Students learn best when they can relate to a teacher, yet schools require us to be obscure mysteries. Schools want you to inspire from a distance. Only your “teacher self” can show; everything else must be tucked away.

Think back on the teachers that influenced you as a teenager. Maybe 50% affected you because of their intelligence. They seemed to know cool facts, and they could explain them in ways that made you want to know more. The other half of your memorable teachers seemed to understand something about life, and by sharing with you a tiny slice of theirs, they granted you a hint of what the world could offer. I’m not talking about teachers who kicked back and told stories about partying in 1968, or who did creepy things like offer to take you for a ride in their van. I’m talking about the teacher I remember who told  me I might like the author Herman Hesse, or the one who played Eek-a-Mouse in class and introduced me to reggae music. I’m thinking of Dan Terry and Gerda Bosch, teachers who recognized that I was struggling with the weight of adolescence and called me to their offices simply to talk.

Then you become a teacher and confront attitudes like this:

Educators have a professional image and reputation to uphold. They represent not only themselves but the employing school district. Educators must keep this fact in mind, even when they are off the clock and engaged in personal activities. Educators seem to understand this when they are at the grocery store. They expect to see a parent or student, are dressed appropriately, conduct themselves appropriately and rarely are educators seen behaving inappropriately or immorally. Good judgment typically prevails.

Sure, good judgment should prevail, but teachers have a right to a life outside of school. And yes, I understand that every job has standards, and that an accountant can also get fired for an inappropriate Facebook comment. But I didn’t sign a contract to be some kind of moral beacon for my students. I want to show them how to read and write well, and maybe let them recognize that I’m a moderately upstanding citizen who also happens to love books and teaching.

Instead I get notice that, after much discussion, the Columbia School District is inching its way toward a formal staff and student relations policy dealing with technology. As currently proposed, it contains seventeen problem areas such as the following:

1. Knowingly allow students access to the staff member’s personal social networking website or webpage that discusses or portrays sex, nudity, alcohol or drug use or other behaviors associated with the staff member’s private life that would be inappropriate to discuss with a student at school.
2. Knowingly grant students access to any portion of the member’s personal social networking website or webpage that is not accessible to the general public.
3. Post information about identifiable students on a personal website or webpage on a social networking site.

So what do I do? I have had this web site for years, and I rarely if ever have a student discover it. I limit my posts to ideas that wouldn’t embarrass me if they made their way to the front page of the Columbia Tribune. I hide politics, and religion, and my worst thoughts about teaching, and anything that might cause the people up above any discomfort. I don’t accept students as friends on Facebook. I don’t use text messaging with students. But that doesn’t appear to be good enough. Looking back over my blog, I notice that my April 6, 2010, post mentions that I went to a bar while in Florida for my 40th birthday. My November 5, 2008, post mentions that I saw the election of Barack Obama as a momentous symbolic day in America’s long struggle with the lingering effects of slavery. My May 5, 2008, post uses the word “hillbilly” when discussing a visit to friends in Viburnum. And my December 30, 2009, post lists my favorite CDs of 2009—some with words that might offend a parent if a student happened upon my web page and possibly decided to care about my musical taste enough to download a song.

So I’ll kill my blog, cash my paycheck, and drive another small nail into the remnants of my sixteen-year-old self.

(To be fair, I only spend thirty minutes a day on the Xbox, maybe an hour if I’m really hooked on a game. That explains—okay, that and my lack of skill—why I sucked as an online teammate with games like Call of Duty. Just when my partners were tucked in for a 1:00 a.m. marathon, I’d give a yawn and choose to read a book instead.)

So I’ve been playing a lot of Major League Baseball 2k10 and it has been rough. Eleven games into the season and my St. Louis Cardinals only had two home runs, a handful of doubles, and one stolen base. I’d smash the ball again and again only to see the game switch to slo-mo as the opponent’s shortstop snared another one. I’d hit it to the gap and run it into the wall and end up with a single. I think I’ve gone an entire game without taking a ball, since the pitches flew at me so quickly that timing was all my hand-eye coordination could handle. It also reminded me what a game of details baseball is. Get a guy on 1st and 2nd with no outs, get caught in a rundown, and you might never get a scoring opportunity again. All the while the Mets are pulling double steals and safety squeezes against Yadier Molina!

Needles to say, I was quite proud of my 6-5 record. Sure, I’d never scored more than five runs, and most of my games were 3-2 pitchers’ duels, but the game was tough and I had a winning record. Then I looked at the settings and realized that they were set on Legend. Not Rookie, Pro, or All Star, but the highest possible setting. I dropped it down to Pro, got 17 hits, 11 runs, two home runs for Pulols, and my first grand slam. The ball looks like it’s hanging in midair while I’m batting, waiting for me to pick my spot.

What’s my point? Not sure, but it seems like there should be some life lesson there. Some kind of “Aim for the stars, kid, and you’ll reach the moon” palaver. Or maybe I’ve just realized that it was a lot more fun when I was cussing at the television and begging Skip Schumaker to return to second instead of running pointlessly into the tag at third.

And it’s with those thoughts that I realize it’s time to purchase some new tennis shoes. Now this is quite a big deal in my life. I’m touchy about shoes; I’d gladly pay $200 if the quality made it worth it. Unlike many slightly younger males, I have no innate tennis shoe loyalty (since there just weren’t many choices when I was young). I probably had a pair of early Nikes, some Vans, and multiple Chuck Taylors. But purchasing based on nostalgia feels creepy.

And while I used to make fun of the weird hipster sites that trolled for vintage shoes, I’m really going to miss my tan, suede Puma Roma 68s. I bought them in the clearance aisle at MC Sports. They were so dated that the checker said, “I believe those come with a free pet rock.” (Honestly. My style got taunted by a dude taking my money at MC Sports!) And then they went on to live a life of epic proportions, refusing to be ripped or worn down after five years of wear and tear. Then the tiniest of holes, worn through the leather by my crook’d toe, forced me to face up to reality.

Why would I switch to anything else? No apostasy for me. C’mon, Ebay, treat me right!

Whether it’s Michael Jackson or Rio Ferdinand, if you can carry off an afro then it would be rude not to.

2. I was  reminded of this quote while listening to my favorite CD this month, The Monitor by Titus Andronicus. Now they don’t actually quote this—it’s a CD loosely related to the battle of ironclads during the Civil War, which relates only tangentially to the fashion of afros—but most of the songs on the CD begin with a quote from Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis or Shakespeare. The roughest one is from the pre-war Lincoln:

I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.

Ouch! That one hurts to read. Other than that the album rocks, and I’m especially touched that it has what appear to be at least two Billy Bragg references: “I never wanted to change the world, / but I’m looking for a new New Jersey” and “There will be parties, there will be fun, / There’ll be tall gallows for everyone.” (They also seem to have covered “To Have and Have Not” in concert!) Out of musicians I love, only Bob Marley has influenced my life as much as Billy Bragg, and it’s not like Bragg gets a lot of press or indie name-dropping. Billy Bragg references, literate lyrics, enough energy to make me get into a summertime brawl—What more could I want?

3. Yes, I shed a tear while watching Babe with the kids tonight. It’s easily one of my favorite movies ever, maybe my actual favorite movie of all time. That seems ridiculous, but I can’t figure out what would defeat it. Lord of the Rings? That’s too easy—movies that transport you to another place have an unfair technological advantage. Either way, I saw it when it came out at the theater, have watched it multiple times since then, even watched the sequel (Babe: A Pig in the City) TWICE, and still get choked up when Babe says “She called us all the same thing. She called us babe” or when Farmer Hoggett says, “That’ll do, pig” at the end. Apparently I’m a sucker for stuff like then, since in the last two days I’ve discussed my eternal love for (1) my favorite cartoon, Fat Albert, and (2) my favorite after school 80s addiction, Little House on the Prairie.  They all have that “If you’re not careful you may learn something before it’s done” feel (except for that classic Little House where Albert tries to kick his morphine addiction).

4. I never thought that a weekend spent hanging with the wife and friends on Friday night, watching my son’s soccer game at 9:30 on a Saturday morning, mowing the lawn, playing in the back yard, and eating pizza while watching Babe would turn out to be a little piece of heaven. How strange, especially when I used to feel more in line with the Henry Rollins classic, “Family Man”:

I come for YOU family man, with your christmas lights already up,
You’re such a MAN when you’re puttin up your christmas lights,
First on the block,
Family man.
I wanna crucify you to your front door with the nails
From your well stocked garage, family man.

I gotta say, I’m  not sure who is right or wrong, but i suspect I’m a hell of a lot happier than Henry.

Watch the video here.

And what a faded, one-hurricane-past-its-prime birthday celebration it was! The rest of the family didn’t seem too impressed with Fort Myers Beach, but I liked it’s sketchiness and its personality. I don’t need some fancy 40 party! I spent my time at Jimmy B’s Rooftop Bar, right in the center of the action but somehow the only business in an abandoned, three-story shopping complex. Weird skull graffiti on the ground floor—tattoo business gone downhill at the beach?—but they had an elevator, which meant the bar was filled with old couples using walkers to wobble to the dance floor to slam a few Bud Lights and then get their groove on. And the music was supplied by a karaoke guitarist! (Yes, if my 40th birthday were meant to be traumatic then this was the point where the “faded glory” + old people with walkers should have crushed me. The symbolism was beautiful!)

We followed that with Mother’s Beach Pub and Grill, a biker-friendly bar that served Pabst Blue Ribbon in Mason jars and had a jukebox that seemed to contain only Guns N’ Roses and The Doors. “This is the end / Beautiful friend / This is the end…” It did appear to be a family-friendly place since the only other couple was getting hammered while watching their kid in a stroller. As our waitress said (while describing her trailer lifestyle), “It’s just like Jerry Springer.”

And so we closed out the night at the Shamrock Irish Pub, the least Irish bar I’ve ever stepped foot in. The closest they had to an Irish beer was Yuengling—and that’s made in Pennsylvania! Add to that the horrid crime of electronic darts and I was forced to question their Gaelic heritage. Only a finely grilled cheese sandwich forces me to have a little warmth in my heart for them.

And then some public transportation to take me home in time to tuck the kids in.

So that sums up what interests me at 40—slightly weird experiences that seem symbolic yet won’t let me get at exactly what they mean. I couldn’t have asked for anything better or more fitting.

Yep, not much to see here. Being a teacher in Missouri means that you can be fired for “moral turpitude,” defined as “conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice, honesty or good morals.” While I don’t think I have to worry about that one,  it means you won’t find any Facebook-style party pics here, or remnants of my dissolute glory scattered about. Anything that could cause a brawl at a family reunion has to be carefully scrubbed away. Politics, religion, spectator sports—they might be here, but they will been cradled with an excessive evenhandedness. (Luckily I tend to be impartial with these subjects, and not overly tied to my specific views, so this balance isn’t that difficult.)

My teacher rule of blogging: Don’t post anything that you would regret if it found its way to the cover of the Columbia Daily Tribune. (Hey, that’s the exact same standard I use when choosing texts in class, or using the school e-mail, or reading the web during lunch time. Paranoid?)

So if you cared enough to read this, be cool. I’m just killing time and sharing some banalities with my 2.3 readers. If it seems a bit barren, blame it on the professional standards and not the profession.

But instead I have been fascinated by the politics of the health care debate. It’s the rare fight that really is worth the trouble. I think Republicans are wrong about what the bill will do, but they are right—and Democrats are downplaying—how much it will enshrine the right to health care in our country. The same arguments were made about Medicare, and almost fifty years later there’s not a chance of it going away (as shown by the anti-Obama yet pro-Medicare elderly, and the Republicans’ argument that Obama was cutting money from the program, and Bush’s prescription drug benefit expansion).

The final push in politics—the backroom dealing and vote counting and gettin’ the whip out—probably disgusts many observers, but it’s what interests me the most. Politics is prostitution, and haggling over the price is as old as civilization. Politics is balancing integrity with “What’s in it for me?” Rarely have I seen a day so full of those decisions.

However, it always seems like we could settle things quicker if everyone would just be honest. Ask the real questions! Are we going to let an injured person sit untreated outside a hospital because he or she lacks health care? If not, is it fair to require that person to purchase some form of health care in advance? If we truly believe that the market can handle the health care crisis, why do both parties pass laws requiring specific areas of coverage (like mammograms, mental health, or the recent Republican-led initiative against “fail first” prescriptions)? If the government is already running 50% of the health care in America—through Medicare, the VA, Medicaid, public employee policies, etc.—doesn’t it make sense to run it wisely, even if that means increasing it to 100%? When people bring up health care rationing, how is that different than what already occurs in our country (both with insurance company denials of service and the rationing inherent in having millions uninsured)? We can’t even ask basic questions like whether the United States really does have the best health care in the world, or if we have anything to learn from systems in place in other countries.

Instead we get fake arguments and bad logic and hyperventilating outrage and mounds of hyperbole. And an Obama victory. And a giant step toward universal, single-payer healthcare.

Now I’m not saying that was a bad thing. I actually wanted to go because, despite the often-mellow nature of their CDs, they also possess just enough energy to hint at their deeper David Lee Roths. Don’t give me all mellow unless I came for all mellow, and sure as hell don’t give me all mid-tempo, like you don’t have the guts to choose one extreme or the other! What was odd was that most people probably got hooked on Deer Tick for their acoustic numbers. Instead they heard 75% songs not on any album that I’m aware of, covers like “Maybellene” and “Cheap Sunglasses,” and long, onanistic guitar solos.

I like the CDs. I liked the concert. Molly likes the CDs. Molly would have been annoyed by the concert. Kind of an odd game to play on your $10-paying, out-on-a-Monday-night customers. It was like Dylan going electric at Newport all over again.