Hail to the Chief

Some trivia:

Barack Obama is not just the first biracial President in the history of the United States. He is also the first person in history to win both my vote AND the Presidency.

Until Obama, I had picked the loser in three straight presidential races. My very first presidential election was in 1996 when I was 20. That election I voted for Ross Perot, with whom I had become enamored during his initial run in '92. In 2000 I voted for Gore, and in 2004 I voted for Kerry.

Today, all 406 of my school's students, and every single teacher, every single office member, every single administrator, every single cafeteria worker and hall monitor, sat down in our school's library to watch the inauguration. Literally every single one. We were all in there.

I looked out at the sea of student faces, nearly all of whom are the sons and daughters of immigrants or are immigrants themselves, and I wondered what this moment meant to them.

I listened to Aretha Franklin sing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and found it to be so much more beautiful than I remembered it. A song with words that maybe up until today rang hollow and with bitterness to a good portion of the American people, but now, as she sang them, perhaps sounded the way they sounded to me when I was a little boy, pure and promising. Maybe some of the people in the audience sang "my country" for the first time with a feeling that it really was their country. That's a beautiful thing, and it was the most moving part of the inauguration for me.

My students appreciated the moment, I think, about as much as you could expect most 13 and 14 year olds to appreciate it. They yawned and fidgeted during Obama's speech. But I don't think what was important was so much the words that he said. I think what was important was that they saw a very diverse group of millions of Americans all rallying around someone who, like many of them, was the child of an immigrant and was raised by a single mother.

I'm pretty sure that today, for most of my students, it was the first time they actually felt like Americans.

And, truth be told, it's the first time in a long time that I've felt like one, too.

Academic Discourse: Supporting English Language Learners with Rigor

This is the first semester project presentation I gave for LMU's Charter School Leadership Academy in December. 5 seconds per slide--use the pause button if you need it! WIthout my explanations, some things may be a bit confusing (especially the Halloween pics), but I think you'll get the idea.

The point was to increase rigor and to increase support for ELLs at the same time.

Many thanks to the research of Dr. Kate Kinsella at San Francisco State for informing and inspiring this project.

Big Bear

Pam and I are, right now, relaxing at the Honeymoon Hideaway cabin in Big Bear.

You may never hear from us again.

No, we didn't elope or anything like that. It's just the name of the cabin, and a strange name at that. Two beds, ten feet away from each other? In a "honeymoon hideaway"? A painting of sad puppies on the wall? A sign on the front door that says "If heaven ain't got fish, then I ain't goin'!"? In a honeymoon hideaway? And a hot tub that is easily viewable by the neighbors? Well, if people WERE here on their honeymoon, hidin' wouldn't be such an easy task.

Getting here alive wouldn't be so easy either. Despite the fact that it isn't snowing and hasn't snowed here for at least a week and was sunny all day today, our particular street is super, SUPER icy and our narrow driveway is bordered by two-foot snowbanks (I may have run into them, once or twice, as I backed in). And I don't know how we're going to pull out of here tomorrow morning, up that slippery driveway at a 5 degree incline. We may have to actually put on chains just to escape.

Perhaps THAT is why it's called the Honeymoon Hideaway--our frozen corpses will be hidden until the spring thaw.

Buried Treasure

In my dad's closet, behind an inordinately large amount of Christmas decorations, was a box or two or three of old slides from the 70's, photos taken by my grandpa (Andy, not Darron) that had not been seen, I would guess, in at least twenty-five years.

Inspired, my dad took them in to be digitally scanned and put on CDs, and we got them as Christmas presents! Not knowing what to expect, we gathered around my mom's TV (hey, her DVD player can do photo CDs!) and the slideshow began. We were transported back to a time long past, of my mom's trip to Europe as a teenager, of my dad's sideburns, of embarrassingly short shorts.

Here are some of my favorites:


This is Shari as a mustachioed pirate. Her left fist is especially menacing, as are the two strips of tape holding her mustache up.


In many of the photos, like this one, I was crying. Shari, as always, was smiling.


Apparently, when crying, the most effective remedy was to give me food. Specifically, a cracker. More specifically, a saltine cracker. Could this be the origin of the pejorative term for white people???


Funny how so much in life is just one big circle. I imagine that this is exactly how I'll look in about ten years.


Awww, I just really liked this one. Mom hasn't been able to pick me up in a long, long time. But I sure did enjoy it!


My penchant for striped shirts had its beginnings long ago.


And a sweet end. This is, perhaps, the earliest photographic evidence of the famous "retarDarron" phenomenon.

81.5 degrees

Pam's normal body temperature, she tells me, is 97.7˚F. Mine, also a little bit on the cooler side, is usually around that much, too.

How hot is our love? Apparently, 81.5˚F.

For the grand finale of our road trip to LA today (which began with a visit to the Getty Center, followed by lunch in Beverly Hills), we went to the Griffith Park Observatory.

Among the highlights was this infrared camera. Cold noses, hot cheeks. Apparently Pam's tongue is cooler than her teeth?

Alas, poor 2008--I knew it well.

It's that time again... the year in review. (for those of you with nothing better to do , see my first blogs of 2008, 2007, 2006, and 2005).

In 2008:
* I rang in the new year (literally) in Japan, about 17 hours before you Californians did. When you consider those extra 17 hours, plus the fact that this was a leap year, and that we had an additional leap second added on for good measure due to the Earth's slowing rotation, this was, by far, the longest year of my life!
* I completed my first year at Centennial teaching 7th grade and became an 8th grade teacher.
* My 7th grade students kicked butt on the CSTs--in fact, the school year ended up being quite a triumph for me personally as I was able to turn around what seemed like certain disaster and make it into an experience that, truth be told, affected me deeply.
* I called CPS four times.
* I rode my bike around Lake Tahoe again, albeit more than 20 minutes slower.
* For the first time since 1995, I took the summer off.
* I won second place in a doubles tennis tournament with my team teacher, Paul (sidenote: the only other doubles tennis tournament that I've ever entered was back in high school with Josh Rubel and we won it!).
* Speaking of Josh, we organized a dunk ball tournament to honor Bryan's memory and raised about $1,000 for cancer research.
* I was Chris Brown AND Posh Spice AND a zombie in our school's end of the year delight for students--"Teacher Idol."
* I began the year-and-a-half long march towards getting my administrative credential by enrolling in the Charter School Leadership Academy at Loyola Marymount University. First semester is complete!
* Pam and I briefly commanded the Enterprise in Long Beach.
* Speaking of Pam, we've finished 2008 happier than ever.
* Most thought-provoking blog of 2008 that you probably didn't read: this one.