Joseph Conrad, "Heart of Darkness"

In this story of the dark jungle and the evil powers seemingly hiding within it, there is also a strong strain of spirituality. In a sense, it's the story of selfish, groveling human beings held, unknowingly, in the center of an infinite force that knows exactly what it's about. There may be a lack of human 'peace' (i.e., happiness, contentment), but there's no lack of harmony. The jungle and the river and the universe are working together just as they should. The following quote portrays this:

"And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention."

 

The word "force" in that sentence could be replaced by "God". 

Teaching Journal

Day 154, Friday, May 29, 2009

 

     A girl came to class this morning and immediately asked if she could be the ‘server’. (I provide ice water and whole wheat crackers for the students.) I said we would be grateful if she would, and then, as she walked around with the container of crackers, I began to appreciate the significance of her request. She wanted to do the job – wanted to take minutes away from her quiet reading time and be a servant for her classmates. She wanted to work rather than relax. It was, perhaps, one of her favorite things about English class – the chance to wait on others. These reflections –realizations, really – made it clear to me that this theoretically minor feature of my class – this opportunity to be attentive to others’ needs – is of greater consequence than I had thought. Perhaps it’s neither minor nor nonessential. Perhaps it should be thought of as an indispensable part of my curriculum. I teach comma rules, literary analysis, essay writing, and service to others. 

"Red Pears", oil on canvas, by Cathleen Rehfeld

 

PERFECTION

 

He looks for it

in the folds of his blankets,

and in the first display

of water from the faucet.

It’s there at six

in his comforting cup of coffee

and in the satisfying light

of his computer screen.

It’s in his perfectly old car

as he carefully brings it to school.

He sees it in the precise trees,

and in the houses that sit

composedly beside each other.

He never fails to find perfection

folded up among his lesson plans

and displaying itself

in the words of his scholars.

It’s in the peacefulness

of his sliced peppers at lunch,

and in the red pear

proudly sitting on his desk.   

Teaching Journal

Day 153, Thursday, May 28, 2009

 

     During class this morning, I was astounded when one of the 9^th graders happened to mention that she had spent 45 minutes last night watching the videos of her classmates when they were the ‘scholar of the day’. It took me by surprise because I would never have thought a student would be that interested in these 5-minute videos that I make of each scholar at the end of the year. The student simply reads a favorite essay, answers one question from me, listens to a few compliments from classmates, and then I put the video up on our blog. That’s all. I thought of it as a comparatively insignificant and somewhat superfluous supplement to English class, not as something a girl might get wrapped up in for 45 minutes. I pictured this girl at home, staring at the computer screen and being enthralled by what she was watching – her classmates reading sophisticated scholarly essays for three or four minutes. There wasn’t anything elaborate or showy in the videos – just teenagers facing the camera and reading academic papers that might (to be honest) put some viewers to sleep. Not this girl, though. For 45 minutes she was apparently spellbound as she watched her friends performing like serious essay writers – which they are. This, perhaps, was the best kind of reality TV for her – watching real kids being real scholars. 

"Two Hearts", oil on canvas, by Cathleen Rehfeld

 

 

A BROKEN HEART

 

One day her heart was broken

into shards of silver and gold.

It shattered

and the pieces were spread

across the sidewalk.

She shook with the misery of it,

but soon she noticed that people

loved those fragments of her heart.

A man of sorrows saw a piece

and placed it in his pocket.

A woman made a nest in her hands

for some small flakes,

and her students took some home

to help them live.

Even she herself leaned down

and let a speck of her heart

amaze her.  

SEND FOR SPECIALISTS

 

There are broken bones in my poems,

and bruises where the words

have been shaken, and scars

that speak of recklessness.

My poems need bedside care.

They don’t breathe with freedom.

The phrases take short breaths,

as if all the words

are straining to stay alive.

Each line lets out its life slowly

like the last words of someone

who has always been lost.

Let the nurses bring bandages.

Let the doctors send for specialists,

the ones who heal words and hearts.  

 

CALL YOUR FRIENDS

 

Here we are in a world

where winter is gone from hearts.

It’s a summer

of standing up and shouting,

of taking walks with wisdom,

of running across streets

because something tells you to.

It’s clear

that confusion has settled

and the water is clean again.

There’s laughter to listen to

and loyalty to tell you what to do.

Call your friends,

for they’re angels and saints

these days. 

Teaching Journal

Day 152, May 27, 2009

 

     Despite the occasional article or book that presents the negative aspects of praise, I continue to think it’s an absolute necessity for the scholars in my classes. However, I like to use the word ‘extol’; I don’t just praise my scholars – I extol them. The dictionary tells me the word derives from the Latin root meaning “to raise up”, which is exactly what I try to do for each of the students as often as possible. Everyone needs to be occasionally raised up – put on a pedestal, brought to center stage, made to feel like they’re standing tall – and that, I feel, is a big part of my responsibility as a teacher. Praising students is too easy and sometimes too hollow; extolling them – sincerely telling them they’re among the best and the bravest and need to stay that way – is the hard and demanding work of the devoted teacher. Today I extolled my 9^th grade scholars because they deserved it. I set them up on a dais because they have proved themselves to be champions of English scholarship. This year they have run a marathon of English work, and here at the very end most of them are in an all-out sprint for the finish line. They have saved their best for last, and that’s brave, and that demands to be extolled. If I had a raised platform in my room, I would have insisted that the class stand at the top. They deserved to be ‘raised up’ and honored, and they deserved to be told that they deserved it – and that’s why I extolled them.   

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Here is a wonderful sentence:

"She knew not how such an offence as hers might be classed by the laws of worldly politeness, to what a degree of unforgivingness it might with propriety lead, nor to what rigours of rudeness in return it might justly make her amenable."

The verb phrase is 'knew not', followed by three lovely and perfectly balanced clauses, starting with 'how such', 'to what', and 'to what'. This is the work of Austen the artist. 

SHIPS OF FEELINGS

 

Several of my poems froze last night.

Some of the words

are as white as snow this morning.

The commas carry backpacks of frost.

The somber, ice-coated words

aren’t fit for standing in lines.

How insignificant they seem

as they sit like lumps of ice

on my desk, how distressing,

my once proud poems

with ships of feelings

frozen inside them. 

Teaching Journal

Day 151, Tuesday, May 26, 2009

 

     Today I was reminded about the importance of patience in my work as a teacher – the importance of simply waiting. It’s a simple word but it represents an enormously challenging task. Climbing a mountain, running a long race, or surviving a terminal illness may not be as hard as just plain learning to wait. We all love getting, but waiting for what we want to get is another thing altogether. This morning I learned a small lesson in this area. I had given an assignment on the projector screen and was ready to move on to the next item on my lesson plan, when, thankfully, I noticed that one boy was still writing the assignment down. For some reason, this registered with me (whereas usually it might have flown right past me), and I decided to wait until everyone was ready to proceed. It took only a short time, but in the silent classroom it was a meaningful few minutes. We sat quietly and performed one of the most powerful and difficult of human actions -- waiting. 

PERFECTION

 

 

It’s what you get

when you hold a good pencil,

or a breath of air,

or a person.

It’s what you see

when sunlight settles beside you.

It's a stoplight flashing,

or a strong hand inside yours.

It comes when you call it,

and then you can carry it

to others. 

THE WAY SPOONS REST IN A DRAWER

 

When he lost his job,

he saw stars in the smallest things –

in the shine of the streetlights,

in the sparkle of his mechanical pencil,

in the small poems he wrote.

He saw that all things in his life

flow from far away,

even the flowered skirt

the woman at the grocery store was wearing.

He knew that her task was to brighten lives

with her colorful clothes,

and his was to notice stars,

and the way papers sit peacefully in a trash can,

and the way spoons rest in a drawer.

 

BEFORE BED

 

At the table, at ten,

the clock keeps talking.

Tick by tick it tells a story,

second by second a poem.

If I put my pencil down,

lay my pencil to rest,

I could listen,

and the clever clock

could talk to us,

to my silent pencil and me. 

AT THE CENTER OF HAPPINESS

 

He could be carrying his bowl

back to the kitchen

when the curtain might curl in a breeze,

and suddenly he would be miles away

in his mind, constructing

something useful for someone.

Or he could be sitting in the park

when a woman passes on the path,

a woman whose suffering

flares in her eyes like fire,

and swiftly he would set down

a foundation for the future,

a life where fulfillment

falls from the skies on everyone.

Or sometimes some children would laugh

and chase the snow from his thoughts,

and he would find himself

at the center of happiness.

 

SINGING WITH SATISFACTION

 

If he stares down

into the darkness of a drain

and sees deposits of sediment

that have settled there,

he smiles and sets to work.

First he digs around

in the darkness of the drain

with an old clothes hanger,

then runs the water

and sees it drain faster.

Then he pours Drano down,

and listens to the fizz

like voices speaking softly.

He waits for fifteen minutes.

He sits on his comfortable couch

and says some Shakespeare sonnets.

He stares at leaves

hastening past the windows.

He sees in his mind

the silver water

flowing freely away.

He hears it singing with satisfaction

on his hands

as he washes them over the drain.

 

 

Teaching Journal

Day 150, Friday, May 22, 2009

 

     Today, for the first time this year, I completely trusted the scholars to make good use of their time without my supervision, and they didn’t disappoint me. On this pleasant spring day, I wanted to rehearse with individual 9^th graders for an upcoming event, so I told the class to go outside, stay fairly close to the classroom, do some reading or writing, and I would call them individually for rehearsal. This was the kind of trust that would be impossible in a larger school, where rules are stringent about scholars always being under the supervision of a teacher. In my small, sociable school, however, we feel more able to allow the students to work individually or in small groups without a teacher always lingering nearby. As I rehearsed with individual scholars, I occasionally heard sounds from those who were outside – scraps of quiet conversation floating in, plus an occasional flare-up of laughter. I accomplished much in my rehearsals with students, and I trust that the kids outside realized some accomplishments also. Did they complete as much “school work” as they might have if I had been standing beside them in my typical managerial role? Probably not – but I’m betting they appreciated my trust and made a good effort to prove worthy of it. They may not have made much of a dent in the English class curriculum, but they probably did learn that being trusted brings a feeling of self-worth – and, if so, that’s a lesson I’m proud to have taught them.   

"Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen

The writing continues to be both plain and elegant, a trademark of Austen's. Here's an example: Catherine is looking out the window and hoping the weather will clear, when suddenly "a gleam of sunshine took her quite by surprise." The simple gracefulness of that phrase is impossible to analyze or imitate; it can only be admired.

Catherine is still in Bath with the Thorpes and her brother and the Tilneys. In this episode, she is hoping to go for a walk with the Tilneys, but, on a rainy day, she decides to accept an offer to visit a castle with Isabella Thorpe and her brother John. (She is hurt that the Thorpes apparently ‘stood her up’.) 

TO THE SEA

 

 

She had flowing silver hair,

and one morning

she saw the streets

surging with people,

and a person standing by the bank

with brightness streaming all around.

She said some words

and they spilled into the air.

As she drove to school

she felt a river

running through her

to the sea.

 

EARLY ONE MORNING

 

He saw a stone in the grass,

the best one.

He heard a bird

sing a song with no mistakes.

He touched his right hand

with his left with precision,

and he smelled the September air

the way you should.

He then headed for home

to taste a piece

of raisin toast for breakfast. 

Teaching Journal

Day 149, Thursday, May 21, 2009

 

     In a story I read recently, a character was described as wearing “beautiful garments” for some special occasion, and it started me thinking about why I dress up in my pressed shirt and bow tie each day. I guess I would simply say that each class is, for me, a special – a very special – occasion. Men wear ties and jackets to banquets and weddings because of the importance of the events, and I wear dressy attire in my classroom for the same reason. In fact, teaching children is an activity of far greater magnitude than eating at a banquet or celebrating at a wedding, so perhaps I should wear a tuxedo when I’m teaching. When we dress up for a special occasion, we ourselves feel  special  – like we’re not ordinary but extraordinary, not nobodies but somebodies of stature and prominence, and I feel exactly that way in my classroom. I am lucky to be taking part in the most honorable of all professions, and therefore I dress in an honorable manner. In my room, I feel like a dignitary, a distinctive celebrity of some sort, and I try my best to make my scholars feel the same way. They have their dress code, and I have mine, and together we’re dressed each day in our own kind of "beautiful garments" for a very exclusive event called English class.      

FOOD

 

Wherever she was,

there were scraps

of ideas to be savored,

concepts she could relish.

Words, too, were food for her.

She sometimes sat by herself

and spoke a special word

to understand its sweetness.

Sitting on the front steps,

she might taste several

sugary words

as she watched the sunshine

strengthen her small town. 

Teaching Journal

Day 148, Wednesday, May 20, 2009

 

     The other day, when I overheard someone say he was 'bored out of his mind' by a movie he had seen, I thought of my young, impatient English scholars. The country of Boredom often seems to be where they reside during my classes. Often my words appear to pass among them like vacant ships in the night, hardly stirring a thought or rumpling a feeling. An atmosphere of ennui sometimes hangs over my scholars like haze in the dog days. What I have to remember, though, is that what we call boredom often arises out of an unwillingness to buckle down to a demanding task. Boredom, in other words, can be a mask for laziness. When faced with a poem that requires their full and energetic concentration, being ‘bored’ might be the scholars’ way of saying “I just don’t feel like working very hard today.” Of course, I could give them poems that are instantly captivating, and I could assign essay topics that are immediately thrilling, but often those are not the poems and topics that will actually teach the scholars very much – and teaching is what my job involves. I was not hired to entertain the scholars and make sure they are never ‘bored’; I was hired to teach them, to push them to new heights, to force them to think and write what they’ve never thought and written before. That’s hard work – the kind of work that often makes young people feel ‘bored out of their minds’. Like most of us, my scholars would usually rather get out of their minds than activate their minds and pay serious attention to serious reading and writing – but those are the tasks of English class. If they make the kids feel bored, perhaps that’s a good sign. Perhaps it means I’m making their minds do things their minds don’t want to do, in which case I should pat myself on the back.     

COULD

 

Each morning he wonders what could happen.

Could his car depart from his driveway

with happiness breaking open inside?

Could the trees beside the road

stand extra straight as he passes

on the way to school? Could the door

to his classroom open by itself?

Could the students’ ideas dance

and play  tricks?

Could his lunch leave him feeling like a king?

Could his last class carry him on its wings?

 

DON’T FEEL SORRY FOR ME

 

Don’t feel sorry for me.

I just found forever underneath a stone,

and salvation in the sunshine along Spring Street.

I found something funny in something sad,

and a thought worth a dollar in the wind

in the trees. Don’t feel sorry for me.

I know the secret of starting a new life.

I hear announcements from daffodils

and songs sung by boulders in the woods.

I write with a pencil that prays as it writes,

so don’t feel sorry for me. 

DOORS

 

All doors are full of promise

for him. He holds their handles

like gifts he’s found by chance,

or hands to hold in his hand

before entering the paradise

of a room or a house or a street.

To him, the eyes of other people

are doors to a castle,

and raising his arms in pleasure

is opening the door of praise.

He sees a door

in the darkness of sorrow

and in the first page of a book.

If you see him,

he will just be opening

the plain door of the present.  

"Going to Shrewsbury", short story by Sarah Orne Jewett

This afternoon I sat on the couch after school, feet up on the ottoman, and read another poignant but simple story by Ms. Jewett. It's a tale of a brief, passing friendship between a young man and an elderly woman without a home. It all takes place on a train ride from the woman's home town to the village of Shrewsbury, where she hopes to find shelter with distant relatives. There's an unadorned kind of dignity in the story, and there is in all of the author's writings. 

Teaching Journal

Day 147, Tuesday, May 19, 2009

 

     This morning I worked with the 9^th graders on their poems for the upcoming “Poetry Night” readings, and later I did some related dictionary work. The kids are having a hard time speaking their beautiful poems in a beautiful way, and so it was especially interesting to find that the word ‘voice’ derives from the same Indo-European root that gave us the word ‘calliope”, meaning beautiful sound. (Calliope was the Greek muse of epic poetry.) As I thought about it, I was reminded that voices truly do make beautiful sounds. If a deaf person could suddenly hear, surely he or she would be amazed beyond belief at the sounds the human voice makes when it speaks. Even the modest, hesitant voices of my scholars reading their poems would be astonishing. Even the softest words by the quietest people would be breathtaking. I must keep that in mind when I’m teaching. These young voices I hear in my classroom – these ordinary but astounding voices that speak thousands of words to me each day – are a work of wonder. I wonder how often I let their voices sail right past me as if they’re insignificant noises instead of the sounds of hearts and minds speaking. I wonder how often I treat their spoken words as if they’re dust in the passing air instead of gifts of gold. I guess what this tells me is, when I listen to the scholars speaking their poems, I need to focus less on the superficial qualities of their voices and more on the beautiful inner qualities – the soul and spirit behind their sometimes clumsy and uncertain words. Their voices, like all of ours, come from vast and distant spaces, and I should feel privileged to be within hearing distance of them. 

A DANCE

 

It was done as the day began

by anything daring enough.

A nest of sparrows started it off

by standing in unison and singing.

A tree did some twirls next

as it wished the new day well.

Sorrow and sighing stopped,

and amazement started to shout.

Whatever was lovely let loose

and moved to the music of starting over.

 

No one had seen anything like it

since yesterday morning.