300 Words on Balance

I grew up reading a sports writer in the Kansas City Star named Joe Posnanski. If you're a sports fan in Kansas City who is at least 25 years old, you're probably a fan. For years he and Jason Whitlock formed this weird team of sports writers who mixed intellect (Whitlock has much more than he's given credit for), artistry (Posnanski can truly paint a picture with words) and story-telling. It was beautiful and brilliant and, for those of you who know Jason Whitlock, often inflammatory.

JoePo has moved on and now writes for NBC Sports after a brief stint at SI.com, but I still read his personal blog regularly. Occasionally, JoePo will write a post titled 500 Words on... in which he briefly but poetically tells an awesome story. His most recent post like this was 500 Words on Ben Zobrist, who hit a sweet game-tying home run against the Reds on Tuesday night to prove once again that the 2015 Royals definitely stole the mithril armor from Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings*...basically, we're unbeatable.

*Yeah, I took it to a Lord of the Rings reference. Don't judge me. Best trilogy ever.

So in honor of my childhood hero (in terms of sports writing; sorry JoePo, but you're not THAT good), I give you 300 words on Balance and a promise of more of these short posts to come in the future! I hope you enjoy! Why not 500, you ask? Because JoePo does this for a living and I have to be ready to teach teenagers in 9 hours.

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300 Words on Balance



I’ve got this new pull in my life – my daughter. You see, it’s not that I didn’t want to go home and see my wife before. It’s just that she was a little more independent then my daughter. She could see how much I loved to coach and host movie nights and watch performances. While she often joined me for things, she also often simply let me do what I love. My daughter, advanced though she may be, isn’t quite there yet!

Angela and I were talking the other day about how the movies portray teachers. It’s actually really frustrating. Nearly every story about a teacher shows the teacher going to extraordinary measures to inspire kids to, well, not hate school. It’s not that the kids in movies love school and learning forever; they just don’t hate school with this one teacher. 

The other part of this common story line is the struggle with family. In Freedom Writers, the couple ends up getting a divorce. In Mr.Holland’s Opus, there is an incredible strain on the marriage throughout the entire movie. In Lean on Me, we’re led to believe that the Principal has zero life outside of Eastside High. I could go on. 

What does that say about our system of education that in order to affect change, one must totally sacrifice family and personal well-being? How seriously has the system gone wrong if this kind of effort is seen as a legitimate solution to the problems that exist? If you think about these questions for a few minutes, you start to see why around 50% of teachers quit before they teach for 5 years.

With all that said, balance is my goal this year. I have a wonderful wife and an angelic daughter, and I plan to enjoy the hell out of my time with them, even if that cuts into my time spent at school. 

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Thanks for reading this blog! I hope you'll consider taking a moment to comment below and turn this into a conversation. Whether you are an educator or not, we have all had common experiences with education both good and bad. I want to hear what you think! 



About Me:
My name is Alec Chambers. I am a high school history and government teacher at a small, urban public school in Kansas City called Center High School. We regularly kick tail. Among many awards, we were named a National Blue Ribbon School in 2014. I don't just teach at Center- I also graduated from Center in 2006 after attending Center Schools K-12. I have a degree in Political Science, a second degree in International Relations, a third degree in Education and a Master's of Arts in Teaching. I have an unofficial degree is soccer. All of those degrees have led me to the high-paying teaching profession! I have a newborn daughter and am married to the most awesome woman on the planet. Seriously. It's a proven fact.

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Donor's Choose

If you are currently reading these words, then chances are you have a vested interest in public education and are aware of the goods achieved and the challenges faced. If you're a regular reader, then you know how I view the world - challenges are what they are and you can either tackle them or whine about them. I'll give you one guess as to which solution has a better chance of working.

I was going to write a post this evening about my new Donor's Choose project. Then I had a really good friend pass away this weekend in a motorcycle accident. I'm still processing that fully, but I do know that this particular friend was a rock for me and a supporter of my passion for teaching. He was in pharmacy school, but he would have been one hell of a teacher too. I write about him, in all honesty, more for me than for you. I need to remind myself that what we do is vital and important, but that it is only a part of life.

One of my kids probably lost someone important to them this weekend, but I'll never know who because I just met this group a few days ago. They're not ready to share those things with me yet. I have to remember the feeling of the phone call I got Saturday. I have to remember that sometimes school is not the most important thing.

Shadi always told me that I needed to tell people about what I do, because it's important. He told me often that I needed to spread the word about what I do more.

"Let your light shine, my man" he would say.

"You're gonna change someone's life" he would remind me.

Shadi was only 2 years older than me and he joined our EOYC family many years after I did, but like many others, I looked up to him more than he knew. I decided that he would probably scold me if I told him I wasn't writing this particular post because he passed away. So I'm writing this post in honor of Shadi Nmair.

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With a heavy heart, I'm asking for donations for really important classroom materials. We have a small budget, but I use all of mine each year to take our kids to the World War I Museum at The Liberty Memorial. That leaves me scraping by for school supplies.

If you are interested in donating, use the code SPARK' to have your donation doubled by a corporate sponsor. It's anonymous, so I don't know who to thank, but it's pretty awesome. As of this writing, I have $390 to go, or $195 if all donors use the code SPARK.  Click here to donate.

Shadi holding Kate at a Royals game a few days before his accident.
Thank you for reading, and if you choose to donate, thank you for your financial support of my classroom. It is more needed than I can put into words. Don't forget to use the code SPARK to double your donation.

About Me:
My name is Alec Chambers. I am a high school history and government teacher at a small, urban public school in Kansas City called Center High School. We regularly kick tail. Among many awards, we were named a National Blue Ribbon School in 2014. I don't just teach at Center- I also graduated from Center in 2006 after attending Center Schools K-12. I have a degree in Political Science, a second degree in International Relations, a third degree in Education and a Master's of Arts in Teaching. I have an unofficial degree is soccer. All of those degrees have led me to the high-paying teaching profession! I have a newborn daughter and am married to the most awesome woman on the planet. Seriously. It's a proven fact.

Follow me on Twitter
Follow me on Google

First Days and Titanic

First, a story. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you've read this story before. A few days before the first day of my first year of teaching at Center, my all-too-wise wife asked me what I had planned for the upcoming weeks. I confidently told her "I'm not sure, but I'll figure it out."

"Uh, you know school starts this week, right? What are you going to do on the first day of school?" she wondered aloud.

I had no answer. I was headed out into choppy seas not in a cruise ship, not in a battleship, not in a yacht, not in a sail-boat - hell, I wasn't even in a canoe. I was getting ready to embark on the most difficult voyage of my life* basically on the door that kept Rose alive in Titanic, which by the way totally could have fit Jack on it as well.

*Check that. Second most difficult. I have a daughter now. Kids redefine words like "difficult". 


Fast forward 6 years to tonight, the night before my 6th first day of school, and things are slightly different. And by slightly, I mean I've traded in the door for what is probably a pretty sweet yacht. Still working towards the cruise liner. I think it will be called Ridiculous History Teacher of the Seas whenever I get there.

So what will I be doing with my 9th graders tomorrow? What will their first lesson from the wise Mr. Chambers be? What will be their great memory from day one?

I'm going to convince them that a phillips head screwdriver is Good* and teach them a little bit about Socrates, a little bit about history and a little bit about philosophy without them knowing.

*Hat-tip to the great Gary Armstrong. Double hat-tip to I-Week for my college fraternity. You know what I mean boys. [Insert super secret handshake here]

I'd love to write more, but it's getting late, my beautiful daughter and even more beautiful wife are both asleep, and I've worked my butt off to get to this point that I'm at right now:

It's the night before the first day of school, and the only emotion I feel is excitement. No nerves. No anxiety. No stress. Just excitement.

Happy first day of school everyone!

Thanks for reading this blog! I hope you'll consider taking a moment to comment below and turn this into a conversation. Whether you are an educator or not, we have all had common experiences with education both good and bad. I want to hear what you think! 


About Me:
My name is Alec Chambers. I am a high school history and government teacher at a small, urban public school in Kansas City called Center High School. We regularly kick tail. Among many awards, we were named a National Blue Ribbon School in 2014. I don't just teach at Center- I also graduated from Center in 2006 after attending Center Schools K-12. I have a degree in Political Science, a second degree in International Relations, a third degree in Education and a Master's of Arts in Teaching. I have an unofficial degree is soccer. All of those degrees have led me to the high-paying teaching profession! I have a newborn daughter and am married to the most awesome woman on the planet. Seriously. It's a proven fact.

Follow me on Twitter
Follow me on Google

Why EdCamp?

Our school district is partaking in an EdCamp tomorrow, which from my point of view is pretty damn exciting. I've been to three EdCamps so far and enjoyed every one of them. The chief complaints about teacher professional development that I hear around my school are that:
  1. What we're talking about has nothing to do with my classroom.
  2. What we're doing is the same as what we did last year and the year before and...
  3. I have way too much to be doing in my classroom right now.
The beauty of an EdCamp is that it allows each individual teacher to solve each of those three complaints.

What we're talking about has nothing to do with my classroom.
EdCamp utilizes an idea called voting with your feet. This means that if you are sitting in a session and realize that you'd rather not be there, you are allowed - in fact encouraged - to get up and go find a different session. It's beautifully awkward, until it's not. The first time you see it happen, you kind of get a sinking feeling in your stomach and wonder if that person walking out is going to get scolded. Then you realize pretty quickly that the session keeps going along strongly because the only people in the session are people that want to be there!

What we're doing is the same as what we did last year and the year before and...
The other unsettling aspect of and EdCamp is that the participants create the schedule right before the day begins. Our school is doing a half-day EdCamp with one 30-minute session and two 45-minute sessions. They all start after lunch. Throughout the morning, anyone who has an idea for a session simply needs to find a blank space, come up with something that they find interesting and important, and host a session. Many sessions simply start with a question. The "host" is not giving a presentation, necessarily, but rather may just be starting a discussion. Often, those are the best sessions that I've attended.

I have way too much to be doing in my classroom right now.
Ah, the classic grip of professional development. I've been guilty like probably every other teacher of not giving my full attention to a PD session and instead working on something of my own instead.* EdCamp style PD allows you to collaborate, conversate and think.

*Sorry to anyone reading this who has led a session that I've been a part of. I usually listen - I promise!

A quick story of the best 20 minutes of all the EdCamps that I've participated in. I was in St. Louis last year when I ran into Tyler Shannon () who is the principal at one of the elementary schools in our district. We had both walked out of more than one session and were just kind of wandering. If you're thinking about organizing an EdCamp, this is your nightmare - educators upon educators wandering around doing nothing. The key is to rethink what nothing actually looks like. Tyler and I ended up chatting about educational philosophy for about 20 minutes. He has become a great mentor for me over the last year, in large part because of our conversation at #EdCampSTL.

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Interactions like that one are the success stories of EdCamps everywhere. If you are a part of education, you are currently either ending or getting ready to end your summer and head back to work. You didn't pick education because of the plush pay. You are in education because you care; because you love your children; because you have a passion for changing the next generation. The great tragedy of traditional PD is that it sits like-minded teachers feet apart with no real, genuine interaction. EdCamp style PD solves this tragedy better than any other PD in which I have participated.

If you don't believe me, read about it from some other educators all of whom are probably a lot smarter and better at teaching than I am.
Or if you're looking for some informal proof, try any of these hashtags out: #edcamp - #edcampkc - #edcampSTL - #edcampUSA - #edcampHome - #edcampGlobal

For all of my Center peeps, enjoy tomorrow. It's going to be awesome!  

Thanks for reading this blog! I hope you'll consider taking a moment to comment below and turn this into a conversation. Whether you are an educator or not, we have all had common experiences with education both good and bad. I want to hear what you think! 

About Me:
My name is Alec Chambers. I am a high school history and government teacher at a small, urban public school in Kansas City called Center High School. We regularly kick tail. Among many awards, we were named a National Blue Ribbon School in 2014. I don't just teach at Center- I also graduated from Center in 2006 after attending Center Schools K-12. I have a degree in Political Science, a second degree in International Relations, a third degree in Education and a Master's of Arts in Teaching. I have an unofficial degree is soccer. All of those degrees have led me to the high-paying teaching profession! I have a newborn daughter and am married to the most awesome woman on the planet. Seriously. It's a proven fact.

Follow me on Twitter
Follow me on Google