Taking care of “Chad” and Instagram

Instagram has a feature that I love/hate. The “Insta-Story”. People post snippets of their lives with captions and commentary. A picturesque day-in-the life. Oh my, they are beautiful. So lovely. So happy. So much. I know no one’s life is actually perfect, but even the ability to curate a day that looks that good, in clothes that cute with children that precious is a skill I have not developed. I don’t long for a perfect life, but I would like to cultivate a life with many good days, time with precious children and some cute clothes. This blog is my effort at the first two.

When I first started working with university students, a sweet and sarcastic undergraduate student introduced herself the first day of class as “Chad” – She joked about all the mischief Chad got into and how he wasn’t really sure what was going on most of the time. I love that student. Since that day whenever I need to talk to teachers about a child who is struggling we refer to him as Chad. “Bless his heart, if only Chad could just remember his lunch box. Do you think Chad had breakfast this morning? Does Chad have friends in the class? Can you get in touch with Chad’s grown-up (in my classes we say “grown-up” because not all kids live with their parents and “grown-up" is a more inclusive term)?

As parents, we hope our child isn’t a “Chad” (unless that’s his actual given name, in which case, I’m sorry). We worry that our kids will be left out, misunderstood and unappreciated. We worry that the teacher won’t love our precious Chad.

This space is designed for parents and teachers, to offer thoughts, questions and strategies on how we can make life better for Chad and Mike (the quiet kid who likes to read), and Isabelle (the youngest overshadowed by her older siblings), Hank (the brilliant kid with the learning disability), Denise (the hilarious jokester who might not understand the lesson), and Tommy (the kid in foster care whose parents are incarcerated). I won’t always post about schooling, but I will wonder about how schooling sometimes seems to work better for some kids than others and question how we, as concerned grown-up citizens can change that. I plan to respond to books and articles that I read, engage in conversations with others and learn something in the process.

How have I arrived at Wonder Question Grow? I am professionally a teacher. I am a wife and a mother. I am a scholar (that is to say, I have a PhD. in early childhood education). I am an affluent, white, educated, heterosexual Christian. These labels shape my identity. I have been working in public education in some capacity for about 25 years. I have struggled through infertility and loss. I have fostered children who were reunified with their family (and cried tears of sadness and relief) and I have adopted children from foster care (and cried more tears of sadness and relief). All of this makes me who I am. I am an enneagram type one, which means I am an idealist and a recovering perfectionist.

I sometimes spend too much time on Facebook because I like posting stuff about education and trying to convince people that we can make education better. My insta-stories may not be well curated, but I will show up and engage. My hope is that I can use my experience working with teachers, my training working with kids who have experienced trauma and my nerdish passion for education research to help grown-ups make sense of their lives with children and schooling. If you want to visit with me about how I can help your family or your school better meet the needs of Chad and all his friends, you can contact me here.