into teams for the baking portion. David I put in charge of the recipe itself—he is to check it over and over and make sure our measurements are correct, the order correct, the temperature correct. As we start I tell them some things about chemistry and how baking works on the principles of chemistry. Unlike what I thought would happen, these 12 guys are excited and ready to go. So I have a team to be in charge of keeping the ingredients ready, a team to measure the ingredients, a team to cream the butter and sugar, a team to chop the chocolate, a team to get the oven and pans ready. Everybody is on board and ready to go. In the recipe it calls for a box of instant pudding—I tell them that might help the texture since that is one of our criteria. I don’t have any brown sugar, but I have about 100 packets of raw sugar for coffee and tea, and so now there is a team to open the packets and measure that sugar. This does produce the first mess! But they actually seem interested to know how the different kind of sugars can affect the texture of a cookie.

In the next hour we measure, we double-check, we cream—someone asks if I have any fancy chocolates to add and I remember some great mousse-like chocolates. A new team is created to microwave that chocolate and add it to the mix. They like how this might be a good wow factor with the fancy chocolate in taste and texture and a new amber-colored glow to the batter.

Then after the cracker-jack team of Asher and Khalook have creamed the butter and eggs and sugar expertly, we start to mix in the dry ingredients. You would have thought we were working on nuclear fission or something from the level of interest and precise measurement and careful stirring and uber-double-checking. I bring out two kinds of vanilla—the imitation kind and the real stuff. I explain to them the difference, and we all pass around and smell the imitation and the real, and my 12 bakers all agree the real stuff is infinitely better and yes it is worth the money., Only the real stuff would go in our competitive dough! Finally, the large glass bowl is full of this glorious chocolate chip cookie dough. Someone wonders if we should taste it—you know, taste is one of the judge’s criteria. Yes, I agree, we need to make sure it is as great as we think. It is…you wouldn’t believe their expert-palate discussion of how the instant pudding and the real vanilla and the fancy chocolates have elevated our chocolate chip cookie dough.

It is time to get the dough onto the baking sheets. We have a little discussion over whether 1 big cookie or regular size cookies were better. If we wanted to use the Hermes box, then we needed to go with the regular size. As I demonstrate how to roll the dough to a consistent size (and why…) they realize it is just like eating their comfort-food mansaf as they take the balls of meat and pop them in their mouth.

The first baking sheet goes into the oven. There is a little nervousness if they will be perfect enough. While that one bakes we discuss the presentation again. Someone suggests that we put a label over the Hermes label on the box and write our dorm name. Walid is elected to practice his penmanship, and after about a dozen shots, we take the perfect label of “Nihal” and affix it over Hermes. Someone also suggests that when tux-clad Mohammed serves the judges the cookies from the fancy box that he first offer to shave fresh chocolate over the cookie for them. So we get Mohammed to practice grating chocolate from a fancy bar.

As I took the first batch out of the oven—I have never seen more nervous and excited and interested bakers in my life—I realized three incredibly great things: (1) I had only instructed and guided them in this effort; all I physically did was put the baking sheet in and take it out of the oven (2) this was more fun than I ever thought it might be and (3) one of the young men in this cohort was someone with whom I had never gotten along previously. This guy had been in another teacher’s class in my room and I caught him numerous times punching my art posters with the thumb tacks. I chastised him and we developed a nasty cold war. But look—here he was, my right hand man, carefully checking on the microwaved chocolate, checking with me on the oven, checking on the bottoms of the cookies so that only the most perfect cookies would be submitted. I realized that this was one of the best teaching experiences I had ever had.

We decided that we would bake all 36 cookies, and then judge them ourselves and pick the 5 best for the judges. Why should we submit all the cookies to them? We would submit 5 cookies in our Hermes/Nihal fancy orange box, with our concierge Mohammed shaving fresh chocolate on them, and then we should eat the rest. I mean, we needed to see if they were as good as we believed. We believed these were great cookies.

So we narrowed down the choices. We prepared the box. Mohammed changed into his tux. We gingerly placed the perect 5 into the box. We left for the competition. On our way out, the boys thanked me profusely for the afternoon—and I thanked them. We just had to win. I mean seriously—we thought about texture, we had expensive chocolate, perfect cookies, a young man in a tuxedo with a designer box…and a spirit of reconciliation with that formerly errant boy.

We get to the competition and I can feel the rush of adrenaline. Every other entry had put cookies on a plate. Sniff. Well, that is a choice. Not a wow choice, but a choice. That evil and wonderful Maria (I love her!) had dyed her dorm’s chocolate chip cookies the color of the dorm. Good move Maria, but was there a tux or gown around??? The others look fine, but we are ready to trounce them in the competition!

The judges are lined up, the students ready for the presentation. Obviously, ours look great. Okay, the judging. Julianne sees me biting my nails. She is having a ball with this.

How does it come out?

Oh dear reader, it is not quite the climax of the movie that I envisioned.

We placed second. Now, this is not sour grapes, BUT the winning dorm, I learn something interesting—no boys in the winning dorm made their cookies. Faculty children—7th grade girls, no less—made their cookies. I silently seethe.

John, the usually-wonderful-headmaster-but-today-the-nefarious-one, says, “Well, there really are layers of corruption here. I am attached to that dorm and my daughter helped make the cookies.” Corruption indeed! It reminds one of the infamous 1820s “Corrupt Bargain” that put the wrong man in the White House. Oh, boy.

So in the end, we did not come in first place. I am getting over the anger. I started an Anger Journal by which to channel my rage and wounded pride.

But the Madaba Games—a success…such fun. In the days since our bake-off, many of those boys have stopped me and thanked me again for a fun afternoon. Two of them now speak to me every time I pass them. And that one guy, well, I took him aside and told him how proud I was of his diligence and commitment and patience. It might have only been chocolate chip cookie baking, but I saw a new kid that afternoon in my kitchen.

Good heavens—I love education! And I guess competition too.

In the shadow of the past

This fall at KA we are debuting two, yes, two big new courses in the History Department! (Actually, we have more than two, but two big ones, and two small ones.) If that gets you excited—please, dear reader, press on. If that elicits a groan (excuse me, if so, who are you, and why are you at my blog????????!) then maybe this isn’t the blogisode for you.

No, really, it is exciting, re-thinking and re-crafting the first two history courses our students will take in their KA experience. I am sure I will be telling you more of the juicy excitement of the new and improved (don’t you dare even breathe the 1985 phrase “New Coke” here!) 9th and 10th grade courses but one of the elements of the 10th grade course has been on my mind in the last week.

The 10th grade course is a survey of the History of the Middle East nestled in the context of World History. Okay, now the verb nestled is not in the official wording of the course. I always get hung up on titles and what I want them to be. In 2001 when I debuted a new course at Hackley, I wanted the course entitled, “Releasing the Historical Imagination.” The bureaucrat-in-charge, sucked in a little air, and said, “How about we call it ‘History 9’." So, the other day I was musing on what I wanted this called and I suggested, “The Middle East in the context of World History,” and my colleague said, “I think it should be ‘The Middle East and the World.’" Everyone is always trying to simplify me. Do you see why I don’t do Twitter???

Anyway, this is not just a pull-a-date-out-of-a-hat-chronological survey course. We are starting this course in big, bad, happenin’ 2011. Right now! Why not??! The Middle East has had a tempestuous, volatile, interesting year, and why not dive into acting as historians and make sense of this year, the very year in which we live and breathe. I tried this in 1993 when I re-imagined a western civilization course at Charlotte Latin as well, jumping into that current year, and it was wonderful.

So, back to my excitement. We will mine the media websites and see what has transpired ever since this “Arab Spring” began back in January in Tunisia. What do the Middle Eastern media outlets say about this? The American websites? The BBC? What really has happened this year? What might it mean…where it might go? Ahhh…now here is the fun part. The students don’t really know what has happened this year (and don’t act all smug because you are smarter than a 15 year old—who does know what has happened this year?) but they will need more context, they will need more history to have this current year make more sense. Get the verb in there? They will need more history! Once you establish the need, the thirst, they will do anything! Then we will go back in time to the lifetime of their grandparents, trying to make sense of the last 70 or so years…

But here’s the thing about 2011 and the “Arab Spring”—as I have read about the Middle East, mostly from western sources, they kept trying to make it out as a rebirth of the spirit of 1989, a redux-1989, if you will, of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Remember how Jordan was treated in the press? Reporters were looking at Jordan and wanting it to fall, to fit some paradigm of dominos falling across the Middle East. That makes for an easier story, and a fun, let’s-relive-the-80s kick.

But in the last week as I have helped prepare the 10th grade course, it has hit me that it is another year entirely that 2011 has mirrored. Nope, not 1989—although I really did like that year too. It’s 1848.

1848?

Now, who’s interested??! Huh?!

Thinking about 1848 took me back to my days of teaching AP Modern European History (a course dear to my heart—it is the course that tipped me over to become a teacher as a senior in high school. It was taught by the iconic Jean Michaels and was marvelous. When I became a teacher I taught this course seven times before I moved on to other courses, but my heart is still in this great course) and what an interesting and confounding year 1848 proved across Europe.

In 1848 a wave of unemployment and economic woes engulfed Europe and led to spiked food prices. Across continental Europe there were monarchies ruling impoverished masses suffering from this acute economic distress. There were feeble parliaments and brutal police and limited suffrage and limited freedom of expression.

Yes, that was 1848. Take the above paragraph and substitute, “the Middle East” for “continental Europe,” and 2011 for 1848 and nothing else has to be changed. Look at those parallels! Let’s continue…at the root of the turmoil was a new, growing, politically and economically and culturally frustrated middle class. Yes, both 1848 and 2011.

In both times, 1848 and 2011, there were unexpected successes. In February, 1848, in Paris, after the government suppresses peaceful protests, three days of massive street protests and riots follow. The King abdicates, a republic is declared, and a hopeful democratic chaos ensues. Cut to 2011—in January and February, in Tunisia and Egypt, after the government suppresses peaceful protests, 29 and 18 days (respectively) of massive street protests follow. King-like presidents resign, and a hopeful democratic chaos ensues.

And there’s more!

In both years ambivalent armies fraternize with street protesters. Some of both troops even join the rebels. And let’s not think we of the 21st century are the only ones to trumpet technology—new technology helps spread the word of the protests. In 1848 revolutionary news is transmitted as never before by telegraph, steam-powered newspaper printing presses and railroads. In 2011 revolutionary news is transmitted as never before by cell phones, the Internet and cable television.

In both years democratic America is pleased. In 1848 President James Polk congratulated the French on their new liberties; in 2011 President Barack Obama praised the hopes for genuine democracy. In both years rich, reactionary powers in the east meddled: in 1848 Tsar Nicholas I sent troops to help his fellow monarchs; in 2011 the Saudi king lashed out against the “infiltrators” in Egypt. The Revolutionary contagion spread quickly in both years, fanning across many countries. In both eras there was a flood of refugees fleeing the chaos trying to emigrate to the Protestant US in 1848, and the Christian EU in 2011.

So the parallels are dizzying. Now as we begin the 10th grade course this week, I doubt whether we will emphasize this parallel at all…but here is what is exciting about beginning a course in the present. We don’t know what will come of it all…knowing more history will enrich our understanding of how these events got set in motion…but we still don’t know where it is all going.

We do know what happened next in 1848. In France, the crucible of the revolutionary fervor, the radicals pushed too far too fast, provoking a backlash by the end of 1848. By that winter, most of the revolutions had been reversed, and/or crushed.

And what of “The Arab Spring” of 2011? We don’t know yet. And that is part of the excitement of studying this current year, indeed, reveling in that lack of certainty. If we infuse a study of history with that same unawareness of inevitability we will stand a better chance at understanding what it felt like to stand in another era, to imagine what they were thinking. We can predict all we want, but we will have to wait for this next installment of this year to see where this will lead. Will we repeat 1848? How will it be different? What does a knowledge of that year do for us as we muddle through our contemporary times? How might history help?

So many questions…our mission statement of our department reads that we teach to a narrative of inquiry rather than a narrative of conclusions.

Invigorating and exciting, wouldn’t you say?

[new job title]

A few years ago in New York I went to see a show several times called, oddly enough, [title of show]. This was a musical that developed downtown for a “fringe” musical festival and it is about these two composers, Jeff and Hunter, who create an original musical with two friends, Heidi and Susan. It is a “meta” show in which they constantly reflect on writing a musical for a fringe festival…so everything they say, it seems, makes it into their musical. It is about the joy and thrill and fear of creating a piece of theater. The odd title comes from the fact that when they submit their manuscript to the festival they are filling in the form and when it comes to their [title of show] they just decide to leave it blank the way the form had it as simply [title of show]. Okay. Maybe I didn’t sell the show enough to you.

Anyhoo, I don’t know if I have mentioned in any blogisode that I have a new title and new responsibilities at KA. It came about last spring when our dynamite new headmaster, John, asked me if I would like some new responsibilities dealing with, specifically, coaching and mentoring faculty. He wasn’t quite sure for awhile what the new job title would be, nor exactly what territory I would cover. I was excited since he trusted me to work with the faculty.

So for the longest time, I wasn’t sure what to tell people what the job really was, and so it reminded me of [title of show]. But now I should announce exactly what my email signature will say my new title is: Drum roll please…Dean of Curriculum and Instruction.

I am charged with many things, but most importantly directing and facilitating a professional development program that encompasses much more than I have ever seen in one of my four schools. I am also to evaluate and monitor curriculum, and I am to lead the evaluation of the 80-member faculty. Plus go to more meetings. We love meetings.

Last week I gave a presentation to the faculty during our orientation introducing them to my vast array of offerings in professional development. I likened my program to the Food Court at the Mall, where, hopefully, there is something for everyone! But before I explained the menu, I offered a brief bio as to how/why I stood before them that morning in Jordan.

I proudly announced that it was 25 years ago that week that I first stepped into a classroom to teach high school. Yep, it was 1986, and as a newly-minted college graduate I had been hired to be the entire History Department at Gaston Day School. I had no training, per se, to be a teacher, and I was thrilled to death, and also scared to death. I noted that every August since, as I prepare for the return of school, I am still thrilled to death, and just a little less scared to death. I relayed that in the next ten years I would go to graduate school full-time twice: the first I went to Brown so that I could go and teach college (however, if you know my bio well, you know that all Brown did was confirm for me that I was supposed to be a teacher of secondary school); for the second time I earned the Klingenstein Fellowship and went to finally study the ins and outs of education, learning the vocabulary and honing strategies and structure of effective classes.

In 1996 I started a new job at Hackley School, and I relayed to the faculty about an evening a couple weeks into the school year, when a new friend, a friend my own age who was a novice to teaching, announced with pleasure, “Finally, today I had a good day in the classroom.” Phil’s face then fell as he realized he couldn’t rest on those laurels, but needed to do it all over again the next day. Phil then pestered me, asking, “When do you really know everything about teaching? At what point do you get it all about education?” I said that after my 8 years, I didn’t know and wondered what a good answer was. I went and found another new colleague, the veteran teacher Joan Fox, a woman of such humor and warmth that new standards of humor and warmth need to be created. Joannie smiled and said, “Oh, dahlin’ you don’t really ever get it completely—you work at it but you never quite master it. You come closer every year but that is the beauty of teaching.”

That was my introduction to the plan I have for professional development. Now if you ever say the complete two words, “professional development,” or even the code, “PD” to most educators they roll their eyes, or sigh—at best. Some stare daggers at you. What is the problem??? Well, it is such a low priority in most schools, done poorly in a one-size-fits-all mentality, and no follow-up. Big money is spent on these experts to come in and spend 6 hours telling you what to do.

But our headmaster wants this professional development to be a constant thing, and as he urged us, to seek “continued, sustained improvement” in our teaching. So I have a plan.

Here is the menu of the plan—a week will not go by without an opportunity for professional development—there will be a weekly seminar/discussion group and I have all the topics for the year and the times all set up. The calendar is done September to June! Can’t make it at 11:30 on Sundays? I will repeat the seminar on Mondays at lunch and again at breakfast on Tuesday! The seminar will be conducted in Arabic for those who would be more comfortable with the dialogue in Arabic! No, that one will not be lead by me! There will be a book club each term. There will be two articles provided every week on topics of interest in education. There will be five workshops during the year offering many topics and forum for discussion and learning. My colleague Lilli and I will begin visiting classes—remember I am charged with evaluating about 80 teachers. I decided that I want to visit the “beginnings” of every class first—get into the classrooms and see how class begins. Then after I have seen each teacher’s opening engagement, I will visit a five-minute “middle” of every teacher, and finally go see how each teacher wraps up a lesson. Observation! Feedback! Hopefully real and meaningful professional development.

I have come to see that the [new job title] also means part-time therapist for people too. I have had several people ask to come and speak to me about the nature of teaching, and when do you know you should stay in teaching.

Oh, it is more than the food court. But, these are good and healthy conversations. Life would be strangely hollow if we didn’t ask ourselves, at least on occasion: What exactly should I do with the rest of my life? What is my purpose on this planet? Am I doing the right thing with my days and my energies? Does who I am matter to anyone else?

One guy the other day wanted to sit down and talk because, as he said, “You really think of teaching as a vocation, as a calling. I need some guidance.” He’s right—I do look at this career path as a vocation/calling. Those questions about vocation supersede the quest we sometimes engage in to busy ourselves.

A famous ethicist, William F. May, once pointed out that the words “car” and “career” both come from the Latin word for racetrack—carrera. Hmmm….who wants to go through life racing around in a circle????? A calling is much more considered than that. We hunt for hints and clues as to what the calling might be, should be. On our worst days, we wonder when a voice will whisper in our hearts, and we sometimes mistake the verbal echo of our own desires. We can get confused about selfishness and enjoyment.

But on those best days, we find that sweet spot of what we love to do, do reasonably well (or are determined to do well) and are pretty certain that we have found our niche of challenge and comfort. On those days we notice how God has stitched capacities and passions and potential into our quite ordinary lives. We aim to center our commitments on a greater good than just ourselves.

Vocation is kind of hard to figure out. Discerning one’s calling in life is a complicated business. I remember when I needed to make the decision to come to Jordan back in January, 2007, and I asked my good friend Doris for guidance. “When do you know Doris?” I asked pretty much the same thing Phil had asked me back in 1996. Doris replied, “When those doors all open, your job is simply to walk through the doors.”

So here I am—[new job title]—and 25 years into the teaching profession. We have had two weeks of teacher orientation. Energy is high. I lose all sense of time. The students will now begin returning for their orientation. Admittedly, it is like Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years’ all wrapped together into this time of year at the beginning of school. That great sense of satisfaction is prevalent.

Twenty-five years ago I was not quite sure where destiny would take me. I did not think I would be a secondary school teacher. And not just be one—I need to be one. It is where I belong. I am hoping the same for the [new job title]—the sweet spot where identity and desire and challenge and need converge.

Journey On

I have been thinking about Christmas a good deal in the last week.

Now there could be several reasons for that: about 9 days ago, before I left the United States for Jordan, I spent a couple hours addressing Christmas cards which I will use in four months when I return to the United States. And then a week ago when I bid my family a heartfelt farewell before stepping onto the Delta plane whisking me thousands of miles away to Jordan, I kept saying, “I will see you again at Christmas-time!” That is when a Delta plane will touch down with me on it again in Cincinnati. Last night I was talking to a faculty member here who is staying here over the Christmas break, and I suggested that he invite his family over and they celebrate in Bethlehem.

But it’s not so much looking toward the holiday that has held me captive in the last week, although on hot days I must admit I like thinking of the cold at Christmas—it’s those wise men who have been on my mind.

I guess as I was addressing the cards, I looked at the variety of cards I had, and I was drawn to those Magi. I remember as I addressed a card to my old librarian friend Lynda Morgese, I looked at those Magi on the card, and thought, “Of all the characters in the Christmas story, the ones we need to keep our eyes on, indeed, come to think of it, the ones most like us, are those Magi, those Wise Men.” Funny, how with all the things that needed to be done in my remaining days, I chose to address Christmas cards four months early, and then I have kept thinking about those wise guys all week.

When I posit that they are the ones most like us, I am not suggesting that we are either so regal or wise, but let’s consider some of the other characters in this story. Ahhh….Christmas in August, I suppose. Let’s take Mary, the young teen minding her own business when an angel of the Lord comes and addresses her: “Hail, Mary!” Like that’s going to happen to us.

Consider this: the shepherds are out in their fields watching their flocks by night, when an Angel of the Lord appears to them…speaks to them…and suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appears, praising God. Like that’s going to happen to us.

And on and on—but those Magi—we need to watch them. These are the travelers, the ones who undertake a great and arduous journey. Maybe because last week at this time I was about to embark yet again on the great journey back to the Middle East, but those Magi continue to be on my mind. Let’s imagine the conversations back home when those magi have agreed to undertake this great trip. “Honey,” says one, “Me and the guys, we’re following a star. Not sure where or what it will lead to. We’ll be away—for months, maybe longer.”

Of course, I am just joking a little here. For the magi it was no mere whim, their undertaking. They didn’t embark upon this adventure without careful thought and good reason. They did their best to explain themselves and their reasons to their families. They extracted themselves from various commitments. They planned the route and agreed how to finance it. Journeys of this sort are expensive—the costs of travel, with inns and meals, not to mention a loss of income from being away from work. I guess they worked. (Come to think of it, this sounded a lot like my thought process as I pondered this whole Jordan thing in 2007.)

They probably spent considerable time on what to take, what gifts to bring, and anticipated the exchanges of cultures and rituals and languages they would encounter.

The long awaited day arrived for them. Those magi hugged their loved ones and said their good-byes, not quite sure when they would return. There are tears, second thoughts, probably pleas to stay.

Finally, they are on their way—on their adventure. As they spent time together on this adventure began to learn each others’ moods, rhythms and fears. They learn the sound of each others’ laughter. And they probably needed to ask for directions. You know that since these are wise men they were probably not inclined to ask for directions.

The star gets the magi all the way to Jerusalem, but then it goes on the fritz. It is in Jerusalem that they have to ask for directions. “Where,” they ask, “is the child who has been born King of the Jews? For we have observed his star rising, and have come to pay him homage.”

This is the moment their adventure really starts. It starts when their accents give them away; when they reveal themselves strangers in a strange land; when they first disclose to others the purpose of their quest; when they admit they don’t know which way to turn; when they are forced to entrust themselves to the good will of complete strangers (some of whom turn out to be possessed of ill will); when they find out that the mere mention of Jesus causes shifts in power, threatens principalities, begs for a re-ordering of the structures that discriminate. Now, they are on their way.

I guess I have thought about these guys this week when I realized they would have been travelling right around where KA is here in Jordan, not far from Jerusalem. I thought about them when I think of the journey that I have taken since January, 2007 when I decided to follow this quest to help start this school here. I have thought about them as I greet and work with the new faculty here.

In the last four days, I have spent considerable time with the brand-new faculty—22 in all—who have just arrived in the last few days here in Jordan. One is from Peru, one from the Maldives, one from Nigeria, one from Spain, one from down the street in Amman, but most, fresh off the planes from the United States. I see in them all that excitement we had in August, 2007 as we greeted each other and trusted each other to work on this project. We have taken them out to dinners, watched as they saw their first camel, had their first banking experience, talked about politics and food and the students we have met here. We are learning about each other as we embark on the journey of the school year of 2011-12. We have all gone on this adventure, a little clueless about what we will encounter or learn. But just like we were, and still are, we are ready for the adventure. We’re following a star here, too, in many ways, and as hokey as it sounds, that star of excellence in education, or that star of multi-culturalism, of experience, of fulfillment, of understanding.

So as I look out at the plains to the west—there in those hills where David once shepherded, I am back in the very land where those magi travelled and risked and followed their star. Yep, those guys, those exotic, adventurous, risk-taking, intrepid kings or astrologers, or whoever they were—they are the ones to watch.

We all have journeys, some longer, or farther afield, but relationships, and new jobs, or simply the life of faith is a life of adventure. I think you will know you are on the right road, that you are getting close to wherever, when it gets thrilling, tense and intense, important, scary, edgy, absorbing and fantastic.

Tomorrow I will spend about six hours helping to pair advisors and advisees for the coming year; I will meet with the 9th and 10th grade teams to work on our new courses; and then finally, we will have an all-faculty iftar, the nightly breaking of the fast during Ramadan, at about 7:21 p.m. to celebrate the return of the veteran teachers and introduce the newest members of the followers of our star.

Porters All

I love my Kindle.

When these little digital libraries first came on the market, I will admit that I was more than skeptical—in fact, I kept saying, “I wouldn’t want a Kindle ‘cause I love books too much!” I love holding books, writing in my books, displaying my books, giving books as gifts. Obviously I must like storing books since in my $100 a month storage locker in Cincinnati there are 85 boxes of books awaiting my return to the United States and properly being displayed and loved again with me in residence.

But then my former student Audra showed me her Kindle in the summer of 2009, and for every point I made, she kept saying, “You will love it—especially if you love books!!” So that Christmas my sister gave me a Kindle.

For those of you who might not yet have purchased one of these Kindles, or the other kind of e-book devices, do you know what you get to do??? Well, besides holding hundreds of e-books in the Kindle itself, one gets to download samples of books for free! For free!!!!! It’s like spending time in a book store looking through books you may just want to buy…however, I have downloaded hundreds more book samples than I could ever have devoured in afternoons in a Barnes & Noble! I mean, I gotta tell you, one way I kill time in airports (because of the usually-free WiFi) is that I look through the Kindle store and download dozens and dozens of samples of books I might enjoy.

If I open the Kindle right now, I have 438 samples of books…it’s like a kid in a candy store!!! (Again, for the un-washed, un-Kindled, a sample is about a 40-page excerpt of the beginning of a book, designed to tempt you to buy the entire e-book for around $8-10.) I have about 80 novels (yes, Anne Siviglia, I occasionally read fiction!!) and 200 samples of history books, and then the books on movie history, television history, theater history, food history, art history (yes, I am a history nut) and memoirs and humor books and books on current events. I also have a file on religious history and books on spirituality. Why not download almost any kind of book that might shed some light on…pause for a serious phrase…the human condition…

One of the more unusual samples I downloaded this summer was a book about St. Benedict, considered by many to be the founder of Western monasticism. In the year 530, Benedict composed a rulebook, “The Rule of Benedict,” by which his monks would live an ordered, holy, and monastic life.

When I downloaded the sample, I had no idea what the book would be about, but I discovered that the “rules,” the chapters were oddly interesting. Now, let’s face it, anything historical is always interesting to me. Put sports and history together—thank you to Gary Klein for helping me with this—and all of a sudden I am a sports junkie.

Anyway, back to Benedict. I think I originally downloaded the book because I have joked occasionally that working at KA in Jordan has, well, at times, felt “like a monastery on a gulag.” I mean that in an endearing way! Anyhoo, I thought the book by Benedict and all of his rules might be interesting to compare a real monastic life to my life in a dormitory in the desert 30 minutes outside of an urban area.

Huh. The entire 66th chapter of Benedict’s Rule is devoted to explicating in detail the duties of the monastery’s porter, that is, the gatekeeper or doorman. It seemed remarkable to me that one of the renowned spiritual documents of the Western world has an entire chapter devoted to how to answer the door.

Remarkable, yes, but as it has ruminated in my brain, also understandable.

Among all the brothers in the monastery, the porter alone straddles two worlds. With one foot, he is firmly located within the monastic enclosure: the world to which he has vowed his body and soul. The monastery is a regulated, all-male world—a world of black tunics, scapulas and hoods—a world of silence, simplicity, poverty, chastity and habitual prayer.

However, the porter, alone among his brother monks, also has a foot in the world without: the world as it flows by the monastery’s door, bearing with it its flotsam and jetsam of noise, bustle, color, chaos, confusion, disorder and temptation.

It is the porter’s main duty to exercise the Christian art of hospitality. At the sound of a footfall, or horse hoof, or knock—no matter what time of day or night—the Porter scurries to the door, flings it open and cries out: “Deo Gratias! Thank God you have come!”

For the Benedictine, the art of hospitality is a theological necessity. Genuine hospitality is the warm and practical evidence of God’s love.

For the Benedictine, the art of hospitality is something else as well: it exposes to all manner of persons and experiences. It is a way of living that renders us available to the world.

In the Benedictine world, the job of Porter is assigned to one person. That person alone in the monastery straddles two worlds.

Besides, the “kick” of learning some medieval job description, does this Chapter 66 mean anything more than a little trivial information???

Yesterday the administration at KA welcomed the new faculty for the 2011-12 school year—we have a week of orientation with them before the returning faculty join us on campus for a second week of orientation. Yes, for any school this is more orientation than you have in a decade! Be that as it may...yesterday in his opening address to our new faculty, our (I’ll say it again) wonderful headmaster John Austin read from the 2011 book by King Abdullah II from the part of what he gained from being at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. Of all the many things he gleaned, he found that his tenure there helped him cultivate “wisdom and patience,” and understand and undergo an “egalitarian experience.” When Abdullah assumed the throne in 1999, he knew he wanted to create a school in Jordan that would do a similar thing. His Majesty has said often, and indeed wrote in that recent book, that he hopes the students from KA will “create a new tribe in Jordan, a talented meritocracy of lived lives of service and leadership.”

How exciting to work at a place that has that credo embedded in its founding. As John read from some passages of the King’s book, I thought of the lone Porter in the Benedictine monastery, and his importance of straddling two distinct worlds. His Majesty wants our students to straddle two worlds as well, the West and the Arab world, bringing the best of both to create a “new tribe.” If you know anything about the Arab world, tribal stuff is of primo importance. He wants a new tribe that is able to transcend the boundaries of old.

Straddling two worlds is hard—that rule of Benedict provides some insight about how porters go beyond the comfort zone, how they see two worlds and intermingle between and among. Think of how we all straddle various worlds. We all have a foot firmly planted in the “real” world: where might makes right, where wealth rules, where skin color and accent and bank account and education and nationality and ability, define us. Some people don’t like stepping inside another world, retreating from what could be a transforming experience. The borderlands are hard. Just the other day, I crossed over borders. I crossed over national borders. I also crossed over the border from summer into a consuming school world.

I thought about how excited I get every year for the beginning of classes—I am probably as giddy as the Benedictine porters as they fling open the door and announce: “Deo Gratias! Thank God you have come!”

As I listened to the hopes of King Abdullah II for this school, a school entering Year #5, it is clear to me he urges us all to straddle different worlds, cross borders and see what wisdom and patience can be gleaned from the experiences. I have no idea if His Majesty has Benedict’s rule on his Kindle, but I would imagine he would urge us to go beyond the single porter of Benedict’s day, and encourage and inspire that we are porters all.

Anew

Summer ended yesterday when I landed at the Charles de Gaulle airport outside of Paris. I now spend a good deal of time in this airport every year. So far, in the last four years that I have come in and out of the Charles de Gaulle airport I have yet to actually go into Paris! I land at the Charles de Gaulle airport on my way to and from Cincinnati or Amman for my summer breaks. When I land there in late June, this signals the beginning of summer, and when I land in August it is the reminder that summer has ended. I have a 5-8 hour layover every time (and by the way, it is just enough distance outside of Paris not really to make the ride into town worthwhile!) and it gives me time to make the mental preparations to put work out of my mind, or to access the work files in my brain yet again.

When that plane touches down in Amman, I am back at work. I wait until the last minute to return, always hoping to keep the jet lag at bay, and I dive into the many, many meetings. Yesterday was a nearly 8-hour spate of meetings with the senior staff, and today I met for several hours helping prepare for the teacher orientations in the next week.

As we began our senior staff meeting yesterday, our leader, the wonderful head of school John Austin, reminded us that each year “we have the chance to create the school culture we seek anew.” Yes, indeed-y, that is one of my favorite things about the school world. You have this break, you shake off the travails of the year, and then you get that chance to start fresh, to begin anew.

But before we bask in the newness of the year, let me just enjoy the summer one last moment as I put it in the memory book.

What was the best part of summer? What did I do? I mentioned a number of things in my blog entry about 10 days ago—remember, the portals I would open into the past/present/future of my life. Besides my encounters with friends and family—simply wonderful and meaningful, the best thing I did this summer was go to a performance of the Broadway play, Warhorse.

Now I don’t want to dwell too long on the dearth of theater in Jordan, but I gotta tell you, when I hit New York, I gobble up theater like a fat kid gobbles up chocolate cake. I try and go every day, and I try and see as much variety. The Broadway stuff is expensive, but there are still ways to go and see many things. Four mornings this July I went down to a Broadway theater to wait in line for a few rush tickets to be sold at $30 (remember the going rate is now $130!!!) and I still got the half-price line available, and Christy still has one of those great services that offer some shows at $4.50 (those are like the remainder bins in department stores, but hey, theater is theater!).

But Christy had gone ahead and paid full price for one show, the British import Warhorse. What did we know about it? We knew it had won the Tony Award for Best Play for 2010-11, and we knew that it had puppets. Oh, gosh. Puppets? Puppets. I mean, I did love Lion King and I found Avenue Q clever, but as a general rule, I am not excited about puppets. But I had read a review that called the play, “swoon-inducing.” Well, now. And it was produced by Lincoln Center—a sign of class and pedigree. So she plunked down the money for us for full price for Warhorse!

This was the most magical few hours of my summer, apart from time with family and friends. Warhorse was stunningly theatrical and charismatic and captivating.

The story is a pretty simple narrative—it comes from a novel for teens set around the Great War in England as Albert Narracott, the son of a ne’er-do-well, liquor-loving Devon farmer and a hard-working mum, yearns for a horse. When Dad, drunk as usual, buys Joey at an auction — an act of sibling rivalry toward his hoity-toity brother — young Albert takes on the animal’s care and feeding with deep enthusiasm. You probably guess one of the pleasures of this story—Warhorse speaks, cannily and brazenly, to that inner part of adults that cherishes childhood memories of a pet as one’s first — and possibly greatest — love. This is a show for people who revisit films like “Where the Red Fern Grows,” “The Yearling,” and “Old Yeller.”

But this is not just a play that registers as agreeable children’s entertainment. Joey, our half-thoroughbred horse, is a puppet. That sounds so one-dimensional, to just write, “Joey… is a puppet.” Joey is summoned into being by a team of strong and sensitive puppeteers. It is a puppet—yet this “puppet” is full of substance and soul. You watch this horse Joey, and admire the love Albert shares with Joey, and then your heart breaks as the father sells Joey to a World War I cavalry regiment.

So what is this Warhorse about? It is about imagination and majesty and love and adolescence and growing up and cold realities and hope and determination.

As the play unfolded, I did what I love to do during live performances—I watched the audience as often as I could. This was a matinee crowd and looked like a typical New York crowd—not the tourist crowd. I saw tears. I saw men take out handkerchiefs and choke back tears. Now come on—let’s get real. For a moment I admonished my inner self to stay observant and see the play for what it really was—a group of well-made, very large horse puppets. Two men can stand inside the puppet, one at the shoulders, and one under the hips and hind legs. A third man is at the side as if leading him along on a stafflike object resembling a lead line. I reminded myself that there were humans operating these beautifully engineered, lifelike horses. But as I watched, the cold reality melted away, and instead it was brilliant how the staff of Warhorse could move these staid New Yorkers to an emotional state.

The show’s storybook sensibility is enhanced by projections of drawings on what looks like an outsize strip of torn paper, which fluidly convey shifts of time and setting. After Joey is sold by Albert’s father to a cavalry regiment bound for France, the production’s look segues from idyll to nightmare, with harrowing images of walking corpses, enveloping shadows and death-machine tanks and guns. And of barbed wire, on which many a good horse met its end during World War I. Though human characters repeatedly bite the dust, it’s the horses on which our deeper hopes and fears are focused. And it’s the visions of their being fatally tangled in wire that are the show’s most unsettling. Albert goes in search of Joey through the hellish trenches of France. I won’t tell you how the story ends—Steven Spielberg has done a movie version of Warhorse which premieres in December.

But it’s not the actual narrative that is so breath-taking. It is the theatrical imagination to take an ordinary thing and make it far more extraordinary that it could have been or should have even been. Every so often, a pair of balladeers show up to sing about how we all “shall pass from this earth and its toiling” and be “only remembered for what we have done.” The implicit plea not to be forgotten applies not just to the villagers, soldiers and horses portrayed here, but also to theater, as an evanescent art that lives on only in audiences’ memories.

And also to the summer where precious evanescent reconnections are made with family and friends.

And also to the fragile beauty and ordinary-ness of school. Warhorse and school seem to intersect in quite a few ways for me, but perhaps in one important lens by which to view the unfolding of life’s adventures: both are about how the dirt that gets kicked in our faces sometimes gets transformed into magic dust.

Here I am—back for year 5 in Jordan…fresh from a summer and ready for the untold miracles of a school year, evanescent memories, cold realities, hope, determination, ordinary things transformed…I’d say that is “swoon-inducing” indeed.

Let’s begin anew!

2-4-6

It has been seven weeks since I last checked in with you on the blog. I have been on my summer sabbatical in the United States doing perhaps what I do best—talking and eating. I take a sabbatical from the blog on one hand since I am not in work mode, and do not sit at a computer much in the summer, but also because I don’t know if my list of friends I see makes for interesting reading. Not that my friends are not interesting, but we often do not plow new ground, but re-connect, re-live, re-invigorate important relationships. I don’t know if the list of meals and friends makes for profound reading. I mean, in all of these wonderful and soul-stirring reconnections, nothing here is exactly new, but that is why I enjoy them so much. My summer is a collection of “my greatest hits” of relationships, and I enjoy the familiarity of them so much.

The title of this blog entry has to do with the way much of my summer is handled. I spend a good deal of time in the summer with my calendar out, scheduling friends and family for meals and visits. I choose “vacation” spots based on who I get to see, not a new locale, or incredible new beach, or really a new sight at all. I look at where I can go and with whom I can re-connect. Then in a rather OCD kind of fashion, I “schedule” people into time slots of generally 2-hour, 4-hour or 6-hour durations. That sounds so clinical, and I guess even impersonal, but my summer is actually one long personal re-connection with loved ones. This summer my travel companion Anne and I went to the Seattle area not just to revel in the beauty of the Olympic mountains and lakes of the Northwest region, but also to revel in the beauty of relationships with former students. However, even I have to chuckle at how the summer seems to break down into those 2-4-6 hour blocks. I will visit with dear friend Tony for four hours, go to a concert with dear friend Sylvia and enjoy a two hour visit, or since Dawn is always on warp speed, a 2-hour meal is sped by in lightning speed.

Two weeks ago I had a “cancellation,” i.e. one of my former students slotted for a “two hour” had a death in the family and had to jet off to Florida. Into this unexpected free time I went to the movies with Christy to see Woody Allen’s 41st film, Midnight in Paris. What a charming movie! It opens with a couple on holiday in Paris with her parents. The couple, Gil and Inez, are officially in love; he’s at work on a novel about “a guy who owns a nostalgia shop” and at the same time indulging in the virtual time travel that Paris affords a certain kind of visitor. Gil yearns to sit at a table where Hemingway drank wine or meet Scott and Zelda—and imagine that they just stepped out to take the air. Ahhhh…nostalgia…the good old days.

The definitive poem in English on the subject of cultural nostalgia may be a short verse by Robert Browning called “Memorabilia.” It begins with a gasp of astonishment — “Ah, did you once see Shelley plain?” — and ends with a shrug: “Well, I forget the rest.” Isn’t that always how it goes? The past seems so much more vivid, more substantial, than the present, and then it evaporates with the cold touch of reality. Some good old days are so alluring because we were not around, however much we wish we were. Midnight in Paris imagines what would happen if that wish came true. It is marvelously romantic, even though — or precisely because — it acknowledges the disappointment that shadows every genuine expression of romanticism. Midnight in Paris shows a Paris both golden and gray, breezy and melancholy, and immune to its own abundant clichés. Paris in the 1920s—now THAT was a time! Pablo Picasso, on the cusp of his painterly brilliance; Ernest Hemingway, hunting wild beasts and churning out prose of inner bravado; Gertrude Stein, at the hub of it all. And the surrealists—Dali, Bunuel, and Man Ray—striving valiantly to live life in the non sequitur.

And then it happens. One night as Gil is out for a midnight stroll, an extended vintage motor carriage comes by and picks him up. This is his magical ride to the Paris of yore, the Paris he's been pining for, the Paris he's been utterly romanticizing. All the luminaries are there. He takes this trip each night, developing relationships with them, and realizing their own human neuroses. Pablo Picasso, the uncertain lover; Ernest Hemingway, the unblinking blowhard; Gertrude Stein, enduring mother hen. And the surrealists—Dali, Bunuel, and Man Ray—striving ridiculously to live life in the non sequitur. This humanization of these icons of the art world is as amusing to Gil as it is to us. The electricity of the time is felt as he makes not just priceless connections and contacts, but friendships. The magic and charm of 1920s Paris is right out in front of everything, but at the same time, the imperfections begin to show, and not just the contrasts, but the comparisons to his present-time situation grow all the more evident. In fact, he realizes that the gift of nostalgia, the present of nostalgia, is actually a better understanding of the present day.

As I watched the film, and enjoyed the delightful return to a certain time period, the 1920s, and then La Belle Epoque, I realized that my summer was like this movie. Over and over this summer I have been like Gil, enjoying a trip into the past, reveling in the excitement of another age and the relationships of that time.
I began the summer with the ultimate trip down memory lane, a reunion of the Denison Singers, an event chronicled in the blog before, when we had met in the spring of 2008 and again in the fall of 2010. This four-day love-fest/song-fest is a doorway to the the 1980s, rekindling friendships and love of music that had been so important to my college years.

But the summer proved to have many doors to my past. This summer I found an old friend from the 1970s, a friend from Kirkwood that had meant so much for a decade, then as time does, we traveled down different paths. This friend David and I started visiting on Facebook, then on the phone, and we laughed about old jokes and fun times from our youth. On a trip to Gastonia and Charlotte, North Carolina, I opened the doors to the late 1980s as I visited with Cookie, and the early 1990s as I visited with Chuck. In my two weeks in the New York area, I opened the doors to the late 20th century and early 21st century as I visited with friends from the Hackley chapter of my life.

On the trip to Seattle, I visited with Stefan and Sean, such important figures in my 2000-2006 life, but then for a day, for a great four-hour slot I got to see Louise again (first time since 1993) and enjoyed the doorway to 1991-92.

Have I done anything new? Oh, I saw theater productions in New York, and especially enjoyed the phenomenal play, Warhorse, but my summer really has been like Gil’s happy adventures in Midnight in Paris—through the portals of a happy past. At the Frick Museum I bumped into Rika Burnham, the greatest museum educator I have ever known, and that little 10-minute slot was a wonderful doorway remembering how she electrified and inspired me in 1994-95. Then two nights ago when my dad and I went out to dinner in Cincinnati, we bumped into my two greatest high school teachers, sisters Mrs. Michaels and Mrs. Schneider. It was Mrs. Michaels’ birthday, and I got to enjoy these two icons and remember my debt to them for 30 years. I had a two-hour slot with Miss Wilson in July, the third in the troika of my greatest teachers of my youth…

As I look back over this summer, nothing here is exactly new, and that is what I wanted in my summer. But—and here is the important part of my summer and the parallel to this gem of a movie—very little is stale either. Woody Allen has gracefully evaded the trap of nostalgia with a credible blend of whimsy and wisdom. The movie makes clear that those good old days are seen through the clichéd rose-colored glasses, but the greatest point is how we live in the present, and the “present” of the present. That a shared love of Cole Porter’s music allows the movie character Gil to forge a connection in the present (and conceivably the future) with a young Parisian woman is a sign that his fetishizing of bygone days has been based on a mistake. Paris is perpetually alive, not because it houses the ghosts of the famous dead but because it is the repository and setting of so much of their work. And the purpose of all that old stuff is not to consign us to the past but rather to animate and enliven the present.

That is how I have felt about my 2-4-6 appointments of the summer! When I visited with Laura Hirschberg at Carmine’s Italian eatery (the scene of so many delightful meals for me in 1994-95) or enjoyed the annual visit with Sharon, it was not a musty trip down the ghosts on memory lane, but a reminder of where we come from, and how that animates and enlivens our present.

Ah, did I once see these childhood friends plain? How strange they seem, and new. And relevant. And enlivening.