I Hope You Have a Home

On Saturday, my mother got the call we had all been dreading.  Come home, it is time, she is ready.  My 98 year old grandmother had taken a turn for the worse and now had told the world that she was ready.  A plane ride later, and a vigil kept and mormor is slowly slipping away.  We get reports through emails and phone calls; no news, it just gets worse, she is ready to go home.

My family is not one seeped in religion, in fact, hardly anyone believes in an afterlife.  So when my grandmother speaks of home, she does not speak of the heavenly version, or the eternal one, but the one where my grandfather is.  As some of you know he passed December 14th, 2011 after 62 years of marriage to my grandmother.  In those 62 years they spent one night apart, one night, and they hated it so much they never did it again.  So home to my grandmother is wherever he is, wherever they can be together.  And we wish nothing more for her than that she gets her wish even if it means leaving all of us who have looked to her for comfort, wisdom, and eternal optimism.  Home is no longer with us.  It is and always has been wherever morfar is.

So although it may be selfish, or it may even be cruel to others, I look at my own relationship with Brandon and I realize that he is my home.  That wherever he is is where I need to be.  And I am comforted that someday I will be in that same position, I understand what it means to be done with life so that you can be with the one you are supposed to be with.  I understand when my mormor wishes for peace, saying she has lived enough, that she is ready and that we will be ok.  

So in the end I wish nothing more for anyone, that they too have someone to come home to after a long life, after a lot of life.  I hope you have a home.

She Has Gone Home

The phone call came this afternoon.  As I stepped out of a meeting the message light beckoned and on there was my mother's voice giving me the inevitable news; mormor had passed.  As we mourn as a family we cry not for her but for ourselves, for we are the children left behind.  She gets what she wanted; peace and to be be with her husband.  We also get what we wanted; her to be in peace, with no pain, together with the man whom she loved more than anything.  And yet, the sorrow has just begun to settle in.

I now go through the world without any grandparents but that doesn't mean I don't have a past.  I will show my children the videos of these two people who showed me what dedication and love means.  What perseverance and staying together looks like in our much too frantic society.  We have proof that love matters most; it is our veins, it is in our heritage.  It is up to us to pass it on.

Tomorrow would be the day, 66 years ago, that my grandparents met each other and fell in love.  I cannot think of anything more beautiful than that my grandmother got to go be with my grandfather once again.  That perhaps tomorrow she gets to meet him again, wherever they are, and now they don't ever have to leave the other one behind.  So I smile through my tears and vow to never forget and to carry them with us wherever we go.  Mormor heard about the twins, how they are a boy and a girl, and I cannot help but wonder if Ida and Oskar wont get just a little bit of my grandparents soul in them.  I hope so.

Related articles

• I Hope You Have a Home (mrspripp.blogspot.com)

Stop Telling Me Technology Engages

Image from here

Not too long ago when I brought up my dislike for the cost of Smartboards working in a budget crunched district, I was told that there was no way I could dismiss the improvement of student engagement that it has created in my classroom.  I met that statement with raised eyebrows and then shook my head.  The Smartboard or whatever technology tool I may be using is not what increases engagement in my students; the content is.  The tool does not engage; the learning does.  Because if the tool is the only thing that engages then I would say we are in serious trouble.  If the tool is the only thing we use to keep those kids tuned in and invested then we need to do some serious re-thinking of our curriculum and delivery.  

So while districts can flaunt all of the technology tools they so happily purchase with or without teacher input, we cannot tout that our engagement level goes up just because of that purchase.  We cannot say we are now 21st century districts, since in all sincerity this is the 21st century no matter what tools we have.  Sure kids may be looking at the board or screen more when we have more technology, but how much of that is training or simple politeness; a feigned interest or hope that something engaging will show up on that screen?  How much of that is because all of them are facing the board rather than in pods?  How many of them long for getting out of their seats and do something rather than watch one person direct the learning?

So don't tell me that putting a Smartboard in my room increases student engagement, in fact, please run any technology purchase by me so that I can investigate and dissect it.  Don't tell me that my students are eagerly anticipating their turn to click the magic board, that wears off after the first couple of days.  Tell me instead that the curriculum we teach is worthwhile, that the learning that we DO is engaging, that my students are engaged because they choose to be and I put enough thought into what I am teaching to realize that.  Tell me that and I will agree; the tool does not create the engagement, we do.