Cliffhangers

Last night I was traveling back from North Carolina after helping my nieces move out of their apartment after finishing their semester at Wofford College. I called my friend because I was a little bored in the truck alone. She stated that she really couldn’t talk because she was on her way to a GOT finale.  A GOT finale? What the heck is that. Game of Thrones. I clearly am one of the 1% of the world that doesn’t watch Game of Thrones. I quickly got off the phone with her so she could enjoy GOT.

It got me thinking about Finales. Our brains do not like unresolved issues. TV figured that out a long time ago and that is why cliffhangers are so popular. My Dad told me that when he was a young man, the movies had “cliffhangers”, he would go to the movies week after week to see which cowboy survived or which cowboy saved the damsel in distress. This spilled over into TV shows. I mean who remembers season ending episodes such as “Who shot JR or the Simpson’s Mr. Burns? Then there is the show “24”-pick any single episode. In fact, cliffhangers in TV have sort of become the norm to get the viewers to return and to watch the reruns all summer. And we demand that the cliffhangers be resolved. We get upset when a series we like ends either with an abrupt cancellation, like one my favorite shows Brothers and Sisters, or with an ambiguously written finale, like Six Feet Under or the Sopranos. Even the cast of Seinfeld sitting in a jail cell was not nearly as emotionally satisfying as when the helicopter flew off and Hawkeye Pierce saw that Honeycutt has spelled out “Goodbye” in the rocks on MASH- for all you younger teachers see if MASH is on Netflix or prime…it is a great show.  And how many of us were upset when Bobby was in the shower and his entire year of death had all been a dream?  But don’t get me started on the ending of Sopranos. Boom? Is that all there was? Boom! My brain reeled. I’m still upset years later.

Unresolved endings...We like things to end correctly. Our brains need closure. Our brains hate the cliffhanger, be it missing friends, losing loves, soldiers who remain MIA, sailors adrift at sea, or TV shows that end without resolution. And one of the interesting things about unresolved issues is that we seem to remember them longer than we do the resolved ones, as we try to fill in the blanks in our brains. We are wired for closure and feel all out of whack when things don’t end in neat little piles.

I wonder if that is why students have such a hard time when we don’t provide them with the answer that they want. “I don’t know, find out on your own,” was probably the most hated phrase I used in my classroom but also probably the most useful. I found that they could do much more than they thought they could AND I found that they could do much more than I had anticipated when I required more from them. What I also found was they could work on unresolved problems for ever, even groaning when I told them it was time to go to lunch or an activity.

Don’t believe me? Remember the Rubik’s Cube? How long did that go unresolved? How long did it engaged you? Have you ever been invited to a scavenger hunt or tried an escape room? I make it my mission to get to the end of a scavenger hunt or get out of the escape room. Has someone ever told you a knock knock joke but not finish it? It bothers you, you spend time trying to figure it out.

Our students need a cliffhanger. And this is a great time of year to experiment on those types of teaching. They don’t need to be mindless gatherers of information. They need their brains reeling for answers just like mine at the end of Sopranos. This is what creates lifelong learners and critical thinking students. And I hope against all hope that that is the type of student you want to star in the Production of your Classroom story.

And P.S. I hear that all of you GOT fans are disappointed today as well.

Naked and Afraid

The other night I fell asleep with my TV on in my bedroom. I woke up around 3am and on the TV was the strangest show ever- Naked and Afraid.  What?!?!  For those who do not know this show, the premise is two people-a man and a woman- are dumped in the middle of a dangerous deserted place usually in South Africa, Asia, or Africa. The couple, who until the moment they are dumped, have never met and they are stranded naked with only a map and one survival item. They are challenged to survive 21 days in the “wild” naked and afraid. The couple must find water, make shelter, and search for food.

I found this couple very intriguing. The couple on this episode had had it hard. They were dealing with very little food over the 20 days and the area that they were surviving in was terribly rainy and cold.  They were so encouraging of each other. The final night they were unable to get warm. The rains were terrible, the wind chill was 42 degrees, and they couldn’t get their fire to stay lit or keep them warm. The woman wanted to “tap out”. The man did nothing but build her up all night. He held her to keep her warm and he continually gave her words of strength. He refused to let her quit. She was so grateful the next day that she had not quit.

That next morning, they had to make it to their “extraction” point. This couple who had lost 20 and 30 pounds in 20 days were struggling to hike the 5 miles mostly up hill to their extraction where a jeep was awaiting them. At one point the man looked at the lady and said, “You have got to dig deep. You have got to give it all you have even if you don’t think you have anything left.” And she did. It was hard, but they were able to hike 5 miles, go across a dangerous river, and then find the road where the jeep awaited them. But they did. They made it. 

I just couldn’t stop thinking about that… dig deep and give everything you have.   Last Friday I received a call at school from a former student.  She is one I’ll never forget. She had lost her mother when she was in third grade. I remember being at her house the day after her mom died holding her as she cried. She was just pitiful. She was so worried about important days without her Mom. I’ve kept in touch with her and every mother’s day I get in touch with her. Her father called me when she started her period in sixth grade. She called me when she kissed her first boyfriend. She was having her prom at Dorman and he was worried about getting ready without her Mom. She had friends offer to come to her house, but she wanted to get ready at her house-but she didn’t want to do it without her Mom.  So last Saturday I woke up super early, I wrote thank you notes for literally six straight hours-and I cannot tell you how painful writing sympathy thank you notes can be-emotionally and physically. But I remembered that it wasn’t about me and I remembered that I had to dig deep and give it all I had….and I went to this student’s house. I brought make up and curling irons. I helped her get ready for her junior prom. I ran to Rack Room when her shoes didn’t look right with her dress. I watched her excitement when the doorbell rang. I took pictures of her and her date.

I did this because it is what this student needed. I was tired. I was hurting. But I dug deep. I found something extra for someone else that I didn’t think I had. While I don’t think that our work at schools are really anything like the show Naked and Afraid, but it is the time of year when we have to dig deep and give the extra effort and give it all we have. Our kids deserve it.