One More Word on Theodore

After visiting Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and reading David McCullough's book Mornings On Horseback about TR's formative years, I have been trying to reconcile several ideas in my head. Roosevelt is celebrated for his advancement of "the strenuous life". He calls the outdoor life a "tonic" and points to his outdoor activities as a major part of shaping his life experience. Historically he is credited with bringing forward the ideas of conservation and outdoor adventure as part of the thinking that pushed the idea into the mainstream of American thought and psyche.

Except his experiences lead from his position as a wealthy elite. In fact the elite of the elite. His family's wealth was of long standing and entrenched from his grandfather's time. His house were of the upstairs/downstairs Downton Abbey style. Not in physical size but with servants in the lower house cooking and upstairs servants to serve meals and attend to family needs.  In his childhood his father and mother took the entire family to Europe for a year of travel, and they went again through Europe onto Egypt  a chartered rip on a boat down the Nile (complete with servants). Nobody had to go into work and punch a clock. True the Roosevelt family did attend to business, but the ability to walk away for long periods of time was a testament to the wise investment choices made by the family and the size of their fortune. His explorations come with the extra "padding" of wealth to hire support in the form of guides and cooks and manservants.

Roosevelt comes to the Dakotas ostensibly on business to explore about raising cattle in the North Dakota badlands. He is also a crux point in his life. He has just lost his beloved wife who died just after giving birth to his first child. On the same day his mother died. Two beloved figures in his life. He turns his daughter over to his sister to be raised. I cannot fathom his grief. He plunges on with some politics in the spring but after the Republican convention he is off to the Dakotas.

In the Dakotas he does have help from folks who were guides for him in Maine. It is also said that he threw himself into learning the trade of ranching, never being a very skilled cowboy but adequate and willing to the tasks.

McCullough never says it but I can imagine him riding out to the edge of a grassy butte and just letting the tears flow. Roosevelt in some of his writings talks about this being a change point in his life. Now being unfettered with family he faces decisions about his life. His experiences in the Badlands are a way for him to step away from New York re-gather himself through the tonic of the vigorous life and plunge ahead.

And yet it was his wealth that allowed him to do it. His cattle venture cost him about some $700000 in today's money. As a young man he was able to step away, sort out his life as best he could, weather a financial loss and see his change circumstance as a product of a vigorous life on the range. He was not the workaday cowboy supporting the daily tasks and the venture after Roosevelt returned to his city and wealth based life. Maybe in some way you needed to be financially independent to allow the tonic of the wilderness to work on you. Otherwise you  are just a work-a-day-joe whose roping and riding are a paycheck rather than a adventure to write about or to be able to tell stories about in the drawning rooms of high society.

It is not without notice that I also am at a change point in my life. I don't have Roosevelt's means but there is a certain parallel that for the short time we have the means to travel and the luxury of time and the wilderness to short out what comes next. So for it has been for us, like Roosevelt, a delightfully bully tonic!

The Last Bulletin Board

Dear Friends,

We race through June and I find myself looking at my last few days of school. I will retire at the end of the school year. It is a time when it is important to remember and to say thank you. I have been  doing that a lot these days.

I wanted to find a way to thank my online community of educators, my PLC, who have been such an important part of my teaching and learning, especially over the last 10 years. I am struggling to figure out an adequate way to do it.  I thought that I would just make a very long FB post with the names of all the folks that I have connected with through the dawn of Web 2.0, and the infancy of educational blogging. I tried to go back to old conference resources to refresh my memory as to not overlook someone. It was jaw dropping.  My list of people it was important to thank quickly grew to over one hundred, and was still climbing before I stopped.  I thought about people whose blogs I read, who I  listened to on podcasts, tweeted with on Twitter, became friends with on Facebook or through Nings and Wikispaces or connected with at Educon, K-12 Online, ISTE, November Learning, EdCamps, Discovery DEN, Second Life, GAFE Summits, PD in PJ’s, or met through a host of regional meetups. And look, the list of just the places, never mind the individual people,  is too long!

What a journey we have been on!

So, I cannot thank you all individually. All I can say is that I treasure your friendship. You have nourished me, inspired me, challenged me, put up with me, and changed my teaching and learning forever. The kids and teachers in my schools have benefitted from your passion and wisdom.  I was grateful for your acceptance and welcome in the beginning, and still need you today.

However  after 33 years I am going to step aside for a little bit.  Not too far and I think not for too long. There are some things I promised myself (and my wife) that I want to get to while life is still young. I like to tell my local friends that I will still be a teacher, I just won’t have to go to school anymore. For the next few months at least, you can follow me at the following blog: After School Adventures: http://sokosafterschool.blogspot.com

Retirement

I am down to the wire. In a few short days I will retire after 33 years of being a teacher. I think that I will always be a teacher, but after June 23rd I will not have to go to school anymore. Here are some remarks I made at our district retirement recognition reception last evening .....

So, a podium, a microphone, a captive audience and ….Sokoloski. Who thought THIS was a good idea? Celeste?

As you approach retirement, you know that this day and this particular time is coming.  Stories and memories of 33 years (15 at EASTCONN and 18 here in Mansfield) float to the surface of your brain. It is hard to sort through them all and and choose what to say.

There are stories of laughter and fun. There are stories of sadness and pain.  There are stories of how the events of the world shook our little schools to the core and stories of steely resolve to protect the lives we care for everyday. There are stories of enormous courage, faith and love, that demonstrate unfathomable  depths of compassion towards our students, each other and our community. And there, are stories of irascibility and stubbornness, when we were not at our best for our students nor for each other.

There are stories of when we reached high, worked incredibly hard, and touched excellence. When teaching became so perfect, it felt like you were dancing in the front of the classroom and every moment of a lesson you designed flowed from somewhere deep within you, and yet was somehow was also coming from beyond you. And you won awards and accolades and praise. And then, there were the train wreck lessons when chaos ruled the classroom. There are stories that are profane, and stories that are scatalogical, and stories that are both profane and scatalogical. There are stories that would keep a whole team of lawyers down at Shipman and Goodman untangling Title 9 issues  for years.

And then, there are a whole genre of stories that are so bat crap crazy that if you told them outside of this room, people’s jaws would drop and they never would believe you for a minute, no matter how hard you tried. But, if you told the same story here, people in this room would turn to each other, nod their heads and say, “Yup, just another day in paradise!”

So, I am not going to tell embarrassing stories about us. Not that you don’t deserve it, it just that I wouldn’t want leave out somebody who really deserved it. You are off the hook, except for three educators that I have to talk about.

The first is a Speech Pathologist, the Hermione Granger of the preschool division of the West Hartford Public Schools, my elder daughter Sarah, of whom I am so proud. The next is a Physical Education and Health teacher at Ellington Middle School, the hottest young softball coach of the Connecticut River Valley Middle School League, my incredibly talented younger daughter Katie. These two young ladies have brought two fine gentlemen into my life my sons-in-law Bryan and Nate who are working today. How great is that, son-in-laws at work while the girls get to party! They have fully grasped the concept of “marrying up” and have understood that the more they allow their father-in-law to beat them at golf the more often he will pay for their rounds.

The last educator is my retired Biology teacher wife, Marsha. Those that know me best, know that if I have been able to contribute anything to the Mansfield Public Schools, it is because this good woman has for most of these last 18 years put her cold feet into the small of my back when the alarm went off at 4:45 in the morning and pushed me out bed saying, “You are going to the gym today aren’t you?”  And then just as lovingly got up went into the kitchen and put together my lunch, and breakfast and to walk me out to the car reminding me to check for my wallet, phone, keys, and in recent years making sure I did not forget to gulp down a handful of drugs.

Would you join me in a round of applause as I tell my wife of 37 years, how much I love her and how much I am looking forward to the freedom and adventures retirement will bring?

I did want to say one word about Fred. I know we all are sad and mad and frustrated about whatever that was that went on.  I know I am. However,  for almost of of my time in Mansfield he was my boss. I always found him to be honest, fair, and a straight shooter. He held me accountable when I needed it, cut me slack when I deserved it  and offered me compassion in some tough times in my life. I could not leave without saying thanks to him.

For the rest of you guys, let me just say thank you for allowing me to grow and learn. I am better technically, intellectually and professionally for working with you. You have taught me to be more kind, more patient, and more understanding as a person. I leave as a better human being  for the time I had teaching with you all.

And to the community of Mansfield especially those here tonight who have or had children in our schools,  thank you for letting me hang out with your kids. It has been an honor and a privilege to teach them.