Grit on Exhibition: Four Young Women and a Trail

Last test of the school year.  

1. What are you going to do the week after school ends?  

A.  Sleep late  
B.  Catch a movie with friends  
C.  Hang out at the pool  
D.  Hike 26 miles on one of the most difficult single-track trails in the US

Two days ago, I had the privilege of supporting four Carolina Day School women who chose “D.”  Emily, Elizabeth, Natalie, and Sydney arrived at campus at 7:30 AM last Thursday and began walking soon after.  Their course took them down the Mountains to Sea Trail from school, across the French Broad River, up the Shut-in Trail, and finally to the top Mt. Pisgah in a cool rain shower almost twelve hours later. With an elevation gain of around 3000 feet, this hike is a lot more than your average marathon.

Elizabeth, Emily, Sydney, and Natalie crossing the French Broad River

When I asked them why they would do such a thing, these are the responses from Emily, Sydney, and Elizabeth. "I love the challenge and the sense of achievement at the end of the hike. It is also a great time to appreciate the mountains and where we live." (Emily) I did it to challenge myself and I wanted the feeling of accomplishment after finishing. (Sydney)  "Although the Mount Pisgah Challenge was physically strenuous, it was spiritually and emotionally rejuvenating. Being out in nature and trying to complete the challenge made me feel really happy and energized. After I completed the challenge, I felt ready to embrace the coming changes in my life." (Elizabeth)  Okay, these are some deep girls.  While they all had a high level of intrinsic motivation, I contribute a lot of their success to grit -- the ability to persevere to do something really hard.

Over 4 million people have watched this short Ted Talk by Angela Duckworth on grit.  We know that what Duckworth describes as grit is a great predictor of success -- a better predictor than IQ or talent.  If you haven’t seen it or watched it in a while, take a few minutes:

In this talk, Duckworth references the work done by Dr. Carol Dweck on growth mindset as being aligned with developing grit.  Simply put, if you know and believe that you have the potential to grow, you are much more likely to work to grow.  All of our faculty will be reading Dweck’s book, Mindset:  The New Psychology of Success, over the summer, and we invite parents or anyone interested in this topic to engage in some discussions of the topic next fall.  

It is my belief that having a growth mindset is not only closely aligned to personal success but also institutional success.  As good as we are at Carolina Day School, we have a collective belief that we can and will grow.  We constantly look for new ways to teach, to engage, to inspire, to support, and to challenge our students.  As a school, we have grit: the long term motivation to do something of immense importance because there is nothing as important as helping our children grow into adults who will have meaningful lives.

I know that Emily, Elizabeth, Natalie, and Sydney will continue to challenge themselves to grow in meaningful ways.  They have grown up in an environment where this is an expectation, a natural part of their world.  Congratulations ladies. You are the grittiest girls I know.

Cupid Shuffle, Robots, Teamwork

To the right, to the right, to the right, to the right, 
to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left, 
now kick, now kick, now kick, now kick, 
now walk it by yourself . . ..”  

The music started jammin’; the dancers in their pastel tutus started groovin’; kids started clappin'.  No, this was not last month’s middle school dance, rather it was seventh-grade science class on Friday at 9:50 AM, rooms five and six.  The dancers involved, while directed by the seventh graders, were actually Lego Mindstorm robots.  The routines, expertly choreographed and programmed, were the culmination of a week’s worth or teamwork.  While programming is a valued skill that involves logical sequencing, problem solving, and some discreet knowledge about the language involved, the real value of last week’s “dance off” was in the work and lessons learned about collaboration and communication.  

About a week ago, I was touring the mother of a fifth-grade boy who was interested in how the middle school had changed in the short time that had passed since her daughter, a current ninth grader, first entered Stephens Hall.  We spent some time in my office talking about educational theory and then moved down the hall to see what was happening.  I love to give tours because it is a chance for me to show off what we do and who we are, something that is sometimes difficult to describe with words or numbers.  We entered Mr. McManus’s room at the end of the hall and found Meghan and Anna Kate standing in front of their seventh-grade classmates.  While the following is paraphrased, it is pretty close to what we heard:

Okay, everyone be quiet.  We've got to get rid of the chaos, so we decided to give everybody jobs.  If you don’t like your job, it doesn’t matter ‘cause you can switch.  We think Sydney should be leader.

As this was going on, Mr. McManus was sitting off to the side pretending to be disinterested.  The mom and I looked at each other, and I got a big smile on my face.  

Now I wasn’t in the classroom the previous day, but from what the girls told me, it was pretty ugly: people talking, no one listening, raised voices, frustration, nothing getting done -- sounds a little like Congress.  Mr. McManus, being a wise, experienced sage, let the situation play out. He trusted the process and didn’t jump in to fix things. This empowered the girls to take matters into their own hands and work it out.  Some girls became programmers, some costume designers, some DJ’s, some choreographers, and one a leader.  Some girls changed jobs as it became apparent that more work was needed in different areas.  They worked together.  They solved their own problems.

I spent a few minutes talking to Anna Kate and Meghan who had stood in front of their peers to attempt to make order out of chaos, and asked them what I thought was going to be a tough question:  “Why didn’t appoint yourselves leaders?”  They didn’t miss a beat and said that they chose Sydney because she is really good at being a leader.  They said that she listens well and can organize things.  Nice!  

The three other seventh-grade core groups also struggled through the process of how to get a large group to work together to reach a goal. Some were not particularly pleased with the outcome; however, if each groups' performance didn't come off perfectly, they all persevered and brought something worthwhile to the dance floor. So, as Cupid says, ". . . do your dance, do your dance."

On David Brooks and Emotion

A couple of weeks ago, David Brooks wrote an op-ed piece, “What Machines Can’t Do,” in the NY Times that describes human traits that should be valued now and in the future as these traits cannot be replicated by computers.  While Brooks is a political commentator, he is also a thoughtful observer of human nature.  In this article, Brooks writes that “The role of the human is not to be dispassionate, depersonalized or neutral. It is precisely the emotive traits that are rewarded: the voracious lust for understanding, the enthusiasm for work, the ability to grasp the gist, the empathetic sensitivity to what will attract attention and linger in the mind.”  If Brooks is right, and I believe he is, then as educators we must examine how schools can help these traits to flourish.

Voracious lust for anything sounds pretty scary to a middle school principal.  Do we really want a bunch of limit-pushing, hormone-pumped twelve-year-olds unleashing their Freudian ids into our orderly classrooms?  Well, maybe not all of teenage passion should be on display in schools, but Brooks isn’t talking about sexting or sticking it to the man; the passion that he describes is the passion of engagement, the passion of inquiry -- an unyielding desire to figure things out.

Most schools squelch this passion, the very thing that should be driving our youth.  School has become ruled by graphite-filled ovals on Scantrons, by squealing bells that signal the end to learning, by curriculum written by who-knows-who a jillion miles removed from any teenager’s first pimple.  Most folks would have loved to have Robin Williams’ character in Dead Poet’s Society as their teacher; however, a teacher like that, one who seeks to connect students with their own passion, will not last long in America’s controlled, assembly-line schools that have been cleverly and frighteningly described in this RSA talk by Sir Ken Robinson.

Schools that support passion are schools that have deliberately created a culture around passion.  It doesn’t happen by accident. These schools offer students a chance to plunge deeply into learning. They know that not everything in a standard course can be “covered” so they choose particular elements to examine thoroughly.  They frequently offer students the opportunity to choose what they want to read and write.  They serve up problems that make students’ brains wrinkle, problems that cause students to mentally engage because whatever they have seen or heard just doesn’t quite fit with their current understanding.  They require students to discuss and argue over big, meaningful topics like justice, love, revolution, and peace.  They ask them to solve difficult problems that take weeks or months of planning and trials.  They realize that passion doesn’t come from chasing the currency of school -- grades -- but that it comes from within each individual, so teachers offer formative feedback so students are supported in their attempt to try something different rather than thwarted by the prospects of getting a bad grade.  They offer students chances to let their spirits flow by asking them to paint, design, make films, take photos, sing, dance, and perform.  They give every student an opportunity to participate and grow in sports.  They require students to think about how they think and learn, so that they can more deeply understand their own passions and how best to explore them.

These schools are out there; in fact, I work in one.  However, schools that are grounded in passion will only flourish as long as educators are given the opportunity to display the passion that drew them to their life’s work.

Group Foresight and Action -- Mt. Fuji

What thirteen-year-old boy would voluntarily give up control and power to one of his classmates for the good of his group? I know three who did, as well as the one who accepted the others’ nomination and worked to govern the group judiciously.

Yesterday, I interviewed a group of seventh-grade boys who were asked to work together on a project that involved figuring out how long it would take to move Mr. Fuji.  Yes, it is an intriguing math problem, but for these boys it became a greater exercise in learning to work together.  Putting strong-willed, opinionated students together in a group is often a recipe for disaster.  Arguments, frustration, sarcasm, and hurt feelings are common outcomes.  Frequently the groups become so dysfunctional that one or two group members leave the group because they can’t control the outcome. 

This group of boys was different.  This group of boys recognized that they had a problem from the start.  They are all high achievers, willing to do the work of those who are less motivated to make the final outcome something that meets their own ambitions.  They are all willing to motivate others using leadership skills they possess in order to succeed.  Grouped as they were, they realized right away that they all were inclined to lead.  So, instead of fighting it out, undermining others, or giving up, they reached a pivotal decision.  They decided to give up control and choose one of the four to lead them.  What is amazing is that the leader didn’t simply emerge or usurp the power -- but rather he was unanimously selected by the others.  Truthfully, the leader probably could have been any of them -- what is significant is the foresight and collaboration that they exercised.

Sublimating one’s own will and voice for the benefit of achieving something worthwhile does not happen by chance.  I believe that these boys were able to foresee and remedy the potential problem because they have been asked to work together in groups with others since they were little kids.  Our students work together every day; it is an expectation.  I’m pleased that my school and faculty recognize that the skills needed to be successful and happy are just as important, if not more important, than content that usually reigns king.  I’m not sure how long it takes to move Mr. Fuji, but I do know that these boys have developed skills that are more important than moving a mountain.

Lessons from Big Bald

About a month ago our Middle School PE teacher, Brian Rannie, asked me to go on a trail run with him.  I had been upping my mileage a little and figured that I could complete the 13-mile run, although I was worried about slowing him down a bit.  However, our colleague, Andy Lammers committed, and it is hard for me to resist opportunities to run with friends. I dragged along my neighbor who had just completed a half marathon the weekend before, and we set off some thirty miles north of Asheville to the Appalachian Trail, which serves as the border between North Carolina and Tennessee for a stretch.

It was the proverbial clear, cold morning -- well below freezing as we started climbing up into the mountains.  The leaves were already down, and the trail was covered with a fluffy mess that made footing tenuous.  Our goal was an out and back to Big Bald, a climb of around 2000 feet over six and a half miles.  We all worked hard on the way up and about a mile from the summit, I stopped everyone and said I thought I’d stop there and wait for them to come back down.  I knew I could easily make it to the top, but I was concerned about the return trip as I hadn’t run 13 miles in many years.  My friends offered me words of encouragement without degrading my manhood, so I followed them up.  The view was certainly worth it, and we took fifteen minutes or so to celebrate being on top of the world.  

The descent was much worse for me than the climb as it was fast and the footing was slippery and obscured.  The last two miles I had to walk the steepest downhills as my legs were shaky enough to make a fall almost certain. Truthfully, during the last half mile all I wanted to do was lie down on those fluffy leaves beside the trail.  When I got to the end, I felt bad enough to pass the car keys over to Andy as driving seemed like a real push.  An hour later, I soaked in the bathtub, feeling something between pride and relief that I had finished.

As I look back on that day, I think about how difficult it was, but I also think about how wonderful it was and is to do things that are a real challenge.  It is pretty easy to slide through a life filled with the routine of our days -- the same repetitive tasks that do little to stretch us and force us to grow.  I am reminded that I need to continue to seek challenges so that I will be equipped to handle what fate and others put in my path.  

I am also reminded that school should not just be about kids passing through a schedule of routine classes each day.  We must create challenges for them -- real challenges that force them to access strengths that are hidden behind fear or are simply untapped.  Young people have amazing resiliency, and we need not be afraid to ask them to walk out on a limb, even if the path forward may require a jump of some sort.  We want our students to have the confidence to attempt great things; however, the path to greatness is not for the meek.

The second part of this story is that I had others with me to encourage me along the way.  Sure, I was the one took every last one of those thousands of steps down that mountain, but I’m pretty sure I never would have gotten to the top without my friends there to support me.  This is the other thing that we must do for our students:  provide them a supportive environment, full of friends and teachers who encourage when attempts into the unknown are made.   The knowledge that others believe in our strengths, even when we don’t, is sometimes all we need to get to the top.

Understanding Boy World

Between raking a couple of million leaves, spatchcocking and roasting a turkey, and running until my plantar fasciitis has left me hobbling, I have been plowing through Rosalind Wiseman’s newest book, Masterminds and Wingmen, which focuses on helping adults to understand teenage boys.  Through her research and interviews with hundreds of boys, Wiseman gives us (you should read this book) a portrait of boys and a glimpse into their psyche, motivation, and daily struggles.  Although I’m only half way done with the book, I’m beginning to question how any of us guys have managed to reach adulthood.

I’ll give Wiseman credit; she wrote this book from a place of love for boys not because she wants to change or slam them.  As a man, it is pretty tough reading the book and thinking about all the stupid and dangerous things that I did as a boy, and, from reading the anecdotes of boys growing up now, that most boys do today.  Wiseman uncovers the reasons why boys sneak out at night, why they turn silent or lie when questioned, and why their anger can dominate them.  However, she doesn’t stop there.  She gives parenting advice on all these topics and more -- even the really tough ones involving social media, video games, sex, and porn.

Masterminds and Wingmen should really be used as a resource, not just for information.  When you question what you are doing in reaction to something your son has done, it would be great to go back and read a specific chapter in the book to get some perspective.  You may not follow Wiseman’s advice to the letter, but at least you will have considered an alternative, which is bound to help you make a better decision.  

The Big Problem - Real Life Requires Real Math

Solving real problems is messy.  Sometimes, we don’t even know what problem we are trying to solve, and it doesn’t become obvious until some investigation and discovery takes place.  We must decide what information is needed and attempt to get it, although it isn’t always available.  Sometimes there are so many variables that they distract or even confuse us from defining a course to follow.  And, frequently there may not be one absolute solution.  The solution that we reach may have corollaries or disclaimers, or it may simply be a best guess given all of our efforts.  I hope this is starting to sound like real life because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to devote a huge chunk of time in school to learning math that is not useful in real life.  And, if our students don’t get opportunities to use math in real life situations, then they will continue to see it as a boring, inert process that must be slogged through just to get to the next math course; or, even worse, as the way to a better score on the SAT.  Math is so much more than a way to get into college -- it is a way to view the world, and it gives us the ability to understand, seek, and find solutions to the world around us.

This week, we started working on one of what we call our Big Problems --  a real problem.  I told the students that I had been thinking about replacing the long, rectangular tables in our lunch room with circular tables.  Because our students are primed from years of practice as problem solvers, it took them all of ten minutes to come up with the following questions and comments in some small group discussions.  Although as a school administrator, I have thought of changing out the tables for a long time, I hadn’t considered several of their ideas as variables:

• Are round tables more ergonomical?  Forearms naturally form triangles when on the table.
• How big can a round table be to hold a conversation with someone across the table in our lunchroom?
• Does looking at someone when talking to them help conversation and relationships?
• Would there be more space to move between the tables?  
• What happens to aisle space?  Will it open the flow or restrict it?
• How would moving to round tables affect cleaning? How big can it be and still be easily cleaned?
• Storage? (We move our tables every day to clean the floor.)
• Will round tables hurt or help inclusivity?
• Will they fit in the lunchroom?
• What will be the cost?
• Will the cost be worth the benefit (if any)?
• Unintended consequences?
• Other stakeholders (the LS students who use the lunchroom also).

What kind of math tools will we need to pursue this problem?  Some things are obvious like measuring, performing simple arithmetic calculations, working with geometric shapes, and spatial reasoning.  However, we may look at hearing as a function of distance from speaker (this is an algebra class after all).  Or the number of seats available as a function of the circumference of a table.  We are going to have to figure out some way to apply a dollar amount to something that is not easily counted (building relationships) and this will definitely involve some statistical analysis.  We are going to have to do some data collection, analysis, and interpretation.  More statistics. Finally, we are going to have to reach beyond our collective knowledge base to get information and possibly even help.  

So, how does this assignment hold up to the teaching of skills that have become a fundamental element of our middle school:  collaboration, problem solving, communication  creativity, perseverance, grit.  We can check all of these off.

I told the students that if we decide that replacing the tables would be a good idea that we would present our findings to our Chief Financial Officer and other stakeholders.  We are not sure if the school will take our advice; this is the real world after all, and there are all sorts of other claims on school dollars than lunch room tables.  But, regardless of the outcome, the process of working through this problem will give the students and teachers some practice with the utility and function of math.   

Seeing Math in the World

People are sometimes described as having a poetic heart or the eye of an artist.  These folks have a different perspective than others when they view the world; they look at events, images, relationships, and the daily happenings of life through a particular filter or lens.  These lenses may allow people to feel more deeply or experience life more fully than others.  

I frequently talk to parents and students about developing a math lens.  To be able to see the world and know that it can be represented in mathematical ways gives our students another perspective, similar in ways to the artist’s eye, that adds meaning and perspective to life.  Anyone who develops a math lens is likely to envision solutions that are not obvious to others and may understand the workings and complexities of the world in greater depth.

I ran across the following video the other day, and it startled me that it could describe my thoughts so much more clearly than my words.  Please take a a couple of minutes to watch it.

BEAUTY OF MATHEMATICS from PARACHUTES.TV on Vimeo.

While some of us are born with a greater ability and propensity to view the world through a mathematical lens, this lens can be developed and honed by everyone with practice.  We practice this skill frequently in our math classes by offering students images and video of everyday life and asking them to address it through a mathematical lens.  While they may not all become brilliant mathematicians, our hope is that developing this mathematical lens will enrich their lives.

Building Relationships

Seventeen years ago, I was sitting in a sterile, public school administrator’s office being interviewed for a teaching position.  When asked about my best qualities as a teacher, the first thing out of my mouth was my ability to form positive relationships with my students.  I explained how I listened to students’ problems, took them to perform community service work on my own time, and went to important events in their lives outside of school.  I professed that because I worked to develop relationships with my students, they would behave better in class, work harder, and gain self-confidence.  Almost immediately I realized that the principal interviewing me didn’t hold the same beliefs.  She quickly directed the conversation back to curriculum and testing, and I left the office knowing that I didn’t get the job -- and feeling somewhat grateful that I wouldn’t be working for this person.

I am fortunate to find myself working in a school that puts a premium on relationships, and we have structured our middle school to reflect this belief.  We offer students and faculty opportunities to connect with each other throughout the daily schedule and the calendar year.

• Group work -- I can honestly say that not a day that goes by that a student does not have the opportunity to work with another student or group of students.  Learning to work together is our culture.

• Advisory -- our advisories are single gender and multigrade.  Advisories are small, six to eight students, and led by a faculty member of the same gender.  We meet first thing each morning for fifteen minutes and have casual chats, foster important discussions, or play games.  
• Breaks -- our students have two breaks during the day, one during the morning and one after lunch.  Students can choose to play or talk together.  Students are discouraged from doing academic work at this time.
• Advisory intramurals -- each day during morning break, two advisories compete against each other in fun games like handball, beach volleyball, and pinball.  It has become so popular that half of the school comes down to watch the games and cheer.
• Exploratory -- twice in our six-day cycle, our students attend a class called "Exploratory." Faculty members choose a pursuit that they enjoy such as photography, board games, knitting, Pinterest, Lego robotics, theater games, and coding; and students sign up for the class.  Exploratory classes change three times each year.  Students (and faculty) of different grades and genders spend time together in pursuit of mutual interest.
• Dances and activities -- we hold three dances per year for our middle-school students.  Nearly every student attends and they are highly anticipated.  There are also three after-school social activities per school year like bowling or roller skating.
• Buddies -- all of our middle-school students are buddies with lower-school students.  Buddies get together six to ten times per year to participate in fun activities centered on the younger of the buddy pair.
• Extracurricular activities -- In middle school all of our students are encouraged to participate in athletics or our musical theater production.  Nearly all of our students take advantage of these opportunities to play, compete, and perform together outside of the regular school day.
• Overnights -- All of our students participate in two separate overnight trips during the school year where an emphasis is placed on developing teamwork among the students and faculty in the grade.

As a faculty, we also talk about ways to continually develop relationships with students.  None of these require teachers to be charismatic "pied pipers;" they are simply good practice in establishing and growing relationships:

• ask questions and listen
• be genuine
• go to extracurricular activities and talk to students about them
• smile
• be patient and persistent in your attempts to connect
• be observant of students’ changes in mood and ask them about it
• share your own passions
• tell interesting stories from your past

Being a part of something, belonging to a community, is especially important during the middle-school years when adolescents and preteens start pushing away from family and trying to decide who they want to be.  It is sometimes a confusing time in a child’s life and a time of struggle with self-confidence.  We know that connecting with others helps middle-school students to find their own way and be happier, which is why we put so much effort into building our relationships with each other.

Using Minecraft and Plotz to Visualize Limits

At the start of class for the last two weeks, my algebra team teacher and I have been using a discussion on “area under a curve” to extend our students’ thinking.  Of course, our eighth-grade algebra I students do not have the calculus tools they need to solve this type of problem, and we are not trying to teach them the necessary algorithms.  We’re asking them to envision different ways that the problem might be solved.  One of our primary goals in this algebra class is to create divergent thinkers who realize that the process of solving a problem is often more important than the solution.  By offering them problems that are “unsolvable” given the math that they know, they are forced to think of the problems as abstractions, to ponder the same ideas that intrigued the likes of Archimedes, Descartes, Leibniz, and Newton.

Our students’ first attempts to best measure the area under a curve mirrored the earliest methods of the Greeks -- the exhaustion method.  The students quickly decided that they could fill the area using different size polygons and circles, and they would ultimately get pretty close to a solution.  While this was a good first step, and started them down the conceptual road to limits, we ultimately decided that it would be problematic to obtain the measurements of different sized shapes.  Some students wondered if using a single shape of the same area would simplify the process.  Then one of our students, Rion, said that every gamer knows that shapes on the computer screen are just made up of the same size pixel, and that the problem could be best addressed by filling the area under a curve with pixels that could be counted.  Extending this line of thought, Rion thought that he could use the Minecraft creating website, Plotz, to illustrate the idea that reducing the size of the squares, thus increasing the number of squares under the curve, would result in a more accurate answer.  Rion shared these images with the class:

After this, we discussed the idea of being able to reduce the error of the area measurement to a point where for all practical purposes it was accurate.  While the students certainly did not reinvent the concept of a limit, they did discover, in a general sense, the way a limit could be used to help solve this type of problem.  Our hope is that they will be able to apply this concept and type of thinking to other problems that we challenge them with in the future.

My team teacher and I believe that it is vital to continue to push the students’ ability to think of math in abstract terms.  This forces the students to see math as something different from memorizing steps in order to follow the predictable, worn-out path of textbook examples and problems.  It forces them to engage with math -- to wrestle with it in a way that builds engagement and deep conceptual understanding.

Coaching Middle School Cross Country

I am incredibly lucky to coach middle school cross country.  It is a sport where everyone gets playing time (and the least skilled get the most playing time); where there is a completely objective measure of achievement; where athletes are encouraged to talk to each other during practice; where almost all spectators, parents, and athletes buy into the philosophy that individual growth outweighs the importance of winning; and, perhaps foremost, it is a sport where my coaching ability (or lack of it) is not scrutinized at every meet.  The gun goes off, my runners take off, I trot onto the course and cheer, offer some quick words (often unheard by the runner) of encouragement or tactical advice, and then I trot back to the finish line to do a little debriefing.  The fact that I don’t remember any parent complaining about my coaching ability has little to do with my prowess and a lot to do with the nature of the sport.  

I feel for other coaches whose words and actions are on display for crowds of folks to analyze.  There are probably not too many middle school coaches out there who relish the public side of coaching -- most just enjoy being with the kids, want to pass on their love of the game, and like the idea of being able to accomplish something meaningful with a group of adolescents.  In a game like basketball, there is no such thing as a perfectly coached game.  Coaches make mistakes in every game; the most famous coaches in the world will acknowledge this.  Put that fact up against the American culture of analyzing coaching by pundits and self-proclaimed Internet experts, and we are left with the idea that it is the fan’s God-given right to analyze and publicly criticize.  While this may be acceptable with college and professional sports, it gets a little scary at the middle school level.  Yes, there are middle school coaches out there who probably should not be coaching middle school athletes, and hopefully they are counseled out of the field; however, I watch a lot of middle school sports and I infrequently see coaches who are that far out of step.

So, I will continue with my middle school cross country coaching career.  We will have fun, persevere, and compete against ourselves and others.  In the process, I get to stay out of the limelight and focus on sharing my love of running and listening to the banter of twelve-year-olds as we run through the hills of Biltmore Forest.