Riding Waves

I have often watched my son body surfing (he’s an expert), and it has occasionally started me thinking about teaching. He seems utterly relaxed as he glides in with the wave, just the way I feel when I’m doing my best teaching. He’s not struggling with the surf, but simply allowing it to do its work – simply giving in, you might say, to the drive and direction of the wave, and similarly, when good things are happening in my classroom, I often feel like I’m allowing them to happen rather than making them happen. In a sense, we’re both going along for the ride – my son on waves and I on the never-ending energies of education. Of course, Matt has to be ready for constant surprises in the surf, as do I in my classroom of pulsating and restive teenagers. There’s no possible way to predict what the measureless ocean will send my son as he waits for a wave, just as there’s no way to correctly foretell how fortunes will fare during a 48-minute English class. He and I both have to be wise and flexible enough to shift, dip, and bend so as to bring ourselves in line with the powers confronting us – freewheeling surf and high-spirited students.

ON THE PRAIRIE

On the lonesome prairie
he prayed to every star
and silent hilltop. All his words
were like winds across the grass,
or the giving of gifts
from night’s friendly hands.
He had lost so much
in his old life,
but fires still burned
in his bright mind,
and summer seemed
to be bursting inside him.
Holiness was everywhere,
he knew,
and all his sorrows
had helped his life
look up and out
where winds wandered
without end.

WHEN HE WAS SAD

He rode his horse
beside streams and across valleys
of flowers that seemed to flow forever.
His horse was a helpful friend,
following the stars and sunshine
as they showed the way.
It wouldn’t be forever,
he knew, just till the time
when something would awaken
like a windy morning.
It would just be until
tired and worn out sorrow
said hello to happiness
and then disappeared.
It would happen.
It always did.
So he let his horse
hold him high
among the breezes and
brightness that is life.

WHAT TO DO

He often wonders what to do,

whether to walk from one window to another,

or take up a book

that breaks open as soon as he touches it,

or bend his firm feelings

backwards and forwards for flexibility.

He knows the stars don’t struggle

in deciding whether to shine or not,

nor does his heart have trouble

choosing how to push the boats

of his blood inside his body.

Still, it’s not easy for him.

Should he help his car

cruise out to the beach,

or should he show himself

the sunlight on the lettuce

in his backyard garden?

FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL by George Eliot

Here is a lovely descriptive passage from my reading today -- Eliot at her best:

"The Rectory was on the other side of the river, close to the church of which it was the fitting companion: a fine old brick and-stone house, with a great bow-window opening from the library on to the deep-turfed lawn, one fat dog sleeping on the door-stone, another fat dog waddling on the gravel, the autumn leaves duly swept away, the lingering chrysanthemums cherished, tall trees stooping or soaring in the most picturesque variety, and a Virginian creeper turning a little rustic hut into a scarlet pavilion."

I spent a happy morning with Noah and Ava while Jaimie journeyed to Ikea to purchase some furniture. It was an utterly peaceful few hours under the tall  shaking trees around Jaimie's house. We first played inside and did a few small chores (washed some windows in the great room), then had a hearty lunch out on the breezy patio, after which the kids bounced and splashed and laughed in the wading pool for close to two hours. They had more fun together than I could ever describe. I was particularly impressed by Noah's ever-present kindness to his younger sister. He is a brother and a gentleman, for sure. 

Hey , Why Not?

I just finished watching a classic western called Red River, and, strange as it may seem, it made me wish a new school year started tomorrow. I was thoroughly inspired by the pioneering spirit of big John Wayne and his Texas ranch hands as they led 10,000 cattle 1,000 miles north to Missouri on one of the first cattle drives in the West. They had no definite idea of an actual trail and no reasonable hope that they would ever arrive at their destination (or even what the exact destination was), and yet they set off with an untamed spirit of buoyancy and bravado. They had little to lose and a life like a long escapade to gain, so perhaps their attitude was, “Hey, why not?” The film inspired me because that’s exactly the attitude I hope to cultivate in my classroom. There’s entirely too much hesitancy and diffidence among my young students, too much desire for undemanding books, safe assignments, and high and easy grades. If my students were in Texas with John Wayne, they would have been terrified to set off on such a dicey and intimidating trip. They might have asked for an assignment they were more accustomed to, like leading the cattle to a local waterhole. Actually, I shouldn’t be too hard on the students, because I, too, have some of the same spirit – too much tentativeness and timidity, too little inclination to try something brave and big and totally different. The film inspires me to look for new horizons in my teaching and for unmapped trails to take with my students. I need to say, “Hey, why not?” more often, especially when a really rowdy and undisciplined idea for a lesson occurs to me. Sure, the lesson might fail in front of my eyes, but it also might make it all the way to the end of a startling and instructive trail. Why not?

Barriers and Freedom

To my mind, one of the greatest myths young people have been taught is that they are encircled by countless limitations. It would be impossible to even estimate how many barriers my students see surrounding them. There are physical barriers (“I’m not fast enough to be a good soccer player”) and mental barriers/emotional barriers (“I’ve been diagnosed as having an attention deficit disorder, and I will have it for the rest of my life”) – and all of these barriers are seen as undeniable and invincible. They are insurmountable, kids are told, and must simply be acknowledged, accepted, and managed. What I find strange, first of all, is that we adults feel qualified to officially proclaim that this or that limitation exists in a child’s life. Who are we, for heaven’s sake, to make such executive proclamations? Where did we ever get the chutzpah, the nerve, perhaps the impudence, to make a young person believe he will never be able to perform some task or reach some goal? Certainly it’s important that we help students identify their weaknesses, but shouldn’t our next step be to help them overcome these weaknesses and thus surmount the barriers? Shouldn’t we be encouraging them to strive instead of settle? Am I being hopelessly old-fashioned in believing that trying a little harder is better than telling yourself you’ll never succeed? One of mankind’s greatest discoveries, proven countless times across the centuries, is that limitations are created and cultivated in our minds, not in the real world. Change your thoughts and you can destroy barriers, as Helen Keller, Bill Gates, Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey, Anne Frank, Woody Allen (expelled from New York University Film School), J.K. Rowling (rejected by 12 publishers), and the Beatles (rejected by Decca Recording Company) discovered. Haven’t most of humanity’s major accomplishments happened because certain individuals refused to accept a limitation or bow down to a barrier? It is said that Thomas Edison had to conduct over 2,000 experiments before he got the first incandescent light bulb to work. What if a well-meaning person had said to him, after experiment number 1,999: “Thomas, give it up. Accept your limitations, deal with this failure, and move on”? He probably wouldn’t have listened anyway, because later, when asked how he was able to handle 2,000 failed experiments, he replied, “I never failed once. I invented the light bulb. It just happened to be a 2,000-step process.’” He somehow knew that barriers always give way to a true feeling of ground-breaking freedom. To learners who have a sense of unbounded interior liberty, there are no real barriers, obstacles, barricades, or fences – except those that can be conquered by simply not quitting. Thomas Edison knew that truth, and I hope my students can learn it.

Here's Noah, just before we entered the sweat lodge last night. It was his first official sweat, and he was very excited. He helped his dad, his uncles, and his grandfather (me) start the fire and prepare the lodge, and he sat with us inside in the steaming heat for a few minutes. When I walked him back to the house, he had a tear in his eye, and quietly said he hoped his daddy would come and tuck him into bed. It brought some tears to me eyes, and darn near broke my heart with love. He is such a good boy.

Shining the Floodlight

When I’m teaching, it sometimes seems as if I’m wearing a finely pointed headlamp, whereas I might do better using – at least occasionally – a floodlight. With my headlamp approach to teaching, I’m usually zeroed-in on some separate, distinct aspect of my work – perhaps a step in the lesson plan, or the behavior of a particular student, or maybe a small flaw I noticed in something I just said. Much like a miner’s lamp in a dark mine, my narrow beam of attention shifts here and there as I go about my work, lighting up this student or that statement or this problem, but leaving everything else in relative darkness. I’m afraid it’s a hesitant, stumbling way to teach, sort of like feeling my way from one small illuminated spot to another. What’s particularly unfortunate about this style of teaching is that it tends to exaggerate both triumphs and mistakes. When I make a properly supportive and instructive response to a student’s comment, the headlamp’s strong illumination sets my success apart as seeming far more special than it really is, and, conversely, when I blunder in my everyday way, the blunder, in the sharply focused light of my attention, looks more like a complete catastrophe than the commonplace and harmless misstep that it actually is. I guess I’d like to use a floodlight style of teaching a little more often. If I could pretend that a floodlight was shining on my students and me as we work through an English lesson, I think I might get a truer picture of what’s actually happening. If the light lit up all of my students and me with an even illumination (which is what a floodlight does), then I could see all the successes and mistakes in class in their proper perspective – as just small pieces of a detailed and multifaceted big picture. Plus, if my imaginary floodlight could light up the whole world, and even the sweeping stars and planets, then I could see my small classroom on a country road, with its groups of mainstream teenagers and their grayish, well-tested teacher, as just another interesting place in a vastly interesting universe. Then, the little victories and calamities in a day’s worth of teaching and learning would shine no more brightly than the countless other important but often unnoticed events that happen when kids and a senior citizen come together on a planet among stars to help each other get educated.

FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL by George Eliot

It's been awhile since I've posted on this reading journal ... but I'm back today to talk briefly about my reading of George Eliot's Felix Holt, the Radical. It's a confusing plot, I must say, and it's all I can do to keep up with the twists and turns. I've decided to simply read more slowly, occasionally rereading paragraphs or pages, so that. I can keep the movements of the plot clearly in mind. However, despite the confusion, I love the beautifully elegant passages I find on almost every page. Eliot has a "way with words" that is unsurpassed by any writer I can think of.

At this point in the book (Ch. 22), lawyer Jermyn has discovered a family secret about the Transomes that he seems to be holding for future use as blackmail. (The secret also involves Esther, the adopted orphan daughter of the preacher Rufus.)

Where Do They Come From?

I’m continually amazed when I consider the number of thoughts produced in each English class – a vast number, beyond counting or comprehending. The students and I are manufacturing thoughts moment by moment for 48 minutes, which amounts to tens of thousands thoughts in each class. I sometimes picture us sitting amidst a swarm of thoughts, always fresh and brisk, always buzzing among us like news from somewhere far away. A handful of students and a teacher almost hidden (or protected, perhaps) by thousands and thousands of up-to-the-minute thoughts: it’s an exciting scene to picture! What I often wonder is where do all these thoughts come from? Maybe 50,000 in each class -- 300,000 each day -- 1,500,000 each week – 54,000,000 each year: Where in the world, or the universe, do they all come from? It’s an impenetrable mystery, since there’s simply no way we could ever isolate the precise origin of a thought (short of employing the useless pseudo-explanation that it originates in the brain). It’s as if thoughts start somewhere but nowhere, inside us but in the far reaches of infinity. Locating a starting point is like trying to find where and when a single breeze began blowing. For me, it just adds to the enchantment of teaching. I sometimes feel like I’m in the midst of charmed kingdom when I’m teaching – a kingdom created and cared for by countless miraculous thoughts from the back of beyond.

STRAIGHT AND NARROW TEACHING

Though I am not a Bible reader, I often recall a phrase I heard growing up, something about “the straight and narrow way”, and I’ve sometimes pondered its connection to teaching. Just this morning it came to me, as it often has, that teaching English might be far simpler than I usually make it out to be. Perhaps, I thought, it’s really a fairly straight and narrow path that could be followed with little difficulty by any teacher who turns away from the often overstated complexities and mysteries of the work and simply decides to show students how to write clearly and read perceptively. That’s really what it’s all about – teaching kids to write understandable sentences and to read with a strong mind. Perhaps all the multitudinous theories, techniques, strategies, and approaches to teaching English should be occasionally set aside so we can rub our eyes and see again these two simple but special end products: good writers and good readers. I don’t mean to suggest that teaching English is easy – just that the work could be done in a more straightforward and uncomplicated manner. There’s a road to be traveled – good reading and writing – and it’s a straight and clearly marked road, provided our minds aren’t lost in pedagogical jargon and theoretical labyrinths. It might be as simple as making sure the students write and read a lot, and steering them back onto the designated road when they start to swerve away. Of course, if I’m traveling a road with my students, then I should obviously stay out front and show the kids how it’s done and where we’re heading. That means, to my mind, providing models for the students to study and follow. If good writing means using a variety of sentence lengths, then I need to show them how to do it, over and over again as we travel down the road. If good reading means reading slowly and mindfully, then they need to see me doing it day after day so they can follow my lead. Yes, teaching is exhausting and often exasperating work, but it could be a little simpler, a little more direct, a little less stressful if I got back on the straight and narrow way.

I had a wonderful time at Jaimie's today, splashing in the pool with Noah and Ava, and slurping up some of Jaimie's special strawberry pie. And last week Luke, Josh, and I had a fine time at the playground, which was followed by a shopping spree at Target. Good times in the summer!

WITH OR WITHOUT ME

It’s good for me to recall, now and then, that vast amounts of learning take place in my classes without my help. I usually have a fairly self-important and pushy attitude toward teaching, which makes me somewhat like a man who walks through a day’s sunshine and thinks he’s causing all the brightness. My bright students are receiving the lights of learning moment by moment, no matter what I’m saying or doing, and yet it’s so easy to imagine that I’m the source of it all, the central place from which all learning in 9th grade English radiates. It easy to think that no education takes place without my professional assistance, and yet trainloads of new knowledge, of which I am totally unaware, pass through my students’ lives during a given 48-minute class. This realization is good for me, because it relieves me of some of the weighty sense of duty and dependability we teachers often lug around. It reminds me that the sea of learning is far vaster than earth’s oceans, and that I am a mere ripple in that sea, a supportive but minuscule stream in the endless currents of schooling. It’s comforting to sit silently in my classroom after school and think about the many useful truths -- hundreds of them, no doubt -- that my students learned today with no crucial assistance from me. Actually, when life seems burdensome and bewildering, I often gain reassurance from simply imagining all the marvelous events that are taking place without my help. While I’m fretting over what steps I can take to heal my seemingly troublesome life, all over the earth hearts are beating, leaves are springing into life, light is falling on flowers, forests are standing just as they should, silence and peace is coming into uneasy lives – and all with absolutely no steps being taken by Mr. Salsich. It’s somehow inspiring to me, this small fact of the grandness and inescapable success of all things. The universe will stride splendidly onward, with or without me – and so will my students.

STANDING BACK

In the midst of doing some outdoor chores today, I took a moment to stand back and observe the birds at a hanging feeder nearby. It wasn’t much – just a minute or two – but it was enough to bring to mind again the magnificence of the most commonplace occurrences, the day-by-day events that could thrill me if I simply stood back and actually watched now and then. They were just small brown birds stopping for food, so slight and silent they surely go unnoticed by humans for hours and days on end, but today the thought came to me to stop, look, and listen – and I saw a bit of nature’s daily splendor. It made me wish I could remember to stand back a bit more often when I’m teaching. I’m usually so busy being an officious, overly zealous teacher trying my best to meet my own high standards that I rarely pause to ponder what’s right in front of me – a group of young human beings the likes of which have never existed before. Here’s newness and freshness at its finest – kids whose zillions of cells are remade every second, whose thoughts always blossom (or explode) in slightly new ways, and whose next moment, at all times, is a bolt from the blue.  How is it that I can so often teach an entire lesson without recognizing the greatness that sits before me? No doubt someone might say, “Oh come on. They’re just a bunch of ordinary teenagers” – but to me that’s like saying the Grand Canyon is just a valley made of rocks. I suppose there are people who would be bored by the Grand Canyon (or some brown birds pecking seeds), just as there are people who think teaching teenagers would be the height of tedium and triviality. I’ve been to the famous canyon, and I find it astonishing, but no more so – and I’m totally serious – than what I behold when I occasionally stand back and open my eyes in English class. 

Today I did some serious hard labor at Jaimie's, putting together this patio table-and-chair set. In a few hours, I probably did more stooping, bending, twisting, and squatting than I did during the entire past 15 years of sedentary apartment living -- and now, a few hours later, my muscles and bones are feeling the effects. It's a good feeling, though, especially when I look at this photo of the lovely furniture on Jaimie's beautiful handmade patio. (He built it with stones he collected from the woods on his property.)

EASY, SIMPLE, SPONTANEOUS

“A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us, that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labors are unnecessary, and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong, and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become divine.”

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Spiritual Laws”

My dad used to tell me that will power is all that is needed to achieve success, but now, after four decades as a teacher, I actually wish I had less will power, for it sometimes impedes the teaching and learning in my classroom. I am not a church-going person, but, like Emerson, I have the feeling that a far greater power than my paltry will is operating among my students and me. My “painful labors” to be the best teacher I can possibly be seem strangely insignificant when compared to the other far more impressive and immeasurable forces that circulate through my classroom each day. I’m like a tiny swimmer using all my theories and lesson plans and goals and objectives to battle upstream in a river, when the sensible option would be to relax and float where the strong, smooth-flowing currents of learning take my students and me. Of course, like a serious swimmer, I must train and prepare myself for each day’s work in the classroom, but I must also remember to let the “river” – the universal and ever-present power of learning -- do the major share of the work. It’s a widespread and magnificent river, and no teacher should have the foolishness or willfulness to think he can do better than respectfully and gracefully follow where it leads. To a well-trained and wise swimmer, swimming in even the most formidable currents is “easy, simple, [and] spontaneous”, and so it should be in English class.

 I spent a few hours at Jaimie's yesterday, moving more books in and just relaxing on the patio with the waving trees and the surrounding bird songs. He has many lovely flowers around the yard (see photos) which means a lot of summer will surely be spent outside. Annie called and said she sent a gift card to a local florist for a Father's Day gift, so I drove right down and bought a hanging basket of drapes of small white flowers.

Admiring Diamonds

Now and then, when I’m in the midst of working with my students, I picture myself as a jeweler observing diamonds under changing lights. I’ve heard that diamonds display astonishing differences in their radiance as they revolve in darkening and brightening light, and sometimes I’m caught off guard by the ever-shifting brightness of my students’ lives. Even their youthful faces, their frowns and grins and expressions of dismay or understanding or exhaustion, can transform second by second during class. Occasionally, I fall into musingly observing their expressions during a discussion, and am always amazed by the endless alterations. Flashes of comprehension and appreciation can be followed by the dimness of boredom, which can be quickly followed by sparkles of passionate curiosity – and on and on. Now and then, I actually get lost in these observations and the discussion temporarily leaves me behind, but who can fault a jeweler for admiring diamonds?

Luke and I spent a few hours with Josh this morning, first at a playground near Jaimie's, where Josh raced around with bright eyes and nimble body while Luke and I laughed at this spry and happy boy. Later, we strolled through Target, where Josh sampled lots of little toys (above), and then we had a fulfilling lunch, with lots of laughs, at Club 99.

A SENSE OF AWE

It might seem silly or even preposterous to speak of feeling a sense of awe while teaching English to teenagers, but nonetheless, it’s a feeling I’ve often had. Mainly, I am often astonished at the mere fact that I’m actually granted the privilege of being a teacher of kids. Teaching young people is an honor, a mark of prestige, an exceptional gift given to only a tiny percentage of people, and, amazingly, I’ve been bestowed with that distinction for 44 consecutive years. After all this time, I’m still in awe of the fact that parents gladly entrust their beloved children to me for 48 minutes each day – amazed that I’m totally trusted as a reliable and responsible teacher for their young ones. To me, it’s an honor of the highest order. I’m also in awe of the wondrous hearts and minds of the students I work with. I can’t see into their inner lives, but experience tells me their minds are miracle workers and their hearts have as much goodness as the sky has stars. Again and again, the thoughts of students have shined lights on some of my musty, ramshackle ideas, and feelings they share from their almost brand new hearts have often made English class a brighter place to be. Truth is, just working with a few dozen young human beings is enough in itself to give me a sense of awe. After all, these kids are unique creations of the universe, the kinds of phenomena that are full of fresh wonders each moment. Their blood, breath, cells, and brains are bright and surprising each second, and I’m privileged to be witness to their miracle-making day after day, September to June.

It's a warm day in Westerly, so I've been enjoying the cool comfort of my air conditioner, just reading, writing, watching some World Cup soccer, and listening to my pendulum clock chiming the hours.

A few days ago, I drove up to Jaimie's with some bags of books for my big upcoming move, and for a few comfortable minutes I sat on his splendid patio and enjoyed the sounds of winds in the tall trees and the look of the pots of overflowing flowers. He has a lovely home in the woods, and in a few weeks, bless his heart, I will begin sharing it with him. There aren't many senior citizen fathers who are enthusiastically invited to live with their son. I am one lucky dad -- and grandad, because Noah and Ava will be there with us.

Knowing Too Much

I sometimes have the odd sensation that I know too much to be a good teacher. My mind occasionally feels so full of ideas – some of them boasting of being “well thought out” and “scholarly” – that no room is left for the simple and spotless ideas of my adolescent students. My so-called mature and experienced brain generates so much noisy thinking that, most likely, no youthful voice is able to be truly heard. It’s as if my mind is a raucous loudspeaker that constantly booms and barks its thoughts, and what teenage mental music can he heard in such a din? I wonder: Is it possible for me to unlearn -- to de-teach myself, to open the bottom of my mind and let a lot of these useless ideas drain away? Is there a way to sponge down my mind so as to free it from some of the accumulated dust of bigheaded ideas? I actually sometimes wish my brain were almost cleared out when I meet my students to discuss a poem or a story, because then the words on the page and the power of the kids’ ideas might almost stun me. If the rooms of my mind were fairly vacant, my students’ thoughts could conveniently find all kinds of space there. It could be a huge hotel with prepared and ready rooms each day. As it is now, I’m afraid the kids often find an absurdly overstuffed old house when they come to the door of my mind. “No room at the inn” might be the sign outside.

Breathing Miracles

I wish I could see the breathing miracles in my classroom more often. One definition of the word miracle is “an amazing product”, and what is more amazing than an adolescent human being with all its cells shifting and transforming and its life leaping up in a brand new manner each moment? If my eyes had the power of electron microscopes, I would see dozens of marvels in the form of students each day, marvels of movement and memory and unblemished, ground-breaking thinking. Each spoken word in English class would seem a work of wizardry. A flash of eyes or a smile would be a spectacle to wonder at, and even a single breath by Sam in the back row would be cause for shouts of appreciation.

A Disappearing Year

Just a few moments ago, sitting by a window in an airport, I saw a shining jet shoot up and disappear in the west, lost among clouds in a few seconds – similar, it seemed, to the just finished school year. The year lasted nine drawn-out months, but looking back, it seemed to blaze into and out of my life as fast as the plane I saw. The days flashed by like those silver wings went up past the window where I am sitting, and the weeks were just small sparkles, here and gone, like the gleams of sunshine on the vanishing plane. Lots happened in the school year, but now, poof, it’s all left behind like the fading sound of the jet. It’s strange, how I took my teaching so seriously, when, in fact, it’s now diminished into nothingness like puffs of wind passing by. My sometimes-showy lesson plans paraded through the days and weeks and then wandered off and are now lost somewhere as summer approaches. The tens of thousands of words my students and I spoke are no more present now than the wisps of clouds the vanishing plane passed through a few moments ago. If this sounds pessimistic, to me it’s just the opposite. Planes fading away in the west mean more planes are free to sail up from the east, and lesson plans giving up the ghost as summer starts simply make way for fresh, new-fangled lessons in the fall. The world everlastingly works from life to death and back to life, and this was the story of the finished school year. It died a peaceable death last week, thus clearing the way for a spanking new one to rise up in September.

Teaching Like a Lake

A simple approach to lessening my stress in a day’s worth of teaching would be to be less me-centered and, I might say, more universe-centered. This would automatically make my life in the classroom less rigid and self-protective, and much gentler and softer. Problems arise and grow strong only when I’m thinking of a separate, frail, and therefore vulnerable teacher – me – as the center of everything. From that perspective, my primary focus in the classroom has to be to remain solid, durable, and dead-set against any harm coming to this separate person called Mr. Salsich. It makes each day a wearing and somewhat constant exertion. However, if I shift my perspective and see my teaching world in an entirely new way, as a kind of barrier-free oneness, a classroom uni-verse in the true sense, suddenly everything softens and calms down. If there are really no boundaries between separate “things” and “persons”, and therefore no one to protect or be protected from, then teaching teenagers, all of a sudden, can be seen as an easygoing and fairly risk-free process. It enables me to loosen my grip, relax my muscles, and effortlessly give way to every experience, like a lake gives way to whatever falls into it.

Giving Way

A simple approach to any day’s living is to be less me-centered and more universe-centered. This would automatically make my life less hard, lest resistant, and much gentler and softer. Problems arise and grow fierce only when I’m thinking of a separate, frail, and therefore defenseless “me” as the center of everything. From that perspective, my full time job is to be tough, hard, and dead set against injury to this separate person called “me”. It makes each day a bitter and exhausting combat. However, if I shift my perspective and see reality in an entirely new way, as an infinite oneness, a uni-verse in the true sense, suddenly everything calms down and softens. If there are no beginnings and endings, no boundaries between separate “things” and “persons”, no one to protect or be protected from, then existence, all of a sudden, is seen as gently malleable and entirely harmless. It enables me to unclench my fists, relax my muscles, and give easy way to every experience, like a lake gives way to whatever drops into it.

The Weather in Room 2

Lately, on these final frenzied days of school, the weather in my classroom has been unsettled and sometimes tempestuous. As the school year draws to a close, the kids find it hard to control their summertime desires, and so my classroom is less composed than usual. Like sunshine among clouds, free-flowing chatter breaks out more often, and shifting in seats is sometimes as steady as gusts on a blustery day. This time of year, several days can pass without one serene hour for an old teacher to take pleasure in. However, I’ve gradually come to understand the weather patterns in my classroom, and therefore the occasional tempests and droughts don’t disturb me as much as they did when I was a younger, more power-conscious teacher. At this late point in my career, I can usually sit back and quietly watch the weather of the kids’ behavior, taking a curious interest in when and how it will change. Of course, I manage the students’ behavior as much as any conscientious teacher does, but I also try to remember that teaching is a lot like sailing: the weather always changes, and you have to work with the changes, not against them. When the energy patterns in the class shift (say, from quiet to talkative and contentious), I must remember to just turn my sails a bit to benefit from the new conditions. When the doldrums settle in and something like siesta time commences, I must somehow turn the drowsy atmosphere to an advantage, perhaps by taking a five minute break from the lesson, reading a short poem about weariness and tedium, and asking for reactions. Instead of fighting the languor, I could have the kids briefly examine it by way of the poem and perhaps learn a little about where it comes from – and then, back to the lesson with (I hope) improved vitality, like a sprightly new breeze after hours of smothering heat.

Holding and Stretching

Years ago, I somehow picked up the mistaken notion that the word “attention” derives from the Latin word meaning “to hold”, but I’m glad I made that mistake, for it reminds me that when I genuinely pay attention to my students, I am, in a sense, holding them in a gentle and appreciative way. To me, paying attention doesn’t just mean watching and listening; it means attending to the students with wholeheartedness. When I attend to my students, I hold them in my awareness, look after their talents and needs, truly care for them. Oddly, as I found out a few years ago, the word “attend” actually stems from the Latin word “tendere”, meaning to stretch – which also helps me understand what paying attention to students really involves. If I’m genuinely attentive to my students, it means I’m stretching myself out to them, reaching beyond the borders of my personal interests and concerns. This kind of attentiveness is hard work, for it requires forcing myself to extend my awareness, widen the perimeters of my sympathy, and truly enlarge my life. It’s not easy, even after all these years. Perhaps all this holding and stretching is why I’m dog-tired at dinner time, day after day.

Slight Words and Deeds

“Very slight words and deeds may have a sacramental efficacy, if we can cast our self-love behind us, in order to say or do them.”

-- George Eliot, in Felix Holt, The Radical

When I’m teaching, I often focus so much on conveying the major points of my lesson that I lose sight of the power of “slight words and deeds”. My method of communicating the themes of the lesson is important, but so are my small gestures and actions, as well as the many assorted comments I make during class. Even the way I greet a student could almost “have a sacramental efficacy”, as Eliot puts it – almost the power of something sacred, something placed in the student’s hands with reverence and respect. If I look directly at a student and say “good morning” with consideration and sincerity (not casually and carelessly), the student might, for a moment, feel set apart with a special stature. Eliot says it requires that I “cast […] self-love behind” me, meaning I must step out of my separate, self-absorbed existence and be thoroughly present with my students. I’m often only two-thirds present when I’m teaching, partially there in the classroom but also, in some measure, far away with my traveling thoughts. In order to give my smallest gestures and most ordinary words an air of distinctiveness, I have to drop my separateness, step away from superiority and airiness, and stay steadily where I am, right in the midst of some inimitable teenagers. If I take my full presence with them seriously, then even a turn of my head, a slight smile, a simple sentence like “What do you think, Tom?” could feel like a stroke of good fortune to a young person.

Joyful Fields and Windows

Driving through the countryside to visit my grandchildren last week, I passed some fresh spring fields that looked positively joyful. Someone might snicker at the thought of a field feeling happy, but I tend to ignore that kind of anthropocentrism, being sure that the measureless universe “feels” in countless ways besides the human way. The fields I passed seemed joyful to me mostly because they we’re doing precisely what they were supposed to be doing – waving in the spring winds from the west. They were being absolutely perfect fields, and what better cause for joy than perfection? Another way of saying the fields were joyful would be to say they caused joy in me. I sometimes speak of “the joys of a bike ride”, and I can speak, in the same way, of the joys of these fields. There was something invisible in their shades of gold and the give and take of their swaying that sent me joyous thoughts as I passed by. This all has to do with teaching teenagers, because I sometimes sense a similar joyousness in the nonhuman things in my classroom. I always keep a vase of flowers front and center in my classroom, and often I feel the simple joys of having flowers close by. I also sometimes notice the pleasant, almost pleased look of my whiteboard as it stands clean and well-equipped for the kids, and the five wide windows, with their clear panes of springtime light these days, remind me of the joys of having windows to let in a day’s brightness. I’m fairly sure windows can’t actually feel joyful, but I’m also sure they can create joyfulness for students who have been staring at some obscure lines of Shakespeare and suddenly look up to see the light of an impressive June day through the glass.

Weorthscipe in Room 2

A few days ago, I mentioned in a post that I don’t attend church on Sundays but that perhaps my classroom is my church, and this morning I’ve decided, after doing some dictionary work, that it could be correctly said that I worship in my classroom. The word “worship” comes from the Old English word "weorthscipe", or "worthship". Just as we have seamanship and scholarship, the early English speakers had worthship – the quality of being worth something, or worthy. A place of worship, then, was simply a place of worth, or a worthy place, and my classroom hopefully fits that description. In a given year, each of my students spends about 160 hours in my classroom, so it sure better be a place of worth – a place where worthy activities take place. Each lesson I teach should have a specific and measurable value for the students, and each student should take away an appreciable profit from every class. I might put it this way: the students and their parents should get their money’s worth from my English class. If I’m a tolerable teacher – if I provide lessons of some value and consequence for my students – then I can truly think of my classroom as a place of worship, or worthship. It’s a room that’s worth something. It’s a worthwhile place for my students and me to be. It’s worth entering each day. The demanding work is worth it, which is why I insist that the students always work for all they are worth when they are in this place of worship called Room 2.

Signs and Wonders

Somewhere in the Bible the phrase “signs and wonders” is used, and this morning, for some reason, I began thinking about it, and about the signs and wonders in my work as a teacher. More and more I find my classroom to be a place of amazement and marvel. My students are your standard, mainstream teenagers, and yet there’s something singular and distinguishing about them – some strange inner exhilaration that makes them sparkle in unexpected ways. I notice it almost every day – the way one student’s eyes twinkle in new ways, the way another student’s shirt seems to stand out in the eastern light from the windows, the way a girl’s bracelets bring brightness into the room. Just yesterday, during a discussion of Romeo and Juliet, I noticed the shifting patterns of sunlight on a student’s face as he spoke of Juliet’s sorrow, and then the graceful turn of a classmate’s head to listen. Mind you, I’m not always this observant; in fact, more often than not I go through a class with something like blinders on. I push through the steps of the lesson with severe resolve, rarely noticing the sorrow or high spirits or dreariness on faces, or the way someone’s chin rests on her hand, or the way Billy’s eyes speedily blink as an exceptional thought takes place inside him. Sometimes, luckily, I do see the signs and wonders that are surely always present, like last week when a girl gave all of us a completely fresh understanding of Juliet’s father. As soon as she finished speaking, it was like thoughts had been set alight around the room. I could see it in faces, the flush that comes with the rise of a new awareness. It was a dark day outside, but Room 2, for those moments, was a sunny place to be.

Being a Good Tissue Box

I have a box of tissues on my desk at school, and it often serves as a good reminder of the kind of teacher I hope to be. The box doesn’t do anything but sit there on the desk and be ready to help. It’s not a busybody box. It doesn’t push itself into kids’ faces, doesn’t walk around the room showing off its tissue-ness, doesn’t try to micromanage the students’ sneezes and coughs. It just sits and waits. If it had a face, it would have an observant and caring expression, entirely alert and ready to help when needed. As a teacher, I wish I had a little more of the tissue box in me. For sure, there are times when I need to be up and about, giving instructions and support to the scholars, but there are also times when I should keep my overbearing self out of the picture, and, like a good tissue box, simply wait to be of assistance. When I’m teaching, I easily fall into the role of commander and manager, and lose sight of the crucial role of observer and helper. Good managers know when to stop managing and start allowing – when to stop being at the center and start staying on the fringes, carefully following the progress of the work. My tissue box knows how to shut up, stay still, and wait – and I’m still learning that essential skill. I’m trying to remember that waiters and watchers perform vital tasks as often as movers and shakers. As the poet John Milton reminded us, “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Church in Room 2

I often heard my mother use the phrase, “for the love of all that’s holy”, and nowadays those words often come to mind when I consider the good fortune I’ve found in my life as a teacher. As the many years have passed, I’ve come to realize that I enjoy teaching for precisely that reason – for the love of all that’s holy. Here I don’t use the word ‘holy’ in a religious sense, but rather in the sense of something being hallowed, or greatly revered and respected. My classroom has become a hallowed place for me, a place of prestige and high-mindedness, a place where work of the highest significance is carried on. Each time I arrive at the classroom, I feel like bowing in respectfulness before entering. It’s for this reason that I expect the students to enter in a dignified manner – no loud talking, no horseplay, just steadfast scholars entering a place set aside for distinguished work. This by no means rules out lightheartedness, for laughs and smiles are acts of respectful camaraderie, and they belong in the most inviolable places, whether churches or classrooms. In a serious classroom, there can, and should, be a serious amount of cheerfulness. Indeed, students are sometimes the most cheerful when they sense that both they and their work are being treated with respect and a certain amount of solemnity. I don’t go to church on Sunday, but maybe I go several times each day at school. Emily Dickinson said her church was her orchard and the choir was a bobolink, so perhaps it’s not too implausible to say my church is Room 2 and the kids create the music that blesses.

Standing Sentry

Last week, I was totally preoccupied during one of my classes, and later, when I checked the dictionary, I realized that, to all intents and purposes, an enemy had seized me. The word “occupy” derives from the Latin for “seize”, so when my mind is preoccupied, it has virtually been seized by some formidable thought. I don’t recall the exact nature of the thought that had taken hold of my mind during that class, but I do remember the feeling of being mentally in custody. The thought, whatever it was, had me in handcuffs for at least the first half of the class. As I think about it today, I wonder how much of my teaching life has been spent in various kinds of preoccupation. Of course, there have been those occasional dark days when my mind was busy with thoughts of a personal problem, but there have probably also been too many days when some small but swashbuckling thought threw its weight around and managed to shackle me right in the presence of my students. I recall one such day when, believe it or not, I couldn’t stop thinking about which casual shirts I should buy for the summer, Orvis or Lands End. I was teaching the tail end of The Tempest, but the casual shirts decision kept carrying me away from Prospero’s final speech. My students might have made distinguished statements about the speech, but my thoughts, alas, were on shirts instead of students, and so their words almost certainly coasted right past me. What’s really disappointing is how often this kind of inattention happens when I’m simply preoccupied with what I’m going to say next. Just today, a student was speaking about a line of poetry, and I know, thinking back, that I didn’t hear him with full awareness because I was formulating what I wanted to say about the line. This kind of distressing failure happens way too often in my teaching. I need to do better. I need to stand sentry for my mind, making sure it stays free and spirited for this hard work of teaching teenagers.