Scaffolding

by Ryan Krzykowski

It’s been a little heavy these past couple months.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty to celebrate.  Our grandson just turned a year old and is the happiest little guy.  I was surprised by a visit from my parents, brother, and nephews, who all flew up to celebrate my 50th birthday a couple weeks back.  No shortage of blessings.  But yeah, heavy is a good word.  A month ago I traveled to Wisconsin to attend the funeral of my cousin Jeff — who was just a couple years older than I am when cancer took him from his wife and four kids.  Within our family, Jeff was the closest thing I’ve had to a big brother.  He was basically my hero for the first couple decades of my life, and it’s hard for me to imagine what this is like for his family.  My heart is broken for them, and being at that funeral was surreal.  I really hate funerals.

Moving on, another factor in the heaviness of the past couple months, while not in any way life/death, has been the clock ticking on our youngest son’s high school days.  In less than two months he’ll be graduating and finishing up his senior baseball season before he goes away to start college in August.  We’ve had sons in our house for nearly 26 years, and it’s weird to imagine that season is about over.  I’ve seen enough from our three older boys to know there’s still plenty of parenting to do, but no doubt it looks different from now on.  I wrote in December about what it was like to coach Sam as a senior in football, and how the end of that season hit me a bit.  And now there’s one more baseball season to watch from the stands before we move on to a new phase entirely.

I’m probably years behind with is, but last fall when we returned to our teaching jobs I began hearing a new education buzzword: “scaffolding”.  We were encouraged to consider what types of scaffolding to put in place for students who might need a little extra help as they work to master a concept.  The thing about scaffolding is that it’s temporary — not designed to be a permanent support.  It’s in place to help get a job done, and then it’s taken away so that a structure can stand on it’s own.  And that idea of scaffolding, of being a temporary support that allows for needed work to be accomplished, that’s really what teaching, parenting, and coaching are largely all about.  The contexts and timeframes are extremely varied, but the analogy holds.  As a teacher, Dad, and Coach, I am there to provide something temporary.  I want to work myself out of a job with the individuals I’m serving.  I want to help make it so they don’t need me in the same way going forward.  That probably feels pretty obvious to anyone reading this, but sitting right here in March 2026, it feels like an important idea to ponder.  I serve as scaffolding.

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