The 500 - #93 - Sign O' The Times - Prince

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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Album: #93

Album Title: Sign O' The Times

Artist: Prince

Genre: Funk, Soul, R&B, Rock, Avant-Pop

Recorded: Multiple Studios

Released: March, 1987

My age at release: 21

How familiar was I with it before this week: Several songs

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #45 - rising 48 spots

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Sign O' The Times

As an educator, I am always chasing the perfect school year. I suspect most teachers do the same. Perfection in the classroom, however, is not necessarily defined by the highest grades or the fewest challenges.

It is the year when everything seems to click. The curriculum feels alive, students are excited and engaged, relationships are strong and the classroom becomes imbued with creativity, laughter, curiosity and growth through learning.

In this ideal environment, students all get along, avoiding the social drama that often befalls adolescents; they collaborate respectfully and productively. The teacher leaves work exhausted, but it is the satisfying kind of exhaustion that comes from knowing he or she is doing exactly what they were meant to do.

Of course, teaching rarely unfolds according to plan. External factors can quickly alter the trajectory of a promising year. Contract disputes, difficult parent interactions, administrative changes, staffing reorganizations, or even a global pandemic can derail momentum.

Sometimes, the obstacles come from within. Lessons that looked brilliant on paper fail to connect. Classroom dynamics never quite develop as hoped. A teacher can spend months refining a series of engaging, creative lessons only to have them met with unimpressed, blank stares. Sometimes it takes months to connect with a group of students, and a few "Negative Nancys" can steer others away from success, torpedoing lessons and activities with their resistance, cynicism and disengagement.

Even so, most teachers can identify a few years that stand above the rest. For me, one of those years was 2004-05 with a Grade 8 class at Lorne Avenue Public School in London, Ontario. Another was 2016-17 at Eagle Heights Public School. That year actually began with considerable uncertainty. I started with a Grade 5/6 split class before a school reorganization in October forced everyone to start over.
In many ways, it felt like building a classroom community twice within the span of a few months. Yet the class that emerged from that upheaval was exceptional. The students were funny, adventurous, creative and eager to learn. Looking back, it remains one of the most enjoyable years of my career.

The challenge with a year like that is not surviving it but surmounting the obstacles. Once you have experienced a truly satisfactory year, it becomes the measuring stick for every year that follows. Whether admitting it or not, with the onset of the following school year, teachers hope lightning strikes twice. We are encouraged by memories of spontaneous moments of humour, class discussions that took on a life of their own, and the projects that exceeded every expectation. We become convinced that if we work hard enough, plan carefully enough, and bring enough energy to the classroom, we can recreate the experience. However, the bar is set quite high -- perhaps unfairly for the new group.

The reality, however, is that every class has its own personality. The conditions that made one year magical can never be perfectly duplicated. Different students bring different strengths, interests, and challenges. What worked beautifully with one group may leave another group completely unmoved. Teachers know this intellectually, but emotionally we often find ourselves comparing new experiences against our personal high-water marks.

I imagine entertainment legend Prince faced a similar challenge after 1984.

With the release of his sixth studio record, Purple Rain (#76 on The 500), Prince became one of the biggest stars on the planet. The album generated massive hits including When Doves Cry, Let's Go Crazy, and the explosive title track. The accompanying narrative concert film of the same name was a commercial success, and Prince found himself occupying a rare position in popular culture: He was not simply successful; he was defining the musical landscape of the mid-1980s. For many artists, a project of that magnitude would have represented the unquestioned peak of their careers.

His next two albums, Around the World in a Day and Parade, were also hits by any reasonable standard. They contained memorable songs, showcased Prince's expanding musical interests, and sold well. However, they existed in the enormous shadow cast by Purple Rain. Critics and fans inevitably compared them to the album that had turned Prince into a cultural phenomenon. Fairly or unfairly, there was a growing sense that Prince's greatest work might already be behind him.

Then came Sign O' the Times. Rather than attempting to recreate Purple Rain, Prince took a different approach. He broadened his creative scope, embraced experimentation, and produced an album that showcased every facet of his artistry. Across its 16 tracks, he moved effortlessly between funk, rock, soul, pop, psychedelia and gospel influences, infusing the whole with social commentary. The title track examined AIDS, gang violence, poverty, drug addiction and the threat of nuclear annihilation with a seriousness rarely found in mainstream pop music. Elsewhere, songs such as If I Was Your Girlfriend, U Got the Look, The Ballad of Dorothy Parker and I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man, demonstrated an artist operating at the height of his creativity and confidence.

Many Prince fans and music critics now consider Sign O' the Times to be his masterpiece. It lacks the commercial footprint of Purple Rain, but it offers a more complete portrait of the artist. It captures Prince at his most adventurous, ambitious and fearless. Instead of trying to repeat a previous triumph, he pushed himself into new territory and created something even more enduring.

There is probably a lesson there for teachers. The goal is not to recreate our perfect year. The conditions that produced it no longer exist, and the students who made it special have moved on. Our task is to bring the lessons we learned from those experiences into the present and remain open to fresh possibilities. If we spend all our energy chasing the past, we risk missing the unique opportunities sitting right in front of us. I thought about that a lot over the summer shutdown as I began preparing for the new Grade 7 students I will work with in the 2026/27 school year.

Sometimes, the years we remember most are our Purple Rain years. Sometimes, however, our greatest work arrives only after we stop trying to repeat old successes and face the challenge of creating something new. Sign O' the Times is the sound of Prince doing exactly that.

It is what it is...but, it doesn't have to be.

There is an expression that never fails to make me bristle.

"It is what it is."

In my view, that is not necessarily so.

Certainly, the intention of this trite platitude is innocuous and, in some contexts, cogent. It simply means, "Accept things you cannot change and don't let them get you down", whether it was a missed commuter train or the local ice cream shop was out of your favourite flavour. 

Which got me thinking. 

Maybe "it" is...but can I do anything about it? 

After all, isn't it a good thing that people like Mother Theresa, Jonas Salk, Oskar Schindler or Albert Schweitzer didn't think that way.

As it has grown in popularity, "it is what it is" has become shorthand for dismissing things, particularly things with which we are uncomfortable. In September, in a televised interview, Donald Trump was presented with data about the staggering death toll due to the Coronavirus pandemic. His response was an off-hand, "it is what it is." 

Really? 

Did the sitting U.S. President just dismiss the daily loss of a thousand American lives out of hand? 

Or

Has he fallen into the trap of trying to move past an uncomfortable situation with a catch phrase, not recognizing that his words, despite their intention, have an impact.

I began to wonder:

What words do I use that have an impact I am not recognizing?

I stumbled on a Tweet from a fellow educator. She suggested that teachers stop referring to a mixed-gendered group of students as "guys'.

I do this all the time and have for 24 years. Certainly, no offense was intended. My meaning was to address all my students in a friendly way, regardless of gender.

Did the students in my class who identified as female take offence?

So, I asked and, almost unanimously, they agreed with a couple shrugging indifferently. They did not mind but, given the choice, they would prefer not to be called "guys".

For the last two months I have challenged myself to change my choice of nouns. Here's what I've done and what I've learned:

• I asked my students to remind me, politely, when I slip.
• I also asked them to come up with a list of gender neutral terms that they would prefer I use. After some comical debate, the following list was created and turned into a poster.

• The poster has been prominently displayed around the classroom as a reminder to me. 
• Any time I make a mistake, I apologize and correct it.
• I've agreed that if I err more than ten times a week...I will buy them each a can of coke. So far, so good, but I am going to drop the number to five in November.

My progress has been good. I catch myself once in a while and I can tell that my students respect my efforts. One girl even told me that she appreciated how hard I was trying.

Old habits are tough to break -- but, with the right support, strategies and incentives, change is possible. It was what it was and now it is something better.