Nurturing the Kids

Nurturing our kids

This month, I'm releasing three volumes of previously unreleased recordings. These are songs written from 2005 to 2015 or so, a time when I was in the midst of career searching. I was a teacher, which I left to play music full-time, which turned into getting a software job, and eventually going back to graduate school for my physics master's degree.

In 2008 I had a band, and in retrospect I think we were pretty close to up-leveling and making it a real career, but mentally I couldn't sustain the vision. I never formally disbanded, but I stopped pushing, and it faded.

Perspective and Insecurity

I'm turning 52 this year and I have some more perspective on my journey. Luckily I recorded all this music. In listening back to it as a whole body of work I have some objective appreciation for it. Wait, scratch that. I totally love these songs! Without trying to make money off of it or prove it to an audience, I have a really different experience of it. 

It's probably surprising from the outside to learn that I feel ashamed of the music I play. But I don't think it's unfamiliar to most people to recognize that we don't see ourselves the way others see us. As I feel more established in my life, I can accept that I've held myself back from insecurity, etc. But now in retrospect I can see how unnecessary that was.

I didn’t need to hold back or feel insecure. However, I can see why I did.

I want to Nurture our Kids

I found an email from a local promoter back when I was trying to book my band, and he was kind enough to write me a personal email sharing his dilemma: "I receive over 500 CDs and demos for about 8-10 available spots (non-national headliner bands). We also have a several year waiting list of local talent—that is, bands that applied a few years ago who are qualified but we have not yet found a spot for. I chose you and not them—I get asked why—'because they are ?????' Now if it were all just about who believes they are 'good and deserves it,' my job would be a whole lot easier—wish it were so simple... Seeing that I am not aware of where you fit into this at this point makes it hard to know what to do."

I really appreciate his respect for me as a person in the email, and his willingness to even explain himself. There are over 500 others just like me. So, what makes me stand out?

What strikes me now that it's in the past is the paradoxical contrast between the really wonderful three volumes of unreleased music I created during that span of time and how it compared to the standards of the economic and marketing pressures of that moment.

I think we often tell kids, either explicitly or implicitly, that there's a million people like them. I see hundreds of them pass through my physics classroom, and I ask myself sometimes: what is the whole story of this person? It's another paradox because we spend all this time and money educating our students, and yet we treat them like machines, just one out of many. Hopefully they have people in their lives that encourage their creativity or individuality, but inevitably they'll come across a situation where they're treated as a number.

When I was seeking my first teaching job in 2001, everyone said what a good thing it was because we needed more science teachers. And yet it was still really hard to find a job! Fast forward to today, and I've invested hundreds of hours and lots of resources into researching fiscal policy and budgeting in schools, uncovered new information, and advocated with legislators and talked to the media. But I'm pretty sure if I applied for a job at the Department of Education or California Teachers Association, or as a legislative staffer, I'd be unlikely to get the job.

Embracing Human Wholeness

The last couple of years, my school has had trouble filling the position for an office manager. In a densely populated urban area, especially in the age of AI, it makes no sense that we can't fill that position easily.

I think we need to figure out how to see people in their wholeness. With the right attitude, and access to basic AI tools, and a belief in themselves as learners, there are thousands of people in my community who could do that job, including recent college graduates. Why do we specify so carefully what this person must have already accomplished? What degrees should they have?

We should stop defining people by their degrees and what they've accomplished. Like that kind, but busy promoter, who didn't have time or perspective to see the ultimate value of my music for his concert. We can't really see the full value of who someone is, the value of their works, or their potential contribution to us based upon our limited information.

Having tried to disseminate what I've learned about school budgets to my community, I've seen even more clearly the difficulty we have in seeing the whole picture of something. It's just really hard to see the full context of anything outside of what we already know.

I believe our kids are truly suffering in this environment. What we can do is change our expectations, as the older generation who are the gatekeepers for jobs, for money, even just for advice and encouragement.

We can let them know it is their particularly unique blend of ideas, passions, skills, and perspectives, and even just their manner of being that makes them truly valuable. That is so much more than what artificial intelligence can provide. If we keep acting like humans are machines, as we have in the past, it's no wonder we're worried about artificial intelligence replacing humans.

The solution is to see and treat humans as they really are in their wholeness: undefinable, infinitely extendable caretakers of creation.