"Towel", oil on board, by Don Gray

Drying my face this morning in the bathroom, it suddenly came to me how lucky I am to have a soft towel to use. There it is, hanging on the rack just for me, this velvety cloth that feels smooth and soothing on my face. It’s not a rag, not a soiled and skinny sheet, not a disheveled piece of material that’s been used for many days. It’s a clean towel as deep and soft as you could find – a luxurious gift for my still drowsy face this morning.

"Two Plums", oil on panel, by Cathleen Rehfeld

This past weekend was one of almost complete relaxation for me. My life, which is always fairly calm, fell into an especially deep state of repose. It began on Saturday with a leisurely drive up through the Connecticut and Massachusetts countryside to see Luke and his family. I spent most of the time with young Josh, finding fun in the little things he enjoys. We tossed a ball back and forth, shot it at a basketball net, surveyed and searched the yard, played hide-and-seek, and took an unhurried walk up and down the street. In between, I enjoyed some quiet conversation with Luke and Krissy. Yesterday, Sunday, was even more peaceful for me – a day filled with bracing air-conditioning and editing some paragraphs in my manuscript and light-hearted reading and a plum or two and a few minutes on the grass in the park surrounded my mist.

On an English teacher's Ning I've been following, I came across a complimentary reference to a series of lectures on the teaching of writing, given by Barrett Wendell, a professor at Harvard, in 1891. I downloaded it in its entirety, and have been reading and highlighting it most of the morning. He writes brilliantly, with a touch of Emerson and Ruskin, and his thoughts on teaching composition are intriguing, and in some cases inspiring. Here is one wonderful quote about reading and grading student essays:

“A dull business this [reading of student papers] seems to many, yet after ten years' study I do not find it dull at all. I find it, rather, constantly more stimulating ; and this because I grow more and more aware how in its essence this matter of composition is as far from a dull and lifeless business as earthly matters can be ; how he who scribbles a dozen words, just as truly as he who writes an epic, performs — all unknowing — one of those feats that tell us why men have believed that God made man in His image. For he who scrawls ribaldry, just as truly as he who writes for all time, does that most wonderful of things,— gives a material body to some reality which till that moment was immaterial, executes, all unconscious of the power for which divine is none too grand a word, a lasting act of creative imagination.”

Adam Bede by George Eliot

I've been thoroughly enjoying this book. I especially enjoyed Chapter XVII yesterday, in which the author takes a break from the plot to address the reader about philosophical issues regarding the writing of novels. She words here arguments beautifully, and even has the main character, Adam, a humble carpenter, talk about weighty topics like literature and spirituality. It might be my favorite chapter so far. (The Reverend Adolphus Irwine is my favorite character, followed closely by Adam and Dinah Morris, the itinerant Methodist preacher.)

"When the Rain Comes", oil, by Halima Washington

I have had an enlightening and exciting summer as a teacher. I haven’t taught anyone (no classes, no tutoring), but the free time has given me an opportunity to accumulate some splendid new ideas for my classes next year. The internet is overflowing with suggestions, tools, resources, and gadgets for educators, and this summer I feel like I’ve been drinking from an inexhaustible faucet of ideas. Just this morning, I discovered a web-based vocabulary program, entirely free, that allows me to receive by email, and show to the class, a video about a new word each school day. The videos are brief, thorough, and entertaining, and the website also includes a ‘study room’ where scholars can go at their leisure to study the words. (I’m so glad I decided not to order 30 vocabulary books at $12.00 each!)

My work on the manuscript of my teaching journals has been stumbling along. I feel less and less confident each day that any publisher would be interested in it. Honestly, sometimes the writing seems dreadful to me. I’m feeling, maybe, what many of my scholars feel when they look at their writing: yuck.

I’m spending part of each day doing research about one of my favorite authors, George Eliot. (I’m also re-reading her first novel, Adam Bede.) I’m doing the research mostly so I can then teach the scholars in the fall how to get started on a yearlong project about an author – especially how to use the web-based research tool called Noodletools. It’s an excellent apparatus for student researchers, one that should make the research process much easier, and even, perhaps, enjoyable and exciting.

Rain last night, and now a waterlogged, chilly morning arrives.

I had wonderful visits with Noah and Ava these past two days. Yesterday I rode with Jaimie and the kids into Providence for Jaimie’s appointment with a doctor. I was the designated baby-sitter while he was with the doctor, and I must pat myself on the back for carrying out my duties quite well. First the kids and I walked a few blocks to a Starbucks where we sat outside and enjoyed a hearty snack. Ava and Noah devoured immense chocolate cookies and some frosty milk, and I had some sips of coffee. Then we walked to an excellent toy store, where we wandered around for nearly an hour, sampling toys and playing in the small ‘play space’ in the rear of the store. It was an adventure for me to follow the kids around as they studied, wide-eyed, the countless playthings on display. Both kids especially enjoyed riding on a crazily moving wagon that rolled and bumped across the carpet. On the way home with Jaimie, we all enjoyed laughing with each other, and also crying. At one point, I asked Ava if she was singing a song, and she replied, “No, Hammy, I’m crying.” Then I said, “Let’s all see who can cry the best,” whereupon all of us, including Jaimie, bawled and wailed as well as we could.

Today was another special visit, because I went with Jess and the kids to Noah’s swimming lesson. What a treat that was! Noah thoroughly enjoyed the lesson, as he demonstrated by waving and smiling at us every few seconds. It was an inspiring morning for Grandpa Hammy.

"Over the Hill", oil, by Sheila Vaughan

This morning I took an early, brisk bike ride out to the beach. I didn't feel especially strong, but the fresh weather and the sunny look of the lawns and gardens kept me refreshed.

Later, I watched the first Alps stage of the Tour de France, and reveled in the magnificent high definition footage of the towns and mountains. Why travel to France when I can be there in my arm chair?

I also had a successful experience getting used to using the research tool called Noodlebib. I want to have my students do a long research project next year (perhaps several), and this tool will work wonders for them. To get the hang of it, I started a research project on George Eliot, and made two citations and a notecard for each one.

"The Postman", oil on hardboard, by Sheila Vaughan

Today I took a breather from bike riding, a welcome chance to let myself go and settle back. I did some long and exhausting rides each day this week, and this day of rest is my reward. I’m breathing deeply, putting my feet up, loosening up, and cooling off. In a way, I do miss riding. It’s a great feeling to be following roads on a bike, letting the roads choose the right route. The feel of morning coolness on my arms is one of the best I know. I’ll be out there for sure tomorrow, pedaling in a good rhythm in the early pleasantness of a summer day.

"Ocracoke Rental", oil, by Mike Rooney

It was a pleasure to ride my bike along the windswept roads at an early hour today. The air was cool on my skin, and the breezes kept me refreshed all the way. I rode out to the beach, then down the beach road to a small coffee shop near a bridge over a stream rushing to the sea. On gusty mornings like this, especially when the temperatures are brisk and reviving, I always feel frisky and sure of myself. I felt like a champion under the strengthening sunlight.

SALVATION

In the Bible reading for today, Jesus says to a man, “This day is salvation come to your house.” This day. Not tomorrow or yesterday. Not sometime in the future, but this day, in these 57,000 moments stretching ahead of me. This Friday, July 17, 2009. Salvation – as the dictionary says, “the preservation or deliverance from destruction, difficulty, or evil.” Today I will be preserved and delivered. It takes a powerful force to preserve and deliver, and I will, indeed, be in the presence of, and part of, the strongest possible force – the force of the gently unfolding and infinite present moment. I will be preserved from destruction, yes, but not only destruction. I will also be delivered (rescued) all day from “difficulty or evil”. That’s an amazing thing to realize, that on this day I will be (am, right now) part of a power that knows no boundaries or limits, and that instantly destroys any difficulty or evil. This is the true meaning of salvation, and it has come to my “house” on this day. Rejoice!

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"South Wind", oil, by Thaw Malin III

This morning I drove up to visit with my grandchildren in Brooklyn, Connecticut, and the visit was a little gift for me, a special way to start a summer day. Noah, Ava, and I hung out together in the playroom while Jaimie worked out on his bike in the garage. I read two books to the kids, with both of them snuggled up against me, eyes riveted on the pages. Ava was a little restless, twisting and turning and examining her feet, but she always, now and then, came back to the pictures in the book. Noah, on the other hand, was entirely attentive to the stories. Whenever I turned to glance at him, I saw his eyes staring directly at the page I was reading.

Later, we wrestled and shouted and made forts, and as we did, I couldn’t help but notice how kind and helpful Noah was. He constantly offered to get things for us, to show us how to do something, or to allow us to do something before him.

The wind these last two days made my bike rides especially adventurous. Today I battled head winds all the way to Stonington, and then seemed to battle a head wind all the way back. My bike was swaying left and right, even seemingly backwards and forwards, as I peddled along Route 1. Fortunately, the road home was a fairly flat one, so it was just the wind and me with no hills to interfere. I was happy to sail into Westerly and find shelter from the wind among the buildings in town.

RAYS OF THE SUN

(written in October, 2002)

One-ness is the hardest mystery to understand, but it is also the most important. “Never two, but one” – that’s the grand truth that I must contemplate as I go about my teaching today. My scholars and colleagues and I are not separate from each other. We are not separate, distinct physical beings engaged in a struggle to get and protect. That’s the universally accepted belief, but it’s simply not true. Today, all that will be happening is the unfoldment of thought in the present moment. Each present moment, a thought will be causing everything to happen. For convenience sake, we call it “my” thought or “Jimmy’s” thought or “Anna’s” thought, but it’s all really just thought in an infinite universe of thought. That’s why the sun is a good comparison. In my classroom today, the infinite sun of Thought (sometimes called God) will be shining, and my scholars and I will be the rays of that sun. There won’t be many separate suns – just the rays of the one infinite sun.


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"Summer Day Past Noon", oil, by V....Vaughan

Our beautiful weather continues. I just returned from the park, where I sat in the shade of one of the splendid trees, enjoying the look of the blue sky, the wandering white clouds, the swaying trees, and the feel of the perfect temperature. Actors were rehearsing for Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona under some nearby trees, and even their voices seemed buoyant and nimble like the weather. In between being distracted by the lovely weather, I read some of George Eliot’s Adam Bede, a story about the wild and free-spirited countryside of 18^th century England, and somehow the tale seemed to fit well with a day of such full-bodied and enlivening weather.

I took an early bike ride this morning, an hour’s trip along the river and out to Watch Hill. I pretty much exhausted myself, but it was a bracing exhaustion, the kind that gets you ready for another summer day.

And finally, I am overflowing with admiration for my four grown children. This past weekend they all came together to help one of them pull through a sorrowful situation. I watched with awe as their generous love wrapped around them all.

GOD, THE LORD

The word “God” or “Lord” is mentioned thousands of times in the Bible, and it reminds me of something: the nature of God is the most important thing for me to study. Nothing else counts if I don’t understand – not just believe but really understand – what God is. Today I want to focus on keeping in mind just exactly what this God is that I’ve been praying about all these years. I want to keep before my thought the great fact that there is always only one power active at any given moment and that is the power of thought. Since it’s the only power, then it is unopposed and unlimited – that is, it goes on forever. And also, since there is nothing besides this power of thought, then there really is nothing material – no “me”, for instance. “I” am a part of this infinite power. I think and work because this power thinks and works. This power – this infinite thinking, this unlimited Mind – is God, the Lord.

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WAITING PATIENTLY

(written in October 2002)

“Waiting” is a wonderful word. It implies so many things. For instance, if we are waiting for something, then we are expecting it to happen, to come to us. We don’t have to do anything ourselves; we just have to relax and wait, because we know it will come. If we are waiting, then - in a sense - we are relaxing, because we are totally confident that what we are waiting for will arrive. Waiting does not imply worrying and fearing. Rather, it implies being patient, because we know that what we wait for is definitely coming. Today, I want to wait patiently for the power of infinite Mind to exert itself and to control my life. Of course, I don’t really have to wait for that, because it’s already happening – at every moment today. What I have to do is resist the temptation to start doing things to bring happiness into my life. The happiness is already there, because I am an inseparable part of the peacefulness of Mind. What I have to do is realize that and then confidently wait to see this peacefulness each and every moment.


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WAITING

(written in October 2002)

Today I need to practice the fine art of waiting. For example, I need to wait for my scholars to settle down at the start of class. They have probably just finished a serious, demanding class in the previous period, and they don’t need another teacher pushing and prodding them to get quickly started with another such class. Like a pond after the water has been stirred, they will quietly calm down into peacefulness soon enough. I also need to remember to wait a few seconds after I ask a question in class. Why do I think the students will have instant answers for my questions? I need to remember that thinking takes time, and cannot be rushed. Finally, I need to wait for happiness today. I can’t chase down happiness, for it only comes to those who wait patiently, just like we wait by the side of the pond for the water to slowly clear. Happiness, like so many good things, is always ready to arrive at the doors of those who are calmly waiting.


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"Summer Estuary", oil, by Candy Barr

For the last two days, the weather has been delightful -- cool temperatures, light winds, clear skies, a few bright and inflated clouds floating along. Luckily, I’ve been able to enjoy these good-looking days with my family. Yesterday my daughter and one of my sons joined me in Mystic for a quiet lunch beside the river under the lovely sky. We had some important things to discuss, and talking about them while surrounded by sunshine made the conversation especially easy and satisfying. I felt lucky to be there with them, and especially lucky to be a father. Today, I rode my bike in the fresh, breezy air over to the Stonington Beach and spent an hour or so with my grandchildren. That was like heaven for me. Being around those angelic children on such a dazzling day was a great gift. Once again, I felt too fortunate for words.

STEADILY, GENTLY, QUIETLY

(written in October, 2008)

During a break in today's classes, I leaned back in my chair and watched the leaves slowly dropping from a tree beside my classroom. It was a nearly windless day late in the season, so the old, crinkled leaves fell at a leisurely pace, one by one. It sometimes seemed like several minutes would pass before another leaf would drift languidly to the ground. It got me thinking (as almost anything does) about teaching. I realized that the old leaves fall only when they are totally ready to fall, when their exact time has come. There's no sense of rushing involved, but rather a great sense of patience and inevitability. The leaves will fall when they will. Unlike our human world of relentless haste and urgency, the tree and its leaves live lives of peaceful inexorableness. As I watched the tree, and waited for my next class to assemble, I hoped I might teach them just the way the leaves were falling -- steadily, gently, and quietly.

THE FACTS OF LIFE

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GENTLENESS

There are many kinds of power, but to me the power of gentleness is the greatest. For example, consider the strong gentleness of a river. Water is one of the softest of all material things, and yet it can move trees and houses when it floods in the spring. This gentle substance that washes your dishes can effortlessly wash away an entire town in flood season. In addition, there is the persistent power of even the softest breeze. A cool breeze in the summer can refresh the lives (and nerves) of an entire town in a matter of minutes. One minute you’re sweating and frustrated, and the next minute you’re relishing your life while a tender breeze ruffles you’re hair. And finally, the strongest, bravest, most admirable people I know are also the gentlest. These are people who know that the most important battles are won by gentleness. Like rivers, these people flow softly along with enormous power. Like the breezes of summer, they change our lives with their strong, relentless gentleness.


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GLORY

(written in October, 2006)

This morning, someone said, “Isn't it a glorious day?”, so I decided to look for glory all day – and I found it in many places. For example, I found it in a glittering tree I passed on the way to school. I rounded a corner and there it was, shining out across a hillside like a call to glory. I was a little sleepy when I first noticed the tree, but its special beauty snapped me awake. I also found glory in the face of some first-graders as they pranced down the walkway at recess. Their faces were as fresh as a sunrise and as glorious as a sunset. I had just finished teaching a somewhat disappointing lesson, and those magnificent faces were just what I needed to lift my spirits. And finally, I discovered glory in a single paragraph in the book I’m reading, Jane Eyre. Can excellent writing be called glorious? I think so, if it’s filled with sentences so clear they seem to shimmer on the page. Yesterday, in fact, I think I could have found glory anywhere, because the whole day glowed like light in October.


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WORK

Today I want to work hard, but I also want to think about exactly what that means. I have always liked the idea of work – the idea that by applying my will and energy, I can accomplish things. However, today I want to think of work in another way – a spiritual way. I want to ask who – or what – actually does the work that I speak of? What I am starting to understand, more and more clearly, is that all the work that will be done today will actually not be done by any individual persons (like me), but rather by the infinite, always-present Mind. This Mind, in a sense, has no choice but to work. It’s always working. Thought is always happening today – and thought is what actually does the work. Each moment on earth, something like three billion thoughts are happening – sort of like waves happen in the sea – and that is where the astonishing power of today comes from. So … I don’t have to work hard, because I am part of the infinite Mind that is always working hard. All I have to do is stay aware of that.


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BREATHING AND THINKING

In a surprising way, the thinking that goes on in my classroom is a lot like breathing. Each day my students and I think and express hundreds of ideas during class, and we also listen to and take in each other's ideas. Give out, take in, give out, take in. Our ideas mingle in the air and then enter each other's minds, much as our breathing mingles and mixes all day long. We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, and we give out ideas and take new ideas in. Breathe out, breathe in, give out, take in.

"Cows and Lake", John Constable

Today the weather is, once again, delightfully clear and cool. I took a bike ride late this morning out into the countryside on Boombridge Road past the old Lewis farm, and reveled in the beautiful weather. I found it to be a rather draining ride, but the friendly breeze and refreshing sunshine re-energized me each time I grew tired. I felt lucky to be able to ride my bike on these bucolic roads on such a pleasant day.

Adam Bede by George Eliot

In this afternoon's reading, the author introduces us to a wonderful character, the Reverend Adolphus Irwine. The following quotes describe him well:

“Let evil words die as soon as they're spoken.” (said by Mr. Irwine)

“And as to people saying a few idle words about us, we must not mind that, any more than the old church-steeple minds the rooks cawing about it.” (also by Mr. Irwine)

“. . . of a sufficiently subtle moral fibre to have an unwearying tenderness for obscure and monotonous suffering.”

“He had that charity which has sometimes been lacking to very illustrious virtue—he was tender to other men's failings, and unwilling to impute evil. He was one of those men, and they are not the commonest, of whom we can know the best only by following them away from the marketplace, the platform, and the pulpit, entering with them into their own homes, hearing the voice with which they speak to the young and aged about their own hearthstone, and witnessing their thoughtful care for the everyday wants of everyday companions, who take all their kindness as a matter of course, and not as a subject for panegyric.”

“But whatever you may think of Mr. Irwine now, if you had met him that June afternoon riding on his grey cob, with his dogs running beside him—portly, upright, manly, with a good-natured smile on his finely turned lips as he talked to his dashing young companion on the bay mare, you must have felt that, however ill he harmonized with sound theories of the clerical office, he somehow harmonized extremely well with that peaceful landscape.”

Adam Bede by George Eliot

These are quotes from today’s reading. The first embodies a fundamental belief of mine, and the second seems to me a wise statement about a helpful way to view life. I hope I can become "at once penetrating and credulous". (The italics in the quote are mine.)

“I hate to be talking where it's no use: I like to keep my breath for doing i'stead o' talking."

“Adam was not a man to be gratuitously superstitious, but he had the blood of the peasant in him as well as of the artisan, and a peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when he sees a camel. Besides, he had that mental combination which is at once humble in the region of mystery and keen in the region of knowledge: it was the depth of his reverence quite as much as his hard common sense which gave him his disinclination to doctrinal religion, and he often checked Seth's argumentative spiritualism by saying, "Eh, it's a big mystery; thee know'st but little about it." And so it happened that Adam was at once penetrating and credulous.”

A SENSE OF THINGS

I often hear people use the phrase “a sense of things”. A person might ask, “Do you get a sense of what I am trying to say?”, or “Do you get a sense of what’s happening?” Today, I want to think about what this word “sense” means, and I want to consider what my “sense of things” is. When we say “sense of things”, we mean the way we see the world, the way we interpret what’s happening. After all, the same situation can be interpreted in different ways by different people. A rainy day can cause a farmer in a drought area to celebrate, while a family that has planned a picnic will be miserable. The farmer and the family have a different sense of things. They look at the same reality, but see it (interpret) entirely differently. I want to have a spiritual sense of things today. I want to see the world as it truly is – an unceasing unfoldment in the present moment of the ideas of the infinite Spirit, Mind, God.

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"Light Rain", oil, by Barbara Kacicek

Today I stumbled upon an interesting discovery. I use a headset microphone when I want to dictate my writing to the computer, but I had never thought of using it to make phone calls. Lately I’ve been making calls using Skype on the computer, but I’ve just been using the built-in mic on the computer, which does not produce a very high quality sound. This morning I thought: why not try the headset mic for a phone call? I first tested it to make sure it was working properly, and then called a friend. Surprisingly to me, her voice coming through the headset was remarkably clear, and I have a feeling my voice was also. After I hung up, I continued to experiment with the headset, making several recordings on GarageBand, and noting the superiority of the sound.

This afternoon, in between rain showers, I took a 50 minute bike ride alongside the river and along the rolling hills of Greenhaven Road. As usual, I felt a great feeling of freedom, irresponsibility, and utter boundlessnss. I sailed along with the kind of abandon that unites all lovers of bicycling.

WORKING AND RESTING

I see many things around me in the world that seem to be able to work and rest at the same time, and I would like to learn how to do that. When trees are swaying in a breeze, they seem to be working hard, tossing their limbs in an energetic way, but they also seem completely stress-free. Perhaps their secret is that they don’t resist the breeze. They simply lean back and let go, and the breeze actually does all the work, allowing the trees to sway forever and not grow weary. Also, leaves that fall in the autumn don’t seem to work hard as they float to earth, and yet in a matter of a few days they can cover hundreds of square miles of ground. This is an amazing achievement (one that would take we humans a supreme effort) and yet the leaves do this work in the most relaxed manner. What is more serene than a leaf drifting through the autumn air? A final example is snow. I always eagerly await the first snowfall of the season, because these armies of snowflakes are the most peaceful workers I have ever seen. Within a few hours, a nation of snowflakes can cover an entire city with a paralyzing sheet of white, and yet they do it in the quietest possible way. A snowstorm has a way of combining tranquility with effort, and it’s something I admire. Perhaps my goal in life is to live like snowflakes live – with both enthusiasm and serenity.


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ONE TEACHER'S ALPHABET

E is for Engagement

As surprising as it may sound, I’m more interested in how engaged my scholars are than in how much they accomplish. Accomplishment is usually a personal and private thing, but I want my classes to be more communal than personal, more public than private. I’d like to develop a cooperative and supportive ambience in my classroom, and this necessarily involves a spirit of engagement. Accomplishment is most often done solo; engagement is usually done together, jointly, as one. In a spirit of engagement, I want the scholars to win over each other during discussions, draw their classmates into the work at hand, and involve each other in the shared enterprise of education. Engagement can also involve a promise a pledge. If you’re engaged, you’re bound to something, attached to it, dedicated to it. You’ve made a promise to be a part of something special, which is certainly a mood I would like to promote in my classes. To me (and the scholars know how I feel), 8^th and 9^thgrade English class is not just another 48-minute block in which to watch the clock; it’s a unique period for extraordinary learning, and the students need to be thoroughly engaged in it. They know I expect them to make a silent pledge when they enter the room:I will do my absolute best. That kind of commitment is far more important to me than any personal accomplishments by the kids. After all, accomplishments ebb and flow; engagement is a mind-set, a manner, a way of life.

"A Beach Life", oil, by Debbie Miller

I am exhausted. I just returned from a one hour bike ride out to Watch Hill and back, during which I pumped hard most of the time. It was a perfect afternoon for riding – easygoing temperatures and a cooling breeze off the shore. I felt wonderful as I pedaled along. The sunlight was dappling the road and the roadside houses and lawns, making it seem like I was riding through a beautiful movie. When I arrived at the beach, I flopped down, took some healthy drafts of water, took off my shoes, and waded in the refreshing surf. It was a proper reward for a hard 30 minutes work. On the way back, I worked just as hard. I had promised myself that I would take it a little easy, but when I came to the little hills and rises along the way, the gung ho instinct took over, and I lowered my head and pumped for all I was worth.

Adam Bede by George Eliot

I’ve been reading Adam Bede for the last few days, and also listening to a recorded reading of it by an excellent professional actor. In a way, this is a first for me. I have occasionally listened to recorded books, but always in the car, never sitting in a chair and following the story as I listen. It’s been a wonderful experience so far, making me wonder why I didn’t do this years ago. Listening to the actor read the story allows me to enter into it more deeply – to visualize the scenes more clearly and, especially, to hear the various dialects and modes of speech of the characters. It’s a new and in some ways more profound way for me to read – one which I may try, to some degree, with my scholars this coming year.

Newness

I have gradually come to understand this important truth – that oldness is nowhere and newness is everywhere. Every day is a totally new day. The sunrise each morning shines a little differently than it ever did before, and the breeze I feel when I walk outside blows in a faintly new way from yesterday, and from the moment before. Totally new things will happen to me today – the way a person smiles at me, the way people walk past me in the park, the way sunlight lands on my hands. Even each moment is brand-new each day. As I type this paragraph, new dust particles lie on my computer table in arrangements that have never existed before. The shadows from my fingers fall on the keyboard, not like they did yesterday, but in a slightly and wonderfully new way. Even each thought is totally knew each moment. This is the most astounding thing for me to realize. The exact thought that I’m thinking right now has never been thought before – in the whole history of the human race. It’s amazing – almost scary – to live in a world of such breathtaking newness.


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ONE TEACHER'S ALPHABET

H is for Horizontal

(written in 2007)

In some ways, I enjoy the horizontal aspect of teaching more than the vertical. When I think of vertical teaching, I picture teachers pushing their students up steep slopes of learning. Vertical teachers are relentlessly ambitious to reach the next summit, and as soon as they arrive they start their students off on another climb toward the next summit. For vertical teachers, there’s no looking sideways, no stopping for a lengthy gaze around at what they and their students have achieved. In their desire to help their students accomplish as much as possible, these teachers are almost unyielding in their progress up the hilly trails of education. I admire these kind of teachers because they do a particular service to their students and to our profession, but it’s not my kind of teaching. I guess I’m more interested in helping my students explore each summit than in pushing them quickly off to the next one. I’d like them to learn to appreciate the flat and scenic view on whatever plateaus we reach in English class, rather then to always be looking up at the next vertical climb. After all, there are beautiful horizons to be enjoyed when you’re relaxing at the end of a sheer climb. I think of the book we’re reading in 9^th grade – Dickens’ Great Expectations. Yes, we could climb unremittingly up the trails of the book, and probably finish it in just a few weeks and start “climbing” another book. (This is what happens in the majority of high school English classes.) But what’s the point? In that kind of vertical reading, when do the students ever get to pause and take pleasure in the beauties of the plot, the characters, the language? When do they get to take a break to appreciate the artistry that has made the book a classic? In that kind of out-of-breath English teaching, the students, I’m afraid, are left with little more than mental exhaustion and memories of endless climbs up complicated verbal trails. I have little interest in that kind of instruction. In my classes, we may read only a few books each year, but that’s because we’re determined to enjoy the views on each of the countless summits the authors created for us.

On Giving Up the Struggle

ON GIVING UP THE STRUGGLE

On this mild, rainy Sunday morning, I’ve been thinking again about how life-changing it would be if I simply gave up struggling. As I was getting ready for the new day, it came to me that almost all of my days (since 1941!) have been taken up with a struggle of some kind or other. Right from the start, it seems, I have pictured life as a constant skirmish between a separate “me” and the countless other separate “me”s, and I have engaged in the struggle with earnestness. From morning to night, it’s been me against the universe. What if I simply – here and now, today – gave up the struggle? What if, once and for all, I fully accepted the simple fact that there is no separate “me” to do the struggling, and no separate universe to struggle against? What if I fully understood, finally, that the universe, including me, is a single, unified, harmonious, and peaceful dance? It’s something worth thinking about, worth working toward. It’s a revolutionary idea, one that would transform my life from top to bottom, inside to out. It might conceivably make life a remarkable celebration instead of a backbreaking competition.

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"Afternoon Clearing", oil, by Cooper Dragonette

There’s a wonderful clarity in the air today – almost a transparency, as though the sunlight is shining through the landscape instead of on it. There’s a crystalline feeling in the weather, a sense that all things are somehow new and fresh. The sheer brilliance of July light is everywhere. I took a walk this morning in the park, and I felt like I was walking through flimsy gauze instead of summer air. I don’t think the sky could have been any bluer or the fluffy clouds any whiter.

"A Walk in New Paltz", oil on canvas, by Jamie Williams Grossman

This afternoon I drove up to Brooklyn to take a walk with Jaimie. (Jess and the kids are up in Maine for a few days.) We drove a few miles down the road to an Audubon refuge, where we parked the car and struck out walking on a quiet country road. All around us was the sanctuary, composed mostly of swamps and meadows spread out against some low hills. It was a wonderful walk. We talked mostly about teaching -- sharing ideas, frustrations, plans, and ideals, and also taking pleasure in the perfect July weather. The air seemed unusually clear, and the blueness of the sky couldn’t have been any clearer as big, billowy clouds sailed through it. I felt even luckier than I usually do – walking with my son and colleague in the teaching profession, feeling his devotion to his work, and just being proud and grateful to be a dad.

"Foothills Biker", acryllic, by Don Gray

This morning I was up early, as usual, and took a 30-minute ride up and down the hills near my house. The morning was serene and fairly silent, with only the singing of the birds to accompany my steady pedaling. I pumped hard up the gradual hills, and enjoyed the feeling of coasting back down to the bottom, where I turned and started up again. The town seemed deserted. Only a few early cars came quietly along the roads, and I saw not a single pedestrian. It was a good morning to be peacefully out on the streets, breathing deeply and enjoying the coolness of the air as my bike moved along.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë

I’ve read five chapters now, and all I can think of is how amazing it is that these Brontë sisters, who grew up in the relative wilds of the English moors, somehow all learned to write with beauty and power. I’m not sure whether this novel will prove to be one of my favorites, but so far it is an orderly and elegantly written story, with interesting characters and a budding plot. Ms. Brontë writes as though she truly loved to write. Her sentences flow with admirable style and grace (even though at times the writing seems to be a bit overdone, as though she was trying to show off, perhaps for her sisters). I particularly enjoyed the use of parallelism, which was certainly one of the most popular stylistic effects in the Victorian age. In sentence after sentence, she sets up parallel structures of adjectives, adverbs, and phrases of all kinds. I wonder: were the sisters taught to write that way? Did their teacher emphasize the importance of balance and symmetry in writing? Whatever the case, it’s certainly present in this, so far, very agreeable novel.

ONE TEACHER'S ALPHABET

L is for Lies

“He did not want to tell any more lies. It wasn’t worth it.”

-- Krebs, in Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home”

As an English teacher, I would like to teach my scholars to write the way Harold Krebs tried to live – without lying. I don’t mean to suggest that the kids in my classes purposely try to deceive me when they write, but I do think their writing often reflects the elusiveness and artificiality of contemporary life. Their digital-age culture constantly bombards them with convoluted and muddled messages, and their essays occasionally exhibit a similar kind of inattentive uncertainty. It’s as if they don’t know precisely what to write, so they just write as much as possible as quickly as possible, using fancy adjectives and intricate sentences to hide their bewilderment. This could be called a kind of lying, in the sense that the scholars aren’t communicating any solidly held ideas. Like their information-loaded culture, they’re shelling their audience (me) with a steady salvo of words in the hope that I won’t notice that there’s no particular meaning behind them. Hemingway’s character didn’t want to live that way. After experiencing the gross dishonesty and treachery of war, he wanted to live a life of truthfulness and simplicity, two qualities I would like to foster in my scholars’ writing. I would like them to decide what they believe about the assigned topic, and then explain their beliefs in a thoroughly straightforward manner. If an idea can be expressed in ten brief words, so be it; anything longer or more glitzy might border on dishonesty. “Write just what you mean, and mean just what you write” might be an appropriate motto for the young writers in my classes. If Harold Krebs -- or Hemingway himself – were sitting among my scholars, they would surely appreciate that approach.