By Derrick Brown (follow on Twitter @dbrowndbrown)
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A “Day Off” … Is A “Day On” (1405 Words)
(53rd Day of School - October 22, 2025)
By Derrick Brown (Join Our Mailing List!)
I. The Unexpected Quiet
PSAT day was supposed to be a “day off.”
In the logic of the school calendar, that meant supervision without instruction … presence without pressure.
But for me, “day off” rarely means disengagement.
It means a different kind of labor … the labor of reflection.
Most of the students assigned to “sit” with me chose to stay home.
Their absence transformed my classroom into something sacred … a writing room … a breathing room … a fellowship hall for thought.
The silence that remained was not empty.
It was generous.
It offered space to think clearly about what I had lived, written, and learned during the last few days … especially about communication, containment, and fine fellowship.
As I sat with my keyboard, I realized that quiet is rarely idle.
It is productive in a slower register.
It lets understanding ferment.
The fewer the voices, the fuller the meaning.
My “day off” became a “day on.”
I wrote, read, reconnected, and listened. That was the real test.
II. Collegial Conversations
The morning brought unexpected company.
Two history teachers, MP and JW, were reassigned to my hallway for PSAT supervision.
We quickly found common ground … not about the test, but about tone … about the “manner” of our former (and their current) evaluating administrator.
Shared experience builds unspoken empathy.
We compared notes on the rhythm of evaluation … on the choreography of supervision … on the way feedback can feel like surveillance.
Each of us carried stories that rhymed without repetition.
I shared my PSAT essay with them … a piece that examined how testing mirrors self-awareness.
The conversation reminded me that reflection is not only for students.
Teachers, too, require assessment without accusation.
We need spaces to process the difference between accountability and appreciation.
III. The Few Who Showed Up
Only four students appeared for supervision.
One of them, DB, became the center of an unplanned, meaningful exchange.
Before the session, I had emailed my classes a video titled Knowing What I Do Not Know (Taking the PSAT).
Only one student, 1A’s PC, responded ... a small sign of engagement that carried large weight.
Her reply affirmed that the message had landed somewhere.
Gratitude can be quiet and still be complete.
During the “sit,” DB and I began to talk ... first about the PSAT … then about Homecoming … then about the pastors I had recently met … and finally about life beyond the building.
We spoke of “mock interviews” and the “What would happen if I came to your house?” conversation that had challenged students weeks earlier.
Ironically, three of the four students who shared that earlier dialogue were the same ones present today.
The circle closed itself.
Reflection returned to its origin.
The other two students did not remember the previous conversation.
Memory, like attention, reveals readiness.
DB, however, remembered clearly.
Our talk was unguarded, human, hopeful.
It turned a “holding pattern” into a healing space.
That small circle became my reminder that teaching always finds a way ... even when attendance does not.
IV. Lingering Tensions
During 4A, I noticed LM’s pensive entrance.
The expression was quiet, but it carried weight.
My earlier reprimand about her movie watching and disengagement during class still lingered.
I could see the echo of my own tone reflected in her demeanor.
The words had “stung,” but perhaps not enough to reinforce the boundaries that matter most ... effort, respect, curiosity.
I realized that correction without conversation often breeds compliance without connection.
So, I talked with KS and AD instead ... about writing, about tension, about faith.
I told them about the foundational premise of my “book” … that I am learning to lean into the tensions within my family, job, and church to find breath, hope, healing, and change.
I explained that my goal is to “bless my mess.”
I shared the story of the two pastors ... one who responded with containment, and another who responded with curiosity.
Their responses have become parables for me … lessons on how leadership listens … or fails to.
The students listened intently.
Sometimes they learn more from my processing than from my planning.
V. Messages of Need and Connection
After school, 3A’s DH wrote to tell me that he was struggling ... not with geometry, but with grief.
He had lost his father … and was now struggling with his mother.
The honesty of his message stopped me.
It reminded me that education is inseparable from empathy.
I responded with encouragement and a simple request … that he check in with me as much as possible.
Teaching is often measured in tasks completed, but it should be measured in trust sustained.
DH’s message redefined the purpose of my “day off.”
VI. The Pastoral Triad
Before meeting Pastor #2 that evening, I encountered Pastor #3 ... the one who had originally recruited me to lead the Iron Man small group.
I shared with him the dichotomy between Pastor #1 and Pastor #2.
He smiled knowingly and said, “I get it” … and then, “me, too.”
That small affirmation was large.
It told me that the dissonance I had felt was not imagined.
Sometimes validation arrives quietly, through those who have also survived contradiction.
Then came the most restorative moment of the day ... a six-mile “power walk” around the church with Pastor #2.
As we descended the stairs, we passed Pastor #1 coming up.
I greeted him politely.
He greeted me back … but I could neither “see” nor “feel” him.
The absence of presence spoke volumes.
The contrast between proximity and connection was complete.
I noted it mentally.
It means something when someone is there but not with you.
VII. The Walk That Clarified Everything
The walk with Pastor #2 unfolded like a live symposium.
We covered faith, music, artificial intelligence, leadership, and legacy.
We compared “crooked paths” ... his through the Navy, software engineering, accounting, doctoral study, and pastoral ministry … mine through education, entrepreneurship, and creative rebirth.
We discussed how institutions protect their leaders under the guise of discipline … how “re-sign or resign” philosophies claim moral high ground while concealing mutual fear.
We analyzed the balance between truth and tact, peace and power.
Each lap around the church felt like both motion and meditation.
We also spoke of art ... the Yamaha YDS-120 digital saxophone, songwriting, Rhyme-In-Time, my performance art, his digital music studio.
He had explored my website, ReachThenTeach.com, and engaged with its content the way a fellow creative would ... not as consumer, but as co-laborer.
That level of curiosity felt like grace.
By the fifth mile, our talk had shifted from conversation to communion.
He was no longer an overseer.
He was a brother.
By the sixth mile, I could breathe again.
The walk became therapy … the church campus transformed into sanctuary.
The conversation clarified my future within that faith community.
It reminded me that peace requires discernment of company.
Some presences heal … others hollow.
My spirit knew which was which.
VIII. The Meaning of a “Day On”
By bedtime, I understood the phrase that titled the day.
A “day off” is what the calendar marks when the institution rests.
A “day on” is what the spirit declares when the soul reawakens.
I had entered the day expecting supervision … and ended it experiencing revelation.
The absence of students became the presence of purpose.
The administrative stillness became creative motion.
Fellowship returned in the form of clarity.
Peace walked beside me ... literally ... mile after mile.
The irony is that most people see “days off” as escape.
For me, they are entry points.
They allow me to recalibrate before returning to the storm.
They are the pauses that preserve the melody.
They are how I remain teacher, artist, and believer all at once.
Today proved that work without students can still be work with meaning … and that peace, when sought intentionally, can turn even institutional emptiness into creative abundance.
The walk, the writing, the conversations, and the quiet ... each became part of the same lesson … rest is not the absence of activity.
It is the presence of alignment.
I will remember this day not as a break in routine … but as a bridge between tensions ... between containment and collaboration … between silence and speech … between faith and fatigue.
On this “day off,” I was fully “on.”
Selah.
(The "Follow The Leader (changED - Volume 2)" Audio and Video Album / Mixtape is also available at TeachersPayTeachers.com)
(The "changED (Volume 1)" Audio and Video Album / Mixtape is also available at TeachersPayTeachers.com)
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I am a “standup storyteller.”
I fuse rap, spoken word (poetry), oration (traditional public speaking), singing, and teaching into messages of hope, healing, and change that I write, direct, and produce to help people who help people.
Everything must change - and stay changED.
Tradition begins and ends with change.
Change begins with me and the renewing of my mind ... then continues through efforts to effect small-group discipleship (equipping others to equip others) with audiences that respect and embrace mentoring, mediation, and problem solving as tools of change.
I am the product of my mentoring relationships, peacemaking (and peacekeeping), and problem-solving ability.
My education began when I finished school.
After school, I enrolled in a lifelong curriculum that includes classes in ministry, entrepreneurship, stewardship, literacy, numeracy, language, self-identity, self-expression, and analysis / synthesis.
My projects execute a ministry that has evolved from wisdom earned through lessons learned.
I want to share this wisdom to build teams of "triple threat" fellows - mentors, mediators, and problem solvers.
We will collaborate in simple, powerful ways that allow us to help people who help people.
I now know that power is work done efficiently (with wise and skillful use of resources, interests, communication, and expertise).
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