Rest Easy

We recently had a final salute for a veteran who passed away while inpatient here at the Veterans hospital. A call went out to all employees that there would be a dignified transfer of a deceased veteran, and we were all invited to participate. I’ve done a few of them since starting work here and yes, it can choke you up by its simple grace.

Called Dignified Transfer, Code Honor, and Honor Walk, Typically, it is a short notice call and everyone available goes to the designated ward and line up on both sides of the hallway from the patient’s room to the nearest exit. Sometimes the veteran is a organ donor and his next stop is the operating room to harvest his organs. Other times the veteran is transferred to a hearse to be prepared for their final journey.

An ad hoc formation, no one is really in charge, and while waiting, everyone speaks in quiet whispers as the team prepares the veteran for transport.

As the gurney carrying the veteran enters the hallway someone calls the group to attention and present arms. Veterans like me typically make a hand salute whereas the others place their hands over their hearts. Looking up and down the hallway there were dozens of VA employees, residents, interns, and students rendering honors. Cooks and Custodians stood next to surgeons; nurses next to administrators with one purpose, that is to honor this vet and to show his/her loved ones that they were indeed part of a larger family.

As the flag-draped gurney passed I noted that there was no indication of who the veteran was, what gender, or what race. Rank, branch of service or position meant nothing, all we knew was this was a fellow veteran beginning their final journey.

As the elevator doors closed the command to order arms and carry on was given and we all quietly went back about our business of caring for our fellow veterans.

Rest easy troop and tend the fire, we’ll all be a long soon enough.

 *These photos were not taken in my hospital, I found them on the web.

Jake the Snake

“… didn’t look quite right,”

Part of my morning commute includes an (at times) leisurely one mile walk from the U of I soccer fields to the VA hospital. Usually lost in thought I must be careful not to blindly step into traffic or crash into my fellow walkers but one-time a few summers ago while on my trek, I noticed something in the grass that, “didn’t look quite right.” 

Taking a closer look, I realized that laying there in a lazy-eight coil was a snake. It was good-sized too, at least 12-15 inches long. I instinctively recoiled at the sight of the reptile with a primeval fight or flight reaction but after I caught my breath and took a closer look, I realized it was nothing but a harmless garter snake. I thought about how beautiful – in a grotesque way and so well camouflaged it was – just inches away from a heavily traveled sidewalk. 

Nearly invisible to the unwary, the serpent’s yellow, red, and black stripes blended in with the grass and shadows of an early summer morning. Had it been venomous I was well within striking distance, but it was more interested in warming itself in the growing heat of the day than biting me! 

How many people had walked by him not knowing they had come so close to a real snake in the grass? I then christened him (her?) ‘Jake No-Shoulders’ and continued my way to work with just a little lighter step. 

Cool Points

Keep in mind I'm not a snake guy. I don't go out of my way to handle them, but I have in the past - mostly so I wouldn't lose cool points in my younger days. I've eaten snake meat too and yes, it does taste a little like chicken. Once I even drank cobra blood mixed with Thai whiskey. Fun, different, but nothing I'd go out of my way to do again.

Having traveled extensively in the tropics, I’ve seen all sorts of “Nope Ropes,” hanging from tree limbs like plump sausages or gliding effortlessly through the ocean. Mostly, however, if snakes left me alone, I left them alone and happily observe them from a distance.

 

Woody get the snake bite kit!

Even in ‘Murica I encountered snakes when I least expected it – harmless and venomous. While rock climbing in Western North Carolina many years ago, a buddy was hanging off a rock face trying to find another handhold when he accidentally grabbed a coral snake that had been hanging out on the crags. Luckily, he was able to quickly move his hand away from the pissed off snake to avoid a bite – and avoided becoming a lawn dart!

Another time I watched in fascination as a rat snake effortlessly climbed a pine tree in search of its next meal. I can only imagine how many I walked past and didn’t even know.

Snakes on a plane

GIs, especially infantry grunts tend to do some really dumb stuff, like the time we went to the desert in California, a young sky-soldier caught a sidewinder rattlesnake and was intent on bringing it back to Fort Bragg in his shaving kit. He’d tied a string around it and was taking it for a “walk” before our flight, not sure if he actually got it on the airplane but I made sure I was nowhere near him as we loaded the aircraft! 

Phase III 

During of my special forces training, we students were conducting our final exams by training and leading ersatz guerrillas in a revolt against the pseudo “occupying army” in Pineland – actually the Uwharrie National Forest. Our student team leader had given us some final instructions and spun on his heel to walk back to the front of the patrol when I saw something that, “didn’t look quite right,” I grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him inches away from walking face first into a very large snake draped over a low hanging branch. The Captain’s eyes got as big as saucers as he stammered his thanks and sidestepped around the now angry Snakey McSnake-face – we all gave the snake a wide berth and moved out.

In Group

Once as we were returning from Thailand we’d landed at Elmendorf airbase in Alaska to clear customs and immigration. While waiting to be processed, I went to the restroom and bumped into one of our support guys who had been given a juvenile reticulated python by a Thai counterpart and was trying to smuggle the beast back to the states. Through a sleight of hand he was able to get past the customs agent with the snake stowed under his fatigue jacket and brought the serpent to the States. Legend has it that he sold it for $500.00! 

On the Rock

On Okinawa, there are poisonous snakes inhabiting the island – the Habu pit viper is the most notable. American  Forces Entertainment Network (AFEN) frequently had PSAs to remind the dumb americans to leave this snake alone. My only encounter with the Habu besides road kill and the very disturbing Habu-Sake was once while on a patrol in the CTA (Central Training Area) our entire patrol walked past a juvenile habu that had struck at every one of us without success before our lane grader noticed him. Tom, our medic wanted to catch it for some reason but we were able to convince him to leave it alone. 

 

Back to Iowa…. 

In the following days after I discovered him, I looked for Jake, but he wasn’t there. Disappointed at his absence, I kept a look out for him and a couple days later there he was, in the exact same spot. Obviously, a territorial creature, most days he was hanging out l in the same place during the growing heat of the day. It became a habit for me to look for Jake in the grass and many days that summer I was pleasantly surprised to find him hanging out in his spot in the tall grass. 

One afternoon on the way back to the car, I thought to take a picture of Jake to share on social media, but it was then that I noticed groundskeepers edging and mowing the grass around the soccer field. “Uh-oh.” The grass and weeds had been given a severe buzz cut and a few feet from Jake’s now decimated lair was a snake carcass that had gotten thoroughly demolished by a weed eater. Damn, Jake got whacked. 

On the rest of my trek, I pondered how this creature had successfully coexisted with humans for so long – right up until someone with an aversion to snakes and a power tool got involved. 

Sorry Jake.

Saying Goodbye to Gammie Kay

I wrote this on the occasion of my mother's passing in 2015. Rereading it made me a little misty-eyed and thought I would reshare it here:

Thank you, all of you who offered your condolences for our mother's passing. Your kind thoughts and words are greatly appreciated. She’d be quietly pleased to see you all here today.

Gammi Kay was certainly one of a kind and never met a stranger – at least not for very long.

After I moved home in 2003, got married in 2004, and mom’s health still allowed it, she would frequently stop over at the house for coffee, and then there were times I'd fill a thermos and visit her at the farm. But, far too often life would get in the way and our cherished time together grew more infrequent. I truly miss those times where we just sat and talked.

Two years ago we almost lost mom due to poor health and a deep sadness that had overtaken her. However, mom’s move to Hallmark and the wonderful care she received reenergized her and gave us another two years with her.

Mom loved playing bingo, chatting with friends old and new. We knew not to come during bingo hours and occasionally it almost felt like we were intruding on her social life!

The last thing I expected on the day of Mom's passing was to console the staff at Hallmark, but like she always did, she had taken many of them under her wing. One of the nurses commented that often, when the aides had a free moment you could usually find them in Mom's room! She had become a surrogate grandma to some of them, so our loss is their loss. Thank you all for your kindness. You made mom’s last couple years very special to her.

Long before it was a late night comedy punch line, my mom and the other mothers of our neighborhood embodied the phrase, “it takes a community to raise a child.” Mildred Jilovec, Jean Litts, Mary Smith to name a few. If one family was going to the pool, the entire neighborhood went to the pool. If one family was baling hay, the whole neighborhood was baling hay. Moms made it happen.

Once, during the summer a dozen or so of us kids were banished to the backyard while our moms sat around the kitchen table smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and assembling circuit boards for Collins Radio. Somehow one of them had arranged to do piecework to earn a little extra money. Lucy and Ethel had nothing on the moms of Ivanhoe!

During the 1980s farm crisis I discovered that my parents became protestors – activists decrying the problems that faced many of our farming neighbors. Mom actually convinced my father to carry a protest sign! I told mom to do what she felt was right but not to jeopardize my army security clearance by getting arrested.

Mom loved babies and children and it didn’t matter whose they were either. But she especially doted on her grandchildren. I think it was through her involvement with the grandkids that she met one of her dearest friends: Donna Hotz. Thank you for all you and Larry did for mom.

Mom’s friendship and frequent visits with Donna Hotz led her to be known as Gammi Kay to an entire generation of Mount Vernon kids.

As the lunch lady she would frequently allow a student to get something extra even if their lunch account was low or if they received free and reduced lunches. She didn’t want a child to go hungry and as she tallied up at the end of lunch she would balance the books using her own money. Mom grew up in poverty and knew the pain of hunger. Don’t misunderstand-- if mom found out a student stole food or was playing her to get extra food she would come down on them like only Gammi Kay could do.

Mom was a pretty good cook. Not great, but good. Lunch was at noon and dinner at 6:00PM.

Dad and Grampa Leo would sit down at the kitchen table for lunch and ate what was placed in front of them. One time mom made ham and bean soup, but didn’t realize that the pork was already heavily salted so that what she served was basically brine. Dad and Grampa didn’t say a word and ate their lunch.

For dinner she made the basics: Meat, potatoes and vegetables – usually harvested and raised on the farm. Mom frequently cooked liver and onions and oyster stew because that’s what dad liked. She’d boil some hotdogs for us kids.

Mom did occasionally experiment – sometimes with moderate success, but occasionally not so much. She tried a Continental dinner of crockpot chicken cacciatore and “Cold duck” wine that was less than successful and we still laugh about the Thanksgiving turkey that took a nosedive to the floor when the “as seen on TV” contraption failed as she pulled the cooked bird out of the oven.

Because I was in the army much of my communication with home was by letter or collect calls. Mom was a great letter-writer before her arthritis got too bad. Knowing we were on the clock our conversations were a whirlwind of stories.

Over the years I discovered that Mom usually had a problem with saying no – especially when it concerned her grandchildren – and they knew it!

Mom seemed to share concerns with me more so than with her other children. She confided in me that I would listen and not judge her on her thoughts. It helped that I was usually far away, but it continued even after I moved back to Mount Vernon. I was able to give her a more objective opinion than she might receive elsewhere. But. Usually, she’d politely listen to my “sage” advice and do what she planned to do anyway.

I don't think she ever refused a plea for help of any kind. Even when she was painfully low on money for her own bills she would not hesitate to share the contents of her purse with others - much to the chagrin of my father - and later, my brother Kevin, who took it upon himself to manage her finances after my dad's passing.

Mom would periodically say how much she’d like to have some cash while she lived at Hallmark, we all sort of poo-pooed her that she didn't "need" money since everything she needed was taken care of for her. Personally, I think she wanted to have the cash so she could give it to a visiting grandchild.

Once, Gammi Kay even bought a prom dress for a needy student because it was the right thing to do. I remember asking her what the heck was she thinking?!?! She responded matter-of-factly that if she didn't do it no one would - kinda hard to argue with that logic!

For many years while I was in the Army, I maintained a small savings account at Mount Vernon Bank and mom would sometimes ask if she could borrow money to take care of some unexpected bill. I always said yes and finally told her that if she ever needed money to help herself – I didn’t worry about the balance. However, ever so dutifully she paid back whatever she borrowed. It was only later that I discovered that occasionally it was to pay a credit card bill of which my dad was unaware.

She was a protector and a caregiver. Over the years, I would call home and discover that she and dad would have someone staying at the house because, well, they needed a place to stay.

And Mom was also good at giving advice. One of the traits that I inherited from my mom is a propensity to gain weight. It’s something that both of us battled throughout our lives. Even while I was in the army, with all the PT we did, it was still a burden. One time, she and I were talking about weight and my love life when out of the blue my mom said, “Michael, don’t forget – girls don’t make passes at boys with fat asses.” Not your typical mom advice.

Like my siblings, I am sad that she's gone. However, I'm happy that she's with my dad again, both with their bodies whole, youthful and healthy - not worried about diets, bills or anything else.

My parents truly married their best friends and Mom missed my father terribly ever since his passing. For those of you that knew him, my father was a man of few words who kept his own counsel with the exception of my mother. They were truly partners in life and – as I said, best friends. No marriage is without troubles and our family had our share, but the one element that remained constant was the love that my parents shared. One time, someone asked her if she had ever contemplated divorce. She dryly replied, “No, never divorce. Occasionally murder, but never divorce.”

As I write this, I keep thinking of other stories to share, but I will end with this: She may have grown up in Philly, but her home was here in Mount Vernon.

Again, thank you so very much for your kind words; we find great solace in seeing so many people who thought so highly of my mom. 

May you have a reflective Memorial Day. Ponder days gone by and heroes lain to rest. We had a shortened Memorial Day commemoration at Mount Vernon today. We cut it short as a storm front loomed on the horizon and we broke ranks just as it started to rain. The lightning strikes were what really prompted us to cut it short but we also had concerns about our new sound system getting rained on.

The ceremony was well attended as always. I didn't count but I'd have to guess that about 200 Mount Vernon residents attended in addition to the MVHS Band and Choir. I'm saddened that we had to cut the ceremony short and weren't able to hear all of the planned music, but I had numerous people approach me later and thanked me for the sound judgement of curtailing the service.

I was able to give my speech and had a few compliments on it too. Here it is as I presented it. I wanted to stress the importance of community and that of service. 

Good morning, Thank all of you for being here today. I’m Mike Woods and I live here. Mount Vernon is my home.

It is said that, “ a soldier doesn’t go to war because he hates what’s in front of him, but rather he loves what is behind him.” I would have to say that this is still true. On this Memorial Day we pause to remember those brave people who gave up their tomorrows so we could have our today. None of them intended on sacrificing their lives but accepted the possibility that it might happen.

They sacrificed not for gold or glory but rather out of a love for their community. That is what makes their loss all the more painful for those they left behind. Parents, spouses, children and friends all have to carry on with a ragged hole torn in the fabric of their lives.

As for me, I left Mount Vernon shortly after I graduated in 1977 to join the army. I became a career soldier and served almost 22 years in uniform. I started out as an airborne infantryman – a paratrooper in the 82d airborne division and I later passed the test to become a Special Forces NCO – a Green Beret. I had some of the finest role models a soldier could have, men like 1SG Cold Steel Crews, LTC Keith Bonn, SFC Robert Williams, SGM Rodolfo Teodosio, Cedar Rapids native Colonel "Smoking Joe" Rozak and Lieutenant General David Fridovich.

Along with these mentors and role models, I have also had the good fortune of meeting two of my three heroes over the years. I never got to meet my boyhood hero John Wayne, a patron of Special Forces in his own right, but I did get to meet Lieutenant General James Gavin of the 82d and Colonel Roger Donlon of Special Forces.

General Gavin was the commander of the 82d Airborne Division during World War Two and later the US ambassador to France. Colonel Donlon was a Green Beret and the first Medal of Honor awardee of the Vietnam War. Both men were very gracious and respectful, both of them had lives well lived beyond the military, and placed greater importance on service to their communities than their military service.

Many of the veterans I've encountered at the VA hospital and elsewhere have similar regard their communities. Most of them shared their war stories with great relish, but they were more proud of their accomplishments after the service and those of their children or grandchildren -- their military service little more than a footnote in a life well lived.

However, there are others whose service remains quite vivid and to the forefront of almost every waking moment either through physical or psychological trauma and we should do our best to care for them. People don’t make those kinds of sacrifices for personal gain, but rather out of love for their community.

Two years ago at our Memorial Day ceremony we embarked on a journey to build a new veterans memorial. Our fundraising efforts to date have brought us over halfway to our goal and have allowed us to begin construction of phase one of the project.

We have over 400 names on our cemetery roster with at least one veteran of the War of 1812, a few from the Mexican/American War, there are 58 civil war veterans and we have veterans from every conflict since. We have fathers and sons, Mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters buried on this peaceful piece of land. I encourage all of you to walk through the older section of the cemetery where you will find tombstones that have become unreadable over time with names and legacies slipping into oblivion. That in part is what we hope to prevent, by etching veterans’ names into our memorial we hope to preserve the memory of people who sacrificed so much for their community, state and nation.

The construction you see before you is a part of a legacy and of a promise. The legacy has been handed down from generation to generation by people have touched our lives by their military service and service to our community, each sacrifice adding to the ones before them until we have a community with a strength born of freedom.  Hahn-Howard Post 480 has assumed the responsibility of building a memorial that befits the sacrifices made on our behalf and fulfills the promise that we shall never forget.

The response to our mission has been overwhelmingly positive. The city of Mount Vernon has assisted us both financially and logistically by preparing the site for construction – city crews removed the flagpole and moved the small memorial stone to its new location at veterans’ memorial park. Other civic organizations like the Masons, the Rotary Club and the Lions have all been very generous with their gifts. Local businesses have sought us out to offer their support including architect Jim Baty and Contractor Chad Kelly. Then there are the people of the community who continue to generously make donations to build a memorial that will properly recognize the sacrifices made in our name.

Some people ask, "but why a memorial?" Societies have built structures to honor the dead for millennia. They provide a focal point for commemorations like this that allows our community to gather together to honor the sacrifices that were made on our behalf. Memorials are also places of quiet individual reflection, a place that provides an opportunity to mourn, but also to celebrate lives well lived.

This memorial will also have a feature that is unlike most others. We’re planning for an educational aspect that will allow the visitor to see our community’s part in regional, national and international events. To that end we’ve asked local historians Richard Thomas, Bob Meeker and Richard Peters to lend their talents and knowledge to the task that we hope to finalize in the near future.

In closing I would like to thank all of you for coming today to help honor the fallen. Thank you to the Mount Vernon Community School District and their students for giving up a glorious day to provide the music and finally thank those who died to allow us to have the freedom to come here today. God Bless you and God Bless America.

Teaching Digital Natives

I’m glad I grew up when I did.

I was an Iowa farm boy during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, although the violence and unrest seemed to be distant problems for other people, the newspapers were filled with accounts of bloodshed, police dogs and civil disobedience. Israel fought for national survival and the war in

Vietnam raged on as protests against continued US involvement enveloped most college campuses – Cornell College was even the site of anti-war protests.

The pre-digital world seemed to come to a stop when noteworthy events occurred. Church bells rang and factory whistles blew when Doctor Jonas Salk finally cured polio. Rockets launched from Cape Canaveral were a source of national pride and a giant leap for mankind, a cause for widespread celebration.

 

Many of our toys mirrored the technological marvels of the era rather than the fantasy-heavy (but non-sexist, non-racist, and inclusive) choices of today - and none of them had a reset button!

There were late-breaking stories that interrupted family staples of Flipper and Mr. Ed. News icons like Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley disrupted our quiet, bucolic life with reports of a President being assassinated in Dallas, a march in Selma that turned into a bloody rout for peaceful protestors by overzealous and bigoted police and Kent State, where overwhelmed and undertrained National Guard soldiers fired on demonstrators.

A news junkie from a very young age, I clipped important news articles from the paper and watched the daily news almost every day at 5:00 PM and again at 10:00 (if my parents allowed it). I began with a child’s understanding of terrorism as it began taking center stage in the world theater - an understanding that spurred further study throughout my adulthood. I knew the difference between the ANC and NVA and I knew where in the world they were focused. I wasn’t a very good student academically, but when given a chance, my passions erupted. The turbulent times we lived in demanded that you paid attention instead of remaining complacent - regardless of your political leanings.

Kids today aren’t so lucky. Despite the ongoing war on terror and widespread upheavals they don’t/can’t engage with the reality of life. They are consumed by the Kardashians and American Pickers. Apartheid and Nelson Mandela are ancient history; Vietnam is as relevant to them as the Peloponnesian War. Few teenagers have even a prosaic understanding of what civil disobedience is and how effective it can be to change unjust laws – Oh; they can regurgitate the story about Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, but only vaguely. The scary part is that they don’t really care! They would much rather play on their cell phones than actually examine a historical event even for a grade.

24/7 infotainment substitutes for real news and inundates viewers with repetitive images and hyperbole to the point that viewers frequently can't separate fact for opinion. Online "news" isn't much better with everyone trying to be the first with the most titillating headline, accuracy be damned.

From my observations, despite being “Digital Natives,” few of students know enough about computers or the Internet to get beyond Google to find something of substance. They’d much rather dawdle on Pandora or YouTube than actually do an assignment. They’d much rather tweet than read (fill in the blank).

When I first started substituting, when I still held onto the belief that I might actually get a job as a real teacher I built a very impressive “Sub box,” it contained alternate lesson plans separated by developmental level and subject matter, “sponge” activities used to help fill up the inevitable time between end of the lesson and the end of the period as well as the usual supplies that I would need during the school day – I quit carrying that years ago. I discovered much to my chagrin, that students, especially high school students, were not interested in ANYTHING that did not guarantee points for their GPA. Since I couldn’t guarantee their regular teacher would give them points – and to avoid giving the regular teacher extra work, I quit carrying them and began following the regular teacher’s suggestion of letting students talk during any extra time. Sigh.

Once, I was filling in for a social studies teacher at a 4A high school, as I was giving the assignment, a flurry of hands shot up when I got to the part about when the work was due. Every one of the questions was about getting an extension! They hadn’t even started working on the assignment and they wanted an allowance to turn the project in late!

Another troubling trend is that many students go out of their way to defy authority at every turn, but rarely when it is of importance. Although there are occasional reports of students actually taking a stand for a worthwhile cause – even some I might not agree with, it is the exception rather than the rule. They don’t like being told to sit down, in a chair, facing the front, in their chair, awake, off the phone, close the computer, stop talking, no you may not go to the bathroom, sit down, put your phone away, listen up, open your textbook, etc. Like casting pearls before swine it's usually wasted effort. But, as I’ve said on more than one occasion, “It’s your grade not mine.”

But grading seems to have become a thing of the past, too. Teachers will even “cook the books” in order to maintain a better than par average of passing students. Extra credit seems to be the order of the day, something to drag that dismal F up to a D- and the mediocre C up to a B+. I get it. It’s self-preservation, but it’s giving up because Little Johnny’s parental unit will give you no rest until you treat him “properly.” Parents don’t seem to give a shit whether their offspring can actually enter the workforce someday, only that their name appears on the honor roll and that they get to participate in the myriad of other activities that keep them out of their parents’ hair – that is IF there are two parents! Usually, it seems, it’s a single parent trying to get by and the fewer problems they have to deal with the better. We had televisions, they have the internet.

 Smart phones, computers and the internet are technological marvels that we could only dream of and by all rights should be a breakthrough in education, however, they tend more distracting than beneficial. Disinterested, disengaged, lethargic, dull, lifeless are words that I use more often than interested, engaged, energized, alert, involved when asked about many students. A good first step might be to ban cell phones from the classroom, limit online use to only what is needed and monitor their access. You might even require at least a few hard copy references for research projects.

Then there is the whole sexting thing!

  

Much like our generation wanted our MTV, “kids today” want instant (and continual) gratification in the form of digital entertainment. I’m writing this rant after two very distressing and depressing days “teaching” at the same 4A high school previously mentioned. I was covering for a different teacher who had three preps (taught three different classes) and I got to see a fairly broad cross section of the student body and what I saw didn’t impress me very much. The vast majority of students were obsessing on their cell phones and a large percentage of them had ear buds either continually stuck in their skulls or ready to be inserted at a moment’s notice. I’ve had to tell students that they could not listen to music while they take a test, nor could they have their phone on their desk while testing.

I’m sure some of you reading this blog are wondering “so what?” and what's the big deal? It’s troubling on many different levels, at its most basic, if students have their face buried in their phone or other device, they aren’t likely paying attention to instructions and invariably will have to have the instructions repeated to them again, and again. Multiply that times the number of students in a classroom you can quickly see how time consuming that would be. Once again, I’ll toss this education obstacle at the feet of its biggest sponsor – the parent(s). Even levelheaded and cogent adults seem to turn a blind eye to the problems they unwittingly condone with their insistence that they have instant contact with their progeny. Many parents don’t think twice about texting or phoning their little darlings during class to pass on even the most mundane of messages – messages that certainly could be delivered by the front office during passing time.

Parents and guardians can help their children by not demanding instant communication, reminding them of priorities and that extra effort on their part will benefit them farther on down the line. Although you should make sure they know they are important and they do have rights, their importance and rights to not usurp their obligation to not disrupt the classroom, get an education and to allow other students to get their education too. 

However, occasionally, and just often enough to refresh my desire to teach, I will have a student – or two become engaged, ask probing questions, take notes and generally pay attention. Until something better comes along, I’ll keep at it and hope for the best. I will keep up my end of the bargain but will you? Will they?