Tour de Wyoming - Check-in

The Tour lets you pick your accommodations. Communities are generally supportive of the Tour, and more often than not, schools are home base. You can purchase breakfast and dinner plans, and students often help prepare and serve the meals. The quality of meals varies quite a bit, but the truly cool thing about this approach is that it gets the community involved. Imagine a rolling horde of 400 people descending on small Wyoming towns – it makes quite an economic impact.

Speaking of economics, if you’re looking to do the Tour on the cheap, you can camp outside on school grounds, camp inside in the schools’ gyms (or hallways under trophy cases, as we’ll see), or anywhere else you can find a spot. Those with a little more cash can opt for hotels or indulge in services like Shuttle Guy, who lugs all your crap and provides a tent for you. Shuttle Guy also does cool things like have shade tents and treats set up at the end of the day, and you might be surprised by just how valuable a patch of shade can be during the Tour.

This year’s Tour route began and ended in Worland, a town of 5,000 or so in the Big Horn Basin. If the words “Big Horn Basin” instill romantic images of the West, think again. Oh sure, you can see the Big Horn Mountains to the east, but Worland is notorious for its awful summer weather. The Basin often claims statewide record highs.

Kathryn and I had headed to Casper on Friday night to see my dad and stepmom, who were in town for a friend’s memorial service. Chad, Melissa, and Parker came down from Sheridan and we all had dinner at a steakhouse that used to be a fancy-pants Casper dining experience.

A note here about Casper.

I shudder every time I go there. Passing landmarks from my adolescence and young adulthood is very strange, and although it’s not unpleasant, whenever I drive by Smith’s Food and Drug, cruise downtown, or go to Eastridge Mall, a flash of something funny and tragic and slightly pathetic pierces me. I think it’s my youth.

And there’s a new note to these feelings. Casper’s always had an element of terrestrial and social grit to it, thanks largely to wind and energy jobs respectively, but a more malicious edge is evident now. Tough-looking dudes in black baseball caps lurk in every restaurant, and huge, loud diesel pickups are everywhere. I’ve never thought cops have an easy job, but in Casper it must be especially awful.

We spent the night at a hotel on the east side of town, had breakfast, watched my nephew swim and got Vicki on Facebook, and then it was time to head out. After lunch at Hardee’s (another old haunt), we were finally on our way to Worland. That’s not a particularly pretty drive unless you like high deserts and gas wells.

At Shoshoni, however, the drive does get nice as you turn north and head into Wind River Canyon. That place blows my mind every time.

We rolled into Worland around 2:30, far too early for the 4:00 check in, so we scoped the Worland Community Center (formerly Worland High) and decided to set up camp on the old football field. It was broiling hot – somewhere in the upper 90’s – and once the tent was up, we headed back inside, where other cyclists trickled in.

Registration was easy: you went to a table and found a bag with your name on it. Inside the bag were some maps, wristbands if you bought meal plans, a t-shirt, and a jersey if you bought one. In February, when I’d first registered, I purchased an extra large because I’d heard that bike jerseys fit notoriously snugly. I’d since lost 10 pounds or so, or at least shifted some fat to muscle, and the extra large was going to look like a parasail. One of the Tour volunteers very kindly let me trade down a size.

At that point we had some time to kill, so Kathryn took off in the car to find wireless somewhere – anywhere – in town, and I just hung around inside the building. A few hours later Kathryn returned, having successfully parked in front of the public library and borrowed their wireless, and then it was time for an orientation session. All 400 of us crammed into the old, non-air conditioned gym, and after some safety instructions and demonstrations, we were done for the night.

The meal plan didn’t include dinner on that first night, so Kathryn and I went to Arby’s. As the sun set lower, it was finally starting to cool off on the field, so we hung around the tent. Night finally arrived. We left the rainfly off, enjoying the stars and a huge moon, and I had one of the most restless nights of my life.

The Tour de Wyoming - Training

Once I was officially registered, I started researching and thinking about training. The same Tour veteran friend said that if I could pedal up to Bruce’s, I could do the Tour. Bruce’s is a parking area at the top of Sinks Canyon, seven miles beyond and 2,000 feet above town, and I remember the first time I saw cyclists up there. At the time I’d thought to myself, “You crazy &%*ers.”

So one training goal would be Bruce’s. Another would be the Baldwin Creek – Squaw Creek loop, a hilly rural stretch 10 miles west of town. The ultimate training session would be to Bruce’s and then climb another 1,000 feet on the switchbacks above Bruce’s for a total elevation gain of 3,000 feet from town. Throw in some longer rides on local highways and I’d have both the climbing and the endurance training I’d need. The way I figured it, if I could climb 3,000 feet and still not be good enough for the Tour, then good for the Tour.

By March I was chomping at the bit to ride. My first ride of the year, four miles or so up the canyon, was a blustery, slushy affair. I’d turned around, discouraged and cold. By late March I’d tried the Baldwin Creek loop, and although the weather was warmer, the ride was brutal. I was out of shape, certainly, but the bike itself was cumbersome and particularly unstable on steep descents.

So on April 1, I bought a new road bike, relegating my 10 year old REI hybrid to in-town errands. The new bike, a Giant Defy, felt nimble. You know how some cars just feel like they want to go fast? That’s what this bike felt like.

On weekends, then, I’d ride the loop or the canyon and I gradually improved my fitness.

I’d planned on serious training once school got out, but then I was convinced to teach summer school. It was great money but I’ll never do it again; it gobbled up June and thus ate into training. Oh sure, I was still putting in some good rides on weekends and riding the loop almost every morning, but I couldn’t easily do 3 or 4 hour rides.

That’s what I told myself, anyway. The reality is that I was home by 2:15 every day and although I took some afternoon rides, I should have taken many more., and the rides I did take should have been longer. My training definitely prepared my legs and lungs, but it did very little for my heat tolerance. More on that later.

By mid-June I’d made it to Bruce’s. Some of that road is 6 or maybe even 7% grade, and it smoked me. I had to take breaks every 100 yards or so, but I made it. I remember sitting on a rock at Bruce’s, chewing a Cliff bar and thinking that I’d officially become one of the crazy $&#*ers.

One Saturday in early July, the Tour veteran friend and I rode up to Bruce’s and then up the switchbacks. According to me, I was ready.

According to me.

The Tour de Wyoming - Introduction

The Tour de Wyoming, or just “the Tour” for short, is an annual 6-day bike ride in Wyoming. The route changes yearly, and it isn’t strictly limited to Wyoming; routes often dip into neighboring states. It averages somewhere around 300 miles, meaning that it’s basically five or six 50 mile rides. Some days are shorter than others, but what those days lack in distance they make up for in elevation.

I’d heard about the Tour for years but didn’t get serious until last summer, when I began thinking about some sort of extended bike tour. Cheyenne to St. Louis seemed (and still seems) eminently feasible, but it would take too many weeks out of my precious summer. During the course of researching that route, I stumbled across the Tour website, and I was hooked immediately. It was local, it was only six days, and heck, the pictures showed people having fun. I began researching the Tour in earnest.

Now, the Tour has been steadily growing in popularity since its official inception 15 years ago. I believe the Tour’s organizer, a very cool Laramie woman named Amber Travsky, did some unofficial, personal tours on her own before creating an organized ride. As legend has it, what started as a small group of friends eventually grew to one of the best-kept bicycle secrets in the nation. It’s now to the point where participants are chosen by lottery, and Tour veterans seems to resent its popularity. Hell, I feel guilty just writing about it on a blog that no one reads.

The lottery was held in February and I wasn’t selected. A Lander friend and Tour veteran, however, let me in on a secret that won’t be revealed here. It was all above-board with no strings pulled, and it got me in. At that point, I was committed.

A note here about commitment. Anyone can commit to something like the Tour in February; you’ll be huddled around a pitcher with a group of friends in the Lander Bar, commiserating about winter, dreaming up summer schemes. Suddenly a friend will say something like, “You can totally do the Tour. I’ve done it a few times and it’s really not that bad.” Having no frame of reference for what your friend considers “not that bad,” you say to yourself, “Yes. Yes. I’ll successfully ride the Tour de Wyoming.” And thus you commit to something that may, in fact, be way the hell out of your league.

On Teaching Seniors, Part 2

It’s the height of summer, and that means morning and evening tours of my garden, biking whenever possible, and thinking about how to improve my teaching. The garden’s fine: tomatoes coming along nicely after a poor attempt at trenching, peppers growing at an alarming rate, cukes finally starting to climb the trellis. The biking, too, is progressing: I’m in the Tour de Wyoming this summer and on Saturday, a friend and I biked from town up to Frye Lake. That’s literally uphill for 16 miles and 3,000 feet of elevation.

The thinking about teaching bit? Yeah. That’s complicated.

I’ll start by saying that all the systemic reform in the world doesn’t matter if the teacher isn’t willing to change. For intensely reflective people like me, change isn’t a problem. Teaching is either the ideal career for perfectionists, or it’s a nightmare. Teaching forces you to be creative and constantly reinvent your art, but that means you never get it exactly right.

And the kicker is that you never will get it exactly right. You reach 100+ students in a year, and there’s simply no way your class will live up to every student’s expectations. This is especially true in AP.

And here we delve into some sensitive stuff.

For some reason, and I don’t know why this is so, I’m particularly irritated by know-it-alls. Oh, I have some ideas about why intellectual snobbery sends my Rage-O-Meter up a few tics, but I’ve been thinking about this since my undergrad days at Illinois, 16 years ago now, when fellow students literally peered over their John Lennon specs at me in literature classes, parroting some crap they’d read elsewhere but not actually thinking about the text in question. So far the only conclusion I’ve arrived at is that pretense is, at its core, an expression of power. Some people feel better when they demonstrate that they’re smarter than the other people in the room. Why people choose to express power in this way is beyond me, and I’ve met plenty of folks who most certainly are smarter than other people in the room but don’t use their intellect as an instrument of power. My friend Chris comes to mind, as does my father-in-law.

Advanced Placement classes draw the know-it-alls. The vast majority of students aren’t like this, and some graduating classes don’t have any. I’d put them at about 1% of the population. However, if they exist anywhere, you’ll find them in AP. 

The course evaluations for my AP classes arrived yesterday, and some of the comments were particularly snotty. Now, the structure of the evaluation required students to provide specific feedback about how to improve the class, and some of those ideas were valid and truly helpful. Some of it I saw coming from miles – or in this case, months – away. Clearly, my students want me to lay off the netbooks, and I couldn’t blame them one little bit, although I maintain that everyone’s attitudes toward the paperless classroom would change for the better if we’d been on Macbooks instead of $300 netbooks. But I digress.

The overwhelming feedback on the evaluations was positive, and of course that made me feel good. But lordy, I can’t let go of the small percentage of snotty comments.

I wonder if this has to do with students being told all their lives that they’re awesome, that their writing is wonderful, that they’re brilliant at everything they do. I wonder too how much of this is on me, how much on the student, how much on systemic flaws in public education, how much on home cultures that privilege being smarter than everyone else; that enable snobbery. (For what it’s worth, this article addresses these points in ways that I’ve suspected but couldn’t put into words.)

Biking to the hardware store yesterday, I realized a little perspective was in order. Children are parents’ most valuable possession. Of course parents want their kids to receive the best education possible, and of course it’s incumbent upon me to ensure that happens. And of course my class evaluations are going to reflect dissatisfaction – no class can be all things to all students, remember, and let’s not forget that we’re dealing with young adults here. Their brains have literally not yet fully formed. I’ve come to realize that teens take their shots where they can get ‘em. Course evaluations are the equivalent of open season permits.

And that, I think, is why teaching seniors is such a challenge. They don’t know what they don’t know; they’re forced into significant decisions at a young age; they’ve been led to believe that education is a product rather than a practice. And what do consumers do when a product doesn’t live up to expectations? They complain.

Seniors, then, need reassurance, guidance, and support. I make no apologies for taking class time to discuss those anxieties that manifest in strange ways in October or so, when friendships fray and students frequently burst into tears during one-on-one conferences in the hall. Sure, we’ll talk about their APA research papers, but we’ll also talk about why the college application process is so stressful. I firmly believe that everything that happens in a high school building is curriculum, and I therefore try hard to keep my politics and religion out of my teaching, but I think discussing the realities of life after high school is entirely valid. Yes, sometimes I give college advice ad nauseum and bore some kids to tears. But as long as I’m teaching seniors, I’m going to provide them with a framework for dealing with What Happens Next. If some students would rather discuss courtly romance etiquette and thus demonstrate their awesome Renaissance knowledge, well, that’s not what the majority of AP students need. Not at this school anyway.

Ultimately, once these seniors leave high school, parents’ and students’ focus shifts away from me and my class anyway. Maybe some know-it-alls will have epiphanies in college that convince them to stop expressing power in hurtful, self-aggrandizing ways. Maybe some will realize that they’ve been transparent all along, revealing insecurity rather than insight.

Or maybe not; maybe they’ll get smoked by professors who simply don’t care about their relationships with students.

Regardless, I’m going to make it a point this year to ask students what they need from AP and LA 12. That’s harder in AP for various reasons, but it is reasonable and feasible. I’m also searching for the magic bullet solution to parent contacts. I hate telephones and suspect that a lot of parents would prefer email anyway. I used to do email updates to parents who’d opted in, so I might tweak that and make them mandatory – let folks just delete the thing.

Meh. There’s a solution here somewhere. Just gotta find it.

It’s a gorgeous morning out here on the porch. Rigby’s curled up on the couch, the cat’s wandering around here someplace, and we’re all catching some lovely breezes. I’m still trying to recover from last night’s show; the band played over in Riverton and we didn’t get home until 12:30. Our trombone player is leaving, which is a bummer, and last night was his farewell gig. As for whether or not teachers should be in bars playing funk music, well, that’s for another post.

Onward. 

On Teaching Seniors, Part 1

I thought I'd update my blog. Because, you know, it's been months and months.

The school year is ending, and that means a few things. First and most importantly, it means reflecting on the year's successes and failures. Which assignments worked? Which failed? Which adequately engaged and challenged students? Most importantly, which assignments truly prepared students for the realities of post-high school reading and writing?

Second, it means witnessing the exhilaration of graduation day. As I tell my students, I'm not excited for graduation because I want them out of my life, but because I'm excited to see how they turn out.

Third, it means my Facebook friends list will soon grow. I never "friend" students or discuss politics or religion until the day after they graduate, at which point it's all fair game. I really get a kick out of former students' Facebook posts, and I find myself reposting Internet gems from them all the time. The Honey Badger comes to mind.

Fourth, it means I can pay more attention to my garden soon. But that's for another post.

Seniors are, systemically speaking, odd ducks. The battery of standardized testing occurs during the junior year, so the senior year is (or should be) about transitioning students out of high school. The curriculum, therefore, must be truly preparatory in nature. In AP English, this is straightforward despite the myriad agendas and requirements influencing the syllabus. State standards, district standards, AP College Board, CWC's concurrent enrollment program, parent expectations, and yours truly all have agendas - mostly reasonable - that filter into the class design. Regardless, we all have the same goal: replicate the college freshman composition and literature experience as closely as possible. After all, the vast majority of my AP students take the class for college credit, not in preparation for the AP exam. AP English, therefore, is about college, pure and simple. And I'm awfully proud to hear former students tell me they're blowing the doors off of their Honors English classes at UW.

Language Arts 12, however, is a different beast. Students enrolled in this class want to graduate from high school, and often, that's about the extent of their goal. A sizable percentage are heading to college but certainly not all of them. What's more, previous years' LA 12 curricula did not emphasize writing. When I taught it for the first time two years ago, using the district-approved curriculum, I was floored at how much we relied on worksheets - worksheets! - as a means of learning. And the state-mandated Body of Evidence papers were, I promise you, not up to college writing standards.

In fairness, parents, teachers, and administrators recognized the problem and wanted change, and as a result, yours truly was asked to rewrite the LA 12 curriculum for this year (I didn't teach LA 12 last year). My emphasis has been on relevant, post-high school writing. We wrote an APA research paper, three different literature analyses, a persuasive essay, worked on email etiquette, and the list goes on. The goal at all times was to ensure my students had exposure to "real world" writing requirements, especially if they were heading to college.

And therein lies the challenge.

Part of the larger discourse in Fremont County School District 1 right now is our students' rate of enrollment in "remedial" classes at college. A certain percentage of our students either wind up in remedial classes or never graduate from college at all, and the working assumption is that our school's curriculum - and by implication, my class - is not rigorous enough.

Well, shnookums, I take that accusation personally.

A few months ago I contacted the University of Wyoming in an effort to begin parsing this out; I wanted to figure out what specific skills our students needed and change the curriculum, not to mention my instruction, accordingly. As nice as they were, I didn't get very far. UW couldn't even give me a working definition of "remedial" classes. I have yet to contact community colleges, and when I do, I'll be curious to find out how they define "remedial." I don't use quotes here because I doubt the existence of such classes . . . I only question the meaning of the data.

Such numbers don't address two broad points: first, a student can pass my class with a 59.6% and then be accepted into college (probably not Yale, but certainly into a community college). A bloody awful percentage like that in either AP or LA 12 represents many things, a poor work ethic being near the top of the list. It's either that, or a well-entrenched attitude of "I don't care about this class." And then, a year later, after the student enrolls in community college . . . he struggles because he didn't care and didn't pay attention. So I question how much of this is curriculum and instruction, and how much is student motivation.

The second broad point is that enrollment in remedial classes is a lagging indicator, and a darn sketchy one at that. Do our students struggle solely in writing classes, or do they struggle in all content areas? Are these the students who partied made poor choices in high school and are now making poor choices in college?

I can see how filling out worksheets would not have prepared our students for success. My concern is simply that, as we investigate the "remedial class" issue, we take all factors into account.

And with that, I'm outta here. I've been honored by an invitation to the FFA banquet tonight, and Kathryn's finishing up some last-minute assignments before she - hallelujah! - walks in Laramie this weekend for her MBA.

Onward!

Why Primrose Hates Phones

We ate at 6:00 every night. My dad and stepmom both worked at the Wyoming Medical Center in Casper, and unless Dad had a screwy shift, he was usually home by 5:15 or so. We always left him alone for a bit while my stepmom cooked dinner - he needed time to decompress after working in the ER.

A house with three boys is a chaotic place, but dinnertime was absolutely sacred. No eating in front of the TV. No radio in the background. No grabbing your plate and heading off to your room. We all ate dinner at the kitchen table, held reasonable conversation, did the dishes, and then moved on with our lives.

Now, don't imagine Leave It to Beaver or an overly stern, hear-a-pin-drop atmosphere, because that's not the case. We held heated political debates, talked about the Broncos, and always made sure to compliment my stepmom's cooking.

But one thing would bring conversation to a screeching halt. The table would go from lively and bright to deadly in less than a second. Someone could be in mid-sentence, about to reveal some inner truth about Elway's passing ability, only to have the wisdom rendered utterly moot . . . by the telephone.

When the phone rang during dinner, Dad's face would fall. It was anger, yes, but I realize now there was sadness there, too. My brothers and I would invariably glance at each other, wondering which idiot friend of ours violated Rule #1: No calls between 6 and 6:30, ever, for any reason, even if it's about a girl. And that made us think to ourselves, Oh God, please don't be a girl calling.

Dad was brutal. Just mean. It didn't matter who it was - wrong numbers, best friends in grave peril, charity for three legged cat shelters, all were treated with equal disdain. Calling our place during dinner had to be one of the most awkward experiences of your life in the 1980s, up to and including velcro shoes.

Now, in fairness, when Dad was in a good mood, he'd just toy with the caller for a while before handing the phone over to one of us, smirking. And as he's aged, he's changed his tune a bit. These days he's practically friendly with random callers - I think he enjoys stringing along telemarketers just to see how long they'll stay on the line after they realize they're not going to make the sale.

So now, when I think about calling students' homes in the evening, I think about how my dad used to react and I wonder: Am I that caller, ruining someone's dinner? What domestic traditions am I interrupting?

I've been a better writer than speaker since childhood, so when possible, I'll stick to what I know. 

And Now a Little Something for AP

It is so utterly pointless to say anything about how long it's been since I've posted here that I'll refrain from doing so, mostly.

It's been a productive day, and as I take a break from writing up my next AP unit, it occurs to me that my students are probably stressing a little bit about this APA research paper. Rightfully so, to some degree, but sitting here on my porch I'm reminded of a story from my Phoenix days.

Oh, my Phoenix days. Post-Champaign, pre-Seattle. Definitely a lost year. Phoenix is a city without a soul, and living there bothered me a great deal. How I got there in the first place is a story for another post, Dear Reader. For now, what's important is insight from a guy named Jim.

My second job in Phoenix* was slinging lattes for the Scottsdale elite. Tucked into a strip mall on Hayden Road, Java City is no longer operational in the Phoenix metro area, but you've probably seen the kind of place I'm talking about: smallish cafe and bakery chain, catering to the stay-at-home middle to upper class types. If I sound bitter, it's because my customers could be nice, had they chosen, but were usually snotty.

A few doors down in the strip mall, a crafty Bostonian and former flight instructor named Jim opened a lobster business. Replete with Red Sox cap and "pahk yah cah" accent, Jim's entrepreneurial spirit found him peddling live lobsters to uppity Phoenix foodies at roughly a zillion dollars per pound. His store was furnished with exactly five pieces: two enormous lobster tanks, a rickety table, a stool, and a cash register. How Jim went from Boston flight instructor to Scottsdale lobster wrangler was never clear.

One day Jim and I ran into each other in the shared alley behind our stores. I was breaking down boxes and he'd just finished unloading a shipment of lobsters from the airport. I'd had yet another stressful day - spills, snippy customers, rude, Porsche-driving high school kids, etc. I must have said something about losing my mind.

"Paulie," he said, "let me tell you something I used to tell rookie pilots about losing your mind."

This should be good, I thought to myself.

"The first thing I used to tell pilots to do, when they lost control of the aircraft, was to set their watch to the clock on the instrument panel."

Ooookaaaay, I thought to myself . . . because, you know, when you're in a tailspin at 14,000 feet, it's important to know the precise time of impact.

"And do you know why I would tell them to do that?"

"No idea."

"Because it gave them at least a little control. It gave them something to go on." 

I must have looked confused, because he continued.

"Whenever your world is caving in (whenevah yah wahld is cavin' in. . . ), you need something to cling to. Start with whatever you can. In a pilot's case, it's setting a watch. In your case, I dunno, maybe sweep the floor or something. Find something you can control, and control it. But whatever you do . . . do."

The cynic in me was speechless for a minute, no small feat when I was 24 and angry at the world. But you know, Jim was and remains absolutely right.

AP students, as we head into what will likely be a stressful unit, I encourage you to remember Jim's advice. When your lives get stressful, take action, however small, on that which you can control. You cannot write an 8 page APA research paper in one night. You can, however, spend 15 minutes trying to track down a source or two. You cannot reasonably expect to understand every nuance of APA style by checking a website in one sitting. . .  but you can check how this citation should work in this particular instance.

Alrighty. It's been a looooong day of staring at the computer, and I'm cooked. Sorry I didn't get the Do It the Hard Way essays graded. That should happen this week.

Onward!

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*My first job is also a story for another post.