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Commence the Season of Love

Happy Seis de Mayo to all who celebrate. The beginning of May is a time of considerable celebration. There’s May Day in many nations across the globe on May 1. The city of Fort Worth celebrated MayFest for the 54th time in Trinity Park on the weekend of May 1-3. Who can forget Star Wars Day on May the 4th? Or who remembers Cinco de Cuatro from Arrested Development? And of course, let’s all recall everyone’s favorite excuse to eat tacos and drink margaritas, Cinco de Mayo on May 5. Perhaps you cannot recall, depending on how much you indulged. And as a retired educator, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention National Teacher Appreciation Week from May 4-8. I’ve already written about teaching before, but there’s still no time like this week to thank a former teacher of yours, or your child’s teacher, or just about any teacher you know. You can even feel free to apologize to your teacher friends on behalf of all the demagogues out there demonizing teachers in the current political climate. Personally, though, I look at all the festivities occurring at the onset of May and treat them as part of a larger theme I’ve observed this month. Welcome to The Season of Love.

“Wait, isn’t the season of love back in February, during Valentine’s Day?” you might ask. Or perhaps you view the Christmas season as a proverbial “season of love,” given the spirit of the holiday. Ironically, though, for educators, the period of time between the holidays and Spring Break is what I call “the Season of Hate,” as I wrote about recently. It’s cold, it still gets dark early, the school year’s only half-done, teachers and students are tired of each other, plus there’s a bunch of testing no one cares about and everyone hates. Valentine’s Day is essentially an excuse for those in the education world to engage in chocolate therapy and hope that Russell Stover box makes a successful dingy across the sea of anxiety and dread. February is definitely NOT the season of love in the world of education. But May IS, thankfully. The rain from April begins to clear away. The sky is a little brighter, as is everyone’s mood. The testing no one can stand is behind you. Sure, there are AP Exams, but those are tests that students actively chose to register and study for, based on classes they elected to take. There’s actually a true payoff for success, unlike STAAR, SSTAR, STARRR, or whatever TEA calls it in the future. So AP Exams, despite what you might suspect, actually fit fairly neatly into the Season of Love.

Why do I call it that? Because the month of May, in classrooms across the U.S., features a rhythm that is nearly 100% counter to the mood from February. The end is near. Summer approaches. Now that STAAR testing is over, instruction doesn’t have a specter looming over it. Teachers can teach to the curriculum (what’s left of it) and dare I say, offer lessons that students might genuinely enjoy. Because everyone’s T-TESS observations should be over by now, teachers don’t have to fret over classroom visits, creating the proverbial dog-and-pony show designed more to impress administrators than to teach students. Students might even get the opportunity to take field trips — actually learning-based trips, not trips to the park or zoo — and go beyond the Death-by-Canvas approach that has become so prevalent since 2020. (Don’t get me wrong; technology can be a valuable tool for learning when used appropriately…that’ll be a different post someday.) The bottom line for teachers is that they don’t feel compelled in May to “teach to the test,” to put it tritely. They can just teach.

But it’s the Season of Love for students, too, for many of the same reasons. They are now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of another academic year. Many are approaching their final days at their campus. Of course, 12th graders are nearing graduation day. Each day during the month of May truly is counted down across thousands of campuses, and with that countdown comes a release, a weight lifted off the students’ shoulders, little by little. For most of them, that release coincides with a better mood and attitude toward their teachers. They come to love their teachers (again, for some) with appreciation for all the effort expended by teachers throughout the school year. Of course, this love sometimes comes with a couple of caveats. For one thing, there are some students who’ve expended so little effort themselves over the previous 6 weeks, 12 weeks, or even the semester, that their hopes of earning credit for the course are all but gone. These students often find love in their hearts for their teachers in hopes of a quid pro quo, where the teachers might find mutual love, and therefore, pity, and therefore, acceptance of missing work so that the student might pass. This begging-based love isn’t typically dominant in the Season of Love, but it’s certainly present. Similarly, it happens without fail that some of the absolute worst students — the ones who’ve presented behavior problems, poor attitudes, and general belligerence for, I don’t know, 36 weeks? — are the students who magically have love in their hearts for all their teachers in the month of May. Are those terrible students the same ones that are also begging for a last-gasp chance to pass? Sometimes.

And sometimes, teachers will acquiesce to student desires, not out of pity or because they’re “caving in.” My experience is that most teachers will accept late work and offer a bare minimum of credit in hopes that it will allow the student to pass. Anything is better than a score of 0, and actual honest attempts at completing assignments late are better than never doing it at all. Most teachers are compassionate enough to make allowances. Few teachers ever get into the profession with a goal of exercising ultimate power over students or feeling glee at seeing failing grades, and those psychopaths that do eventually exit this career fairly quickly. Teachers are remarkably adept at offering grace to students, probably because they also seek grace from administrators when a lesson doesn’t go well or a classroom is tough to manage on a given day. Cookie-cutter perfection is not typical in an actual school campus, and it’s really not the foundation for effective learning. Learning is often most meaningful when it’s achieved in spite of adversity, even if that adversity is self-inflicted because, you know, children of all ages are immature and sometimes irresponsible. Sometimes the lessons learned through the grace of second, or third, or tenth chances are the ones that resonate for students long after they’ve forgotten the specific learning objectives stated for a given assignment.

When that grace is given, is it truly appreciated? I don’t have an honest answer. I’d like to think it is. Then again, I’d like to think that teachers receiving praise during National Teacher Appreciation Week are getting more than some lip service, a few nice notes, and a donut on Tuesday. The concept of “official” Teacher Appreciation dates back to the 1950s, and the current practice of celebrating National Teacher Appreciation Week during the month of May began in 1984. I honestly barely recall experiencing Teacher Appreciation Week while I was in the classroom. I do remember that central administrators would typically make the rounds to various campuses during the week to provide a nice lunch. But it was never a huge week-long celebration filled with daily activities, dress-up days, or rewards. That aspect of Teacher Appreciation Week wasn’t something I noticed until recently, when I was an administrator at the campus that would be my last stop in K-12 public education. There, Teacher Appreciation Week was a veritable event for which planning commenced basically right after Spring Break, if not before. These days, that appears to be the case at many campuses, as administrators work with local businesses and charitable organizations for sponsorships. They expend great effort to make the week seem truly special. I actually admired the resolve our administrative team showed in securing the variety of foods and gifts offered to teachers each year. And yet, some teachers actually complained about it. I remember one well-known teacher at that campus told an administrator that a particular lunch item was “an insult.” So much for grace, I guess. I understand that sometimes the so-called perks might end up being underwhelming, but I can guarantee it wasn’t for a lack of trying. And I feel sorry for those teachers who work in campuses where there is a lack of effort on the part of administration and community to make the week special, or where there is a lack of resources. Although I still maintain that we could eliminate Teacher Appreciation Week altogether if we simply extended to teachers the compensation and respect they deserve. Obviously, it would still be appropriate to thank teachers for their efforts in such an environment, but society wouldn’t see the need to set aside several days to provide so-called “perks” in an effort to assuage the sting of how poorly educators are treated throughout much of the year.

But the month of May? Regardless of difficulties of the past 8 months, the trinkets offered to teachers this week, the other festivities held throughout this week and month, or anything else, the month of May will forever remain unofficially the Season of Love in schools across the state and nation. Soak it in, show some compassion and grace, release the anxiety, and breathe easy, if only for a short time. One of the greatest things about the rhythm of the school year is that it ends. Most areas of life have a more constant cycle, and that cycle often enhances tension and suppresses love. If you’re enrolled or employed in a school, take some time to imbibe the glorious facets of this time of year.

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The Most Frustrating Time of Year

If you’ve read this blog recently, the title of this post likely perplexes you. I literally wrote just three weeks ago about how Easter is one of my three favorite holidays, including my rationale for why spring is a really great season. Meanwhile, back in February, I talked about the “Season of Hate,” that time of year between the Christmas holidays and Spring Break, when tension between teachers and students heightens, and during which TEA forces upon public schools the test known as TELPAS. Even back in December, I wrote about “The Least Wonderful Time of the Year,” when high school students might be cursed with the bane of STAAR End-Of-Course (EOC) Retests while happier images of the holiday season surround them. Given the backdrop and implications of those three posts, you have to wonder, “How can this time of year be the one you call ‘the most frustrating?’”

As you might guess, it has to do with…testing. STAAR Testing, that is. BTW, if you thought “STAAR” looked stupid on-paper, wait until TEA unveils — and this is not a joke — the “Student Success Tool of Academic Readiness,” or “SSTAR,” in 2027-28. God help us all. The jokes write themselves at this point, from the multiple meanings of the term “tool” to the imagery of Warner Brothers’ Sylvester the Cat saying “Sssufferin’ Ssssucotash, it’s SSTAR ssseason.”

Here’s the thing: We have this wonderful time of the calendar year, with the chance for great weather, with the end of the school year oh-so-close, and with spring fever hitting everyone, teachers and students alike, and what does TEA foist upon public schools? STAAR Testing. Particularly THIS year, in the penultimate throes of STAAR, when it’s a proverbial “lame duck” test that will be replaced by something theoretically better, but possibly far worse, in a mere two years. You’d better believe that juxtaposition is frustrating. April is supposed to be a time for Field Day, and instead it is twisted into a time for field-tested items on a test that has faced so much scrutiny that the Texas Legislature finally decided to go in a different direction. It’s a time when elementary and middle schools still hold “STAAR Pep Rallies” (still an actual thing) and place painful puns like “STAAR Wars” on t-shirts. It’s such a dichotomy for teachers and staff to complain so much about this test, yet at the same time feign enthusiasm in front of the students in an apparent attempt to “spur them on to victory,” I guess? I really can’t fathom it because I think the notion of giving a kid between the ages of 8 and 18 a “pep talk” for a multiple choice test and expecting it to resonate at all is borderline insane. No one “sees the light” about STAAR because the band played “We Will Rock You” or the cheerleaders danced to “Hot To Go.”

At the high school level, STAAR EOC will still rear its ugly head as students who take it for the first time know that they must achieve a passing score — “Approaches Grade Level,” in the parlance of TEA — to remain on-track for graduation requirements. Members of the Class of 2026 and 2027 will still take STAAR, and there’s a good chance that TEA will require STAAR EOC for the class of 2028, 2029, and 2030, as well, since those students will take STAAR EOC for the first time in Grade 9. We could have FOUR YEARS of high schools offering STAAR and SSTAR concurrently. Imagine the sheer agony. Meanwhile, students who have already been unsuccessful on one or more STAAR EOC test will receive one more opportunity to pass each spring. Graduating seniors with more than two tests still remaining will sweat a bit, because they may only graduate using the Individual Graduation Committee provision on up to two tests.

“What’s an Individual Graduation Committee?” you might ask. Honestly, that’s a can of worms you don’t really want to open, but I’ll crack the lid for you slightly. STAAR was conceived in 2007. When it was implemented in the spring of 2012, Texas law required students to pass fifteen (15)— yes, FIFTEEN — EOC tests, five per year from grades 9-11. (Longtime educators may recall that the 2007 law also required each STAAR test to count for 15% of a student’s course average for the corresponding course.) The Texas legislature reduced the required tests to five (5) in 2013, then reduced the actual number of tests students were required to pass to three in 2015, when they created the Individual Graduation Committee. What the law basically says is that if a student does not “approach grade level” (pass) on up to two STAAR EOC tests, that students may complete a district-developed project for the corresponding course and therefore still graduate based on Individual Graduation Committee, commonly called the IGC. So the past 15 years have seen an overly ambitious system whittled down to what amounts to “pass 3 of 5 tests at a minimal level to graduate.” Meanwhile, TEA has tacked on several other requirements for students to be considered “college and career ready.” But that’s a tale for a different post.

One thing TEA did in 2024 in an effort to “tighten up” IGC requirements was require a given student to actually pass 3 of 5 EOCs before they could even discuss an IGC and pursue the project. Prior to that, a student could 3-4 IGCs queued up and ready as they retest on 1-2 more EOCs. But no more. Now, any senior still taking 3 or more EOCs this month will NOT be able to graduate in May, since there’s no way they can realistically complete the IGC project, and process, when EOC results come back literally days before most districts hold graduation. So that particular group of students has even less incentive to perform very well at all in April, since they already know that their STAAR EOC status has prevented them from graduating until at least summer. Granted, there’s a decent chance these same students may not have the academic credits needed to graduate, as well, but IGC adds proverbial salt to the wound. And don’t get me started on the bureaucratic nonsense school administrators have to address with IGC documentation. A parade of paperwork. Although some of it may be kept electronically, it’s the required meetings for IGC on top of every other requirement TEA concocts when a student does not pass STAAR that takes a mental and emotional toll on staff who are already being taken to the edge of insanity by bureaucratic details.

Keep in mind, too, that TEA’s calendar extends the STAAR torture across the month of April in the name of “test anxiety mitigation.” In the days of TAKS, testing took place twice: once in April for Reading and Writing on consecutive days, once in May for Math, Science, and Social Studies, also on consecutive days. TEA’s current STAAR calendar allows a two-week “window” each for Reading/English, Science & Social Studies, and Math. The theory is to avoid giving students 3 or more tests over consecutive days. Districts are required to establish a “primary” testing date for the respective tests in each window, with “make-up” testing dates through the rest of the week, and possibly the following week. STAAR testing, therefore, theoretically lasts from April 6 to May 1, nearly a full month. STAAR has no time limit, so a given student could theoretically test all day. At the same time, TEA has specific rules in place wherein campuses are required to consolidate students who are still testing, while releasing students who’ve finished testing to their “normal” class routine, in the name of instruction, I guess? So NOW we’re suddenly taking measures to respect instruction? Does anyone at TEA really believe that normal instruction takes place on STAAR testing days given all the disruption created by a long, untimed test? On a practical and instructional level for a campus, the month of April is lost…LOST…to STAAR. Teachers will, no doubt, attempt their best to instruct their students properly, especially if they teach AP classes, which have their own exams in the month of May. But everyone knows that those efforts are hindered greatly by the specter of STAAR, and everyone feels the frustration. The fact that this series of torturous weeks is the primary food for an albatross of an accountability system that purports to assign an A-F letter grade to the district and campus only adds insult to the injury and irritation.

Thanks to House Bill 8 (2025) and the advent of “SSTAR,” things have to improve, right? Theoretically, yes. Where STAAR is a single, lengthy annual test from which TEA develops a convoluted (and deeply flawed) algorithm to determine whether a student has “met progress” standards from one grade to the next, SSTAR will ostensibly be designed to mimic nationally-normed tests like MAP Growth, which has been offered by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) in Reading and Math for decades. MAP Growth consists of three shorter tests: Beginning of Year (BOY), Middle of Year (MOY), and End of Year (EOY), which are designed to assess a student’s growth in the subject across the current school year, rather than from the previous one. MAP Growth is also an adaptive test, where the first few items are identical for all students, but based on how well the student performs on each item, ensuing items may vary in difficulty. Do well, and the test gets harder; do poorly, and the test gets easier. Adaptive testing allows the test itself to challenge high performing students while reducing difficulty for lower performance, thus developing a more refined evaluation of a student’s academic ability and progress. The BOY test can zero in on how well the student retained the previous year’s learning, while the MOY and EOY tests can focus on the current year’s learning and retention.

Theoretically, it sounds great. Shorter tests, therefore “mitigated test anxiety,” more thorough results, and an overall better experience for teachers and students. Theoretically, such a system is able to integrate more seamlessly into a given school day and the overall school year, because campuses won’t be forced to “shut down” to allow students to complete a lengthy test. HB 8 even requires results to delivered to school districts within two business days after the testing window has closed. So, theoretically, SSTAR will deliver quicker results that can actually inform instruction, particularly after BOY and MOY testing. NWEA has been very successful marketing its product to school systems, and MAP Growth has been adopted across Texas as a growth indicator in Reading and Math while allowing schools to reteach and/or extend content for students as appropriate. Theoretically, SSTAR will essentially replace MAP Growth, and perhaps local benchmarks, because the state’s assessment will, itself, become THE benchmark. Theoretically, that means less testing and more instruction for students and teachers, using the data from a truly fine-tuned assessment instrument to enhance the instructional process.

Theoretically.

TEA has not provided much guidance as to what SSTAR will actually be. To be fair, HB 8 requires TEA to report on its transition plan by February 15, 2027, so there are still several months available for planning. But certain aspects of the legislation, or rather missing aspects, are troubling. HB 8 doesn’t place a specific time or item limit on any of the tests, so it’s theoretically possible that an overambitious TEA could move toward three lengthy, unwieldy tests to replace one. Additionally, TEA has not announced the testing vendor for SSTAR. The current vendor, Cambium Assessment (together with Pearson Education), could win the next contract, or TEA may decide on a return to the previous vendor, Educational Testing Service (ETS). Some parents and educators have already advocated for direct statewide adoption of MAP Growth, because it’s an established adaptive test, many districts already have contracts with NWEA, and staff and students are familiar with the instrument in terms of testing and results. But NWEA doesn’t have a MAP Growth test for every STAAR-assessed subject, so that plan would also require significant time and development. The bottom line is, we don’t know right now. TEA might stick the landing with a simple, intuitive, tightly developed test that is free from technical and content problems and delivers meaningful, actionable results. They might also completely mishandle the process and create genuine chaos in campuses across the state not just in Spring 2028, but THREE TIMES during the 2027-28 school year. Find me one student or educator who says “Triple-Scoop Sh**show? Yes, please!”

What troubled me the most when I was mired in the gunk that is state assessment in Texas, and what troubles me still, now, as a retiree watching the system continue to evolve, is the intellectual arrogance, the unabashed certainty, of those at the top. I’ve seen the Texas Commissioner of Education speak in-person, several times. He’s got this under control; just ask him. The man’s in his eleventh year as commissioner, longer than anyone has ever held the office. Yet he’s never actually been a professional educator at any level. And when he does visit a classroom, it’s typically the proverbial “dog-and-pony show” because everyone wants to impress the commissioner, not show him the realities of day-to-day life in a public school. He will never experience what public educators experience. Never. Yet somehow, our governor continues to entrust him with our students’ future. It’s baffling. Seriously, anyone who thinks public education in Texas has been spinning its wheels, or worse, losing them, over the past decade can point to ONE person who’s been there all along. And please, don’t come at my with the pandemic as an excuse; today’s first graders were literally just born around that time. Old news, illegitimate excuse. I also remember hearing the Director of Student Assessment for TEA speak pre-pandemic, about a decade ago. That guy was even more arrogantly certain than the Commissioner. He’s also gone now, as are many TEA staff members. They’ve apparently had so much turnover that their Staff Directory page is currently dormant. I wonder why. I guess we’re all just supposed to trust that whoever they hire to replace the departed staff will, despite having their hands full with the STAAR-to-SSTAR transition, make their absolute, honest best efforts to craft a more advanced, credible, and useful state assessment system than the one we’re about to leave behind.

Theoretically.

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Another Favorite Holiday Season

What a lovely time of year this is. MLB have begun again, trees and flowers are blooming, the weather is currently quite nice, and to use a cliche, spring is in the air. I know there are things some people don’t like about spring, like pollen and bugs, but it’s still a hopeful season, and I enjoy it. It’s also home to my third favorite holiday of the year. If you’ve previously read my blog, you may have seen me post about my other two favorite holidays each year: Thanksgiving, which I value primarily because it is centered on gratitude, something to which we all need to devote more time; and New Year’s Eve/Day, because it’s an extension of the Christmas season without all the baggage, and because it represents new opportunities heading into another year. By now, you’ve probably guessed that my third favorite holiday is the one people across the globe celebrated this past weekend, Easter.

Technically, that’s Easter Sunday, according to the Catholic Church. Each day of this week on the Catholic calendar is officially tagged as “Easter _________” as part of the Octave of Easter. The Easter season itself lasts 50 days in Catholicism, culminating with Pentecost Sunday. So it’s truly another holiday season all its own, as opposed to a single day after which everyone simply moves on. Now, this post isn’t really designed as a theological lesson or some kind of evangelization imploring the reader to convert. I have plenty of friends who are non-religious and also know several people who are atheist. As someone who grew up and remains a faithful Catholic, I respect those viewpoints, so you won’t read any “He Is Risen” rhetoric here with explanation about what it should mean to your life. Although I will admit that, as a child attending early morning Mass on Easter Sunday, I did find the sun shining through the stained glass window and creating a colorful glow near the altar to be an inspiring sight. But that’s a tale for another time.

Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, I find this time of year in general, and the Easter season in particular, to be joyful. Spring itself is a time of rebirth, whether it involves leaves growing back on the trees, someone hoping this is finally the year their team succeeds, a person recommitting to their baptismal promises in church, or everyone simply cleaning the back porch in preparation for cookouts and summer activities. We could also talk about what a great time it is for sports because of all the events happening or approaching. But I don’t want to list out all the ways spring is cool or bullet out “Top 10 things I love about Easter.” I just want to focus on three aspects of the holiday that I find most appealing.

Renewal. Let’s begin with the easiest and most obvious theme. As I said, this is what the Spring season is all about. In Catholicism (and several other Christian traditions), Easter follows Lent, which is a season of self-denial, sacrifice, and simplicity in preparation for the holiday. I happen to enjoy Lent because it represents a purging of vices and things that can pollute our lives, which juxtaposes well against the emotions and themes of the Easter season. The cleansing aspect of this time of year is definitely positive. “Spring cleaning” isn’t just about clutter in the house, garage, or porch. It also can be mental, emotional, and intellectual. For many people, the idea of renewal at this time of year may also remind them to reinforce some of the New Year’s Resolutions they made in January and have let slip over the first quarter of the year. Old habits die hard, as they say, so if you’ve managed to slip back into prior routines, no better time to root them out again than the spring. Get back to eating right, or driving better or calmer, or just making time for things that matter. Renewal can really mean “refocus,” if that’s what it takes. The renewal process can be as dramatic or as subtle as needed.

Part of the renewal process for me is a change of seasons, professionally. You might’ve read my most recent post about Winterguard, for which I have handled sound and announcing for several weeks now. The Easter season typically means that this year’s season has concluded, so it’s time for me to switch gears in my VO career to other work. I can put away PA gear that I’ve carried with me every weekend and focus more on working in my booth at home and marketing my skills and services to the right people. I will still participate in some live announce gigs (I have two coming up later in the spring that I will write about in May), but now it’s all about looking for commercial and narration work. I’m particularly excited about these prospects this year because I actually have far more time to devote to these pursuits.

Shifting Calendar Dates. This one may seem odd at first, but hear me out. Everybody knows that Christmas occurs on December 25, right? Some people even get so obnoxious about it that they’ll be able to tell you exactly how many days until Christmas today, April 9. So what date does Easter occur? Can’t say for sure, right? That’s because Easter is what’s called a “movable feast.” The rule of thumb is that Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox, the beginning of spring. There are some very specific rules in the Catholic tradition about the date of the equinox (March 21), along with the “Paschal” full moon, but you get the idea. Easter will always occur sometime between March 22 and April 25. Yes, there’s literally over a month of variance between the earliest and latest possible dates for Easter. It’s not fixed on the calendar like Christmas or Independence Day.

Some people find the movable nature of Easter to be confusing, but I have always enjoyed it. I find a certain charm in the knowledge that this year’s date for Easter will not be the same as next year’s. I also think it’s cool when Easter is super-early or super-late in the possible window. Because it’s based on lunar cycles, that shakes things up, and I am here for it. Heck, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, they use a Julian calendar instead of a Gregorian calendar, which places Orthodox Easter on a different date. This year it’s on April 12. Call me crazy, but I think that’s cool. I also enjoy how some years, the Easter season coincides with Passover in the Jewish tradition, and some years it doesn’t. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise anyone to know that I spent 4 years early in my education career teaching World History and World Geography. One of the fundamental themes in both of those courses was the influence of religious beliefs and traditions on culture. Learning the nature of movable feasts in several religions was therefore emminently useful knowledge. You don’t have to memorize every rule for every religion to appreciate the influence holidays like this have on our lives, especially when it’s not a fixed, single-date holiday that comes and goes. Bring me a nice holiday season any day.

Lack of Commercialization. And more than anything, when you bring me that nice season, stop trying to convince me to buy stuff because of it. True story: one of the local morning news/lifestyle programs in Dallas ran a segment on “Easter gift ideas” last week. What?!?!? I mean, if you’re under 10-12, the old-fashioned Easter egg hunt is a fine activity. And perhaps some of the eggs will have something besides candy inside. Maybe the kids’ Easter baskets will have ONE item inside that’s not food or food-adjacent. I remember receiving a stuffed bunny wearing a baseball uniform in my Easter basket when I was 8, and it was cool. Other years, I got a couple of comic books since I often gave those up for Lent. But “Easter gifts?” You have got to be kidding me. We don’t need for Easter to become yet another gift-giving holiday.

Even as a child, one of the things I liked about Easter was the lack of things. After all, this wasn’t Jesus’ birthday. We had just spent the previous week focused on suffering and death. Easter was about resurrection from that death, but still…death, people. Not the same. Not about lights and decorations and things. Clearly a more serious message. Since you had given up something for Lent, the only “things” at Easter were whatever you had sacrificed, like the aforementioned comic, chocolate, your favorite TV show, snacks, whatever. When I was young, my family would typically go to early morning Mass on Easter Sunday (complete with stained glass glow), then we would go someplace nice for breakfast. Then it was typically back home for a nap since we got up so early. No gifts. And it was the greatest. 

Now, as a kid, I enjoyed getting Christmas gifts as much as the next guy. But Christmas was Christmas, and Easter was Easter. The Easter Bunny (or Easter Beagle, IYKYK) hides eggs; he doesn’t come down the chimney with a bag of gifts. Leave that to Santa Claus in the winter. And to this day, I still appreciate that aspect of Easter. I’ve previously written about how the Christmas season gets exhausting because there’s pressure to do things and buy stuff and do and buy and do and buy. Not so with Easter. If you’re religious, Easter is all about sacrifice and prayer leading up to it, then celebration of the miracle and all it implies for yourself in this life and the next. If you’re not religious, you can still get into the more secular aspects of Easter, like eggs and rabbits that shouldn’t go together but somehow do, or just get outside in great weather, go out to eat, and enjoy the day. And I know, capitalism, business, economic growth, yada yada. I taught that stuff for two decades. But there will be plenty of opportunities to buy things that don’t have to tie in with Easter. The U.S. is clearly a consumer-based culture, and it’s not like any business is going to wither away and die just because Easter sales fell short of the forecast.

The bottom line for me at Easter can be summed up by what my family did this year. We attended Mass, came home, and relaxed. We watched baseball on TV. We had a nice meal together. We enjoyed each other’s company. We got outside and enjoyed some great weather. As the season progresses, I have some personal goals and objectives to attend to — some related to faith, some just things to be completed, physically and intellectually — so there is a sense of renewal. And we’ll come back and do it all again a year from now, even though I can’t tell you the exact date yet. And that’s awesome.

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The Coolest Activity You Might Have Never Heard Of

If you happen to follow any of my Meta-owned social media (Facebook, Instagram, Threads), then you’ve seen frequent posts from me on Saturdays doing PA and sound for a Winterguard event. Usually, it’s a photo of a high school gym with views from my table and from some other place in the venue. I typically don’t include a photo of the action on the floor because 1) I don’t want to post any image to which a performing group might object, and 2) I’m don’t always have an opportune moment to capture a good photo. Most likely, though, it wouldn’t matter if I did post an action shot, because Winterguard is something the average person has never even heard of.

Having said that, I encourage you to explore the world of Winterguard on YouTube. Just search “Winterguard” and check out what comes up. No doubt you will see some shows from the Winter Guard International (WGI) World Championships (obviously the culmination of each season), but you’ll also come across some WGI Regional performances and perhaps local circuits, like the North Texas Colorguard Association, for whom I’ve worked the past several years. Go ahead, fall down that rabbit hole, and be astounded at the artistry and athleticism on display.

“So why is this stuff called ‘Winterguard? It look just like flag twirling and dancing in a gym.’” If that’s you’re reaction, although you’re not completely inaccurate, you are so, SO wrong. There was a TV ad for Hampton Inn a few years ago that depicted a dad taking his daughter to guard competitions, and they called it “flag dancing.” UGH. So, some brief history: In the 1970s, high school marching bands around the country typically marched end zone-to-end zone, “military” style, and they included “featured twirlers” for some extra visual flare. Flags weren’t necessarily part of the halftime show, and when they were, many schools referred to it as the “flag corps” (to go with the “drum corps”). Mercifully, both of those terms have been retired, save for the person who just may not know it. The term “color guard” is literally military, referring to the soldiers who carry, or guard, the colors, i.e., the U.S. flag. In the world of drum & bugle corps, the colorguard still actually carries/guards the colors at retreats. But as the drum corps activity evolved, the colorguard expanded in number and in the ways it contributed to the show. It literally took on a life of its own, with performers spinning (NEVER “twirling” ) a variety of flags, rifles, sabres, and more. While Drum Corps International (DCI) formed in 1972 to govern the drum & bugle corps activity, WGI formed in 1977 because colorguard had expanded to a year-round endeavor. Every DCI corps had a guard on the field accompanying the brass and percussion in the summer, but then many of those same guards would rehearse and perform an indoor show during the winter. Hence the name “winter guard.” Other guards formed that only performed during the winter. It became very much its own thing. And still, you may have never heard of it.

Since the 1980s, the term “colorguard,” not “flag corps,” is the generally accepted term, just as marching percussion is called the “drumline” and no longer the “drum corps.” “Drum Corps” instead refers to the drum & bugle corps activity, the “DC” in DCI. The “WG” in WGI is, of course “Winter Guard.” These days, a given student entering junior high or middle school might embark on a career in guard lasting well over a decade, depending on that student’s enjoyment of and commitment to the activity. Over the course of that career, the student will be part of a cadet and/or novice unit in middle school/junior high during winter only, since there’s currently no such thing as junior high marching band. The student will likely be involved in band, as well, though not every school requires guard members to play an instrument. (Though it definitely helps from the standpoint of rhythm and phrasing, among other skills). This student will learn how to carry, spin, flip, toss, and exchange a flag, a rifle, and probably a sabre. Those items are called “equipment,” and the student will accumulate many, many skills using each of them. I honestly don’t know all the terminology involved, but I do know that guard judging guidelines include a thing called “equipment vocabulary,” which is basically what it sounds like — the greater variety of movements a group can do with a wide range of equipment, the better the score.

But equipment is only one part of the score. There’s also movement. And yes, it is dance, but not in the sense of what you see anywhere from youth dance competitions to high school and college dance teams to professional shows. “Movement vocabulary” in colorguard competitions isn’t quite that extensive, but guard performers learn foot positions and principles of body positioning as it relates to their art form. Students with a background in dance definitely have an advantage, but nearly any performer can master the dance principles needed for the activity. Add movement and equipment skills together in a given performer, hone and build them year after year, enlarge the vocabulary over time, and increase the performance demands, and that performer will accomplish physical, mental and emotional feats that truly impress and entertain. (Some of those performers will continue in the activity as instructors themselves, or perhaps judges and event staff.) Now multiply that performer by anywhere from 6 to 30 for a given ensemble. String together roughly 40-60 performances filled with these performers, and you’ll have an idea of how I spend many of my Saturdays each winter into spring. Is it like announcing a huge sporting event with 10,000+ screaming fans? Not really, but not many PA guys ever get that experience, anyway. But don’t think that these shows are poorly attended. The gym always fills up. Always. And it gets downright rowdy for WGI Regionals and NTCA Championship shows. There’s parents, families, friends, and just plain fans who genuinely appreciate the activity. The WGI World Championships, held annually in Dayton, Ohio, regularly sell out. There’s a community out there that loves this stuff, even if the average person probably has no idea what it is or who’s involved.

“So why haven’t I heard of it?” That’s a great question. Some of it comes down to marketing. WGI and DCI have both sought ways to expand their reach over the years, but the “marching arts,” as they call it, remain fairly niche. Now, why does this activity matter so much to me at this time of year, as a voiceover talent? It’s actually quite simple. My place in VO is never about starring roles; I view myself always in a supporting role. You have something that needs a professional voice showcasing it. A message, an idea, a product, or in this case, an event. (Hey, that’s like my website tagline!) In the context of a Winterguard show, we’re actually talking a large event comprised of a series of small events, each 3-7 minutes long featuring a group of these performers whose skills could and should astound you. My job is simply to showcase THEM. It’s also frankly one of the tougher VO gigs out there, because I’m not just the PA guy. I’m actually called the “sound engineer,” because I also play the audio tracks for each ensemble’s performance. It’s a bigger responsibility than you might think, because if I make a mistake, it hinders the performance on the floor. Ultimately, my job at these gigs is to help each guard unit – Every. Single. One. – have their best possible performance. That means, as a Live Announce voiceover pro, I introduce each group with the proper timing, energy, and pronunciation (I live in Texas, so sometimes that’s more challenging than you think.) I have to follow completely the announcer guidelines provided by the sponsoring organization (typically NTCA or WGI). And I have to manage the music provided for each unit, including timing, adjusting volume as needed, and troubleshooting as required. Oh yeah, I am also literally my own roadie for the first and last 45-60 minutes of each day. Not every performance gym has a reliable sound system, so I am often asked to set up a portable sound system provided by the organization. That system consists of two 2500-watt powered speakers (weighing around 60 lbs each) on stands, cables for audio signal and power, mixer, microphone, etc. I bring a lot of my own gear, including a MacBook Pro to play all music. Arrive at the venue two hours early, set everything up and test it, then prep for the gig. When it’s all over, break everything down, load it into my car, and leave. It includes far more work than your typical PA gig where you show up and just sit down in front of the mic. Pays more, too, but that’s not why I enjoy it so much.

Of course, I deeply enjoy watching the shows. In the world of sports, I consider the sound of a basketball falling cleanly through the net to be the best one. But don’t underestimate the power of hearing the unified >snap< of several rifles being caught cleanly at once, or the >whoosh< of flags spinning, flying, and landing perfectly together. There’s even artistry in the logistics of setup and tear-down, as each unit unfurls their vinyl floor, sets up their props and equipment, then gathers it all up afterward. But what I really enjoy is not just the activity, the logistics, the athleticism, or the artistry. (WGI’s tag line is “Sport of the Arts,” which is really quite inventive.) What I find most gratifying is that, because it’s an intimate setting with a manageable number of performers, you get to see some raw emotion fully displayed, up close. I also announce at marching band contests in the fall, and I’ve written before about how great modern marching band is. But a typical marching show involves 100 people or more, and because you’re watching it in a football stadium, your view of individuals can be limited. At a Winterguard show inside a gym, the individual has nowhere to hide. And it can be glorious. Because I do multiple shows throughout the season, I get to see some units early-season, when they’re still growing from their mistakes, and late-season, when they’ve added new equipment work, new movement, and perfected all of it. You want to experience a cool sense of emotion? Watch a guard performer struggle and persist through a bunch of early-season struggles with tosses, then come back 6 weeks later and watch that same performer nail every single one. Watch everyone’s faces, especially late-season, when they know this show, they know they know it, and they’re truly performing it with energy, emotion, and excellence. The performances themselves can be breathtaking to view, but it’s gratifying just to watch the emotions, and I’m privileged to have a role providing a foundation of poise and professionalism as each unit puts their work and their achievements on the floor for all to see.

And as with just about any team activity, as cool as the “product” may be, what seems every bit as enjoyable for the performers are the connections they develop with one another. This coming weekend, NTCA will host their top-level Championships (they’ve already had two championships for younger units) for the 2026 season, and the awards after Finals will feature a full retreat, where every unit gets to enter the floor and be recognized. The performers will come in uniform, but they’ll also be armed with t-shirts, with sunglasses, with something that expresses their camaraderie and esprit de corps. They’ll have some kind of marker on seniors who have made their last performance with the unit. They’ll celebrate their achievements this season, but more than that, they’ll celebrate rehearsing, performing and growing with each other. They’ll stay on the floor after the ceremony concludes to take photos and sing to whatever music I have pumping for them. (And I have developed a pretty keen sense for what songs resonate in this setting.) And they’ll have benefited more than any of us can imagine, learning lessons about themselves, about working with others, that go beyond equipment and movement, and that will resonate forever. And yet so many have never heard of it. But now you, dear reader, have. The next step would be to check it out. You’ll be glad you did, if only because you’ll know what “Winterguard” actually is, how difficult and amazing the shows can be, and so you won’t ever use phrases like “flag dancing” or “twirling rifles.” Enjoy.

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Why Are You Yelling?

Every voiceover talent enters the profession from one of several paths. Most of the VO friends I have appear to have started in the world of radio and migrated to VO. Several others have a background in acting and decided to pursue voice acting instead of, or in addition to, stage and on-camera. As for me, I came from the world of public address announcing. I began as “the PA guy,” that voice you hear at a sporting event, band contest, or other occasion – welcoming you; giving you the lowdown on emergency exits and security; imploring you to show good sportsmanship, stay in your seats during a performance, or turn off your flash when taking photos; asking you to stand for the Alma Mater and/or National Anthem; and of course, telling you who’s performing next, who carried the ball or made the tackle, who scored that basket, committed that foul, is at the free throw line, or is batting next. I get to tell you who’s placed where or what the score is before thanking you for coming, inviting you to our next event, and wishing you a safe drive home. I’ve been doing this type of voice work for three decades now, and it is still incredibly fun and rewarding.

It was a little over 20 years ago that, at a band competition, I encountered a parent who worked for an agency in Dallas. She inquired if I was a professional voiceover talent. At the time, I was still a classroom teacher who simply did PA work on the side. She suggested I send her some clips that she could share with her bosses. What a massive moment for me – am I really good enough that someone thinks I do professional voiceover? I scraped together some recording equipment and scripts, did my reads, and sent them off to her. And what a massive wake-up call. “You need coaching.” (No surprise.) They recommended the great Bruce Carey in Dallas. I did a free consultation with him, and he was willing to work with me, but I wasn’t ready at that time to commit to VO training, financially or otherwise. Still, the experience opened my eyes to what I had been doing right up to that point as a “PA guy,” and especially how I might improve. And boy, did I have a long way to go. Obviously, I have since pursued proper VO training and begun a more professional track in the world of voiceover. But even though I’ve expanded my VO interests, genres, and goals, I still remain strongly connected to the world of PA and live announce. While it’s not necessarily the most lucrative work, I still find it every bit as fun and rewarding as ever. I love it. And yet, there’s still something that bothers me about this particular niche of voice work. How can I describe it? Perhaps “the yellers.” “The screamers.” The folks who either don’t understand the nuance of VO and how it can apply to live announce, or the ones who’ve never been trained at all and just think that yelling at the crowd somehow engages them.

On social media, I belong to or follow several PA-related groups, pages, and accounts. So I see lots of other PA announcers who post about their work, including photos of the venues and videos of their work. I’ve also captured lots of video of my own PA work and posted some of it to social media, though not necessarily to these groups. I can only speak for myself, but my primary purpose in recording video or audio of my PA work is really improvement. I don’t simply go back and watch to say, “Wow, I’m great!” I’m intentionally critical of my own performance – ensuring I emphasized the right words and phrases, looking for patterns that are too monotonous or “sing-songy,” that kind of thing. Throughout this self-assessment, I place a priority on two things: First, the clarity of the message. Am I giving the audience the information they need or want? If it’s something like a sponsor read, am I properly billboarding the sponsor’s name and inviting the audience to consider them? Am I saying the name(s) correctly? (This one’s a HUGE one for me – more on that in a future blog post.) Is my phrasing actually leading somewhere, coming across coherently and bringing the copy to life? Second, the tone of the message. My concern here is literal – pitch, volume, timbre, everything about my vocal quality. Just like with a commercial read, there’s an art to it – when to raise or lower the pitch, when to speak louder or softer, when to exteeeeeend a word, phrase, or name, when to clip a word, even when to add a little resonance, vocal fry, or possibly a bit of a growl. Achieve the right blend of clarity and tone, and you have what I would consider audience engagement. You’re adding to the event, but not overshadowing or overwhelming it.

The bottom line is that the PA guy, the announcer, the “voice of god” in VO industry parlance, is NOT the show. The show is on the floor, on the field, on the stage. The live announcer’s job is to frame, explain, or enhance the show. To assist in the presentation of the show in a positive, enjoyable, professional manner, while at the same time being sort of “forgettable” because the audience is ultimately, you know, enjoying the show. And it’s why the best live announcers in the business are names the average person won’t know unless they pay careful attention. Some are well-known because they’ve announced on the biggest stages, like Allen Roach at the Super Bowl or Randy Thomas at The Oscars. Others might have regional notoriety thanks to an association with a sports franchise or university, like Chuck Morgan with the Texas Rangers or Bob Ford with the Houston Astros and the University of Houston. Still others might find themselves associated with niche events, like a couple of friends of mine – Dan Potter, who announces shows for DCI and BOA, among others, and John Pollard, who announces shows for BOA and the UIL State Marching Band Contest. Maybe not everyone is going to love their individual styles – that’s the nature of the VO business in general – but these announcers all have credibility as voice artists in their own right because they fundamentally work to highlight someone else’s efforts, accomplishments, and excellence. That’s the job of the announcer; you’re the voice “behind it all,” as it were. The now-defunct National Association of Sports Public Address Announcers used to call it “the voice above the crowd.” People appreciate the work you do precisely because it does ΝΟΤ interfere with the event or annoy them. If you’re the show, you’re a problem.

Having said all that, you can likely understand my consternation when I come across posts in my Facebook feed, or on Twitter, or sometimes even on LinkedIn, and see PA announcers posting videos of themselves doing things that give me headaches and heartburn. So many of them “eat the mic” in the first place, putting their lips right up against the foam windscreen or the mic itself. Any VO professional knows this is terrible mic technique unless you’re going for a very specific effect. To add to it, these guys are often absolutely screaming into the mic regardless of the situation. To be fair, some situations call for volume from the PA announcer – for instance, I inject a lot of energy into starting lineups when I’m announcing college basketball, although I never max out my volume or risk harming my vocal cords. But I saw a video just the other day where a guy was announcing high school playoff basketball and absolutely screaming players’ names for every made basket, and then he absolutely lost his mind yelling the final score when the game ended. Keep in mind, it was a playoff game at a neutral site, meaning the PA is supposed to be impartial; and what’s more, in a highly contested playoff game with a large crowd, the PA doesn’t need to make any effort at all to pump up the crowd. They’re going to be excited and probably won’t even be listening to you. Even for a big home game, this announcer’s style was over-the-top, and yet pointless at the same time.

This is an all-too-common tale, and not just on social media. Someone posts a video, “here’s me at my local little league baseball game announcing the starting lineups,” featuring this person getting way too intimate with a Shure SM58 and YEEEELLLLLING EVERYOOOOOONE’S NAAAAAAAAMMMMMMEEEE. And of course, the comments are all “Great Job!” “Awesome!” “You’re crushing it!” And I’m looking in horror, saying, “You’re not crushing it, you’re crushing the fans’ ears. Why are you yelling?” There’s maybe 40 people at this game, and the only thing you’re crushing is their enjoyment. This isn’t engaging; it’s annoying. And inappropriate. Then I see another post of a PA announcer who put on a coat, tie, and nice pair of shoes to announce the starting lineups from the floor with a wireless microphone. And of course, his approach to the presentation mostly consisted of yelling. WHY?!? I mean, if your goal is to become an emcee for a college- or pro-level team, by all means, shoot your shot. Work at it. Make it happen. But I’m betting the local private school with a tiny gym that only has 5-8 rows of wooden bleachers doesn’t have a video board and isn’t looking for enhanced game presentation with an emcee and fan activities during timeouts. PA guy dressing up to announce from the floor in this setting just reeks of “making it about you.” And sorry to tell you, buddy, but no one there really cares about you. They care about the game on the floor, and they’re just humoring you and hoping you’ll finish whatever you’re doing real soon. I’m just not sure what some PA announcers are trying to accomplish at times, and I suspect it’s the inherent good nature of others in the group that prevents a lot of ridicule and embarrassment in the comments.

Now I’m sure someone might retort at this point, “Oh, great, here we go. Old guy hates new things and gripes about them. Get off his lawn while he yells at this cloud.” Give me a break. If you think good PA work involves extra volume more than 10% of the time, you are way off the mark. Yelling is neither innovative nor engaging. If you think good PA work involves being seen out there standing next to the players and praised like you’re part of the team, you have issues with ego and insecurity. The PA is part of a team, alright, but it’s a behind-the-scenes team that’s working to make the featured event function likes it’s supposed to. Quality live announce work is all about structure, timing, mood, and knowing your role, then executing your role to fit the presentation. And that role has changed greatly over the years. The old-school work of people like Bob Sheppard of the New York Yankees, who famously used a deliberate, even tone for every name he announced and just about every word he spoke, is all but gone. Sheppard’s style is considered iconic, but that’s primarily because of his longevity (also because it was the Yankees). Drop Bob Sheppard into a modern arena with a present-day game presentation and he is way out of his element. Live events now call for a certain level of enthusiasm. You have to sound like you want to be there, and you’re happy the fans are there, too (even if it’s completely false because the team is suffering through a long losing streak or you’re exhausted after getting to the venue at 6:00am this morning). This is the only place any of us wants to be at this time on this day, period. And that has to come through in your delivery.

Does that call for yelling? A handful of times, maybe. The vast majority of the time, NO. Sure, get boisterous announcing your home lineup. In a big moment, make the announcement big. After a big home win, let the home fans know that score. Bottom Line: Fit The Moment. And be judicious and consistent in how you approach each moment. When you yell too often, it’s way too easy to work your way into a place where that’s just about all you do. And then there’s no differentiation. If the entire game warrants yelling, then none of it really matters, and you’re just annoying in your PA work. So why are you yelling?

Part of me blames the major pro leagues for this trend. You hear screaming PA in way too many pro venues. At NFL venues with a PA guy yelling “It’s THIIIIIIIIIIRD DOOOOOOWWWWN” at every occurrence. At NBA venues where they have a PA guy yelling at the fans literally all game long, imploring them to chant “DE-FENSE” or “LET’S GO [TEAM NAME].” Is this what passes for fan engagement in the 21st century? And we’ve begun to hear this kind of stuff at some college and even high school venues. It drives me insane, mainly because these messages are why video boards were invented and have grown so massive. The video crew can put “Make Noise!,” “DE-FENSE!,” etc., on the board, and the crowd responds. This is how it works at baseball games. Heck, pipe in some drumming audio – the familiar rhythms of “We Will Rock You” are timeless. We don’t need someone eating the mic, screaming at the top of their lungs, causing damage to their own voice, just in the name of “hyping the crowd.” So why are you yelling?

“But we’re creating a rock concert atmosphere. Get with the times, old man.” Look, chief, if I buy tickets to AC/DC, you’d better believe I’m going to expect it to be loud. That’s their bit. If I’m going to any concert in an arena or stadium, I expect loud. But I ask you: Who’s delivering the loud? Is it some nameless PA guy in a coat and tie walking on stage and yelling “GIVE IT UP FOR AC/DC!!!!!” If the actual show on the stage is worth seeing, it needs no introduction. Similarly, if the game on the field is worth seeing, it needs no introduction. And yet, you may be called upon to give it an introduction, so at least make it appropriate. I’ll say it again: The PA announcer’s job is to frame, explain, or enhance the show. So do that. Enhance the game. Enhance the product the audience came to see. ESPECIALLY when the audience consists of a modest number of fans or attendees, many of whom are parents of the players on the field or court. ESPECIALLY when those players are non-professionals, young people who participate for the love of it. Maybe a few might – might – advance to collegiate or professional levels. But right now, it’s just a bunch of literal kids trying to have fun and win today’s game. This is not a rock concert. As a PA announcer, add to what they are doing. Feature them. Promote them. Make them the only thing you want to watch at this moment. And fit the moment. But screaming over the microphone won’t do anything to make them look or feel professional. It will just annoy them and the people who came to watch them. So why are you yelling?

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The Most Infuriating Test of All

Welcome to the week after President’s Day. For many, this week brings many positive signs: Winter may soon cease its hold on the northern hemisphere. Spring is coming. Lent is here, followed by Easter sooner than you think. Baseball spring training is in-progress, so baseball season is approaching, and it’s here at the high school and college levels. The Winter Olympics are reaching their climax. Other sports are ramping up for 2026 – auto racing, tennis, golf. College basketball’s March Madness will be here soon. But for public school teachers, I have always referred to this time of year as the “Season of Hate.” The holidays were over a while ago. Spring Break is still weeks away. There’s not much novelty in classrooms at this time of year, and the end of the school year seems far in the distance. There’s basically just the daily grind of instruction — and because of recent days lost to icy roads, there is much content on which to catch up. There’s also much content to cover before district benchmarks, or before Spring Break, or before state assessments. Teachers are essentially forced to cram in lots of instruction – tons of it – probably more than they normally would, and students hate it. And truthfully, so do the teachers. It’s the toughest time of the school year, a fairly constant face-off and struggle between students and teachers.

On top of all of this hostility-infused activity, the state layers on another federally-mandated test that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. It’s the poster child for “Good Intentions Run Amok.” Texas calls it the Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System, or TELPAS. And everybody hates it — teachers, students, administrators, you name it. Everyone hates TELPAS. You’ll hardly ever hear about it on the news because it’s not the centerpiece of the state accountability system, STAAR. But it can affect state accountability ratings, especially if you’re a campus or district with a high population of EB students.

“What the heck are ‘EB’ students?” Ah-ha, so maybe you don’t know the ins and outs of TELPAS. Here’s a quick synopsis: TELPAS grew out of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 — that law acknowledged that A) the U.S. has a growing population of students whose primary language is not English and B) it’s imperative that public schools help these students develop English language skills over time so that they can succeed in U.S. schools. We used to call these students English as a Second Language (ESL), Limited English Proficient (LEP), and English Language Learners (ELL), but now we call them Emergent Bilingual (EB). The federal government has a requirement for all public schools to track their English Language Proficiency (that’s the ELP in TELPAS). The State of Texas had actually begun such tracking way back in 1999. The test covers four Domains of language: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking.

“Why does everybody hate TELPAS?” I would suggest a big part of it is that TELPAS is yet another intrusion on instruction right smack dab in the middle of the Season of Hate. But beyond that, it’s a challenge precisely because it is NOT required for every single student; it’s only for students designated as EB. The EB designation is already pretty vague, but once it’s attached to the student’s record, it’s also difficult to remove. Which makes TELPAS a pesky requirement, even for EB students who actually know English well. At its inception, TELPAS still affected all students, because the writing portion was required to be “authentic writing from an academic class,” BUT the assignment had to be assigned for every student. So teachers were expected to develop some contrived writing assignment for 100% of their students just so EB students could be evaluated for TELPAS. Then there was the “calibration” process for teachers, where they had to figure out how to evaluate what constituted Beginner vs Intermediate vs Advanced vs Advanced-High proficiency, specifically according to the state’s guidelines. That process, by itself, was at least two weeks of extra work for teachers just for the training. THEN they would have to assign the writing assignments in class , and get students to actually complete them (easier said than done). THEN administrators had to collect the writing samples for the EB students (and that process had a multitude of other requirements). THEN the teachers had to read all the samples and evaluate them. THEN the teachers also had to evaluate the Listening and Speaking proficiency. PLUS the EB students would have to take a basic Reading test online.

“How long would it take to do all that?” Way. Too. Long. Teacher training for TELPAS occurred at the beginning of February (for two weeks), then the “window” for completing TELPAS activities opened right after President’s Day and closed at the end of March (another SIX weeks). That’s EIGHT weeks of TELPAS-related activity, not including the time administrators spent attending trainings and preparing to coordinate all of this stuff. Naturally, campuses would do their best to complete TELPAS in the early part of the window, but there would be struggles to get students to complete the writing assignments (a minimum FIVE samples were required, with other stipulations as to what type of writing was needed). There might be students absent on the scheduled date of the reading test. Or there might be students who were chronic absentees through most of the TELPAS window. Then there was the issue of what to do with new students or students who withdrew from your campus or district during the window. It was a cacophony of never-ending activity, all in service to a test that, while well-meaning, ultimately mattered not one bit to district or, frankly, TEA officials. Students hated it. Teachers hated it. Administrators hated it. Everybody hates TELPAS. As a district testing coordinator, I literally made a joke out of how much people loathed the whole thing.

In recent years, the cacophony has quieted ever-so-slightly. For grades 2-12, TEA now offers two online assessments – one for Listening and Speaking, another for Reading and Writing. For all but K-1 teachers, the chaotic days of calibration and writing sample collection are over. But there’s still a logistical challenge, because the Listening/Speaking test requires students to use wired headsets plugged into the computing device. Yes, wired headsets — as in, headphones with a microphone attached. You can get cheap earbud-style headsets on Amazon at $1/item or less by buying in bulk, but if you want decent over-the-ear headsets that can easily be reused, you’re typically talking $10-$20 per headset. If you’re an elementary campus with only a few dozen EB students, it’s easy. But if you’re a 6A high school like where I most recently worked, with 50% EB students (yes, 1,500 students out of 3,000), that’s A LOT of headsets, and a potentially HUGE expense. To reduce the possibility of chronic absenteeism, we used to schedule a “shutdown” day for each test, but we couldn’t schedule more than 15-20 students per testing room because the speaking portion required distance between students. So you can probably imagine that planning roughly 100 testing rooms and distributing 1,500 headsets while relocating another 1,500 students, using a staff of up to 200 adults, was…interesting. And if you can imagine that, you can see why everybody STILL hates TELPAS, even though it’s now 100% online testing. Because you know what? The district and the state still don’t really care about it. Yet here we are.

“So why do they still do it?” Because of what I said earlier – “Good Intentions Run Amok.” Honestly, TELPAS is born of a well-meaning concept. If we’re concerned about the academic performance of ALL students, and academic performance hinges on the literacy rate, then there’s definitely a need for students who come from non-English-speaking households to grasp the English language and establish literacy skills in it. Trouble is, our politicians’ first thought regarding student performance has always been “Let’s have the schools stop everything and test them.” So NCLB mandated it, and ESSA (the Every Student Succeeds Act) renewed the requirement. Thus, TEA has to figure out when they can cram the test into the academic year without intruding on all the other federally-mandated tests. So their testing calendar puts it square in the Season of Hate. Fun!

“Do these EB students show improvements?” Based on my own experience in the classroom and as an administrator, I am confident that most EB students learn English reasonably well by being immersed in English-based instruction IF their teachers offer instruction that properly teaches the vocabulary of the course. (That is a massive “IF.”) That can be said for native and non-native English speakers alike. There are plenty of native English speakers out there who don’t have the first clue about how to use the English language, too. (Seriously, just read online comments for a sampling of the illiteracy problem in the U.S.) But the key to any of this is instruction, not testing. There’s not a single EB student who ever dug down and learned English better because “I’m going to ace that TELPAS test.” Not one. TELPAS is well-intended, but you simply cannot suggest its existence has improved the academic performance of EB students. It’s been around for roughly a quarter-century, but any statistical analysis of TELPAS growth results is flawed at best because of the fluctuation in EB student populations, changes across districts and campuses, changes in the format and content of the tests, and, oh yeah…these are still kids being evaluated every year from K-12. (YES, K through 12; TELPAS doesn’t wait until Grade 3.) I’m sure EB students are improving their English skills overall; I’m also sure it has nothing to do with TELPAS.

“We should get the government to abolish this test!” It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if we got rid of all of the federally-mandated testing requirements — not just TELPAS, but STAAR, the next iteration of testing coming to Texas, and everything else. (And that’s coming from a guy who spent over a decade in the testing world.) Without the mandates, schools would naturally figure out what standardized tests, if any, would generate the data that would actually help them improve instruction and learning. But the reality is that we live in the era of school accountability (another can of worms all its own), and where there is accountability, there is assessment. I don’t know of many politicians with the fortitude to admit that the extra requirements they’ve been adding for the past 30-40 years aren’t working. If anything, they double- and triple-down. Add to the equation all the marketing and lobbying efforts of the big testing firms out there who profit from the system. So it’s probably never going away in our lifetime. The best we can hope for is that the trend recedes a bit over the next decade, and then hope that any reversal gains transaction.

In the meantime, I offer my former colleagues my best wishes as they navigate these waters in the school year. I know you hate TELPAS. I know your students hate TELPAS. Everybody hates TELPAS. Have some solidarity in that knowledge and work through it together, knowing everyone’s in the same boat with similar emotions. “Survive and advance,” as they say. It’s going to suck, but it will end (…okay, just in time for the next round of testing, but still). Do your best to fight through it. If you’re not in education and have never had to deal with this type of stuff, try to have a little empathy for those in the throes of this time of the school year — students, teachers, and administrators alike. If it seems like it’s rough for them, that’s because IT IS. Recognize and appreciate that. But know this: The Season of Hate eventually ends, every year, and is supplanted by the Season of Love. (Don’t worry; I will write about that when the time comes, too, because it’s the best.) Stay strong, and don’t let the frustration consume you. EHT.

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To Mom

My mother passed away on Saturday, February 7, 2026, at the age of 95. Soon, we will have her funeral and burial, and I’ve been asked to offer a eulogy. So I’ve been crystallizing thoughts about and memories of my mom, trying to develop a proper eulogy that appropriately captures the value and lessons of her life. This blog post is a step toward that end. 

“Fine. We’re fine. I’m fine.”

Those were the words my mother would offer anytime I asked her how she and my dad were doing, even as they aged. Even when I knew one or both of them had some kind of ailment. “We’re fine.” Even after my father passed in 2020, whenever we visited her, she always told us, “I’m fine.” After Alzheimer’s disease rendered her unable to respond verbally, I’m still fairly sure that, had I posed the question, that would’ve been her instinctive thought. “Fine.” That’s because my mother really never complained. She never focused on the negatives so many of us sometimes see. Mom was an unceasingly positive person. She viewed every day as a gift, and more often than not, she had good days. And even if today was not a good day, tomorrow would always be here soon enough. The sun will shine in the east in the morning. There will be new opportunities. This too, shall pass. Whatever didn’t happen just wasn’t meant to be, but what is meant to be will happen. God will provide.

Born on December 16, 1930 in Azusa, California, Jovita Enriqueta Murillo moved with her family as a young girl to El Paso, Texas, settling and growing up in the community of Ysleta, less than 3 miles from the Mexican border. It was there that Jovita attended the same school where her mother managed the cafeteria, Ysleta High School; and she also learned the value of a life in service to others. Jovita graduated from Ysleta High in 1948 and began a brief career in banking. She also enjoyed spending time and traveling with a variety of friends and relatives during her early adulthood, including visits to San Diego to see Abraham Ponce, whom she had met on St. Patrick’s Day in 1948, and who was serving there in the US Navy. Abe and Jovita eventually married on April 24, 1955 at the historic Ysleta mission, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church. Upon becoming Mrs. Ponce, Jovita left the bank and began the adult life that she grew to adore.

The Ponces welcomed three girls and two boys into the family in El Paso. In 1971, a new job opportunity for Abe with the Community Services Administration in Dallas brought the family to Arlington, Texas, and the home Jovita lived in and loved for over 48 years — where she saw her children grow up and move into adulthood, and where she also adored and indulged five grandchildren. The house in west-central Arlington was a bit of a haven for her, and she relished her role as wife, mother, grandmother, housekeeper, baker, and chef in that space. Never a complaint. Always a positive outlook. Usually a cookie or snack waiting in the wings. She was fine.

Mom was willing to do basically whatever it took to keep her husband and children happy and comfortable. I can remember back to when I was basically still a toddler and struggled with nightmares – she was Mommy to me back then, and she calmly sat at the end of my bed providing a comforting presence so that I could return to sleep. Her willingness to support went beyond the family. When I was in high school at a summer drum major camp at UTA, my three teammates and I found ourselves with an extended break one late afternoon, but also short on cash for dinner. A quick phone call to Mom, and before long the four of us were enjoying some roast beef and vegetables she happened to have leftover, listening to jazz records on the family stereo. When I was in college, one of my best friends would occasionally ask if we could run to my house before band rehearsal because he thought Mom might have some cookies on-hand. She did, of course. I’m pretty sure she even made us sandwiches more than once.

That’s really who she was. A nurturer. A provider. Doing what you needed or wanted, content herself because you were happy. One of my favorite photos of Mom was taken before I was born, and featured Mom and my four siblings outside the El Paso International Airport when they were picking up my father after a business trip. She looks completely fulfilled in that photo, taking care of her husband and the kids – she seemed born for that role. Mom frequently found herself making the airport drive to pick up Dad over the years. When I was a preteen and a teenager, I was usually her right-hand man on such occasions, helping her navigate to DFW Airport since she sometimes felt uncertain about making the correct exits and turns. It was great bonding time for us — I’m sure I unloaded whatever teenage angst I had, and I know that Mom reassured me in the manner only she could. Mom always offered comfort and optimism, no matter how much anxiety or distress you may feel. It will all be fine.

I’m also sure that Mom prayed for me constantly, as she prayed for all of her family. She used to carry prayer books in her purse at all times, and they were often typically worn out from use. We found ourselves regularly looking for replacements at the local Catholic store. She was particularly fond of St. Jude and sought his intercession regularly. I think it actually went back to her childhood, growing up during the Great Depression. I imagine many people sought intercession from the patron saint of lost causes during those years. Mom prayed novenas to St Jude for many intentions. Her Catholic faith was fundamental to her life. Although she never became heavily involved in parish organizations, she would always contribute something for bake sales and other events. She was steadfast in her faith, and it fueled her optimism and helped her drive away discouragement.

If my mother ever felt frustration, I imagine it came later in her life, when comfort, perseverance, and prayer proved to be not quite enough to stave off circumstances. In 2008, my sister Susan was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. Naturally, Mom turned to St. Jude. By his grace and the miraculous efforts of doctors at MD Anderson Cancer Center, she was granted an additional 4 years with her daughter. But Susan passed in 2012, and Mom was heartbroken. Yet she soldiered on, taking care of her husband until his enhanced needs and her own physical limitations made it difficult for her to look after him in her customary manner. After Abe suffered a stroke in November 2019 and ultimately passed in January 2020, Mom moved into assisted living. My hope for her was that she could focus on herself at that point, engage in some self-care while gaining a sense of community, especially in the face of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. But the truth is that without something or someone there to nurture – her home, her family, and especially her husband, Mom found fulfillment difficult to achieve. Yet she still proclaimed “I’m fine.” She appreciated everything the staff did for her, her nice neighbors, and the setting, but she missed her home, her husband, and the life of service she loved. I am at least grateful that, even though she wasn’t always verbally responsive in her final years, she still appeared to recognize visitors easily. Alzheimer’s affected her, but not to the extent where she lost connection with those she loved. Perhaps St. Jude was looking after her. I’m also grateful that her final days in this life were peaceful, not painful, allowing her to pass with serenity.

Most of all, I’m thankful for the values and characteristics that my mother leaves behind. Quiet dignity. Patience. Fortitude. Perspective. Grace. Compassion. Service. We should all try to live those values in her honor. But now that she’s moved on to her heavenly reward, reunited with her beloved husband and daughter — don’t cry for her today. She’s fine.

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To What Is, not What Might Have Been

Unanswered prayers. Twists of fate. Unfulfilled desires. Foiled plans. Typically, phrases like these evoke negative images for us. Our minds conjure thoughts of “the one that got away,” be it a person, a job, an opportunity, or something entirely different. We kind of enjoy torturing ourselves this way because the idea of “what might have been” can make for a very compelling story. There are movies, books, and songs written in lamentation about what was lost. It’s also a common storytelling trope to have the protagonist revisit the missed opportunity years later.

But isn’t that all just imagination? That’s literally what “wishful thinking” is. We concoct our own little story about what could have happened if circumstances had unfolded differently, and it just so happens that >gasp< it would have been SO wonderful, if only… Today I say: Hogwash. Fiddlesticks. Malarkey. Poppycock. Baloney. [Insert your favorite old-timey dismissive phrase here.] Twists of fate are a part of life, whether you believe God has a hand in what happens to you or not. That’s why there’s an adage that “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” We’re like kids at Christmas. Make our list of gifts, talk to Santa, hint to our parents, and cross our fingers that we’ll get what we want. And remember, we also make choices all the time, every day. And sometimes a single choice has a significant effect, creating a chain of proverbial dominos that fall to produce our circumstances – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Remember, too, that we are also often affected by other people’s choices, so even when we’ve planned and prepared and prayed and chosen wisely – some other choice, some other circumstance, some other event impacts us and throws off our proverbial path. And while it may seem crushing to us in the moment, I’m here to tell you it’s often for the best.

Last week, I wrote about the choice I made with my wife to marry each other 31 years ago. It’s a choice that feeds me positively each day, but a mere 5-6 years earlier, things could have been different. I had dated a young lady for a couple of years going back to high school. We broke up after she left for college, but one summer we reconnected and began to get kind of serious, even discussing whether we might be interested in marrying. Then she went back to school and met someone else – the man who would ultimately become her husband. (They’ve been happily married for 35 years.) After that second breakup, I immersed myself in school, embarking on my first semester since high school where I made straight A’s. I also worked a lot, did some traveling, and eventually met my future wife. Time for a pop culture reference – Ted Lasso: “It may not work out how you think it will or how you hope it does. But believe me, it will all work out, exactly as it’s supposed to.” And for both myself and my old girlfriend from high school, it absolutely did.

Fast forward to 2025, when I finally completed the steps need to retire from K-12 public education. I wrote about how I had actually applied for one more administrative role in a nearby district, and I honestly believe I was on the cusp of getting hired. Then I received the dreaded “we’ve selected a different candidate e-mail.” Curses! Foiled again! Or was I? Ironically, I read that e-mail on my phone in a medical center waiting room while my wife underwent a scan for breast cancer tissue. That test eventually came back positive for “cancerous material” — not really cells, more like particles. So she had to undergo more tests and a surgical procedure, along with follow-up appointments. Guess who was by her side every minute? This guy…without ever having to give a thought to whatever work I was missing or would have to catch up on at my new job. I truly consider it a blessing that I could have zero other concerns during that time. Just her. And shortly after that situation was resolved, along came a part-time opening working in the office at my church parish. So instead of more potentially soul-crushing work in education, I landed in a calmer job that supplements my retirement income while allowing me time and flexibility to continue to build my voiceover career. The plan didn’t go off the rails; it just shifted to some different rails that, in the end, have followed a better path.

See, I’ve already had career plans go off-kilter in the past, and learned hard lessons from trying to “reset the plan.” It actually wasn’t all that long ago – a mere 8 years. I was working in Mansfield ISD at the time, under Dr. Teresa Stegall’s leadership in the Department of Research, Assessment, and Accountability. I’ve spoken fondly of Dr. Stegall’s leadership before. Right around this time in 2018, she retired from public education, receiving a well-deserved fond farewell from many in the district. She had previously informed me that she hoped for me to take over as Director of the department and had involved me in several tasks in preparation for the role. I had worked with central administrators and principals on a variety of projects, and I felt poised to step into the job. Trouble is, in the month after her retirement, the rest of us in the department heard nothing about the future – the Director position was never posted, and we were simply carrying on without a director. We heard rumors, but nothing definitive. Until the last Friday of February 2018, when Dr. Stegall’s supervisor met with us to inform us that the district was not, in fact, replacing her as Director. They were instead dissolving the position, using the money from that salary for other purposes, and placing our department under the supervision of a different Director in central administration. What’s more, we were charged with revising our duties to absorb the tasks of the Director, AND we had to take the department’s budget and devise our plan for the 2018-19 school year. Rug, yanked. Gut, punched. What the heck, I’ll even go there: Nuts, kicked. My plan had been to transition into a promotion, ramp up the VO career a little more, then retire from MISD – the only district where I had ever worked – after 30-35 years, then move into VO full-time. Instead, throughout my 25th year in the district, I found myself a little overworked, a little bitter, and a little bit off the rails.

So when I tried to regain control of the plan by bolting for Birdville ISD in the Spring of 2019, my hope was to get back onto my rails, albeit elsewhere. But it was a brutally failed effort that I’ve talked about briefly before. I don’t really want to relive it or recount details of how awful it was; it was mainly a year I’d like to forget. I suppose the most powerful thing I could say is that, when the COVID pandemic shut us down in March 2020, I was actually a little relieved. For the final six weeks of that year, I didn’t have to make the drive to Haltom City each day for a job that was slowly driving me insane. Work-from-home agreed with me, even if I had to conduct a job search for 2019-20 via Zoom. And even then, after my attempt at restoring the rails to a previous career path flamed out, there was yet another twist of fate that delivered me to Grand Prairie High School, working with a group of people who were mostly doing their absolute best to serve a student population that needed it. I made many lifelong friends there and encountered colleagues who I admired greatly. I learned from them, and I was able to teach them some things while keeping them entertained; and keeping them sane amidst the insanity that TEA and the district expected me to bring them as the testing coordinator. That is, until I finally had the wherewithal to bring my education career to a close and pursue voiceover full-time.

Do I regret my choice to leave Mansfield for Birdville? Not really. Given the events of February 2018, chances are that there might have been more potential gut punches along the way. The precedent had been set, and staying there could have sent a message that I would simply solider on, regardless of the circumstances. I’ve said before – central administration in education can be a little soul-crushing. That’s the nature of it. One of my colleagues in that department had a Ph.D in Statistics, and there’s a good chance that he might’ve been selected over me for the Director position. A choice to remain in MISD could have definitely produced some other twist, possibly worse than what I had already experienced. That year of misery in Birdville was at least instructive. I learned from it, as we often do from a painful experience. And just like Ted Lasso said, it did work out exactly as it was supposed to. I’ll take the exploits that I had and the friends I made at GP, thank you very much. And I’ll take the time supporting my wife instead of another central office job, as well. I have landed where I wanted to be – escaped from what had become an increasingly insane and stressful world of education, engaged more fully in the world of voiceover, and most of all, available more completely to my wife and family. Unanswered prayers? No, just different answers than I expected. Foiled plans? No, just slightly altered plans. Unfulfilled desires? No, As the great Sheryl Crow sang: “It’s not getting what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.” As it turns out, what I’ve got IS what I wanted. The path to get there is just not what I envisioned at one time.

The path can vary for many of us. I have two friends who have had similar experiences recently, where their intended professional plans have been altered by circumstances. One of them is currently teaching in New Mexico and had actually interviewed for the same position in the DFW area twice, finishing second both times. His current situation in NM isn’t the greatest, but it’s also not the worst, so his goal is simply to carve a different path back to DFW, and possibly back to New Mexico another time. Meanwhile, one of my friends from GPHS was passed over for that campus’ Principal position when it was open in 2024. She’s having to toil at another campus – again, not the greatest job – but her personal life has thrived even though she’s not where she wants to be professionally, and those personal developments wouldn’t have been possible at all if she was Principal of a 6A high school. There’s still plenty of time for her to achieve her professional goals. Again, it’s just going to be a different path, and there’s nothing wrong with that. We all live and learn along the way, carrying whatever knowledge, experience, and growth that are gained.

In the world of voiceover, “rejection” is a natural part of the process, a way of life. My friends in the VO world are used to hearing “No” in the face of grand plans. Really, they’re prepared for “No” after every audition. Except that it’s not necessarily “No,” it’s just “Not Right Now,” as they say. Just because someone else is booked for a given VO job doesn’t mean you weren’t good, or worthy; it just means that whoever made the casting decision selected a different voice for this project, for a reason that could be very specific or very ambiguous. And that’s really the point of this post: Unanswered prayers, unfulfilled desires, twists of fate, foiled plans don’t necessarily reflect on us as individuals. They don’t mean we’re not valuable as people, or professionals, or artists. They just mean that this isn’t the right match, the right time or place, the right circumstances. Not Right Now. But we keep at it, working toward what we seek. Enjoy the journey. Learn what you can. Value the good things and the good times. Seek, and you will find. Right Now will eventually come along, and What Is will outshine What Might Have Been.

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Gotta Have Soul, Mate

This week’s post coincides with what I consider one of the 3 most important times of the year. You might think, “He’s talking about the resolve to maintain your New Year’s Resolutions,” based on one of my previous posts. Or perhaps you suspect it includes my thoughts on Valentine’s Day. But more important to me than literally any Valentine’s celebration is the anniversary of the wedding of myself and my better half on this date, January 28. Today we will celebrate the completion of 31 years or marriage.

“Awwww,” you might say. And that’s fine, although I am definitely not a person of extraordinary sentiment. Sure, my wife and I love each other deeply, but if anything, we are extraordinarily private about it. Anyone expecting to see PDA from the two of us will be sorely disappointed. What you will see from us, more than anything, is a personal rapport that we share. Plainly put, we get along at a fascinating level. Not all the time, but more than enough. We use the phrase “hashtag married” (#married) way more than we have ever expected, so much that we will literally each hold out two fingers toward each other to create the hashtag symbol. Maybe it’s cute; I don’t know. In some ways, I consider it akin to a pair of Mandalorians saying “This Is The Way.” Our little ritual.

Our road to such rituals has been interesting, but it’s not like we overcame any epic hurdles to get here. I was born in El Paso, Texas (Native Texan, baby!) and moved to Arlington shortly after my 3rd birthday. She was born on Long Island, New York, moved to the Houston area as a child, then came to Arlington in her early teen years, a little more than a decade after I arrived. We actually lived within 5 minutes of each other and even went to the same high school, but because I was 3 years older than she was, we never attended the same school campus through grade 12. Our high school only had Grades 10-12 under one roof at the time, and junior high was Grades 7-9. We actually met once when I was a freshman at UT-Arlington, introduced to each other by the girl I was dating at the time. But it wasn’t until I was a senior at UTA and she was a freshman that we started dating, connecting as members of the “band without football,” the UTA Marching Band. Some people might think we dated too long, because it took 4 years, 5 months, and 4 days for me to propose. That may seem like an eternity to some, but I think we both wanted to have a decent foothold as real human adults with careers and a mild sense of independence before we crossed the threshold of living life together.

Having heard that story, and if you observe our endearing rapport (truly, we are kind of cute together), you might even say, “Gosh, you two are real soulmates.” But here’s the thing: I don’t subscribe to the traditional notion of soulmates. The whole concept of “someone’s lobster” from Friends is purely fictional, IMO. I am very much an empirical guy. Even though I didn’t stick with math as a major in college (it was my initial choice), I’m definitely someone who believes in the power of math to bind the world together. (Shoutout once again to Pythagoras.) Numbers don’t lie. And the numbers say that the concept of one singular soulmate for each human simply cannot work. There are currently over 8 billion people on Earth. Even back in 1989, the year that my wife and I started dating, there were just over 5 billion people. With that kind of astronomical number, the notion that there was a single individual destined for me – someone who was of the opposite sex and heterosexual like myself, age appropriate, with similar interests, upbringing, and values – I mean, come on. Oh, and she happened to live incredibly close to where my family had moved 18 years earlier, and we even attended the same church even though we didn’t know it yet. That just doesn’t work, mathematically speaking. If there was such a person, probability at least suggests that this person might not live nearby – heck, she might live in another country across the globe and speak an entirely different language. 

So for me, the likelihood that there was one, true soulmate who I could ultimately marry was low. Incredibly low. Given the rate of divorce in the United States, the likelihood that most of the people getting married on January 28, 1995 – or literally every other date since then – are soulmates, is also shockingly low. Even the families of myself and my wife suggest this. I have four siblings — one has been married and divorced, the other three married people who were, themselves, previously married and divorced. My wife has three siblings, one of whom has been married and divorced and is currently married to a man who was also previously married and divorced. Another sibling is unmarried, and the third has been married to the same woman for 15 years now (first time for both there – so there’s one besides us). The point is, seeking and finding “your one true soulmate” is, by and large, an exercise in futility, mathematically speaking. At the most, if soulmates exist, then it would be more likely for each person on the planet to have multiple potential soulmates walking among us, and the trick, if there is one, is to find each other and offer enough effort and flexibility in our lives to become actual soulmates. This person doesn’t have to be your destiny, fated strictly for you, to make it possible to be with them. Sometimes you just have to step up and ask her out, then if she is compatible for you, put in the work with her to make the relationship flourish and grow.

But here is the bottom line, on this day of our 31st Wedding Anniversary: Regarding my own empirical biases and mathematical thinking, it really doesn’t matter. Is my wife the single, true soulmate who was created just for me? My sole soulmate, if you want to get punny? Who cares? I found her, and she found me. We fell in love, got married, and built a life together of which I am incredibly proud and for which I am incredibly grateful. That life has never been perfect – and neither are we – but we’ve been perfect for each other, and that’s really all that matters. If you read my post earlier in January, referencing Pythagoras’ quote, “Choices are the hinges of destiny,” then you can understand the critical effects of our choice on this date 31 years ago. That choice established our destiny together. It changed us, focused us. I firmly believe it’s made us better as individual people. We can share our love of sports, movies, music and musical theater, art, and animals, among other things. We can endlessly quote Grosse Pointe Blank without missing a beat. As two people who are honestly fairly cynical about Valentine’s Day, we even get to ignore it by celebrating our wedding anniversary two weeks earlier instead. That’s our choice, together.

I’m reminded of a favorite movie of ours, The Family Man, and its best line of dialogue:

“I love you, and that’s more important than our address. I choose us.”

If you’re familiar with that movie, then you also know the implications of the fateful choice – that it might come with some perceived limitations. We may give up certain things in terms of career, living arrangements, and perhaps material wealth when we prioritize relationships. But that’s actually the whole point of the movie, and of married life itself: Whatever “could have been” matters not to me; what matters is what we have, who I am as a result, and what is. Maybe my life is different with her than it would have been without her. I don’t know, but more importantly, I’m really not interested in knowing. Our married life, our existence as a family, are what matter most. Yes, there are challenges. There are times when one or the other of us is infuriating to the other. There are disagreements. But that’s part of being human, part of “For Better, For Worse,” isn’t it? And for us, “For Better” happens much more often. The challenges are minimal in the grand scheme of things. How about another pop culture reference, this time from the great Leslie Higgins on Ted Lasso: “If you’re with the right person, even the hard times are easy.”

When it’s all said and done, there is one person whose hand I want to hold during a concert, a musical, a walk in the park, or anyplace else. There is one face I want to see before I go to bed at night and first thing each morning. A face that I can always pick out in a crowd. There is one person with whom I always want to share the events of my day, my fears, my dreams, my very life. At the same time, I want her to have her own life and share it with me. Our lives don’t have to revolve around each other – she certainly doesn’t exist solely to serve me and our family, which is how I’ve come to view my own mother’s life. (That’s another topic I’ll have to unpack later.) But our lives create harmony together in a way that enhances each of us as individuals and feeds our family in a very beautiful and fulfilling way. Does that make us soulmates? I don’t know. I don’t care. What I do know is: I choose us. Happy Anniversary, sweetheart.

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Refurbishing My Hinges of Destiny

If the phrase “Hinges of Destiny” in the title of this post sounds familiar, that’s because it refers to a quote attributed to Pythagoras: “Choices are the hinges of destiny.” Most of us know the name Pythagoras because we learned the Pythagorean Theorem in geometry class. And Pythagoras is widely considered the “Father of Mathematics” (or the “Father of Numbers”) because he’s credited as the first person to view mathematics as a broader discipline, connecting numbers to philosophy, music, and even the universe. People relate Pythagoras to math, but he was really a philosopher above all, so what better person to quote in a catch-all blog called “On the Brink of Instruction?”

Now, I do not claim to be an authority on Pythagoras or Pythagoreanism, but the multi-disciplinary nature of his views and teachings are fascinating to me, especially as someone who taught economics for two decades. Anyone who’s taken high school economics knows that it is typically A) a requirement for graduation and B) not considered the most interesting class, on its face. Economics is often called “the dismal science” for a reason. So as an instructor, my goal was always to connect the study of economics to the broader “real” world, to make it more relatable for my students. I would always start each semester framing the study of economics as, truly, the study of choices. People take limited resources – the textbook factors of production being land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship, along with others such as time, talent, and energy – and we figure out how to use them in the most productive and efficient possible way to achieve the best possible outcome. My class would obviously layer in the standard terms and concepts of the economics curriculum, since that’s the course, but not before we considered more philosophical ideas about choices affected by given constraints. “What do you want to do with the next minute of your life? The next hour? The next day? Week, Month, Year, Decade?” The fundamental core of the course was that economics is the study of how and why we make choices, and what happens as a result – the consequences of our choices, which ultimately produce our circumstances. That was the underlying framework.

Choices are proverbial building blocks for our lives, determining not just our circumstances but also our personalities and our character. Plus, choices also happen to be excellent fodder for memorable quotes and memes in pop culture. I’m a particular fan of “He chose…poorly. You have chosen wisely,” from Indiana Jones and the the Last Crusade. The importance of choices is a perfect continuation of my thoughts in my last post on the nature of New Year’s resolutions. And given the sentiments I’ve expressed in still another post about how my overall goal at this stage of life is mainly to be the best version of myself that I can be, some thoughts on choices would be a great starting point.

I’m not going to pretend to be an authority on humanity’s choices, behavior, psychology, or any connection among the three. There are a myriad of resources available in libraries and on the internet that provide exhaustive analysis. There are also therapeutic resources for those who need them to address their own personal choices. I can only speak to my own experiences, thoughts, and ideas regarding my efforts at resolutions in service to my personal goals for the year in terms of my voiceover career, my relationships, my health, my well-being, my daily life, and even my place in the world, lofty as that might sound. Those efforts are framed by a variety of things, including my faith, my family and friends, my personal history, my existing knowledge about psychology and behavioral adjustments, my influences, and really, my perspective of who I am now and who I want to be in the future. So this post offers personal musings that I hope might be useful to the reader, as opposed to some kind of help guide rooted in science and research.

With that in mind, I am beginning 2026 by carefully considering each day, perhaps even each hour, and determining how I want to spend it. Even now, as I write this post, I have decided that I’m spending the next X minutes writing, then I will stop and proceed to another task that needs to be done. Unless, of course, I get “on a roll,” and I need to make an adjustment to whatever plan I might have in real time. The process of resolution, and carrying it out – behavior modification, in a sense – is difficult because it’s often fluid. We wake up each day with the notion of “Today I’m going to…,” but perhaps something alters the plan. Maybe we wake up later than we intended. Maybe we devote more time than intended to a particular task, reducing the available time for other tasks. Maybe an emergency arises. Maybe we get sick. Maybe we just feel like doing something else instead of what we planned to do.

The constant process of adjustment in the face of our proverbial plans is really at the core of whether or not we will make the appropriate choice at the time we need to make it. And it truly is a constant process. What time will I wake up? How do I respond if my spouse wakes up in a bad mood? How do I react if I wake up in a bad mood – what do I do to correct it? What’s the first thing I will do today? Should I change lanes here, or there? How do I respond when another driver cuts me off? How do I react if a person at the store is rude? How do I address it if the restaurant gets my order wrong? What do I do if the grocery store is out of the item I intended to buy? Where do I go if I need help for an unexpected problem? Do I make this purchase? Do I really need that item? Do I need to eat more or less of this kind of food? Should I take the time to watch this TV show? What happens if I just take a few minutes to play that game on my phone? What about that book I want to read? In a free society that allows the individual to choose, questions like these can actually become overwhelming. I think it’s the main reason why so many New Year’s resolutions fail – we have good intentions, we’d really like to change, but when that important moment arrives and we need to choose restraint, or kindness, or exercise, or self-care, or remorse, or fruits & vegetables, or a little extra work, we lack impulse control. Or we revert to old habits. Or we embrace comfort and familiarity instead of the change we claim to seek.

Assuming we truly want to change and truly seek new goals for ourselves, then it is in those moments that making new choices, different choices, is the most critical. And as you might expect, it really takes thought, conscious consideration, and yes, work to make it happen. I used to teach drum major camps – every summer for 16 years. Every camp included leadership as part of the curriculum, which usually meant extensive discussion about how the students could influence and inspire their band members. And at every camp, without fail, we heard the question, “How can I help my band be more disciplined?” My answer typically followed the same theme: Discipline Is Habit. You can walk out of this camp saying you want your band to be more disciplined, but doing so will not magically give you a more disciplined band on Day 1 of band camp. And Day 1 of band camp won’t be nearly enough. You will have to plan on how to approach every rehearsal, every football game, and every performance, and you will have to follow through on that plan every time. The less disciplined your band has been in the past, the harder it will be – the harder you will have to work, the more effort you’ll have to expend, the longer it will take. The efforts will have to continue well past the heat of August. It will likely be hardest in mid-September, when it’s still kind of hot outside, you haven’t fully learned your show yet, and there hasn’t yet been a meaningful performance. That’s when you’re most likely to see a backslide into old, undisciplined, unproductive habits. And that’s when it is most critical to maintain your efforts toward your new choices, your new habits, your new goals. You may not realize that you’ve actually become “more disciplined” until months after deciding on it as a goal. And you will only achieve it through day-to-day effort over time.

So it goes with New Year’s resolutions. The old mantra of “21-day to create a habit” is a myth. Psychology researchers at University College of London did a study in 2009 that found, on average, it takes 66 days to establish new habits – although it can vary, depending on how simple or complex the habit is. You could theoretically establish a simple habit within the old 21-day timeframe, but something more involved might take over 250 days, so you’d better be ready to spend the better part of the next year putting in the work. That work will involve choices – intentional choices – over and over, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. Those choices will eventually turn into habits. Those habits might eventually become rituals, in a sense. And so long as those rituals lead us toward who we seek to be, then we know our efforts have been productive. But we won’t know it until the weather is much warmer. The conventional wisdom Is that most resolutions are abandoned by the second Friday of the year. Two Fridays! I can’t decide whether to call that pathetic or disheartening.

But that’s really what it comes down to, and I would like to think Pythagoras himself would appreciate it: Change Takes Work. Additionally, change takes time; it takes persistence. It’s the combination of persistent work over time that really leads to success, or the lack of it produces failure. It really leaves no room for excuses. No attempts to justify falling into old habits. No telling ourselves “I’ll get back to it again” when it’s convenient. Convenience, too often, is the mortal enemy of change. Persistence, meanwhile, is change’s best friend. I’m reminded of Jerry Seinfeld’s story about his own habits as an aspiring comedian. It took a simple wall calendar and a marker. His goal every day was just to write a joke; one joke per day. Once he wrote a joke, he marked a big X over that day on the calendar. Eventually, he had developed a chain of Xs on the calendar. The goal over time was, Don’t Break the Chain. That’s it. Nothing about outcomes. Nothing about the type or nature of the joke. Not even anything about how funny the jokes were. Just one joke per day, mark the X, do it every day. Does the rest “take care of itself?” Yes and No – there are obviously other aspects of comedy that Seinfeld worked on – delivery, timing, wording, etc. But the fundamental building block of his comedy career rested on making the conscious choice of committing to the work – writing one joke per day, until it became a chain, a habit, a ritual that fed his ultimate goal as a performer.

Personally, I will admit that I have established some lofty goals for myself in 2026, both in my voiceover career and as a person. I just might be more driven than ever about my 2026 resolutions, primarily because I’m no longer beholden to the K-12 public education career that had begun to weigh me down for several years. I have too often, in years past, used constraint, not convenience, as my excuse for abandoning my goals – my work in education got in the way then, but no more. I now get to pursue a career that offers me more control. I’m lucky that the constraints are now released, so I really believe the only things likely to hold me back are my own faults – laziness, apathy, excuses, comfort, bad habits. My limitations would be primarily self-imposed, so I intend to get out of my own way, get off the proverbial bench, and get after what I seek. Clean up and open my own proverbial “hinges of destiny,” as it were. I sincerely hope the people I can positively impact along the way will benefit from it. For you, friends, my wish is minimal constraints on your own goals, as well as maximum effort and energy toward your own pursuits. Choose wisely.

Speaking of new choices in 2026, I’m choosing to alter how I approach my blog, On the Brink of Instruction. I began back in August 2025 with weekly posts on either Tuesday or Wednesday. Going forward in 2026 and beyond, I will only offer new posts every other week. During the intervening weeks, I will post an audio version of the previous week’s post. After all, as a professional voiceover talent, it makes sense for me to take time to showcase my thoughts in my own voice. I will also be working on adding audio versions of my 2025 posts the best I can. Perhaps this new approach may offer new insight into just how warped and tortured my psyche became after 3 decades in education, and even new hopes for my attempts to claw my way back to actual humanity. OK, maybe that’s dramatic. But you get the idea.