My name is Michael Portas and my third son is also named Michael Portas, which strikes people as odd until I tell them that I taught high school for years and my wife had been in early child education, at which point they realize that we had simply run out out of names that did not conjure  associations.

As part of his job description as a third boy, Michael was taken to his brothers’ practices and games for baseball, football, soccer, and basketball. Generally I was out there coaching but I made it a point to look over at him periodically, and was rewarded because I could see that he was usually following the action closely. Given that he was in the 10% percentile for size, had a perfectly round head, and was pretty unassuming, the older boys and fathers were always nice to him and made him feel included.

As he got involved in sports himself, I kept up my mission of overextending myself and volunteered, or in some cases was volunteered, to coach his teams. No one was going to confuse my little boy for a superstar. At that point in his life, physically he presented what I called the unholy trinity of athleticism: short, skinny, and slow. Quiet by nature, he called no attention to himself, and just went about his business purposefully.

Michael played some soccer and even football for a season, but he gravitated most to baseball and basketball. The same kid who at age three once garnered an audience in the mall as he impersonated the entire Yankees lineup in order, nailing every stance and mannerism with remarkable precision, showed a great love for baseball but did not enjoy much success. At one point his travel teams lost over thirty games in a row, a string of futility made all the more remarkable by the fact that Michael never complained or pouted about it. Not once. Michael Portas the elder would have carried on like an angry baby, but the younger just rolled with it.

I realized that I envied his ability to maintain perspective. He was competitive but did not live or die with the outcomes. When I asked him after every game “Did you have fun?” the answer was always “Yes.” Without fail. I can only wish that I could have said the same.

Travel basketball provided its own narrative. His 3rd grade team was not particularly strong, but played hard and listened. Michael was the last guy on the bench and got his minutes more because the league required it than because his coach/father decreed it. He struggled, and I struggled with that reality. He just wasn’t strong enough to compete, yet so I asked him at the end of the season if he wanted to keep playing. His response was to look at me as if I’d asked him if he still wanted to get birthday presents.

He worked with one of his older brothers on his game and came back a little better in 4th grade, and then stronger still in 5th. His playing time was still among the least on the team, but his attitude never wavered. My wife and I realized that this experience, being a part of the team and around this group of boys, was the most important thing in his world. Everything in his body language and approach to the game suggested that he would not want to be anywhere else or doing anything else.

For 6th grade his team became much more competitive and as a consequence of playing considerable Nerf basketball with his brothers, his footwork and floor vision improved. Another strange thing happened: his playing time increased and I stumbled into finding out that the smallest kid on my team could play excellent low-post offense, a role typically reserved for your bigger players. While his brothers contended I was an idiot for playing Michael there, he developed a passing touch that got his teammates involved and a shot fake, likely borne out of being pummeled by two older brothers, that would deke much larger opponents and let him drop a feathery short corner jumper that rarely missed.

He established himself as a regular for the 7th grade season and his team ended up having a magical season that resulted in winning championships in both the leagues in which they participated. The boys were not the most talented and could not run a half-court offense with any degree of precision, but played hard and together. I ascribed their success to love and defense as they took care of each other and hustled like madmen. Never once was their finger pointing or blame; instead, the boys demonstrated a mindset of unity and persistence. When they won their first championship, coincidentally on Michael’s birthday, I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen him happier. I hugged him, told him I loved him, and thanked him for all his hard work.

Now, we just wrapped up a disappointing final season and today is his 14th birthday so I’m trying to put into perspective what a kid 32 years my junior taught me. I realize that I should have thanked him for the conversations in the car– as a rule, neither of us is very chatty in the car — when we would share about 150 joy-infused words in 30 minutes on the way to a game, or on the way home when he would afford me space to make sense of what I invariably thought was a poorly played game that I could have coached better. I should have thanked him for never complaining about playing time. I should have thanked him for demonstrating a competitive maturity that I never grasped. I should have thanked him for reinforcing that success is measured by growth and development.

I had thought for years that competitive sports were a zero-sum game. That may hold true for game results, but is most definitely not the case for the purpose of youth sports. Growth, toughness, grit, joy, collaborative skills — these are greater measures of success.

I am a much better coach for the perspective and depth of understanding gained from my experiences with Michael and his friends.

I am a much better parent for having had that moment of stomach-dropping recognition and disgust for myself upon realizing how terrible my conduct had once been to my own child, as well as that elation of having had him thank me repeatedly for helping his team.

I am a much better person, I hope, for being permitted to see the grander scheme through the eyes of a kid who had to work harder at sports just to get a small share of playing time, who loved his team because he belonged with them, whose attitude never wavered during the inevitable roller coaster that life presents us, and whose appreciation for the time, energy and effort we expanded kept me charged up for the past six years.

Thank you, Michael.

The word excellence has become the educational word du jour of late. That’s a good thing. Not only does it replace the unwieldy optics and the clunky turnkey, but it also puts an enormously important concept at the foreground of people’s thinking.

To borrow from Potter Stewart, I can’t define excellence, but I know it when I see it. When I watch baseball and see Chris Sale pitch, or shudder when I watch LeBron James taking over a basketball game against my Celtics, I know I am witnessing excellence. But there are so many other places to observe excellence. A beautifully manicured lawn. Perfectly hemmed pants. Spellbinding storytelling. Brilliantly prepared food. It’s not everywhere (if it were, excellence would no longer be special), but it’s out there, and we are fortunate to be able to appreciate it.

We see it in classrooms during the school year. You know a special classroom when you set foot in it. There’s an aura, an energy, a palpable sense of purpose and joy in the learning. That excellence is certainly special and we need to help make it as close to universal as we can. The two things that contribute to educational excellence are, simply enough, people and stuff. I firmly believe that the former trumps the latter in creating and sustaining excellence.

Anyone involved in education, and this applies to all fields, really, can, to borrow from Gandhi, be the excellence you want to see in the world. There’s no easy-to-repeat set of guidelines to ensure excellence, but we can borrow/steal from outstanding educators. Here are five helpful pointers I’ve observed:

1. Nurture curiosity and creative thinking  (“I like what you’re saying, but what about […]?”)
2. Confront mediocrity and challenge everyone to achieve their highest personal level of success (“This is a workable starting point; now, how do we make this better?”)
3. Use people’s names and connect them, particularly with inclusive language (“Rich makes a great point here, but it looks like Alicia wants to make an argument about it.”)
4. Demonstrate an awareness of each individual’s personal universe (“How are things going with […]?”)
5. Radiate joy for the material and how you’re engaging in it together, particularly if there is an opportunity for people to exercise some level of choice (“Listen to this sentence from Marquez and let’s see if we can explain its brilliance.”)

We can celebrate excellence, articulate an appreciation for it, and demand it of ourselves and others. Just as one of my friends once challenged me to make my day memorable (much harder than it sounds), we can challenge one another to demonstrate excellence in at least one facet of life today. Maybe it involves preparing the world’s greatest cup of coffee. Or modeling near-perfect distraction-free, merge-friendly, swearing-averse driving. Or inspiring a peer to greater levels of accomplishment. No matter, we can follow the sage words of Bill and Ted, “Be excellent to each other,” and expect greater outcomes.

“Easy for you to say

Your heart has never been broken

Your pride has never been stolen

Not yet, not yet, not yet”

-Dave Grohl/Foo Fighters

“These Days”/Wasting Light

You know your kids have to get hurt. They have to grow scar tissue in order to toughen them up for future days. They need to gain experience by making mistakes and learning from them. They need to absorb hits from life’s hammer in order to develop resiliency.

We know these things because we have lived them, survived them really. We know this because as much as life changes, certain truths endure.

Knowing is one thing. Understanding is another. Allowing our kids to feel emotional pain is whole other.

But they have to. We did, our parents did, our grandparents did, every generation before us did. Yet, at the age when my great-grandfather came over from Ireland because “the pigs were eating better than [he] was,” my youngest son’s biggest struggles are that Fortnite lags sometimes on the PlayStation and that my oldest tends to hog the XBox that runs faster.

I love my kids and they are by far the most important thing in my world. When they succeed, the sun shines a little brighter and I feel a degree of joy that is unattainable in any other aspect of my life.

My wife and I celebrate them and do what we can to prepare our boys for a world that is at once cruel and beautiful. We want to imbue in them a sense of independence that will serve them in college and then prepare them not to live in the basement for terribly long. All this is, as Dave Grohl wrote, easy for me to say. Of course I want the best for them.

But their hearts have not been broken.

Their pride has not been stolen.

Not yet.

That adverb suggests — no, states — that these experiences are inevitable. If they haven’t happened, they will. Maybe just not yet.

A girl will break their heart. Friends will betray them. Heartbreak need not be romantic. Maybe someone they trust to lead them will do it. Worse, it might be me. No matter, someone will break their hearts.

More terrifying still is that their pride will be stolen. Dear God, I don’t know how many ways that can happen; I just know that the outcome is always awful.

Not yet.

So where does that leave us? How do we help cushion the blow and ensure that they get back to their feet when life knocks them over?

How do we instill in them a sense of toughness? A moral compass that helps them face in the right direction? Is it with unwavering support? An awareness that my ear will always be attuned to them, and then, if needed, a shoulder will always be there?

How do we do all this without coddling or suffocating them? How do we allow them to learn that the hurt they feel can be overcome?

We’ll figure it out. Maybe just not yet.

When most people think of the band AC/DC, the image they see is either lead guitarist Angus Young in his schoolboy outfit or lead singer Brian Johnson in his newsboy cap. Maybe the band’s original lead singer, the late brawler Bon Scott, comes to mind. But rare is the layperson who identities diminutive rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young as the icon or representative of AC/DC. Yet, it is Young, who died in November, who is credited by the band members as their quiet leader.

Musically a rhythm guitarist needs to complement the lead guitarist, and by dint of those titles, it would stand to reason that the rhythm guitarist would remain in the shadows to allow the leader to showcase his/her wares. Musically, that’s what Malcolm Young did for nearly 40 years for AC/DC, but his roles both as lead songwriter and bedrock of the band inspired his brother to comment that Malcolm was the “driving force behind the band.”

So what does this have to do with being a school leader? Quite a bit, I would contend. Is it possible for you to be both the catalyst and the glue for your organization while ceding the spotlight to other players? This is not an invitation to imitate Charlie from Charlie’s Angels and hang so far in the background (your office or classroom behind a closed door) with an occasional faceless visit. Rather, can you create a culture in which you collaborate with other talented performers to develop experiences that will engage your audience all without expecting accolades?

Just as the secret to getting people to like you is to afford them the conversational space to talk about themselves, there is something to be said for letting other professionals have a spotlight in which to shine. If, like Malcolm Young, you provide a clear path to success for others through your contributions to unit plans, action plans, or assessment development, you are contributing your talent and vision to give them the space in which to achieve visible, measurable success. Of course kids benefit, and that should be at the core of our actions. Consider as well the long-term gain of your impact on developing the confidence and competence of the teacher with whom you collaborated. When you help to define and celebrate them as [something] of excellence, you are empowering them to move beyond your sphere of immediate influence.

Malcolm Young brought a quiet solidity and even stolidity to the AC/DC stage show. Their concerts with Malcolm Young typically sold out and the audience members left feeling they have been part of a remarkable performance. Brian Johnson worked the crowd, Angus Young ran around like a madman, and Malcolm seemed curiously grounded with his seemingly outdated and stripped down Gretsch guitar. He stood behind his microphone and sang background vocals while delivering some of the most memorable guitar riffs in hard rock history.

I currently work in an elementary school after having worked in middle and high schools, and can state with certainty that there is a controlled chaos in each venue, not entirely unlike the well-choreographed madness of a heavy metal concert. The leader who stays on stage in a supporting role remains visible and allows others the creative freedom to express their talent. That leader as rhythm guitarist needs to keep the rhythm section (bass and drums) in one ear, and the lead guitar in the other, while adding his/her own creative input in a manner that connects those other forces. How do you balance the input of parents, district leadership, educators and other stakeholders without losing your own sense of mission and vision? To borrow from the statement from the band regarding Malcolm Young’s passing, you do so “with enormous dedication and commitment” and by “[sticking] to your guns” and speaking confidently. Easy? No, but leadership is special because it is so difficult.

That statement also included the comments that “He took great pride in all that he endeavored. His loyalty to the fans was unsurpassed.” Your pride in your craft as a teacher is evident, and your fans/students can generally sense your degree of commitment. Likewise, in a leadership role you can convey that spirit without needing to trumpet your accomplishments. Dedicate yourself to excellence, with that commitment imbued in your collaborations and then allow others to share the good word about your work. Much like Malcolm Young, those in the know will recognize and appreciate you, your work, and your impact.

Leadership is demanding and at times thankless work. There are countless approaches, and the Malcolm Young model is just one among the many. It requires a steady and understated approach that values collaboration and creative energy. In an era of rampant self-promotion and accountability, this approach to leadership may prove at once daunting and invaluable. To borrow from the band, “for those about to [lead], we salute you.” Rock on!

Sports Illustrated saw it coming. In June 2014, the weekly magazine ran a cover predicting that the Astros would win the 2017 World Series. That 2014 squad showed remarkable improvement, despite finishing 70-92, in that the team did not finish in last after having done so for each of the previous three seasons, and had gone 51-111 the previous season, the third consecutive season in which they had lost 100 games.

For those who are not baseball fans, I can translate: the Houston Astros were outrageously bad. But, those Astros had a plan. General Manager Jeff Luhnow recruited and drafted young talent and built a farm system that focused on a long range roadmap for success. He cycled through a handful of managers before landing on A.J. Hinch, and conveyed his vision with urgency and patience. The ultimate victory in 2017 testified to a process that had begun six years earlier.

While most comparisons of leading a sports team to leading a school are annoyingly flawed (“We’re going to invest four years and big money in this free agent English teacher” is as ludicrous as “Our high-priced PE teacher is going to get traded to a district across the state in exchange for some elementary school prospects”), but there is some inspiration to be derived from this plucky team that made its GM and a sports magazine look brilliant and prescient at once. To wit, I’d like to highlight some of the most useful points for school administrators:

The results were not immediately good, but were cultivated in a culture of growth.

Astros: Last place finishes for three consecutive years, followed by 92-loss season typically don’t inspire optimism, but young, talented players were learning on the job without getting discouraged. What followed were three consecutive seasons of winning baseball, capped by the championship.

Schools: Significant school improvement rarely happens in one year. Celebrate incremental gains and focus on how to build on your success. Examine data with teachers for their previous students and the cohort they have so that you can determine what worked in last year’s planning and assessment, as well as the needs for this current group. The numbers rarely lie, and need to be kept on an upward trajectory..

Case in point, as a high school English teacher I loved teaching prose and wasn’t so keen on poetry. An examination from my students’ testing data revealed that they had done very well on prose, but their results on poetry were consistent with my having spent about 12% of our classroom time on poetry. That data impacted my instructional decisions moving forward. According to the growth mindset, students are not inherently good at certain topics, but do benefit from focused instruction and a relentless emphasis on working towards ambitious goals.

They responded to personnel needs and made some mistakes, enjoyed some luck, and did not deviate from what they believed was best.

Astros: The team addressed a deficient bullpen by trading for established closer Ken Giles prior to 2016; he was very good until he wasn’t (he looked gassed in the World Series). The front office shored up the starting rotation with a workhorse ace, Justin Verlander, whom the Astros acquired seconds before the trading deadline in August 2017. Both pitchers were established talents who were recruited based on a defined need.

The Astros also had remarkable good luck in selecting star pitcher Dallas Keuchel in the 7th round of the 2009 draft, which means that every team (including the Astros themselves) had passed on an all-star talent. There were also some missteps, such as drafting Brady Aiken with the first overall pick of the 2014 draft and then not signing him, as well as giving up J.D Martinez, a 2015 all-star, for nothing in 2014.

Schools: You may have heard the mantra that you should “hire attitude and then train skill.” I’ve seen this quotation attributed to a German car manufacturer in Susan Scott’s Fierce Conversations as well as to a health care provider in a Harvard Business Review article from 2011, as well as several points in between. What is the culture you hope to develop and grow? What are the attitudes you need in the people who are responsible for your success? Know that you will never be perfect in your hiring, but do have the courage to cut bait on your mistakes. You might have a great teacher who does not fit your district. So what do you do? You might have an emerging talent who needs more support. What then? Do you have the courage to confront, or invest in someone?

Unconventional Thinking

Astros: The Astros potent lineup boasts a power hitter, George Springer, as the leadoff batter, which runs counter to conventional wisdom. He does not fit the mold of the spray hitting speedster, and could well inspire a new paradigm. On an entirely different note, in the playoffs the team struggled to find an effective fourth starter and then found great success employing a tandem of starters, Charlie Morton and Lance McCullers, the latter of whom baffled traditionalists and batters with his preponderance of curveballs.

Schools: We tend to fall into the sheeple effect, which involves following what everyone else is doing or has done. If you believe that going counter to established practice will benefit your school, and you can support that thinking, why not give it a try? And not the “This didn’t work in the first 15 minutes so it’s doomed to fail” try. How did Sue Szachowicz  effect remarkable change at Brockton High? By following what her predecessor had done, or what people deemed her staff and students capable of achieving? Nope. She determined that the best way to implement meaningful change was through indefatigable attention to literacy (I agree!) and pushed that vision to reality.

Leadership from Within

Astros:  The team has some veteran leaders, but seemed to derive most of its inspiration from Jose Altuve, 27 years-old and generously listed at 5’6”, the very young and talented Carlos Correa, who is 23 years-old, and Springer, also 27 and a young man who has overcome stuttering to become a vocal leader.

Schools: How you blend established teachers with those new to either your building or the profession will go a long way towards determining your students’ success. Are the new teachers encouraged to speak? Are they able to share ideas through shared planning or internal PD with their colleagues? The faces of your grade or department teams need to be the people who model relentless attention to improvement and growth. These leaders need to be champions for the cause of learning, but also need your audience to be able to air disagreement or share concerns so that voices are heard and action can be taken. Encourage your staff to demand excellence of you, your students, and one another, and the word will get out.

Connection to Their Community.

Astros: Houston was pummeled by hurricanes and the Astros demonstrated that they saw their city as their home. The love affair between city and team was evident in the packed house at Minute Maid Park for Games 6 and 7 of the World Series, which is only unusual because the games were played in California. The culture of togetherness in the greater Houston community is best embodied in the video clip of fans in a parking garage during the parade supporting another fan whose hat had fallen. Watch the clip of spontaneous awesomeness as people worked together to throw the hat back up to her, no small feat, but one undertaken with great enthusiasm and unity.
Schools: I had a superintendent state that adversity doesn’t reveal character, it exposes it. He was right. The Astros recognized their place in the community, and served both as a rallying point and as a source of comfort. Schools need to embrace a similar role. People tend to look to their institutions to function as the bedrock, the unwavering embodiment of strength. Tragedy need not be the catalyst; rather, you can make your school the centerpiece of your community with programs that support students and families. Beyond that, think about the best colleagues, those who share resources and accept your input as well. School can reach out to support community groups such as senior citizens or the economically disadvantaged, and can also invite the community in through corporate programs or multicultural voices. The more thoroughly enmeshed your schools are in the community, the deeper the connections.

Source: Keith Foulke Hero: A Lesson for Matt Harvey?

When the news broke that Matt Harvey was opting for long-term preservation of his career as opposed to the short-term potential of postseason glory with a charmed Mets team, I was unpleasantly surprised. By no means am I Mets fan, but I do live in the New York Metropolitan area and understand how fans would react. They excoriated him, which should have surprised no one except for Harvey’s agent, the baseball anti-hero/villain Scott Boras.

While the success of the Mets has no greater impact on my life than picking the right house on House Hunters, I do appreciate the significance of sports. I’m a Red Sox fan, and have been since the mid-1970s when I lived in Massachusetts and later Connecticut, so I appreciate the frustration of being tantalizingly close to success or just flat out being awful. In the mind’s eye of an avid fan, Harvey’s actions represented betrayal. How could he not want to jeopardize the opportunity to make an amount of money over the next 10-15 years that we couldn’t hope to compile in a lifetime of Monopoly games? There’s a chance that this Mets team could make it to the World Series and a hefty portion of those hopes ride on the surgically repaired, and recently so, right arm of Matt Harvey. There’s also a chance he could follow the career arc of Dan Marino; a great post-season run in year 2, followed by many years of regular season success and not much else.

I don’t support Matt Harvey, but I do think back to the example of Ketih Foulke and the 2004-2005 Red Sox. What I experienced as a Red Sox fan in the 2004 postseason seems fictional a decade later, but it happened and I have an excess of memorabilia to prove it (as well as support assertions of my arrested development). What I recall from that magical run in October of 2004 was that this idiotic band of talented rogues refused to cave and played inspired baseball that kept me up ridiculously late and made a region of pessimists believe. Truly believe. And the two greatest figures were a larger-than-life David Ortiz whose massive frame was matched by his massive clutchness (not a real word, but Papi was bigger than language), and a relief pitcher who was my age at the time (32) and kind of average size, Keith Foulke. All he did was come out to a creepily awesome Danzig song, throw pitches that really did look hittable to batters who couldn’t score against him and do something that Bill Campbell would have done in 1978 had Don Zimmer not overworked him the previous year: save big games. He gave up one earned run in 11 games and threw so many pitches that it seemed his arm would fall off.

Turns out, Foulke’s arm probably should have fallen off. After 257 high-pressure pitches in 14 high-pressure innings, Foulke was hoisted into the air by Jason Varitek and entered the off-season, rightly so, as a baseball hero. When he entered the 2005 season, he was, rightly so, damaged goods. He struggled with velocity, bad knees and the Boston press. After struggling mightily, the guy whose guts and right arm helped end 86 years of baseball emptiness suffered a greater indignity than eroded abilities: he was booed. The Boston faithful booed Keith Foulke. This isn’t Calvin Schiraldi (grossly overmatched), Rod Beck (a lot of guts but not much left in the tank), Bob Stanley (once pitched 168 innings all in relief, and it caught up with him) or Jim Bouton (not fair, but still). This is the guy who flipped the ball to Doug Mientkiewicz. He killed his career for the ring and the fans killed him for being awful the following regular season.

If Harvey does lay it on the line for the Mets on 2015, will that be remembered if he struggles in 2016? Will the Mets or an evil neighbor to the north still endow him with preposterous riches if he guts out insane innings and derails his career, or will he wind up like Foulke and end up driving a bit to the east and latch on with the Ducks? Even if I am insanely jealous of his impending riches, I don’t envy his decision.

I just set up the blog today and thank you for taking a glance. The topics will range from sports to education to parenting to pop culture arcana, particularly from the ’80s. I’ll give some free advice on teaching & learning, and share musings from my experiences and observations.