Sports Card Collecting

One of the things that the pandemic of 2020 has done, was teach me something new.  Well, not completely new.  When I was just 10 years old and in elementary school, I had a group of friends that were big baseball fans.  In a way, it kind of reminds you of what you see in the movie, "The Sandlot".  It was around 1987, and I wanted to fit in, so I became a sports fan and a fan of baseball cards.  

1987 Topps Baseball was the baseball card of choice and they were cheap.  They may have only been 35 cents a pack, but I think they were actually 50 cents a pack.  So, for a buck you could get two packs.  The baseball cards at that time were completely cardboard and they came packaged with an unwrapped piece of bubble gum.  For the many packs of 1987 Topps baseball cards that I purchased, I don't think there was ever a time when the piece of bubble gum was actually soft.  Hard as a rock every time.  

So back then, especially being a young kid, the idea of collecting baseball cards was to hang on to them forever.  The reason that you do that is because, "Some day they will be worth a lot of money."  So, collect and collect I did.  I collected cards all the way through the early 1990s.  Before you knew it, I had somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 cards.  

So going along with the theory that, "Someday they will be worth a lot of money", I moved those things with me every time I moved.  I still have them now.  However, with COVID-19 raising havoc on 2020 and having more time at home, I decided to start opening those boxes again and see what I actually can do with them.  My first thought was to inventory them and see what my collection is worth.  I am still doing that and have almost 7,000 cards inventoried so far.  Meanwhile, I bought a new Beckett Baseball Price Guide to use a reference in case anything notable comes along and I can see if it has value now.  So, I did find something right away.  I noticed in my Beckett Baseball Price Guide that Ichiro Suzuki Rookie Cards are doing okay.  I noticed that they were valued at about $20.00 a piece.  So, I threw a 2001 Topps Ichiro Suzuki Rookie Card on Feebay, I mean Ebay, and it sold for $13.99.  Then I found a different 2001 Topps Traded Ichiro Suzuki and Albert Pujols 2001 Topps Rookies Of The Year Card, and I sold that for $26.00.  This grabbed my attention.  Two cards sold for $40.00, I can do something with this.  

So after many years of being idle in the card collecting world, I decided to dig deeper and I was now interested in buying some new 2020 cards.  Why buy new cards when I have so many already to sell?  It is because the whole mindset of card collecting has changed.  Instead of that old theory of hang on to the cards forever and they will be worth more money, now the theory has changed to buy and sell now when a player is relevant and the demand is high.  It is kind of like flipping cards instead of flipping houses.  The card companies have changed dramatically as well.  Fleer, who released cards for years, dropped out of the sports card game quite a while ago.  Topps, Donruss, and Score are still around.  When I started collecting when I was 10, the idea of the baseball card was to have a card of each player in the league.  There may have been a few special cards in the set like Record Breakers, Turn Back The Clock, and All-Stars, but the bulk of the cards were regular player cards and all of them were mass produced.  I think the 1987 Topps Baseball set had 792 cards.  As time went on, the cards no longer were strictly cardboard, the gum was no longer included (my teeth thanks them for that), and the idea of special insert cards was born.  You see there were different subsets that were not a part of the regular set that were randomly inserted in packs, and those were the more desirable cards and the ones that would usually fetch the most money.  As inserts became popular and card companies continued to grow and become more creative, they introduced the idea of randomly inserted cards with game used jerseys, game used patches, and game used memorabilia.  These game used cards usually a much lower production run and that, of course, made them more desirable.  In the late 1990's I pulled two types of these cards out of packs.  I pulled a 1998 Brett Favre Game Used Football From Super Bowl 31 card and 200 were only produced.  I also pulled a 1999 Upper Deck Harmon Killebrew Game Used Bat Card and only 500 of those were produced.  I still have both of those cards today and in the office of our home.  

When I was a kid, it was always a dream to get a card autographed.  As collecting autographs became a bigger thing, everyone wanted to know if it had a certificate of authentication to prove it was an actual autograph instead of thinking it was my Grandpa Thomey scribbling on a card to make me feel good.  The card companies have also latched on to randomly inserting autograph cards into their packs and the authentication is listed right on the back of the card.  

Getting back to the present time, 2020 and the pandemic, I was a rookie all over again when it came to card collecting.  I learned that card companies continue to do jersey, patches, and memorabilia cards.  They continue to insert autograph cards.  They add all these types of cards more frequently to make buying cards more desirable.  The new lesson for me was when I learned that now card companies add different color variations, called parallels, into their packs.  There is a limited production run of each parallel and oftentimes it has a serial number on the card to show which numbered card it is.  They make some parallel cards where there is only one card produced period.  That is a home run, in baseball terms, if you can pull one of those.  This past weekend I pulled two of those parallels where only one was produced out of the same box of cards that I purchased.  Right on the front of the card it says 1/1.  It was a rush and it was exciting.  As a collector now that is committed to self-funding this form of card collecting today, I knew I had something really good.  

My goal is to sell all of my cards.  As you get older, the thought of forever seems to fade away.  I want someone to have them that enjoys collecting them, and I want make some money on the side to put away for the future.  Well, maybe some of it will buy new cards to continue flipping.  To me its the best of both worlds with the hobby.  I get the excitement of buying the cards and opening them, but I also get the excitement of seeing what people are paying for them and how desirable they are.  It's a win-win I think.  It is a good hobby that relaxes me after some tough days at work.  Unless I pull an extremely rare card and then the blood pressure goes back up.  Anyways, that is one of my new things learned in the pandemic of 2020.

Be Kind To Everyone.

Any Day Can Bring A Surprise

Today was the back to reality day for me and work.  Summer break has now officially come and gone and it went way too fast, as it usually does.  With the way 2020 has gone and how turned upside down work has gone the past five months, I am feeling more disconnected now than maybe I have ever felt.  I am sure there are many people experiencing the same feelings.  So, today at work, I am working on some things preparing for the upcoming school year.  My phone in my room rings.  I never get calls on this phone.  When it is ringing, I saw the number come up on caller ID and I did not recognize it.  To be honest with you, I thought it was a solicitation call from the Bob Barker Company, because they do a cold call about once every 3-6 months to see if we want to order some more supplies from them.  We haven't ordered from them in years, and that is who I thought was calling.  So, I answered it and thought it was just going to be a routine situation. 

When I answered the phone, the person on the other end asked if I was Tim.  I cautiously answered to confirm that I was Tim.  Then the person on the other end asked if I was Tim Sarych.  Again, I confirmed my identity cautiously.  I asked who it was calling and the person gave me his name.  I am not going to mention his name here.  This guy called me up to tell me that he remembered bullying me when I was in the eighth grade at Maple Grove Junior High.  When he said this, I did not recognize his name or his voice at first.  He had stated that he bullied a few people, but remembered how mean he was to me specifically.  I told him that I honestly didn't remember it, but he did.  He said there was one day where I was wearing cow patterned pants, and he made fun of me for wearing them.  I told him that I believed I was wearing Zubaz that were black and white stripes, and he said that sounded right.  His name and his face started coming back to my memory.  He also claimed that he was so mean to me that I was almost giving him lunch money and that he was almost expelled for the treatment towards me.  Again, I didn't remember this.  He told me that he had thought about me from time to time over the years and was afraid that his treatment had done some permanent damage.  I assured him that there were no lasting effects of his claimed treatment.  Then, he apologized for his actions.  

He said that he came across me on Linked In and felt a need to get a hold of me to apologize for his treatment about 30 years ago now.  When he called, he said it was probably going to be the strangest phone call I had ever received.  He also noticed on my Linked In profile that I am now a Behavior Interventionist and he asked me if that bullying experience contributed to the career path I went down.  I told him no and that there were other reasons and influences for me choosing the career that I did.  I again assured him that I had forgiven him for his choices of treatment back in the eighth grade and I told him that I was glad that we didn't have any of the technology that exists today back then.  I told him that the cyber bullying issues that students deal with today compounds the issue times ten.  He went on to say that he isn't on Facebook and he felt that as there are positives to social media, but he felt that the negatives outweighed the positives and made it not worth it.  As the call wrapped up, I again assured him that he did no permanent damage with his bullying and that I appreciated his honesty and apology, and that I had forgiven him.  He was glad to hear it, and that was the end of the call.

2020 has been a wild ride and we still have four months of it left.  The slogan for the year without a doubt is, "Expect The Unexpected".  Again, it shows that any day can bring a surprise. 

Be kind to everyone.

The Cancellation Of Live PD

I haven't written or published a blog post since May 13th and as much as we thought the world was flipped upside down back then, it most certainly is now more than ever.  I am born and raised from Minnesota, and I still call it home today.  I want to be clear that what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis was murder.  There is no reasonable explanation for the actions of those officers on that day.  There also is no place for racism period.  That is what I believe and that will always be what I believe.  I also work in the education field and I work with a lot of students who have mental health issues.  I also work everyday to build trust and respect with every student that I work with.  In the past 14 years, I have worked with students from every race, ethnicity, and background.  During that time,  I have learned from every student I have worked with and I also learned that everyone's story is different.  I also have learned that each student's reality is unique and I have learned something from each student's story, and I also learned that my reality isn't the only reality.  Over the past 14 years of working with the students I work with, I have learned the importance of connecting and building relationships.  I have learned the importance of active listening, and I have learned the importance of de-escalation.

One of the things that has changed in response to recent events, is the cancellation of the television shows COPS and Live PD.  I am going to talk more about Live PD, but I do want to say something about COPS.  The difference between COPS and Live PD is night and day.  COPS was in its 31st season this year, and it was created to be a product of entertainment.  The former host of Live PD, Dan Abrams, called COPS a highlight show, and he is exactly right.  The show was made for people who wanted the thrill of the action and that is all they wanted to see.  

Live PD's mission is completely different.  Live PD did a good job at being transparent with not only the communities they served, but also the communities who were watching on the A&E Network.  The officers of the communities they were featuring even loved having the cameras on them.  Not to make them famous, but instead to show the transparency of the work they did.  

Live PD had a variety of goals they wanted to accomplish with their show, and they were doing it.  Those goals being things like having a wanted segment featuring individuals that had warrants for felonies and some of the individuals featured were considered armed and dangerous.  Over 30 fugitives were caught because of tips from Live PD viewers.  The show also featured a missing segment that featured missing people, which were often times children, and some of the cases had gone cold.  12 children alone were found alive because of information from Live PD viewers who saw the cases featured on the show.  They also had a segment called "Crime Of The Week", which featured footage of actual crimes to show how the mind of a desperate individual, or individuals, making dangerous decisions thinks and operates.  It also showed how much danger a poor choice can bring to the the public.  The show also showed how much of a drug and gun problem there is in our country and also that it isn't just limited to big cities.  The best part of the show was how it showed officers building relationships with its community members.  All of this is something that COPS did not do.  

For me personally, I was a regular viewer of Live PD.  I want it to be clear that I did not watch the show for the action, or the danger, or to see people wreck their lives.  Instead, I watched the show for the psychology component.  I watched to learn how people think and act when they have made risky decisions that brings possible accountability.  I watched to see an officer have fun and have a dance off with two children who lived in the community that he was serving.  I also watched for the officer who was stopped by an individual who was thanking the officer for saving his life the night before when he was overdosing on drugs while he was laying in the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant.  I also watched to see an officer who pulled over a young man who was 18 years old that had marijuana in his car, and instead of racking up the charges, the officer asked him what he wanted to do with his life.  This started a safe and calm conversation between the two and resulted in the officer giving the young man a few days to write a three page paper about his life goals and then the charges would not be submitted to the county.  I also watched the show for the countless times where officers used de-escalation.  The show also did a good job showing how quickly a situation can turn unsafe when mental health is a factor and plays a role in the situation.  One of the things that I learned from the show that I use in my job is the statement, "I can work with honesty."  I am someone who also will give any student an opportunity to tell me their side of the story.  I do that because it is important.  When trying to resolve a situation and trying to determine what type of accountability is necessary, it is important to factor in every side of the story, including the student's side.  When processing through a situation, I will tell the student I work with that I can work with honesty.  I tell them that I would rather hear the truth, even if it is something I don't want to hear, because I can work with them on that.  It is when the student is not being honest and we have to rely on other evidence that will have the result of consequences that will cost the student more opportunities.  That approach alone is building trust and respect and it keeps the student involved in our community instead of pushing them out of it by suspending them.  It isn't me just coming down on them and not letting them get a word in.  Instead, I listen to their side and include them in the decision making process when it comes to accountability.  It teaches responsibility, and 9.9 out of 10 times it is a positive and successful experience for both sides of the conversation.  

You see, educating is what Live PD was.  It taught skills and it helped people understand the different perspectives and the thought processes behind each perspective.  If you think it is just a show about police officers harassing people and arresting people, then you really haven't "watched" the show.  I am not sure why A&E decided to end the show, I never read their official statement because I was disappointed in the decision.  Like I mentioned before, it brought the transparency that people are currently calling for.  I hope that A&E decides to bring it back.  If they don't, then I hope a different network does, because it was a valuable tool to me.  

Be Kind To Everyone  

Terracycle

Back in 2010, I was still kind of a newbie in the school district I was working for and I was a paraprofessional.  It was safe to say that back then, as a paraprofessional, I had more time on my hands as the students I was working with were more manageable.  So I decided to take over some of the fundraising opportunities that the school was participating in.  Now, participating is a strong verb to use here in this case.  Basically, there was a box sitting in the school office and it collected a few Box Tops, a few Campbell's Soup labels, and maybe a couple of Kemps Milk Caps.  Kemps and Campbell's has since ended their programs.  Then I was in the grocery store one day and I was picking up some items for school.  I ended up seeing on a box of Capri Suns that there was a fundraising opportunity for schools, and I had to read the back of the box.  So being the fundraising guy, it caught my eye.  The program advertised on the back of that Capri Sun box was a program called Terracycle.

Terracycle is a great program.  Terracycle is a company located in New Jersey and it has grown and become international. It has more than one purpose to it and it was also a good lesson for the students in addition to being a fundraiser for the school.  Terracycle recycles, or upcycles, waste that isn't usually accepted in normal curbside recycling programs.  There are many initial assumptions as far as what Terracycle takes, and please don't go thinking it is like the movie "Back To The Future 2" where anything and everything goes into the DeLorean for fuel.  However, there are things that you didn't think Terracycle would accept, but does.  Another assumption that people had when I tried to explain the fundraising program was when they said, "So, I just have to bring you my garbage?"  That was gross when people wanted to participate and that's what they thought they had to do.  Even though the program involved waste, there was a process.

Of course, I jumped into this idea and program with both feet.  I had decided to enroll our school into the program and I basically introduced it to my coworkers at the time at a staff meeting.  I simply told them to remember the name Terracycle.  I said it was a program that we were going to do and that they would be hearing about it more often.  So I jumped in with both feet.  I probably should've stepped into this project one foot at a time, but I guess I was ambitious.

So Terracycle took things like candy wrappers, cheese packaging, and cereal bags and paid schools one or two cents a piece for the items.  Each collection that they upcycled was called a brigade and it was paired with a corporate sponsor so schools could send in the material for free by the shipping being covered.  For example, a candy wrapper brigade was sponsored by M&M/Mars.  The candy wrappers were from any brand of candy and that was the case with most brigades.  It usually wasn't brand specific.  There have been a couple of brigades along the way that were brand specific, but the idea here was to help schools and keep as much waste as possible out of the landfills.  When our school launched the program, the students had good intentions, but there were some really gross submissions.  So we had to make sure we were very detailed in explaining how to submit things for Terracycle.

Our school has recently passed the 10 year mark in being a part of Terracycle.  The most successful brigade that we had participated in was the candy wrapper brigade.  Come on, we are school, what do you expect?  Our school has approximately 60-70 students everyday in a school year, and we sent in over 11,000 candy wrappers totaling over $200.00.  Some people may say that it is only $200.00, but I look at it as we made $200.00 on candy wrappers that would've normally just made their way to the garbage can.  We have participated in 40 different brigades since we joined the Terracycle program in 2010.  As corporate sponsors decided to leave a brigade, sometimes that brought an end to the brigade, which is really hard to accept!  When you are used to turning in things to Terracycle and all of a sudden you have to throw those items away in the trash again, it's kind of sad.  Our school has raised almost $1,200 since we began 10 years ago, and we have upcycled over 67,000 items, which means over 67,000 items stayed out of the landfill.  Some of the other things we currently upcycle and send into Terracycle is air care products and packaging sponsored by Febreeze, most personal care and beauty items and packaging sponsored by Garnier, empty toothpaste tubes and floss containers sponsored by Colgate, empty deodorant containers and personal hygiene items sponsored by Tom's Of Maine, Burt's Bees items and packaging, and more.   Our school actually was surprised with an award once by the Terracycle program.  We had participated in a brigade sponsored by Scotch Tape.  This brigade accepted empty disposable tape dispensers, empty tape cores (the plastic middles of tape rolls, and all the packaging as well.  It was back in 2015, and our school was recognized by being one of the top 10 collection sites in the nation for submitting items to this particular brigade.  So, we were given a small cash bonus, and we were sent a box of Scotch Tape supplies for our school.  The funny story about this is I had no idea as the coordinator of the program for our site that this was coming.  One of my coworkers came up to me and said, "I saw the article in the paper... congratulations".  I just smiled and said thank you and I had no idea what he was talking about.  I had no idea that there was a press release that Terracyle did. Then, I found it.


I am really glad that our school has participated in this program for 10 years.  I am also glad that our school still found a way to currently participate in this program because so much has changed as far as our what our school needs have been over the years.  I will tell you that the most important thing that has made this a successful program at our school is the staff buy-in.  Our school has a couple of major key players that has made this program be a complete success.  Their passion has motivated our students to pay attention to this program and has inspired them to want to help by submitting items of their own instead of throwing them away in the garbage.  That is the coolest part of this, the students learning the valuable life lesson of doing their part in taking care of the environment.

Be Kind To Everyone.

Distance Learning: Six Weeks Later

Here in Minnesota, we are in our sixth week of distance learning.  I can't believe that Friday, March 13th was our last day of school in person with our students.  I never anticipated it to be this long.  As a Behavior Interventionist, I was worried that Friday the 13th was going to influence the student behaviors that day.  It turns out that it ended up being the least of my concerns.

As the school week of March 9th arrived, and as each day happened throughout the week, more and more changed.  The biggest change that made everything real and take it to the next level that week was the evening of Wednesday, March 11th.  I remember that the talk of Coronavirus was really heating up and on March 11th, that was the night that the NBA became the first professional sports league to suspend its season.  I remember laying in bed about 8:30 p.m. CST and I was looking at my phone.  I had seen on Twitter that the NBA was going to suspend their season after that night's games.  I immediately turned my television on and went to ESPN, who was showing NBA games that night.  The game that was currently in action was still going on.  The announcement came in the second quarter of that game.  I watched the rest of it, and the play by play announcers were calling it like it was going to be the final game ever.  This was the first time I really felt uncomfortable with the Coronavirus, or COVID-19.  So that game I was watching came to an end, and there was to be one more NBA game on ESPN before the season was suspended.  So I tuned in, and sure enough it was cancelled because one of the NBA referees had been an official at a game a few nights earlier where the first NBA player who tested positive for COVID-19 had played in.  This announcement changed everything, and everything fell like dominos after that, including moving the Coronavirus into the A topic on all the news channels.

I remember going to work the next morning, on Thursday, March 12th, and my principal, who was out on medical leave, was communicating often about the changes with school that seemed to be changing hourly at that point.  By the time Friday, March 13th, had arrived, our school staff was told to take home things that they may need long term.  At that point, long term was translated as a week or two.  I didn't think we would be here on May 4th saying that we are still in distance learning and we will be doing distance learning for the remainder of the school year, which goes until June 9th for our school.

Early on when all these changes were happening so fast, as an educator, I really didn't take time to stop and think about it too much.  I mean there was so much to be done in a short amount of time.  Our school only had student Chromebooks for the last couple of years.  The school I work in is a public school that is located in a residential treatment facility for adolescent males and that is why we just started integrating more technology within the last couple of years.  It was a blessing in disguise. We had no idea that we were silently preparing for distance learning.

As a Behavior Interventionist, the meat and potatoes of my job is to be an out of class support to students as well as to be on the front lines when a crisis or behavior issue is taking place in a classroom.  A lot of my job is to build student relationships, build trust, help create an environment of feeling safe, which all of my coworkers and I helped make happen.  We also focus on developing and practicing healthy life skills.  I also coordinate a school wide behavior level system, which all of our students participate in.  The obvious question that I asked myself was, "How I am supposed to do this all over a computer from a distance?"  It's a variation of the same question that all the teachers were asking about the curriculum they were going to change and provide.  For the support staff, the most underrated piece of the whole education picture, what was going to be their role from a distance?  Thankfully in Minnesota, the Governor gave Minnesota schools two weeks to plan for what distance learning is going to look like.  For our school, our spring break happened to be the first week of the two week planning period, so our school pulled everything together in just five days.

We modified our behavior level system and the goals that we score the students on.  We also still had them earning school dollars (not real money) for each point they scored on the level system to keep them bought in. Then, we began distance learning with our students on Monday, March 30th.  Throughout the whole planning process, I just continued to do instead of stopping and thinking about everything because I didn't want to get overwhelmed.  If I just focused on one task at a time, I only had to think about things in pieces instead of the whole situation that was going on and changing so often.

So, like I mentioned, we are in our sixth week of distance learning.  I think it is safe to say that it is way more difficult and way more stressful than I could have initially thought.  As a Behavior Interventionist, controlling the environment is important.  With distance learning, the only environment is what you can see on the screen.  While in person, I can be there on the scene, process with the student and encourage them to make a safe and positive choice to get more support in my Refocus Room.  Now, I have to rely on the fact that they will log into my Zoom Room at their designated time.  If the student isn't in a positive place, then it is easy for them to push the support away or not log in and get the support, and that has been mentally draining.  Our school really goes above and beyond when it comes to distance learning, because the more school they have, the more safe and structured their day is.  So, some of our students have six 20 minute Zoom sessions a day and some of our students have eight 20 minute sessions per day.  Our students also participate in a Restorative Practices Talking Circle once a week, and the have additional times where they can visit my room, the Refocus Room, during a 30 minute block every day.  Each teacher is paired with a paraprofessional and they also offer two 30 minute blocks of Zoom office time for assignment assistance with students daily.  It is a lot, but necessary with being in residential treatment.

I feel bad for the 2020 seniors of all schools who will probably have a virtual graduation.  They also missed out on prom and will be missing out on an all night grad party at the end of the year.  However, it is necessary.  Just a couple of weeks ago, the federal government was anticipating the Coronavirus killing 60,000 people in the United States throughout the course of the virus.  We are currently over 65,000 deaths nationwide, and things don't seem to be slowing down yet as testing is continuing to increase to a level that is still catching up to where it should be.  The talk of our summer school session, or ESY, being offered through distance learning seems to be almost certain.  Now there are a lot of talks about things in the fall being different, altered, changed, or postponed.  That is the other tough part of all this.  What started out to be a mindset of adjusting for a couple of weeks has now turned into months, and now there are some reports that social distancing may be necessary for up to two years.  When you combine that on top of the stress that distance learning has already provided, it feels scary.

I am blessed that I am working at a school that has great leadership in the building I work in.  I work with a team of staff who supports each other and focuses on problem solving when things get tough instead of turning on each other.  They also know how to laugh, and that is extremely important these days. I have recently participated in some webinars with other school officials and have heard the horror stories of the intense conflicts that have taken place at other schools between staff members just because of distance learning and that just doubles or triples the mental exhaustion.  Distance Learning is not the way I want to be working with students, but it is the way that it has to be right now.  I have to remember how important self care is when going through this process, and that would be my words of wisdom or advice to everyone right now.  Part of my self care is writing and doing this blog.  So, take care of each other and most importantly take care of you.  This will get better.  Maybe not as quickly as we want, but it will get better.

Be Kind To Everyone.

COVID-19... It's Major Contribution To A Tough Year

Back in the middle of February of 2020, life was normal.  I had a four day weekend from work, went out of town for a night with my wife, and everything carried on as it should have.  It's crazy to think that in a month's time from that point, I would've worked in person at work for possibly the last time of the school year.  That wasn't even comprehendible just 50 days ago.

Three and half weeks ago, when the NBA shut down the NBA season, the next 24 hours was crazy.  It didn't feel real.  Even just three weeks ago, I didn't really realize what kind of impact the world shutting down from COVID-19 would have on me.  For starters, the last three weeks has already felt like three months of time.  Minnesota has a 'Stay In Place' order currently in effect that we are in our second week of.  It appears that it will be extended until the end of April.  One of the hardest things for me is that I am someone that likes to go out and do things.  I like to live life, see and experience new things, and be active.  I am not really a homebody that likes to hang out.  Don't get me wrong, sometimes that sounds wonderful and fantastic, and it is something that I do on occasion, but I like to be busy and doing something.  With no movie theaters, no eating out, no bingo, nothing... this is hard.

My last blog post on this blog, was a post about this being my 25th year of working with youth.  Check out that blog post here if you haven't read it yet, Blogging Rookie: 25 Years Of Working With Youth.  This has been the strangest year of working with youth that I didn't see coming.  The interesting thing about late last summer is that I was struggling with the upcoming school year starting.  The funny thing is that I didn't even know why.  It just wasn't sitting right with me.  Fast forward to now, April 4th, after seven months of the 2019-2020 school year, no wonder why I had a funny feeling last late August.

The school year started off pretty wild.  I had an experience with two students at work where they turned on me and I thought I maybe was going to be jumped.  I had never experienced that on the job and that experience really affected me.  As someone who is in his 12th year of working in the environment that I do, I really didn't think that an experience with students like that would've had such an effect on me, but it did.  I have gained confidence over the years of doing the job that I do, and I have really learned things along the way that have helped me really focus on how I want to support students in a positive manner, along with bringing appropriate accountability when necessary.  I really try to bring a healthy and balanced approach to the students I work with, so they can learn and use the necessary life skills that we try to teach and practice in the work that we do at our school.  So when that approach went the other direction on me and led to be me being threatened, I needed some help myself.  The day after all that happened, my work partner of over three years moved onto another position.  I was happy for her as she has a family of her own to support and I totally understood, but that was a great team that I wasn't ready to have split up.  I am a person that doesn't like change, and I think a lot of people can relate to that.   This had all happened by September 12th, and it was like buckle up, what else could happen this year?  What a stupid question to ask.

The next few weeks left me to being the only one assigned to supporting the students out of the classroom for a while, those were the students that were having personal or school struggles.  Thank goodness I work with a great team of people as many often helped me when the demand from the students became too high.  They never let me sink, and I will never forget that.  We did find a great new addition to the room I work in a month later, and that has worked out good.

After that, there was a period of five weeks where our principal had to be out of work for medical reasons, and then came the COVID-19 effect.  All this and there is still 10 weeks left of the school year, which appears to be more and more likely to finish with distance learning for the rest of the school year.  So, now everything is shut down except for the essential necessities.  I am no longer allowed to go into the building where my school is located as the last day of working with students in-person was Friday, March 13th.  That actually wasn't that long ago, but it feels like a hell of a long time ago.  The day after that last day with students in person, I came down with Influenza A.  I don't think I had ever had Influenza in my life prior to this diagnosis.  Influenza A knocked me down for almost a week, and it didn't allow me to really wrap my head around all the changes that were happening all during that time where I couldn't stay awake for more than about three hours.  However, I was grateful in saying that I was diagnosed with Influenza A, instead of COVID-19.  Once I got over Influenza and was able to grasp everything that was changing by the hour, I just would do and not think.  I always take an approach of thinking and having a plan before doing, but in this case, I couldn't do that.  I had to keep moving forward and doing, instead of stopping and thinking about everything because it would be overwhelming.  Then as things continued to shut down and close, it started leaving me more and more time to think, and that is what is spooking me right now.

When all the restrictions and closures were starting to be put in place because of COVID-19, it was initially to be for a couple of weeks.  As time has moved on, it now appears that things are going to be restricted for months potentially, and again, that is overwhelming.  I never have had a great support system, and with being a person that usually tries to problem solve on his own, it feels lonely.  I am grateful though, I still have my job and I haven't lost my income and livelihood.  That would've complicated everything times 10.  I never thought I would be video conferencing with my students to support them, but that is the way it has to be.  It is tough.  Some of my coworkers are my friends and my supports, and I feel like I have lost that because I can't be around them and laugh.  This is really stressful and I have hardly any escapes from this COVID-19 lifestyle.  One of the things that has snuck up on me is the feeling of FOMO.  Fear of missing out.  Not being able to be on site at the school has really ramped up that feeling.  I always do my job with an approach of being an employee that is irreplaceable, and I have battled myself this year with trying to be relevant.  Sometimes I feel like helping others is my purpose and with that, I want to be part of the solution.  I don't have to be the best one on the squad, but I want to be someone on the squad that is a necessity to the squad.  It is hard to grasp right now and I just hope that now that I can't be at the school helping kids doesn't mean that I am not a necessity to the team.  That is how this sudden, new normal affects my thought process.

I will try to stay positive going through this.  I mean I have to right?  I think it is appropriate at this point to say that this is not going to be a race, but instead a marathon.  I am going to have to pace myself.  One of the things I have done to adjust to that mindset is to not over consume the news.  When I get up and I am getting ready, I will have the morning news on for a bit to see what is going on.  Then, I will have on the Minnesota Governor briefing on to hear the facts about COVID-19 and the executive orders in place for Minnesota.  That's it.  The rest of the time is obviously work, which is a good distraction, and then for me, comedy television or movies.  I have never been a dramatic person, in fact I hate drama, and that is why this is kind of hard to write because it feels dramatic.  For that I apologize.

I just wanted to check in and update what a crazy school year, my 25th year of working with youth, has been.  It feels really good to get this off my shoulders.  I will continue to work as hard as I always do with the mindset of being an employee that is irreplaceable.  Most importantly, I will try to continue to identify ways to self care.  This is something that I have been having conversations on lately, and I will have to figure out what that looks like in our new normal without having so many options that we had before.  I will get there.  I hope everyone is healthy, and please reach out to someone that is a support for you if you are struggling like many of us are right now.  Be kind to everyone.

25 Years Of Working With Youth

It's been a long time.  I was looking today and my last writing on this blog was back in April of 2018 and the subject was the Parkland, Florida shooting and my thoughts on school safety.  Earlier this summer, I made a quick post on Facebook with a hint that this blog was coming.  I have thought and thought about how I am going to take 25 years of experiences and put it into one blog post.  I can't promise that this is going to turn out like I want it to, but the simple fact is that 25 years is a little more broad than the specific topic that I usually write about.  So here we go...

When someone says that they are 25 years into a mission, or a career, or an objective, they tend to be nearing the end of their professional journey.  That is not my case as I started this direction of my career when I was just 17 years old, I was still in high school.  It started with my choice to join a group of other students who were working on getting a youth center built in the small community that I grew up in.  The group was working in collaboration with another organization that had the same mission, or at the beginning, that was the belief.  The other students and I wanted a safe place for other students to go to and that is what the other organization was saying at our meetings.  As the next few months went on, the other students and I became a youth service organization called "Youth Action Force" and we were the board of directors.  Over this time, we as an organization, felt that jumping right into getting a youth center built in the community was getting the cart before the horse.  We scaled back and rethought our position and came to the determination that getting youth involved in the community was a necessary first step before getting the youth center built.  The other organization we collaborated with was not a fan at all about our change in thinking and it became quite clear that their goal with having a youth center was to push a religion practice, in addition to the money it could make for their organization.  It was at this point, that we decided to move on to our own path and get youth involved in the community.  As we went on, Youth Action Force had over 60 other students become members of our youth service organization, in a community that had a school that had a total of about 500-600 students in grades 7-12.  Many of them participated in different youth service projects that were opportunities for our organization to get youth involved in.  The really cool thing about our organization was that we had a real balanced mix of students which included students who were looking for their "place" socially as a teenager and high school student, student athletes, fine arts students, students who were just making the transition from middle school to high school, students who were struggling to find an identity, and some that just wanted to be involved in everything to boost a college resume.  When Youth Action Force hit their stride, we organized a Youth Speaks Out day at the high school and worked with the Rockford School District to change the schedule of the afternoon of a school day and have our over 60 members pair up and go into every classroom and have a conversation with the class or students about how the youth view the community and how they want to be involved. It was so cool to see different mixes of students pair up and lead these discussions.  We also were the featured program shortly after that at a community town hall meeting.  It all happened so fast.  I don't think at the time, that I realized how big this was becoming and what was being accomplished.  Other than a few peers, I didn't have really a lot of support with all of this.  I could chalk it up to being young and stupid and not knowing what I really was doing, which was probably partially true, but it was probably the most courage that I ever had in my life and it did continue to lead to more opportunities.

I became the official "youth" representative at many community organizations.  There was a community collaborative group called Riverside Community Forum where collaborative projects were discussed and executed.  This was a group that consisted of school officials, local business owners, religious leaders in the community, city officials, and county participants.  It lead to me being a creator of a youth mentoring program called Rocket Buddies, where high school students were paired with elementary students and they met weekly after school once a week to build leadership, relationships, and to give the younger students a potential role model to look up to.  Then, the Community Education Director with the Rockford School District approached me to come work with their School Age Child Care program called Creative Corners.  It was nice, because I could finally make some money doing this work instead of just volunteering.  Creative Corners was a great job.  I got along with everyone, as everyone that worked with the program was on the same page and that made an enjoyable climate for the youth that were in the program.  It was a team of people that clicked so well, that we offered the parents and students camping opportunities, Minnesota Twins baseball game outings, and even an overnight sleepover in the school.  Those were above and beyond the normal service offerings with the program.  Again, it was something that took a lot of courage, and was something bigger than I realized at the time when I was doing it.

Over my 25 years of working with youth, I have worked for five different school districts.  They are all in Minnesota.  They are the Rockford School District, Brainerd School District, Bemidji School District, Crosby-Ironton School District and my current employer, the Onamia School District.  My positions in these school districts have included School Age Child Care, Youth Development Coordinator twice, Facility Use Coordinator, Summer Child Care Transportation, Energy Efficiency Coordinator, Paraprofessional, Residential Treatment Counselor, and Behavior Interventionist.  In addition to working with the five school districts, I have also worked with two different private child care companies, one called KidNation and the other one called Step and Go.  I was also involved with the Wright County Collaborative, which had a focus on asset building and developing asset building in youth.  The belief at that time, was the higher number of assets that students had, the higher the chance of success.

I think the most eye opening part of the last 25 years of working with youth is how youth have changed.  Society has changed.  I think as these changes have occurred, the needs of youth have skyrocketed.  It can be kind of scary when you look at it as a big picture model.  It is more realistic to look at the task in front of you and take it one day at a time, and that is hard for me.  I am one to always look ahead and look at the possible outcomes.  My time as a youth had many different challenges.  In some ways I was lucky to have what I had, but I had a lot of challenges and that is what made me decide at 17 years old to want to help other youth.  Some of my challenges were what would be classified as typical challenges for a child or youth, and some were not.  With those challenges, I didn't necessarily have a place where I truly felt I belonged and that was hard.  I never resorted to drugs or alcohol and never smoked cigarettes.  I was someone with a good heart that wanted to help others.  I am still helping youth today, and I work tirelessly at it.  There are days and weeks that completely kick my ass, but seeing a student succeed has made it worth it.

Moving forward, as my professional life continues on, I am not sure where it goes.  My current role includes working with a high number of special education and mental health students.  I have always loved to be innovative and creative and I feel it makes me a valuable part of the team.  Over the last 12 years with my current employer, I have been a part of developing a behavior level system, helping push the idea of developing an academic resource room in our school, and coming up with reward systems in classrooms, which my wife will never admit to with her classroom.  They say that the average life of a special education teacher is five years.  That is crazy with all the commitment it takes to become a special education teacher.  I am not a special education teacher, but I work with mental health special education students and when you combine my time as a paraprofessional and behavior interventionist with the Onamia School district, 12 years is pretty good.  I have always, and to this day, been an employee that comes to work and works hard.  I will tell people that I don't want to be replaceable.  We know that every position is replaceable, but I work with the belief that I don't want to be a body, I want to be a person that is valuable.  Maybe some of that is because that is what I need, but it was I practice.  Moving forward, I want to continue to grow.  I want continue to increase my leadership opportunities and I want to continue to grow in the area of coaching people who work with youth.  I don't say challenging youth, because all youth have different challenges.  When I started this work, I was drinking the Kool-Aid in believing that all students had a healthy home, healthy families, everyone attended school, and everyone's needs were the same.   After 25 years, it is nothing like that. There have been experiences in this work that I never could have imagined happening and it continues to this day.  When I was 17 and doing a public presentation at a town hall meeting about youth involvement in the community, I didn't realize that I was an effective public speaker.  I am not going to say a good public speaker, because that is up to everyone's own opinion.  I got away from public speaking for quite a while, but over the past few years I have had some opportunities to do presentations in front of my co-workers at my school site.  In 2016, I became a certified instructor for the ALICE Training Institute and that has created the opportunity to do some more larger scale public speaking again and that has been good for me.  When I started speaking again in front of people and to larger groups, I learned that my skills in public speaking had become very rusty and that I was very nervous, which never existed before.  Now that I am getting rid of the rust, the nerves are tending to go away as well and I am looking forward to more potential opportunities to speak publicly.  I want to continue to push myself and grow.

Finally, I have worked with some amazing people over my 25 years in this work.  We all have had negative experiences of working with people, but it is the special and talented ones that I chose to remember and will always remember. These people have made a positive impact.  Lynn Englund, Anna Varner, Eric Lloyd, Lori Bromley, Ann Mavis, Dale Sova, Curt Hiltbrunner, Midge Robinson, Larry Ronglien, Jason Donahue, Mary Stephens, Lisa Stawarski, and Holly Booth.  These individuals are the ones who pushed me and helped me grow professionally.  These individuals gave me guidance in the work I do.  It has been an interesting path, but it has made me who I am now.  I look forward to where the path goes from here.