ONE TEACHER'S ALPHABET
B is for "burn[ing] through" Books

… for once again the fierce dispute,
Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
--Keats, “On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once More”


When I read these lines again this morning, I suddenly realized that this is exactly the way I want the scholars to read the classic works of literature I assign in class. In their casual reading at home, the kids are accustomed to “sailing through” books (just as we all do when we’re reading strictly for delight), and they seem to expect the same kind of easy reading when they come to English class. They’ve grown accustomed to thinking of reading – especially fiction – as a pleasurable pastime, an activity they can do as effortlessly as breathing. As we all often do, they’ve learned to go to novels for the kind of trouble-free refreshment you get from drinking a glass of water. However, in 9th grade English class, they will have to do a very different kind of reading, one that is more like forcing down a bitter-tasting medicine than guzzling water. In works like King Lear and the poems of Keats, there’s a “bitter-sweet[ness]” that must be “burn[ed] through” if the reader wishes to reach the treasures that lie beneath. It’s like digging for gold in a mine: the labor is neither easy nor short-term. Truly great books, after all, contain truly great ideas – truths so large there’s rarely room for them on the surface of words and sentences. They most often lie hidden in the depths, accessible only to the most patient and resolute readers. “No pain, no gain” might correctly be applied to reading writers like Shakespeare, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Baldwin. I hope the scholars in my classes are ready to feel a few flames this year.

ONE TEACHER’S ALPHABET

D is for Discomfort

Recently I heard someone say that a certain teacher “inspired" discomfort in her scholars, and I immediately felt admiration for that teacher. I especially liked the word “inspired” in that context. We normally don’t think of discomfort as being in any way inspiring, but this teacher apparently made it seem somehow stimulating, uplifting, and energizing. She apparently made her scholars feel anxious, but perhaps the anxiety was of the exciting and stirring kind – the type of uneasiness that opens the door to new discoveries and successes. I would like to promote this kind of nourishing discomfort in my classroom this year. I want the scholars to feel a bit uneasy every day, the way they’d feel waiting in line for a roller coaster ride. “What strange thing will happen next?” is a question I would like to be in the forefront of their minds. After all, my primary duty is to teach the appreciation of written and spoken language, and nothing is more opaque, surprising, and perplexing than the meaning of words. The scholars should feel discomfort when studying poems and stories, because only through honest uneasiness will they be able to see into the mysteries of the words. If scholars feel discomfort when reading Shakespeare, perhaps it’s because they’re on the verge of inspiring discoveries.

ONE TEACHER’S ALPHABET

S is for Solitary Singers

Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,
And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder
and more sorrowful than yours,
A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die.
--Walt Whitman, "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"

As the new school year approaches, I’m hoping, as I always do, that my scholars will somehow “awake” during the year and feel the “thousand songs” that are inside them. It happened to Whitman, and it can happen to them. The poet was in his late 30’s, apparently, when something happened to cause him to awaken and begin to write like he’d never written before. He didn’t so much write as “sing”, in the sense of letting his feelings flow out like unfettered melodies. Later in this poem, he mentions that he was a “solitary singer” – a poet who sang his own unique songs and followed his own inner laws, a writer who was “alone” because he imitated no one. My scholars, I hope, can be singers like Whitman. Yes, they will have to follow my guidelines in writing their paragraphs and essays, but within those rules I’m trusting they will find the power to allow their words to make distinctive and original “music”. In this way – if it’s not hoping for too much – perhaps each of my scholars will be able, at some point this year, to say, like the poet, “Now in a moment I know what I am for.” Maybe they will each understand that living is for expressing, and that they can express themselves on paper (or computer) as easily as sparrows sing their songs, as unreservedly as Whitman wrote his free-and-easy poems.

ONE TEACHER’S ALPHABET

C is for Conserving My Voice

I’ve been having trouble with laryngitis lately, and it occurred to me a few days ago that one remedy is to simply not talk so much during class. Surely my scholars would applaud my efforts in that regard. They must hear hundreds of thousands of words spoken by their teachers each day, most of which pass directly through them like breezes through branches. They would surely appreciate a teacher who saves his voice by speaking only when his words are absolutely essential. I talked with my brother and sister-in-law (both veteran teachers) about this, and they suggested using hand signals instead of words whenever possible. During a discussion, it would be easy, for instance, to point to the speaker and then point to the previous speaker, indicating that we should build upon what the previous speaker had said. Also, when a speaker has finished, a simple, sincere smile from me could replace a string of words about how much I appreciated what was said. It’s something to work on – subtracting a little more needless “noise” from my classroom and substituting some desirable and useful silence.

ONE TEACHER’S ALPHABET

E is for Enlightenment (instead of Excitement)

When someone recently told me they’ve become more interested in enlightenment than excitement, it wasn’t long before I started thinking about my work as a middle school English teacher. In the early years of my teaching career, I was keen on providing lots of “excitement” for the scholars. I guess I thought of myself as more an entertainer than a teacher – more an on-stage performer or a bandleader than a methodical dispenser of daily lessons. I was more interested in classroom “fireworks” than in the plodding and often tedious work of teaching the kids the rudiments of sophisticated reading and writing. In those years I think the scholars generally “liked” my classes, because they tended to be somewhat electrifying. It was known that there was non-stop excitement in Mr. Salsich’s English class. What was lesser known was that there was, sadly, not a great amount of enlightenment. I honestly (it’s hard to admit this) don’t think the kids learned much from me in those years, and I feel embarrassed because of it. Truthfully, for quite some time I was an exciting but thoroughly ineffectual teacher. However, a number of years ago, I began to push the thrills to the background and move actual lessons and learning to center stage. My classes slowly became calmer, more settled, more systematic and constructive. I got off the stage, off the bandstand, and actually started to teach. Nowadays, my scholars would not, I am certain, categorize my classes as “exciting”. I rarely raise my voice -- rarely pontificate, hold forth, preach, or play-act. Mostly I talk quietly with the scholars and do my best to help them learn a particular lesson each day. It’s not exciting, to be sure, but perhaps now and again a bit of enlightenment shines through.

ADAPTING

He’s growing accustomed

to the colors of the stars.

He’s getting used

to the usual silence

of the sky.

He’s comfortable

with the flight of days

like daredevil pilots.

He’s stationary

while something is singing

inside him,

holds still

while world-wide happiness

speaks and smiles.

ONE TEACHER'S ALPHABET: W is for Wilderness

Had I not seen the Sun
I could have borne the shade
But Light a newer Wilderness
My Wilderness has made –
-Emily Dickinson, poem #1249

As my years in the classroom have passed (42 of them now), it has become increasingly clear to me that teaching English is very much like traveling in a wilderness. In fact, the wilderness has grown vaster and more mystifying with each year. When I started back in 1966, my chosen profession seemed like a casual walk in an orderly park, but the truth has gradually been revealed. I now know that each day in the classroom is an expedition into unmapped territories. Of course, to reassure myself and provide a modicum of comfort in my daily work, I pretend that there are carefully laid out trails that will always lead me to my chosen destination. I use the “maps” provided by other teachers, textbooks, on-line discussion groups, etc., and I carefully design a lesson plan (another map) for each day’s classes, but in my heart I now realize that this is little more than a convenient ruse. The truth is that each story or poem we read, each essay we write, and each discussion we participate in, is a journey into (to use a title of a Jack London story) “a far country”. Who knows how far we will travel, what thoughts we will think, what truths will be revealed, or where we will eventually end up. What I hope for each morning, as I polish my plans before school, is that some “light” will shine during the day so that the scholars and I can discover, as Emily Dickinson phrased it, “a newer wilderness”. The truths we uncover during class will hopefully be new and enlightening, although I realize they will not make everything clear, not show us meticulously designed paths to some chosen ending. What they will show us, I always hope, is a bigger and broader wilderness, so that we can continue learning and growing.



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MISTAKES

He sees the results

of his mistakes --

roaring rivers keep roaring,

winds whistle

wherever they wish,

and thoughts

make a thousand patterns

in his life.

Also, a little light

shines inside him

each time.

THE DELICIOUS WORD

In reading Whitman’s “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” today (actually I listened to it on a bike ride), I realized something new about the oldest nemesis, death. At the end of the poem, the poet listens to the sea, hoping to hear the “word final, superior to all”, and he finally does. It’s the “delicious word death”, which the poet repeats nine times for emphasis. As the finale of this long poem about love and loss, the concluding truth, the ultimate power, the last word, is “death”. Years ago, I might have thought Whitman was being pessimistic here, but today I have another view. It seems to me that the poet is saying that death is the most important reality, the strongest “word”, not because it destroys life, but because, on the contrary, without it there would be no life. Death, in a real sense, prepares the way for life. It’s the doorman who opens the door for life to walk through and continue on with its endless procession. After listening to those nine repetitions of the word “death” today, I began wondering where we would all be if there were no death. To start with, there would be absolutely no vegetation on earth, because all plant growth depends on the food provided so dependably by the dead “bodies” of other vegetation. The daily death of billions of plants actually makes it possible for new plants to unfold into life. In addition, consider the population problem on earth were death to disappear. If no one died for a single 24 hour period, the earth would be a heaving and thoroughly destructive mass of humanity. The death of millions of people each day literally opens the door to life for millions of newborns. Finally, don’t we all experience death each moment, and shouldn’t we be grateful for that? Every second of our lives, old cells die and new ones are born, new oxygen sweeps into our lungs and “dead” carbon dioxide leaves, thank goodness. Not only that, each moment is born anew and fresh only because the last moment dies and disappears. “One second ago” is always totally dead and gone – and let us be thankful for that, for only with the death of the past split-second can newness arrive in our lives moment after moment.
So, yes, Whitman understood something wonderful, and this morning, as I pedaled my bike along the dappled roads of the Connecticut countryside, I came to understand it too. Death, death, death, death, death, death, death, death, death … As sad as it renders us personally, let us try to be thankful for the gift of new life that it offers us. With each death, death says, “Let us begin again.”



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Three Meditations

“Selfishness keeps God hidden, as thick clouds blot out the sun.” -- Psalm 36


Whatever the weather’s like today, I can be assured that a very bright sun will be always shining. It’s the sun of Truth, the sun of ever-present spiritual power, the sun of always new Creation. No matter what is happening outside, this great sun of reality will be blazing away inside us, and all around us, and everywhere. It’s the way things are, and it can never be changed. What’s sad and mystifying, though, is that my selfishness persistently blinds me to this shining light. I am often so utterly wrapped up in thinking of my supposedly separate, vulnerable self that I am virtually blind to the astonishing spiritual reality that I’m a part of. My separate “self” seems so huge that it does seem to blot out reality, just as clouds can seem to cover the sun. But of course, I must keep in mind the important truth that clouds only seem to cover the sun. The sun still shines, always, behind the clouds, and the truth of spiritual reality still shines, always, behind my seemingly enormous self. All I have to do is open my inner eyes, and I will then see what’s always been all around me – the forever-present and omnipotent power of Spirit. The light might be so bright that I would ask, “What clouds?”

POSTED BY HAMILTON SALSICH AT 5:28 PM 0 COMMENTS


“He’s not far; he’s near.” -- Acts 17:24



Today I would like to focus my attention on nearness instead of far-ness. This will be a big change, because far-ness is usually a significant reality for me. Because I often think of myself as a separate, isolated, physical individual, everything else in my life seems removed from me – unconnected, different, far away. That’s especially true when it comes to the really important things in my life. Money, friendship, power, security – all the essentials of life usually, for me, seem far rather than near. This morning, though, I’m thinking more about nearness. I’m trying to hold in thought a new way of looking at my self – not as an isolated material entity, but as a spiritual idea in a universe of ideas. When I do this, I see that a wondrous thing happens. Suddenly, far-ness absolutely disappears, and the only reality becomes nearness. For if I am a thought in a universe of thoughts, then there are no material boundaries to separate anyone or anything. In this mental universe, nothing can be “far” from anything else because nothing is separated from anything else! Everything is literally as near as a thought. Whatever I need today is as in close proximity to the next moment. Wealth, friendship, power, security – they are all as near, as close at hand, as my own hand.

POSTED BY HAMILTON SALSICH AT 7:24 AM 0 COMMENTS
OUR HOME FOREVER


“God, it seems you’ve been our home forever; long before the mountains were born, from “once upon a time” to “kingdom come”, you are God.” – Psalm 90, 1-2


On this mild, rainy morning, I’m thinking about the wonderful fact that I am always home, and that my home is the safest and most comfortable home there can possibly be. I’m fortunate in this way, because all of us yearn, above all, for a place we can call home. We want to be in a place where we can feel utterly safe and unconditionally loved – a place where all our needs are lovingly met. It’s probably our greatest wish – that we always have a reliable, protecting home to turn to when we need it. The astonishing fact that I’m meditating on this morning is that I do have this type of home, and I have it present with me at all times. The most amazing fact is that this home is not made of anything material, and therefore can never be damaged, taken away from me, or destroyed. And because it’s not material but mental (spiritual), its supply of happiness and comfort will never exhaust itself. Like a rich man, I live in a vast and beautiful home, but unlike the rich man, whose material wealth and home will perish eventually, my home will last forever. What is this home that I will have with me all day on this rainy school day? It’s simply the infinite and spiritual Present. I always live in the Present (it can’t possibly be otherwise), and this Present, like a good home, provides me with everything I need – qualities like peace, joy, patience, and courage. Some people call this all-powerful Present by the name of God, or Allah, but whatever it might be called, it is where I live each and every moment. Today, like every day, it is my wonderful home.

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W is for Writing on Water

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ONE TEACHER’S ALPHABET

W is for Writing on Water

A former student of mine, who has gone on to considerable success on the stage, recently wrote about his life in the theater, using a metaphor that might be useful in thinking about teaching. He said the life of an actor is a lot like “writing on water”: when a performance comes to an end, it’s gone forever. All the hard work “disappears in an instant”, and those involved are left with only the memories. An actor, he wrote, must become an expert at letting go and moving on. As I read his essay, I thought about both myself and my teenage scholars. I sometimes get way too absorbed in “building” my curriculum, as if it’s a solid structure that, if constructed carefully enough, might last forever. I often forget that my words, my lesson plans, my year-long syllabus, are no less ephemeral than passing breezes … or words written on water. As soon as a class is over, it “disappears in an instant” as the scholars move on to other classes, other “shows”. Yes, a few memories remain (I hope), some threads of which might weave their way through the students’ future lives, but essentially the show is over when the period ends. The water swirls along and the writing is gone forever. I must remind the kids of this when the new school year begins in September. I must tell them again that evanescence is the nature of education, and, indeed, of life. Things come, and things go. Each moment in English class, and in their lives, is no more solid or enduring than a bubble in a stream. I will remind them of this, not to set a gloomy tone for class, but quite the opposite – to show them that studying English, and living a life, can be as enjoyable and relaxing as riding on a river. They must let the current take them along. When they round a new bend, they must look ahead, not back, for something remarkable is always waiting – in the next class, in the upcoming production, or when the sun shines again tomorrow.

A Box Seat... and C is for Calmness

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A BOX SEAT

(written on Wednesday, May 24, 2006)

When you’re sitting outside in a blossoming garden with your 9^th grade English students, when the students are responding to your review questions like seasoned, accomplished scholars of reading and writing, when you want to pinch yourself to see if this marvelous situation is all just a happy dream – then I guess you can say you’re having a good day as a teacher. This was what happened to me yesterday. For inexplicable reasons, everything “came together” and I had some of the best classes in my long career (40+ years) as a teacher. Everything seemed perfect, right out of a textbook for graduate education courses. Needless to say, my days aren’t always like this. For every productive, satisfying day of teaching, I have at least two days of struggle and disappointment. In that sense, teaching teenagers is like hitting a baseball: a 33% percent rate of success could be hall-of-fame material. Yesterday, I guess I could say I hit a home run, but that’s not truly accurate. More accurate would be to say everything hit a home run: the weather, the lovely garden, the beautiful poems we discussed, intelligence, peacefulness, love, the entire grand universe. Yesterday life itself came to the plate and smacked the ball over the fence, and I was lucky to be there to enjoy it. After more than forty years of teaching, I had a box seat at some of the best classes I’ve ever witnessed.

ONE TEACHER’S ALPHABET

C is for Calm

I would like my classroom to be a place of utter calmness. In their hectic adolescent lives, I hope my students can discover the power of serenity in my room. Perhaps my English class, if it isn’t the most thrilling time of their day, can at least be among the most tranquil. When they enter my classroom, I hope the students breathe a sigh of relief and say, “Ah, quietness and peace for the next 48 minutes!” Needless to say, I have to be a reliable model of this calmness, and that means building a good foundation of serenity in my life. When I’m planning a lesson, for instance, I must pacify my tendency to fret about whether I’m teaching the right material or enough material, and just peacefully accept and trust the ideas that come to me. Also, when I’m teaching, I need to soothe my worries about whether I’m doing a good job and just trust the power of each moment. Indeed, the greatest power in the universe is the power of calmness. The universe calmly goes about its business each moment, and so should I. Stars keep quietly spinning, seasons keep quietly changing, dawns keep quietly arising, and my classes should keep quietly flowing like an imperturbable river. The students deserve that. As frantic as their young lives are, they ought to have a few untroubled, halcyon places in their lives, and my classroom, I hope, can be one of them.

Wholeness

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WHOLENESS

(written on November 14, 2005)

I’ve been thinking lately about the concept of “wholeness”, and have discovered some interesting connections with my teaching. First of all, the concept of wholeness implies “togetherness”, something every teenager surely wants to feel. If a classroom has an atmosphere of wholeness, togetherness, support, collaboration – an atmosphere, you might say, of a club or a team – then the students are certainly going to enjoy it more than they might. Every young person wants to feel like they are a “part” of something important, and it might be that I can provide them with that in my classroom. I would also like to build an atmosphere of togetherness, or unity, between my students and me. It’s very important that I not see myself as separate from my students – as an unconnected physical being who is “in charge” of them and required to control and manipulate them. The fact is that we, my students and I, are as together as waves in the sea or breezes in the air. Every slightest thing that happens to one of us affects all of us, though often in ways that we're not aware of. I’m fairly certain that my students are also not aware of the wholeness of my curriculum, which I suppose often seems disjointed and fractured to them. My hope is that I can gradually bring them to see that each step I take in a lesson is naturally related to every other step. This, of course, necessitates that I see that relationship, and see it clearly, day in and day out.

A Sheer Gift

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A SHEER GIFT

(written on November 8, 2005)

“It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details.” -- Ephesians, 3:7

When I read this passage in the Bible this morning, I realized that it was precisely what I needed to overcome my sense of discouragement about my teaching. For many years, I have been trying to “make myself” into a super teacher, which has inevitably led to periods of discouragement. I guess I have thought of myself as a sculptor trying to mold a statue of a perfect teacher, or as a coach trying to develop a perfect baseball player, and discouragement has always set in when I have seen that the goal is a long way off. I have seen myself, in other words, as the creator, the boss, the president, the guy in charge – with all the pressure and occasional discouragement those labels suggest. This wonderful statement by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians helps me to understand that I have been completely wrong, utterly misguided, in my approach to teaching. What happens in my classroom does not happen because of me. In fact, I am simply a part of what happens, just as a small branch on a tree is a part of the whole tree as it rustles in a breeze. The Universe (what some people call God) “handles all the details”, as Paul puts it. The grand, infinite, and ever-harmonious Universe – the master sculptor and coach – gives each thought and action that occurs in the classroom. It’s not something I create or plan or organize or control or am responsible for or need to feel guilty about. It’s God’s gift, moment after moment, all a “sheer surprise”. Understanding this marvelous truth this morning, I can be totally relaxed as I enter the classroom – just as relaxed as I would be walking into a movie theater. What wonderful surprises are in store for me today? What has the grand film-maker, the Universe, planned for my students and me today?

ONE TEACHER'S WHITMAN

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ONE TEACHER’S WHITMAN

“All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine.”

-- from “Song of Myself”, Section 33

My scholars have to “swallow” a lot in English class – and in their chock-a-block lives – and I hope I can gently persuade them to appreciate the good “taste” of all of it. It’s all about acceptance, one of the most strategic skills young people can learn. For me, an important goal as a teacher is to help the kids see that every experience has something good in it for them – some seed of wisdom, some small spring of refreshing understanding – and the best approach to living is to humbly accept whatever situation unfolds before them. Shakespeare reminds us, in As You Like It, that the “uses of adversity” are “sweet” – that even being homeless and poor in the middle of a forest can be rewarding beyond measure – and I trust that I can bring some of that awareness to my scholars. Just prior to the above quote, Whitman had listed several pages of “good” and “bad” situations, but then says they all “taste[] good, I like [them] well.” What’s even more important is what he says next, that they all become his. Instead of resisting the so-called “bad” parts of life, he does the opposite: he welcomes everything into his life, which serves to magically diminish and even sometimes neutralize the supposed “evil” aspects. It’s the epitome of non-violence: by greeting and making the cordial acquaintance of adversity, Whitman is able to discover the sweetness – the wisdom – inside it. I’m sure there is some sweetness in every aspect of English class (even in grammar work, even in tests and exams), and I hope the kids in my classes can discover it. It will take great patience, alertness, and a steady attitude of acceptance and approval. Like Duke Senior in Shakespeare’s play, who found “sermons in stones”, they must look for the “good in everything” in Room 2.

On Not Knowing Who I Am

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ON NOT KNOWING WHO I AM

In the news we’ve been hearing a story about a man who claims to not know who he is, and, as sad as his situation is, it started me thinking about the advantages of admitting that you don’t actually know who you are. I, for one, have no idea who I really am. For most of my 66 years I thought I knew who I was, but in the last few years it’s become clear to me that my supposed self-knowledge was entirely superficial. I now realize that I no more know who I am than I know what the sky above this earth is. When I used to think I knew who I was, all I actually knew were the labels that had been attached to me. I knew “Hamilton”, “man”, “father”, “teacher”, and so on, but these are merely labels. They don’t reveal my true nature any more than the word “sky” discloses the infinite mysteries of what surrounds us on this planet. So, if someone were to ask me who I am, I might have to honestly say I don't know – and I would feel good about doing so. In fact, I might have to say I am utterly dumbfounded about my identity, and I think I would feel relieved that I can finally admit my own profound ignorance. Like the sky – and like all of us – I’m vast, complex, ever changing, and ultimately inscrutable. I call myself “Hamilton”, but who I am is farther from that name than the stars are from where I’m typing these words.

ONE TEACHER'S ALPHABET: P is for Potluck

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ONE TEACHER’S ALPHABET

P is for Potluck

I sometimes like to think of my classroom as being an enormous pot on a stove – indeed, a pot of infinite dimensions, big enough to hold all the “food” the scholars and I wish to toss in. This goes back to the idea of roominess – a concept I feel is very important in the teaching and learning process. In their sometimes frenzied lives, teenagers often feel more confinement than spaciousness, and it’s one of my goals to allow my scholars some “room” in my class to feel safe and brave. They need to know there’s space enough in my classroom for every emotion and idea, no matter how seemingly slight or bizarre or even abhorrent. On a given school day, the kids come to my classroom in a wide variety of moods – angry, ambitious, pensive, sorrowful, inspired, confident, unsure, ebullient – and there’s room for all of it in the simmering “pot” of English class. I want the “pot” of my class to be so big that it sort of comfortably cradles each thought and feeling of the scholars.* As the class proceeds, the pot quietly seethes and bubbles, blending the contributions of the scholars into an agreeable stew of one sort or another. Even the anger or diffidence or sorrow that was perhaps tossed in somehow gets amalgamated with the poise and self-assurance of other kids and gradually becomes part of the single “soup” that is English class for that day. The important point is the pot never overflows. Because it’s immeasurable in size, it never gets too full, and so no one’s ideas or feelings are rejected. In this sense, English class in Room 2 is a daily potluck meal, meaning a meal at which each scholar brings “food” that is then shared by all. Like a true potluck feast, the scholars and I enjoy whatever food happens to be available on a given day, and, quite miraculously, it always seems somehow tasty and satisfying.

* For this metaphor, I’m indebted to Jon Kabat-Zinn, in Wherever You Go, There You Are.

A Foundation for a Day

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A FOUNDATION FOR A DAY

I realized this morning, as I was sitting at my desk under the light of my small silver lamp, that I have built most of my days on the flimsiest of foundations. A day, when I think about it, is a very important “structure” (I build one every 24 hours), and should therefore be constructed on substantial materials – materials that will support a day in even the worst circumstances. It’s strange, then, that I have built most of my days on rather undefined and random foundations. Actually, you might say I haven’t even consciously built my days, but rather just “thrown them together”, in the same way that my friends and I used to throw flimsy “club houses” together when we were twelve. I’m fortunate that most of my days haven’t collapsed in ruin by noon. (Actually, quite a few of them did.) The good news is that today, and every day from here on, I have the lucky opportunity to carefully construct a day on a foundation that will be secure and reliable. In the early morning, as I do my reading and writing, I can lay out a solid, unshakeable underpinning upon which to rest each hour, each moment, of the day. I can take my time and make certain that each element of the groundwork is securely in place to insure a “weatherproof”, enduring structure. And what is this foundation? It’s simply the Truth. All I have to do is rest today on the great facts of reality – that all power resides in the present moment, that this power is totally mental, not material, and that this power is infinite and therefore unopposed. If I set each hour on that rock-hard truth, I can’t help but experience a day that’s impressive in its grandeur and beauty.

Haven't You Been Listening?

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ONE TEACHER'S ALPHABET: C is for Clouds

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ONE TEACHER'S ALPHABET: C is for Clouds

During a pause on my bike ride today, I got a chance to study a stretch of clouds above a field, and, with the new school year approaching, it brought me around to thinking about my English classes. What was interesting about the clouds above the field was that they appeared to be totally stationary and unchanging. A quick glance would have led a person to that conclusion - just a mass of temporarily motionless clouds. However, as I stared at them - actually studied them for a few minutes - it became clear that they were, indeed, slowly and subtly changing their shape. Within ten minutes, in fact, they had been totally transformed from what they were when I first stopped. As I rode away, I thought about how often my scholars and I see something - a story or a poem, for instance - as being fixed and even a bit monotonous, only to discover through careful study that significant, even turbulent, changes are happening inside it. At first glance, a story, like the clouds today, may seem fairly uninteresting, but if the scholars and I are able to stay with it and actually scrutinize it, we almost always uncover some concealed and fascinating details. It goes back, I guess, to the dreary phrase the nuns endlessly repeated to us back at Our Holy Redeemer school - "pay attention". They said it so often that it lost its meaning for me, but the truth the words contain is unassailable. We learn nothing if we don't pay attention. Because I was able to give my entire and careful attention to the bank of clouds above the field today, I learned something about them, and during this coming school year, my scholars and I may, if we pay attention, have the same kind of good fortune.

ONE TEACHER'S ALPHABET: T is for Threshing

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ONE TEACHER’S ALPHABET

T is for Threshing

In English class, my scholars and I should be “threshers” of the first order. On a farm, threshing involves the process of separating grains or seeds from mere straw, and we should be partaking in a similar process in my classes. In the course of education, there is a ton of useless “straw” that can masquerade as important information, and the kids in my classes need to be able to identify it and cast it away. Like farm workers at harvest time, they must be able to differentiate between the important and the petty, the useful and the worthless. Curiously enough, the scholars and I may need to do some “beating” (or even “thrashing”) if we want to be successful in this process. If we hope to find the valuable food for thought that’s hidden inside a short story, we can’t just sit back and wait for the “grains” to fall away from the “chaff”. Like harvesters, we may have to hit, beat, flail, rub, turn, twist, bore, drill, and/or pierce – whatever it takes to separate the significant from the trivial. In other words, we may have to work very hard before the truths of the story are revealed. I can imagine what would happen if farmers simply passed the time in the hope that edible grains and seeds would magically form themselves into piles. The farm would soon fail, and the same would happen to my scholars if they didn’t flail and thrash around in the literature we read. Truth is, both farming and reading literature require far more work than waiting.

Little Toes, Orchestras, and Quiet Students

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LITTLE TOES, ORCHESTRAS, AND QUIET STUDENTS

(written in October, 2005)

I remembered this morning, as I occasionally do, that my students and I are each a part of something larger – something that needs each of us to play our particular role each day. I guess I have usually thought of a “class” as being a collection of separate individuals, myself included, all trying on their own to reach some academic goal. I assumed that I come to class with my own particular goals, just as each of my students does, and we go our own way trying to reach those goals. Another way of putting it is that education, to me, has usually been an individual affair. However, I may have been entirely wrong in this assumption. Perhaps I should think of my classes as being similar to the human body, where each part, no matter how small, is vitally important to the overall functioning of the whole. My little toe is not especially handsome, and it stays hidden most of the time, but it is still an essential part of my body. Similarly, each of my students, even the quiet ones, even the ones who don’t “perform” as well academically, are crucial to the proper working of the class. Or, I could compare the class to an orchestra. If every orchestra member played a loud, commanding violin, there would be no beautiful music. In a similar way, if every student in my class was voluble, energetic, and brilliant, there would be none of the varied and lovely music of humanity in my classroom. I need the quiet students as well as the talkative ones, the ones who struggle as well as those who skim smoothly along. All of us together, each doing our own small but vital part, make up my English class. If even one of us was missing, the strength of the class would decrease significantly. I need to remember this today.

"HAVEN'T YOU BEEN LISTENING?"

“Have you not been paying attention? Have you not been listening? Haven’t you heard these stories all your life? Don’t you understand the foundation of all things?”

-- Isaiah 40:21-22

When I asked myself the above questions this morning, my answer to each of them, I’m sorry to say, was “No”. I haven’t been paying attention to the simple, astonishing truth. I haven’t been listening to what this truth has been telling me, over and over. And no, I have not heard the stories of spiritual reality all my life. God has been telling them to me, but I haven’t really heard them, and therefore, no, I do not understand the foundation of all things. And that’s sad, because what is more important to understand than the foundation of all things? The simple, powerful truth has been trying to tell me amazing facts, like where all of life comes from, where all power resides, and the very nature of all things, and I have been largely deaf to it. I have turned away, day after day, from the most wonderful news there can possibly be. Yes, it’s true that I have a lot of time studying spiritual truths, but I have to admit this morning that very little of it has “sunk in”. I read about the harmonious nature of spiritual reality, and then I go blithely through the day in total ignorance of the truths I studied in the morning. Why would anyone do that? Why would anyone turn his back, day after day, on a treasure beyond imagining? Why would anyone turn away from the wide-open gates of paradise?

Being Ready

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BEING READY

“I’m ready, God, so ready, ready from head to toe.” -- Psalm 108:1

If I want to enjoy the benefits of living in a spiritual universe, I have to be ready – really ready. As one dictionary puts it, I have to be “prepared and available for service or action.” At each moment of my life, today and every day, the spiritual universe offers me miraculous manifestations of goodness, but I won’t even notice them if I’m not ready. The joys of life will pass me by like beautiful scenes pass by a blind person. The word “ready” also has another meaning – “prompt in apprehending or reacting.” This is the meaning we intend when we say someone has a “ready intelligence”, or that a person has made a “ready response”. There must be no hesitation between my experience of something and my understanding that this experience is a gift from the Universe expressly for me. I must be so alert, so ready, that each moment appears to me as an absolute miracle. Of course, this kind of readiness is not easy to accomplish. Like the EMTs who spend years honing their readiness to respond to an emergency, I must constantly train myself to respond to God’s steady infusion of gifts. When I wake in the morning, I should say, “OK, Ham, this is another day of unexpected and amazing gifts. Are you ready?” My response, I hope, will be an enthusiastic “Yes”.

ONE TEACHER'S ALPHABET: L is for Labyrinth

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ONE TEACHER’S ALPHABET

L is for Labyrinth

I’ve always had a hunch that my English classes, to my scholars, are somewhat like labyrinths, but only recently have I begun to understand that that’s exactly what they should be. In reading several books and articles about labyrinths, I have learned that once you enter a labyrinth, you are always moving toward the center. It may seem to be a confusing and meandering path, with many apparent detours, but it’s always taking you exactly where you should be going. It follows that wherever you are in the labyrinth is precisely where you should be, because every place is on the path toward “home”. I’m sure the kids in my classes often feel baffled and lost, but I must constantly reassure them that they are always moving in the right direction. Indeed, like the labyrinth, there is only one direction in my classes, and it’s whatever direction we happen to be going in. As muddled as my scholars and I sometimes feel during class, even the muddled feeling is taking us where we should be going. Interestingly, one writer made a distinction between a labyrinth and a maze, saying that a maze requires many choices while a labyrinth requires only one – to enter and be open to where the path leads. This, too, applies to my classes, because, as long as the young people keep an alert and patient attitude, whatever they do in English class will lead to valuable learning of some sort. That suggests that a relaxed approach might be better than an anxious one, and that acceptance might be even more valuable than determination. At one point, I came across some guidelines for walking a labyrinth, and, with a few changes, they could easily be posted at the door of my classroom:

1. Focus: Pause and wait at the entrance. Become quiet and centered. Give acknowledgment through a bow, nod, or other gesture and then enter.

2. Experience: Be purposeful. Observe the process. When you reach the center, stay there and focus several moments. Leave when it’s time for you to leave. Be attentive on the way out.

3. Exit: Turn and face the entrance. Give an acknowledgement of ending, such as "Thanks, classmates and Mr. Salsich."

4. Reflect: After leaving class, reflect back on your experience. Use journaling or drawing to capture your experience.

5. Come back often.

"Hills"

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HILLS

He likes to ride his bike up hills.

He’s lived sixty-six years

and seen a thousand hills,

thinking each one was chosen

for him, a useful hill

that has “Hamilton” at the summit.

He’s seen hills

that helped his life leap up,

hills that held him

on their shoulders,

hills that left him

as liberated as the air.

He knows how to be happy 

with hills.

The Kingdom of No-fear

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THE KINGDOM OF NO-FEAR

It came to me yesterday, as it occasionally does, that the single enemy I must defeat is fear. Nothing else has threatened me in my entire life – just fear. It has caused every problem I have ever had. From as far back as I can remember, mixed in with the many joys of my life has been fear, and it is this fear that has stalked me and created every discord and difficulty I have experienced. What’s wonderful, though, is that I have the opportunity, each moment, to completely overthrow this fear. I can be totally free of it, starting now. For the rest of my life I can live in complete freedom. I can do this by making a simple analysis of the nature of fear and the nature of reality. All fear is based upon a belief – a firmly held belief that all of life is material, including me, and that I am continually at the mercy of a zillion other material forces. To remove the fear, I must simply change the belief. I have to believe – no, I have to understand and know – that life is not material in nature, but totally spiritual. I am not a thing, but a thought. I can’t be pushed around or defeated, because there is literally no “thing” – no materiality – in me to be pushed around or defeated. I am a pure thought in a purely mental universe – the kingdom of God, or Spirit, that Jesus spoke of. Of course, this is very welcome news. It means I am free from fear. It means I can be calm instead of worried, confident instead of fearful. It means the kingdom of God is here, right now and forever.

Thrown from a Horse

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THROWN FROM A HORSE

Today I want to be “changed”. Like Saul of Tarsus, I want to see a new and truthful way of living so clearly that I feel like I’ve been hit with a blinding light. I want to be thrown off my “horse” of material living, a horse I have blithely and ignorantly ridden for 66 years. I want to discover a new way. And really, the new way of living is a simple way. There’s nothing complex or tricky about it. It’s just totally different from the way I’ve previously been traveling. The old way was the way of belief that matter has the only and ultimate power in the universe. The new way says very simply: Spirit, thought, has all the power. It’s as uncomplicated as that – as straightforward as a flash of lightning, or falling off a horse. I want to look at the lightning, be blinded, and then see again – really see. I want to get on a totally different horse. I want it to happen today. (Maybe it already has.)

Light Amid the Gloom

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LIGHT AMID THE GLOOM

I’ve been wondering lately whether most works of literature involve, at their centers, an epiphany of some sort – an awakening by the protagonist to a great truth that he or she hadn’t glimpsed before, a taking off of a life-long blindfold, perhaps. This idea may be an old one in literary circles, but for me it’s been a gradually unfolding awareness just this summer. I’ve been reading short stories, essays, and one-act plays in preparation for next year’s English classes, and more and more I see epiphanies as the major theme in all of them. Even the stories I’ve always classified as “dark” and pessimistic seem to involve, in the end, a new and encouraging understanding by the protagonist. For instance, in Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” – a story I’ve always thought of as bleak and ominous – I began to realize, as I read it over several times, that Krebs has had an epiphany, brought on mostly by his experiences in the war. He has come to realize a great truth – that lying is always wrong. Not just petty lying, but the kind of lying that so many people around him seemed to base their lives on –- the lying that comes from selfishness and egocentricity. He has seen a vision of a new way of living – a way that involves total honesty, total acceptance of the truth as it displays itself at any moment. At the end of the story, as I read it this summer, I see great hope for Krebs, something I never came close to seeing in this story before. Also, in Jack London’s “In a Far Country”, an ostensibly dismal story of hatred and murder in the frozen North, the two main characters experience a significant epiphany during the story, as they come to realize the smallness of their own lives in the face of the majestic infinity of the universe. I don’t see this as a pessimistic story, even though both protagonists perish in their squalid cabin at the end. Before they died they glimpsed a great truth. They had an epiphany. They saw the “big picture” after spending their lives, up to that point, seeing only the smallest and most self-centered picture.

I could go on. Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”, Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams”, Conrad’s apparently gloomy “An Outpost of Progress”, Erwin Shaw’s “The Eighty-yard Run”, Sherwood Anderson’s “Unlighted Lamps” – all involve an epiphany for the protagonists, a bringing into light of some grand truth. The protagonists can see the truth, if only partially, and so, too, can the lucky reader – including my teenage scholars next year.

ONE TEACHER'S IDIOMS: Playing Second Fiddle

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ONE TEACHER’S IDIOMS

“Playing second fiddle”

Nothing is harder for me as a teacher than to “play second fiddle”. For as long as I can remember, I have thought of a teacher as being the absolute leader in the classroom, the person at the front of the room whom everyone looked to for guidance and assistance. In my mind, if the classroom were an orchestra pit, the teacher would, at the very least, be the “first fiddle”, and more likely the conductor. It’s the concept of teaching that was implanted in me from my earliest days in school, which makes playing second fiddle in my classroom a relentlessly demanding task. However, it’s a mission I need to undertake and master, because I’ve come to understand that it’s one of the great secrets of good teaching. Only by playing second fiddle can I allow my scholars to play first fiddle – to show off their bountiful talents as readers, writers, and thinkers. Only by standing off in the shadows can I authorize the scholars to be fully in the sunshine. By silencing or softening my own “music”, I can permit the kids to play their own solos day after day. Most of the exemplary teachers in history have understood this truth. Jesus, a teacher whose pedagogical methods I greatly admire, counseled his disciples (who were teachers-in-training) to teach in a quiet, inconspicuous, and unobtrusive manner – to stay out of the spotlight, to play second, third, or fourth fiddle. “Teach secretly” might have been his motto. Teach in a way that leaves you unnoticed and your scholars praised and honored.

That’s not an easy task for one who was raised on the idea of teacher-as-conductor, but I’m working on it.