Still Learning

I'm 57.  But, I swear this week I felt as though I was back in high school.  17 and unsure.  I re-learned two important lessons this week... 1) gossip is ALWAYS bad and 2) rules are rules... Lesson 1 comes from my primary job where I was reminded...again... that gossip is gossip and is almost always hurtful....that people will respect you far more for what you do than for what you say...and that what you say can be misinterpreted and isn't easily forgotten, once its said.   And, yet, as I was reminded, we of the human condition are quite ordinary and fallible, prone to stupidity, ignorance and self-aggrandizement.  And.....lesson # 2 from my part time job where despite giving 110%, upper management chose to focus on what I wasn't doing, instead of on what I was doing....


So, in addition to the reminder that I'm still learning about how to act, I am reminded that listening is perhaps the skill that I need to work on the most.   A passionate listener is something that we all long for when we are talking, but it's so much harder to be that person, the person who listens with all of her heart and mind...who engages in the conversation...who puts the to do list on the shelf for a bit...who pays attention to the speaker and doesn't focus on the million other things that vie for attention.


I feel myself pulled in a million different directions.  It's as though when I am at work, part of me is worrying about the kids or my dad or the bills.  And, when I'm home, I'm worried about my colleagues, my to do list, my students, my content.  So, part of trying to commit to being a better listener is commiting to simply BEING THERE wherever I am.  

A Mom's View by an Assistant Principal

As an assistant principal, a student, a teacher, and the mother of a teacher I think that I have a unique perspective on the business of school.  Today, Sarah got a less than terrific evaluation from her principal which is a shame because she’s one of the best young teachers that I know.  It caused me to reflect a bit on this time of year in schools and on some of the fundamental differences between Catholic and public schools. 

I have worked most of my teaching career in Catholic schools, specifically Archbishop O’Hara High School.  And, as most of us who have worked in Catholic schools have thought from time to time, I’ve wondered whether I sacrificed too much in terms of salary or teacher retirement in staying in one place for so long.   But today, again, I feel reaffirmed in my decision.  Sarah’s principal is a product of the public school mind set, as I have come to see it during my course work for my master’s.    Cultivating strong relationships, helping teachers to grow and improve, caring for the whole child…these appear not much a part of her agenda, nor of the agenda of many of the public school principals that I’ve interacted with over the past year. 

It’s too bad.  Sarah is a terrific teacher, and I don’t just say that because she is my daughter.  Her cooperating teacher at her student teaching assignment saw it, her professors at Creighton recognized it, and her evaluations by this principal have been strong, until today.  The summative evaluation that the principal filled out was undoubtedly influenced by the harpings of an older crowd of teachers who disapproved of Sarah’s methods and were probably jealous of her youth, enthusiasm and energy.  That a principal could be influenced by a cadre of cronies could happen in a Catholic school, but it seems less likely too.  Catholic school teachers that I know are not much threatened by innovation, energy, or enthusiasm…probably because they’re too busy teaching, cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, and doing all of the other myriad of tasks that parochial school teachers do as a matter of course.  I have to confess that as a Catholic school teacher I haven’t been regularly evaluated and yet I know because of my regular interaction with my principal and colleagues when I’ve done a good job and when I haven’t.  When problems arise, as they always do, I talk them out with a colleague or the principal and it’s been that way since I started at O’Hara.  The staff is congenial and there’s no jealously, or at least not much.    No one worries about tenure because it doesn’t exist for us.  Even when we’re mad or frustrated or angry, it’s like a family squabble.  No one worries much about politics. 

It’s no wonder that young teachers get discouraged in the impersonal, meat-grinder atmosphere of many public schools.  I know that it’s not that way in all schools, but in far too many, emphasis is on management, not teaching; regulation, not learning; control, not care.   My advice to all young teachers…hold on, stay tough, don’t let the older or embittered or bureaucratic wear you down.  You are important in the life of a child.  Remember and hold on to that and when you are a principal, or a department chair, remember to embrace the new teachers. . .encourage them. . .make them a part of your community.  Then, and only then, will education be improved in this country. . .unless, of course, public schools embrace the Catholic model.  Spoken like a Lasallian educator.

Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day and I miss my mom. I did a bit of research and discovered that we have Julia Ward Howe and the carnage of the Civil War to thank for the idea of Mother's Day. Julia Ward Howe who is better known as the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic proposed a day to celebrate Mothers and Peace after she witnessed the thousands dead. And, so today we honor moms. I remember those friends and family who are moms and I thank them for their gifts. There are so many moms whose stories give me courage and hope, who inspire...For Joan, who lost a job and beat cancer and found the courage to start anew....For Maura and Michelle whose fierce determination to give their sons with Down Syndrome a Catholic education that will help them be all that they can be....For Walter whose wife died and had to be both mom and dad for his two young children....for the nameless moms...the mother of Moses who set her son in a basket of rushes and watched from afar as he was raised in a stranger's home....for the Jewish moms of Nazi Germany who sent their children away to save them, knowing that they would likely never see them again....for the mother of Frederick Douglass who walked miles in the night to lie with her son for a few precious hours before she had to walk home to begin her day of labor on the plantation...for the young moms at O'Hara who spend countless hours juggling their role as teacher and mom and do so with grace and enthusiasm...for the countless Catholic sisters who chose not to have children so they could teach and nurse and pray for the children of others...for the young mom in Lees Summit whose baby died in her car while she taught the children of others...for the moms who have lost their child...For Cathy and Eileen and Kim...who somehow found the courage to go on. For all moms, everywhere, for those who live in grinding poverty and who lack the basic necessities of water and food and shelter...for those moms in the nursing home whose daughters come each day to feed them and talk with them, even though they do not understand. . .for those moms who accept grubby, half dead flowers from little hands and know that they've received a precious, invaluable gift. . .Thank you for your sacrifice. Your stories are mine because I too am a mom. It's the best thing I've ever done and ever hope to do and each day brings smiles and tears, hope and fear. Does any mom hear an ambulance go by and not wonder where her children are at that moment. . .We want so much for our kids. Mostly I want them to live lives that are filled with hope and relationships that bring them mostly joy. And, I hope that my kids know that I love being a mom. My mom and I were close but now that she is gone, I find myself wondering and thinking more about her as a woman. What were her fears and hopes and dreams? We talked every day but I feel as though I never really knew her. And, oh, how I wish I had known her better. I knew she didn't really like living in Tuscumbia but she did it anyway. She worked most of her life outside the home. How did she feel about that? She was smart and had gone to secretarial school...did she ever wish she had done more? She had some friends but I don't know who she confided in about us or about her marriage. Mom was a pragmatist and a realist...perhaps she didn't think about these things, but I remember that she would spend 2 or 3 nights a week on the river, fishing...normally by herslef, although sometimes one of the boys or my dad would go with her. I think there she found peace and solitude and had time to reflect. I wish I had sat with her....even in silence I would have learned more about her. I miss you mom. Happy Mother's day.

An Editorial Worth Sharing

We Are All Nuns, Great Editorial

My New Commitment to Exercise

Remember the Sisters

Abigail Adams once admonished her husband to "remember the ladies."  Pope Benedict might do well to listen to her advice.  I cannot believe the Vatican has decided to crack down on the 57,000 nuns in the United States who have somehow run afoul of church hierarchy, supposedly for not doing enough to stand up against homosexuality and the ordination of women.  "Unsullied by the clerical sex abuse scandals and recognized as central to the ministries and mission of the Church, Catholic sisters are these days often seen as the best of the institution and the finest representatives it has — women who worship God and emulate Jesus, and workers who minister to the poor and run schools and hospitals."  The following blog post is must reading for all Catholics.  I remember with great affection the nuns who traveled each Saturday to teach catechism for the poor public school kids of Eldon who did not have the advantage of a Catholic school.  They were nuns of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, an order well known for its teaching mission.  They were committed and involved women who showed us what it meant to live a life for others.  Click on the link to read the blog post from "She the People" in the Washington Post.Remember the Nuns

What a Terrific Story. Read and Enjoy.

A life without left turns
Posted 6/15/2006 9:57 PM ET E-mail | Print |

Enlarge Gartner family photo

Carl Gartner in 1934.
By Michael Gartner
My father never drove a car.
Well, that's not quite right.

I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.

"In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."

At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:

"Oh, bull——!" she said. "He hit a horse."

"Well," my father said, "there was that, too."

So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars — the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford — but we had none. My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

Our 1950 Chevy

My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one."

It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.

But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.

Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying once.

For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps — though they seldom left the city limits — and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.

The ritual walk to church

Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.) He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church.

He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."

After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. (In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.") If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out — and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream.

As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?" "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.

"No left turns," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn."

"What?" I said again. "No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights."

"You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support. "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works."

But then she added: "Except when your father loses count."

I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked. "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."

I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.

"No," he said. "If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week."

My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom — the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.) He continued to walk daily — he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising — and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

A happy life

One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news. A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer." "You're probably right," I said. "Why would you say that?" he countered, somewhat irritated. "Because you're 102 years old," I said. "Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day. That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet." An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:

"I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have."

A short time later, he died.

I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.

I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life.

Or because he quit taking left turns.

Michael Gartner has been editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.