MOVING TOWARD SILENCE

I’m continuing to work on not being a ‘blurter’ in class – not always speaking my thoughts as soon as they rise to the surface. Strangely, it’s one of my disconcerting habits that’s been hardest to break. For the first three decades of my teaching career, I was the best of the blurters. I taught in a freewheeling way, shooting from the hip in a hit-and-miss manner. My words took wing as fast as my thoughts took shape. In a way, I was an out-of-control teacher, a cowboy riding the range of English teaching, and I let my mouth go pretty much wherever it wanted. It’s been a hard habit to break, but gradually I seem to be gaining control over my impetuous voice. It’s important to me, because good teaching, I think, is mostly about discipline, self-control, and – most of all – selflessness. A teacher who blurts is a teacher who thinks too much of himself – thinks his words are way more important than they are. The truth is that my words are only minuscule parts of the immeasurable process called teaching and learning, and I’m trying to put my ‘self’ farther in the background in order to let the other educational forces do their noteworthy work. I’m tightening the reins on my words. I now speak more slowly, more softly, and much less often. Socrates suggested that a good teacher speaks only when a student asks a question, and perhaps that’s the kind of teaching I’m aiming for. The more I move toward silence, the more my students might feel inspired to speak. Maybe a mostly hushed and listening teacher in Room 2 isn’t too far away.

ROVING AMONG STARS

"Western Sierra", oil, by Karen Winters

She was only thirteen,

but she could throw her thoughts

as far as the soundless stars,

and she could sit

among mountains

like the mountains

had made her.

Any whole day

was like heaven for her,

and holding

a single sentence in her mind

was as good

as getting a good grade at school.  

Summer spoke words

only she could comprehend,

and flowers

almost fell into vases

in her small room

that roved with her

among the stars.

ON WHY IT CAN BE GOOD TO NOT KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING

I am not a church-going person, but I have always found a strange sort of inspiration in the old Bible story of Abraham, who, at the age of 75, heard an unmistakable message in his mind that he should leave all he knew and set out on a journey, and did so, even though he had no idea where he was going. I find it astonishing, each time I think about it, that this elderly man would do such a thing – simply strike out across the vast landscape for some distant, nameless destination. It’s amazing to me that he had the self-assurance to set aside the settled customs of his life and confidently look forward to a thoroughly unidentified future. It’s as if he knew that every next step would inescapably be the correct one. I sometimes wish, as I’m sweating my way through a year’s worth of standards, goals, objectives, and lesson plans, that I had the faith to forego some of the planning and just launch out into the deep waters of teaching, heading for who knows where. There’s something to be said for having faith enough to let the future unfold its surprises, instead of always trying to put it together in our preferred ways. Abraham used that kind of faith to find the promised land, and perhaps I can use it to take my students, every now and then, on nameless (and I might even say aimless) literary expeditions.

BROKEN WING COMMENTS

“The remark lay in his mind as lightly as the broken wing of an insect among all the other fragments there, and a chance current had sent it alighting on her.”

-- George Eliot, Middlemarch

The sentence above, in which Eliot is speaking about a casual remark made by Dorothea Brooke’s uncle, gives me a chance to smile, because I see in it something that consistently shows up in English class, and which I welcome and appreciate. Mr. Brooke’s remark was one that apparently rose from no deep source, but rather was skimmed off the surface of his mind, just as one might skim blossoms off the surface of a pond. He simply caught a small, recycled thought in his mind and casually tossed it out to see what might ensue, something that happens constantly in my classes. The truth is that my students and I don’t usually dig down deep for our comments during class; like Dorothea’s uncle, we usually just scan the immeasurable moving parts of our minds and grab any thought that throws itself out to us. Our minds are not orderly offices where thoughts are filed in convenient slots, but more like loose and lighthearted whirlwinds where thoughts swirl constantly and you catch whatever you can. And that’s not a bad situation. After all, thinking, if it’s going to be beneficial, should have some liberty linked to it, some of the bagginess and slackness of winds. Thoughts that come out of our mouths sounding like submissive servants and methodical manufactured goods are of little use in English class. Give me, any day, the broken wing comments scooped off the floor of our minds.

STAYING PUT

I recall my mother occasionally telling me, with her usual kindhearted decisiveness, to just “stay put” (usually when I wanted to dash from the dinner table), and it sometimes occurs to me that this would be excellent advice for my young students in English class. This is very much a rushing generation I’m dealing with, a group of students whose lives are leaping along at staggering speeds, and so “staying put” is not an easy assignment for them. They want to sprint through books and assignments as if they’re running races – as if finishing whatever they’re doing is all that’s important, never mind whether it was an elevating or mind-numbing experience. It’s all I can do to keep them centered on a single page or on a single line of a poem, just “staying put” so the thoughts in the written words can come clearly across to them. They resist my reins, wanting the next page, the next line, the next whatever. “What’s next?”, in fact, might be the question that comes to them most often. Just today I gave out a packet of poems, and as soon as I read the first one aloud, I saw pages swiftly turning to the next one. Thinking of my mother, I said, in her gracious but resolute manner, “Let’s just stay put. Let’s let these words work on us.” There was some squirming in the seats as the kids thought about “what’s next”, but there was also, I like to think, some silent soaking-up of feelings waiting in the words.

WATCHING THE HILLSIDE

"Tuscan Hillside", oil, by Karen WInters

Watching the hillside

across from his house

always helps him –

not that he needs help

on this planet

that prepares things

so thoroughly for him.

The hillside always holds

its things in their suitable places –

its leftover leaves, trees,

sticks sprawled

in perfect positions.

It helps him,

as he sits by the window

feeling his breath bringing life

into his lungs so loyally,

to look at the hillside

in its unceasing and modest

flawlessness.

SUBTLE COLORS

On my way to school this morning, I started noticing the subdued but handsome colors in the landscape. At this time of year, the grays and browns are still the principal shades, and this morning, for some reason, their subtle loveliness caught my attention. There was nothing swanky or showy about them, just grays and browns in countless hues on winter trees and leaves and rocks and roads – a muted and modest but fine-looking landscape. I started thinking, as I drove along, about the “subtle colors” my students might occasionally notice in the books we read together. I don’t usually select loud, flamboyant books for the students, mostly because I want them to experience the search for the reserved and understated truths found in great works of literature. Truly timeless books don’t usually bombard a reader, but more often unfold a landscape of words as soft and indistinct as the colors in the countryside this morning. These books require readers to stay sharply focused if they hope to have the fun of finding inspiration among the sometimes misty pages. On Monday, when we set forth into Julius Caesar, I’ll hope the students can start to see, through the haze, the truths in Shakespeare’s often faint and muffled lines.

WE’VE GOT TONIGHT

"Studio Lamp", oil, by Suzanne Berry

We’ve got tonight,

he told the stylish lamp

beside his bed.

Forget tomorrow.

Just you and me tonight,

he told the festive stars

outside the window,

and the shy light

on someone’s porch

where his street turned

and set out

on its own adventures tonight, 

just the street

and the dashing spring winds.

ON TOP OF THE WORLD

I wish I could convince my students that they are always, as the saying goes, “on top of the world”. I’m sure they don’t always feel like they’re the full flowering of youthful achievement, and there are days in their lives, I’m certain, when they probably feel like they reside more on the underside of the world than the top, but still, in one special sense, they, and their English teacher, are always right at the top of the world. Of course, the truth is that all of us on Earth are on top of the world, at all times and in all places. Our planet is a sphere, and, like any sphere, all places on this sphere, from sinkholes to the crests of mountains, are at the top. Wherever we stand, wherever our seemingly small and inconsequential lives are playing themselves out, we are at the top, the apex, the peak of our planet. Strangely enough, we have no choice in this matter. It’s not up to my students and I to decide when we will try to take ourselves up to the peaks of our lives, because, in a sense, we are already there. We are already, at each moment, making our mark, along with everyone else, at the very top of the earth. A reader might laugh at the folly of pretending that all of us are always doing our best, but that’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m merely wishing I could show my students the simple truth that, in fact, anywhere on earth is the top of the world, and that’s exactly where they always are. Thinking about this peculiar fact might just be enough to bring a small smile to their faces, which, in the sometimes unsettling and disheartening lives of teenagers, would not be a small blessing.

FRESHNESS

He was still sleepy at seven a.m.,

struggling to stay awake,

when suddenly he saw

the white sky above his house.

It wasn’t a handsome sky

or a sky to sing under,

but it was where

it was supposed to be

and it was

the completely correct color.

He carefully lifted his hands.

The wrinkles were wonderful,

and the lamplight looked down

on the small hairs

with reborn brightness.    

VASTNESS IN ENGLISH CLASS

Sometimes, in the middle of a class, an odd feeling of distance, or vastness, comes over me. I'm there in my small classroom with my young students, but I suddenly have a sense of what I can only call the immensity of the situation. Yes, I am in a tiny school in a tiny town, but I am also on a huge continent on an enormous planet in an immense galaxy in an immeasurable universe. A very clear feeling of being part of something enormous comes to me, and, in the middle of a complicated and sometimes stressful English class, it's always a good feeling. It helps me see, if only for a few moments, that I am a participant in something so vast that it could comfortably contain and control any situation that might arise. In the biggest picture of all (which I briefly see in these odd mental episodes), nothing that happens in English class is of any over-riding concern. Kids’ behaviors, low grades, parent complaints, disastrous lessons – none of this is any more important than anything else, and all of it can be soothingly held by the measureless universe we’re part of. It gives me a momentary feeling of utter security and assurance, as if I can’t do anything really wrong. After all, in a cosmos this big, any so-called mistake is quickly swallowed up by the easygoing and endless distances of the universe. I love this passage in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, because it seems strangely similar to the feeling I sometimes have while teaching. Marlow is talking about his preparations for heading into the jungle as captain of a steamboat:

"After this I got embraced, told to wear flannel, be sure to write often, and so on--and I left. In the street--I don't know why--a queer feeling came to me that I was an imposter. Odd thing that I, who used to clear out for any part of the world at twenty-four hours' notice, with less thought than most men give to the crossing of a street, had a moment--I won't say of hesitation, but of startled pause, before this commonplace affair. The best way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second or two, I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth."

As hard as it is to explain, I sometimes feel, in the middle of teaching a class, like I have "set off for the centre of the earth".

GOOD VAGUENESS

We English teachers are notoriously opposed to vagueness, whether in writing or interpreting literature, but today I’m speaking up for the usefulness of good vagueness. It’s gradually become strange to me that we teachers think truth can always be clear-cut and fixed, as though it’s little different from a sack of potatoes that can be precisely weighed. In the interest of avoiding vagueness, we insist that our students sculpt their statements and sentences into rigidly delineated meanings, as though truth can be shaped into strict and inflexible forms. It sometimes seems to me that we’re asking our students to be more like grocers than serious thinkers: Give me the exact pound of truth about this poem, no more and no less. I guess I’m now trying, in my fifth decade in the classroom, to do something a little different. What we’re after in the writing and reading we do in my high school English class is nothing less than the truth – and the truth is as imprecise, as amorphous, as vague, as the mist that stretches among the stars in the universe. Sincerely trying to avoid vagueness in writing about a chapter in A Tale of Two Cities is like asking the wind to take a specific shape, or attempting to take a breeze into the cup of your hands. The truth in a Dickinson poem can no more be pounded into a precise statement than the vastness of something like love can be locked up in the single word “love”. Of course I will continue to coerce my students into honing their thinking into reasonable accurate statements, but I will also keep in mind that genuine precision in thinking is about as realistically possible as catching sand in a sieve. The avoidance of vagueness is an interesting and useful academic game to play with students, but it’s just a game. The indefinable truth lies somewhere beyond this fanciful game of precision, out in the vague nebulae of infinite thoughts that surround us.

PARTNERS

He has partners

prepared to help him.

His faithful hands

carry food to his lips,

and let a pencil

do its proper work of writing.  

His feet find

the perfect place to step to

or stand on, and

all of his fingers

are friendly to the world,

the one that waits for him

with fervor each day. 

PLAYING SECOND FIDDLE

As a teacher, nothing is harder for me than to “play second fiddle”. For as long as I can remember, I have thought of a teacher as being the supreme person-in-charge in the classroom, the person at the front of the room to whom everyone looked for supervision and assistance. In my mind, if the classroom were an orchestra pit, the teacher would, at the very least, be the “first fiddle”, and more likely the conductor. It’s the concept of teaching that was instilled in me from my earliest days in school, which makes playing second fiddle in the classroom, for me, an inflexibly difficult task. However, it’s a skill I’m practicing and slowly mastering, because I’ve come to understand that it’s one of the great secrets of good teaching. Only by playing second fiddle can I allow the students to play first fiddle – to show off their bountiful talents as readers, writers, and thinkers. Only by standing off in the shadows can I authorize the students to be fully in the sunshine. By silencing or softening my own “music”, I can permit the kids to play their own solos day after day. Most of the exemplary teachers in history have understood this truth. Jesus, a teacher whose pedagogical methods I greatly admire, counseled his disciples (who were teachers-in-training) to teach in a quiet, inconspicuous, and unobtrusive manner – to stay out of the spotlight, to play second, third, or fourth fiddle. “Teach secretly” might have been his motto. Teach in a way that leaves you unnoticed and your students praised and honored. That’s not an easy task for one who was raised on the idea of teacher-as-conductor, but I’m working on it.

SOMEWHERE

He put a piece

of pancake in his mouth,

and miracles were made.

Somewhere a window opened

to provide a family

with a puff of fine air.

In a striving city in the east,

silence settled over everything

like a restful shower.

And in his stomach,

some secret miracles

were made with this gift

of the piece of pancake.

DON'T YOU LOVE HER WAYS?

He loved her ways,

this winter of bottomless snows

and days that sighed with winds.

It was only a short season,

and summer could carry

more splendor in its arms,

and fall was always

a fortunate gift,

but he did love her hold

on his heart, this winter

with its white skin

and wild, inspiring ways.

CARE-FULL TEACHING

When I told a friend yesterday that I’m hoping to become a more careful teacher, she responded by telling me she thought I was already full of caring. We laughed for a moment, but it was food for thought for me. I confess to never having thought about that sense of the word – the idea that a careful teacher is simply full of caring for the students. I especially noticed the “full” part of it. I liked the idea of a teacher being brimful of straightforward affection for the students, so full of caring that there’s no room or time for pessimism or pettiness. It’s the kind of teaching that turns away from self-interest in favor of finding the best ways to ensure the students’ success. Thanks to my friend’s comment, when I say I want to be a more a careful teacher, I guess I do mean more full of caring. I want to plan each class with the kind of care that is little different from the care that one person has for another because of everyday kindheartedness and compassion. I’ve always felt a sincere concern for my students, but perhaps I should think of it more as a caring for them, a watching out for their welfare, a constant consideration of their hopes and needs. As I carefully make my plans each day, I can look with that kind of care on each small step of the lesson.

HE POURED THE LAST OF HIS COFFEE

"Slice of Green Apple", oil, by Cathleen Rehfeld

He poured the last of his coffee

on the grass

and saw it soak in

and wondered where it went.

When he’s sleeping tonight,

will the coffee carry down

past stones and old sticks

in the soil, and will

the work of the earth

be to welcome it

with widespread arms

and wish it well,

this coffee coming

as a gift from a friend

who’s sleeping under

the shielding stars?

IT'S ST. PATRICK'S DAY

"Bells of Ireland", watercolor by Linda McCoy

It’s St. Patrick’s day,

and for him it’s a day

for the sounds of spring.

He listened this morning

as water went through the pipes

with the rush

of revived rivers,

and he noticed

that the frig motor 

had found a youthful hum. 

Even his bow ties

swished in his hands

as he searched through them

for something green.

MAZES INTRICATE

“Mystical dance, which yonder starry sphere
Of planets, and of fixed, in all her wheels
Resembles nearest, mazes intricate,
Eccentrick, intervolved, yet regular
Then most, when most irregular they seem.”

     -- John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V

Milton is here describing the dances of the angels, and my students are certainly no angels, but still, I find something in this passage that prompts me to think of their sometimes obscure and idiosyncratic writing. I push for the kind of closely controlled writing that will win them friends among their future teachers, but I do admit to having a fondness for the lightheartedness and pure foolishness I sometimes see in their essays. Their writing occasionally appears to be a maze made just so their unsuspecting teacher can have the fun of finding himself fully lost among the words.  I’ve often wandered for many minutes among student sentences, searching for the path to their meaning. From one perspective – that of the efficient, commonsensical teacher – this is not a pleasant experience, but from the perspective of a person who loves a little frivolity in life, these unskillful and rowdy sentences can bring a blessing in the midst of an otherwise undistinguished school day. Assuming the students are trying their best to fulfill the requirements of the assignment, I can make allowances for occasional casualness and high spirits in their writing. Sometimes, in fact, I find the best and deepest sense right in the midst of some maze-like sentences. Like the angels’ dances, the students’ sentences, “when most irregular they seem”, sometimes show a strange kind of young-looking radiance.

HE SAW A SMALL PERSON

(for Annie)

He saw a small person

at ease inside her,

and he saw the city

in silence around them,

cars settled into quietness,

complete stillness in stores and bars,

the hush of kindness

in the sky above,

the considerate stars and planets

so still, staring down

at this small someone

resting inside her.

HIS BIRD FEEDER FOUND A WAY

His bird feeder found a way

to win some happiness for him,

simply by swaying softly

as the birds

brought their needs to it.

He held in his heart

a space the size of Texas

for things that sway –

a feeder, trees in winds,

his little but valiant life,

and the birds

that bring the benevolence

of their lives

to just outside his window.

WHAT I NEED

"Morning Pasture", oil on board, by David Larson Evans

Like most teachers, I sometimes feel ill at ease during class because I seem to need something that I don’t have, but usually this thought comes to my rescue: all I ever need is a change of thought. It is, for sure, a strange fact that I frequently seem to have countless needs during class – for a superior lesson, for an advanced set of behavior benchmarks, even for a new class of smarter and more amenable students. I can easily fall into the mindset of making up new needs each time a crisis seems to occur. The secret to recovering from this frame of mind is the straightforward truth that fresh and enriching thoughts are all I ever have need of. A simple change in a teacher’s thinking can instantly sweep a classroom clean of a sense of confusion and failure, and suddenly all is as new as morning. The change can be as instantaneous as turning on a lamp in a gloomy room -- and it is the only change I will ever need.

ONE DAY HE DECIDED

 One day he decided

to search for the total truth,

so he set out on a morning

that made the world a miracle,

and soon there were sparks

of thoughts inside him

and crowds of words

that wished to be free,

so he sent them forth

to find the full truth,

but what they found

was simply this person and that person

and the poise of things like
lightbulbs and pebbles,

so the words just sat
and passed the time,

small words 
such as “here” and “now”.  

IT WAS JUST A BELT

It was just a belt hanging from a hook,

but as he stared at it,

something about it began to shine.

There was silence in the room,

and sunshine,

and this strange belt

that brought news and knowledge

about the brightness of things.

Then a thought in his mind

made a little light,

almost like life itself,

and then a sweater beside the belt

seemed reborn as it hung

on its hanger in silence.

TEACHING WITH ACQUIESCENCE

"Prairie School", oil on board, by Don Gray

“It is this almost pugnacious acceptance of reality that distinguishes him…”

-- Michael Sadlier, in Anthony Trollope: A Commentary

Until I read Mr. Sadlier’s essay this morning, I would never have considered using the words “acquiescent” and “pugnacious” in a discussion of successful teaching, but he used them so appropriately in his treatise on the Victorian novelist that I begin wondering whether the good teacher must not always be, you might say,  pugnaciously acquiescent. It’s thought-provoking that the word “acquiesce” derives from the Latin word for “quiet”, for it suggests that an acquiescent person is simply one who finds more reasons for inner peace and quiet than for unease and apprehension. The word literally means “to be at rest”, which summons up a picture of a teacher who treats whatever happens in the classroom as a worthy- of-note occurrence that should be quietly welcomed and walked around and appraised. This is a teacher who knows that nothing can be gained by giving battle, but that everything is won through simple acceptance. However, this is not a submissive and spineless acceptance, but rather a pugnacious one – the kind of acquiescence that says, in feisty tones, “Yes, I’m brave enough to say yes to life as it shows itself to me in the classroom, life as it truly is.” It is a courageous kind of acquiescence, more willing to wonder and marvel at the thoughts and deeds of students than to condemn and castigate them. Of course, there will occasions when the students deserve the teacher’s censure for one reason or another, but the censure should be given with the same humble acquiescence -- the same sense of quietly accepting what simply needs to be done. A teacher can be both tough and soft, both stern and merciful. It’s like being sweet-tempered but with boxing gloves on.

ON TUESDAY

"Last Light Belle Isle", oil, by Stephen Magsig

On Tuesday

he stopped struggling,

mostly because he saw

some split stovewood

that wasn’t struggling,

and clouds that went

where the wind went.

He set down

his precious life for good

and gave it a rest

under an undisturbed tree.

He felt his blood

being brought to wherever

it was needed,

and he didn’t oppose it.  

Scenes of Clerical Life, by George Eliot

I finally finished "Scenes of Clerical Life" yesterday evening -- ending with the beautiful story of "Janet's Repentance". I so much admire the artistry of Eliot in laying out a very complicated tale as if she were simply sitting by the hearth and telling it to us in her own words. The story of Janet is, like all of Eliot's works, utterly inspiring to me. It ends with some sentences about the nature of peace and acceptance that both the Buddha and Jesus would have enjoyed.

HE KNOWS HE CAN’T ESCAPE

"Pleasant Hill Morning", watercolor, 

by Andy Smith

He knows he can’t escape

sitting beside the window

at this moment and seeing

the beige bedspread

and hearing the sounds

of heat in the baseboards.

Souvenirs are presented to him

second by second,

and he has no choice

but to be present as they are given,

these gifts, 
this lamplight on a blue wall

and the wrinkled red cushion

on a rocker across the room

from where he necessarily sits.  

SUDDEN MIND

“…sudden mind arose in Adam…”

"Spring Storm", pastel, 
by Karen Margulis

        -- John Milton, Paradise Lost 

I love this phrase, mostly because I see so many “sudden minds” in my English classes. It happens swiftly and surprisingly, like a split-second flash of sunshine on a stormy day: a student suddenly sees into the soul of a poem or a paragraph or a story, or, even more astonishing, suddenly understands something of the spirit of life itself. I’ve see it happen to the humblest of students, the ones who say to themselves that their thoughts don’t shine like others. I’ve seen these unassuming kids, in the midst of their own stillness, abruptly break forth into words that seem filled with wonder. For me, this kind of “sudden mind” might be the single most marvelous aspect of teaching. It happens nearly every day, making a day in my classroom like a look into a land of miracles. It puts me on edge, makes me stay always observant, standing by to see the next unexpected rushing forward of youthful thoughts.

HE FEELS AS REFRESHED

"Morning Light Santa Ynez Valley", pastel, by Joe Mancuso

He feels as refreshed

as the free sunshine

that follows all of us

wherever we go.
He feels

like he is flowing

out to people and the proud

mountains of the west

and the wandering eastern rivers.

As easy as it is for sunshine

to raise the spirits
of a house in a forest,

as easy is it for him

to see restoration in all things,

even in thoughts that swirl up 

from who knows where.  

HE SAT IN THE DEALERSHIP

"Stars Over Casco Bay", oil, by Elizabeth Fraser

He sat in the dealership

doing nothing – 
not noticing other people, 
not preparing to-do lists, 
not listening to anxious thoughts. 
He simply sat in silence 
as the planets and stars sailed out

on their timeless journeys

and his blood held a steady course

through trustworthy veins

and flawless, unselfish arteries. 

HE FELT REASSURED THIS MORNING

"Morning's First Light", oil, by Karen Winters

He felt reassured this morning.

The sunlight was letting itself down

among the trees once again,

and the furnace in the cellar

was celebrating its skill

in furnishing heat

for his household of hearts

and minds made to be special.

The magazine on his desk

was impressive

in the first sunshine of the day.

ONE DAY HE DECIDED TO PRAISE THINGS

"Mountain River", oil, by Mark Webster

One day he decided to praise things.

The first thing he praised

was the thought of praising things,

then the feeling of flowing
into morning on a river,
then the way thanks

seemed to live throughout his body --

in his triumphant fingers

and in his feet

that will find themselves

standing on sacred ground

every second of this day

that somehow came dancing

up to his door.

CHANGING LIVES

I’m just a teacher of English, someone who hopes his students will understand prepositions and how to construct a levelheaded paragraph, but sometimes I do daydream about possibly being involved in the changing of lives. It occasionally occurs to me that all things are changing constantly, from the ever-veering clouds to the capricious cells inside me, so perhaps the same is true in my classroom. Perhaps, as the students sit and listen and speak in my class, their young lives are silently reconstructing themselves. It might be that small personal revolutions are continuously taking place right in front of me. After all, who can say how big a part a small poem might play in redesigning a ninth-grader’s life? Even two small words, like “Hey, Boo” at the end of To Kill a Mockingbird, might be able to take a teenager’s life and turn it topsy-turvy. I don’t pretend that I personally can take credit for altering my students’ lives, because I know better. I know that, like sunshine transforms mist into brightness, it’s the books they read and the words they speak and write in my class that might do some sizeable transforming, not just week by week but second by second. 

HE HAD NOTHING TO WRITE ABOUT

He had nothing to write about.

Winter was gone

with its gifts and finesse,

and the furniture in his house

had nothing that needed to be said.

A soiled dish in the sink

didn’t inspire him, and

heaven didn’t seem to reside

in his lined fingers

or the fine weave of his

dress shirt, the one

that wished to tenderly

warm his chest

on this day that was chosen

to be something exceptional

for him and the plenteous universe

he astonishingly resided in.

ONCE HE SAVED SIXTY-TWO PERCENT

Once he saved sixty-two percent

of his kindness and caring

and kept it in a carton,

but a decorous sunrise said that

kindness couldn’t be bought

or owned, and caring

only stayed when it was

let loose to be itself.

So he carried the carton

to the meeting of several streets

and set it down

for others to find,

and he felt a little light

flowing out from all things.

DRAFTING IN ENGLISH CLASS

When I was a serious bicycle rider, I often took pleasure in “drafting” off a rider in front of me, and my students occasionally use a similar kind of drafting in English class. In the bicycling world, drafting is simply a way to save strength on a long ride, slipping in behind a steadfast rider and letting the wind work against him and pass smoothly around you. You soon see, as you relax your leg muscles and start feeling refreshed, that drafting, surprisingly, is a way of going far while loosening up and taking it easy. Surely I want my students to go far as youthful scholars of reading and writing, but I prefer to have them travel with a certain looseness and liberty. Constantly struggling up the steep hills of great books can only bring bewilderment and hopelessness, so I often send the students off to do some “drafting” to make the ride through the pages somewhat easier and more pleasurable. For an especially problematic chapter in A Tale of Two Cities, I might ask them to read the Sparknotes summary before reading the chapter, just to gives them a calming foretaste of what’s ahead. Yes, it’s a shortcut, and yes, it eliminates some of the challenge of toiling through the chapter on their own, but, like drafting on bicycles, it’s a way of refreshing their worn-out minds for the long and laborious reading that lies ahead. It’s a break, a chance to take some mental breaths, and it usually results in singularly spirited reading for the next few chapters. After cruising behind the Sparknotes bike for a few pages, following the twists and turns in Dickens’ sentences can seem as easy as coasting downhill.

RIGHT WHERE THEY SHOULD BE

This morning, I noticed my pencils and papers were right where I left them last night – right where they should be -- and it made me wonder if all of life is always right where it should be. I spend far too much time trying to tell things and people – including myself – where they should be and what they should be doing, when I should almost certainly just sit back and be in awe at the simple properness of everything. Pencils, papers, small twigs on trees, clouds that carry themselves silently above us – all are precisely where they need to be at this moment. Are they where I, with my worse than sparse wisdom and willpower, wish they were? Perhaps not, but neither are the falls at Niagara falling because I wish them to. The universe, together with my papers and pencils, is always just where it should be, relentlessly bringing to birth its absolute fittingness and precision.   

HE TRIED TO TAKE HIS THOUGHTS

He tried to take his thoughts

in certain directions,

but they threw his plans

in their wastebasket

and wandered wherever they wished.

They were thoughts as wild

as the winds that went alongside

his life, letting him know

that nothing can  calm

this universe that sings

and unfolds in splendor,

just as it desires,

days of surprise

after days of radiance.

THE REAL PROTAGONIST

Lately, I’ve been discussing with my students the concept of “protagonist”, and it has reminded me that I often drift into considering myself the gallant and sometimes unappreciated protagonist of a serious drama called “Ninth Grade English”. It’s amazing how alluring this fantasy is – this notion that I am the center of an ongoing tragicomedy involving some of the most essential questions of life. In the back of my mind, a video frequently plays, in which “Mr. Salsich” is the intrepid fighter for his students’ education, defying the most disheartening obstacles as he leads the students onward and upward. What’s peculiar about this daydream is that it’s utterly groundless and illusory. It’s as if a minuscule swell along a shore saw itself as the center of the entire ocean, or as if a breeze blowing by considered itself the boss of all the winds worldwide. I am no more the protagonist – the center – of the educational drama in my classroom than any single star is at the precise center of the sky. The sky is vast beyond measurement, and so is the learning my students are involved in. I am one small star, you might say, in a process of learning that is boundless. I shine modestly among zillions of other lights that show the students the way. I simply teach things like comma rules and the significance of the word “protagonist”, while the power of the universe, the real protagonist, prepares everlasting learning experiences for my students.

Money, good looks and cool friends can be taken from us, but we can't be robbed of gratitude, faith, joy and goodness, which lead to lasting supply, beauty, grace, health, and

A SIMPLE LIFE

His is a simple life,

like a stone sitting
in the midst of a field,
a flowing river,

a single star lost in the sky.

He never knows

any scientific fact about anything,

and never thinks thoughts

that are new or breathtaking.

He just sits silently
among the blossoms

of the universe,
moves easily
like a shy stream,

or a star that loves

where it is.

We had a wonderful family celebration today to honor Luke and Jaimie on their 41st birthday. It was a long, loving day, filled with laughter, fine food, hugs and smiles, and -- almost best of all --

The birthday guys with cakes

lots of quiet conversations. Making it even more special was the fact that the temperature reached the 50s, filling the air with a feeling of springtime.

THERAPY

When his life becomes too busy,

he sometimes thinks of things

that are resting.

He thinks of pencils relaxing on desks,

patiently waiting to be used –

of carpets quietly lying on floors --

of doors standing peacefully

but with perfect posture,

poised to open or close.

He thinks of mountains taking a break

just where they’ve been taking a break

for thousands of years,

of rivers running

like serene runners running for fun.

He thinks of his own hands

that often relax at his side,

and of the few gentle dollars

that sometimes take it easy

in his pockets.

SITTING IN THE LIVING ROOM

Sitting  in the living room
while flames find their way
among logs in the fireplace,
he looks through his feelings
to find something he's lost.
He lets the light of his life
shine like a search light,
but with no success.
What he's lost is little
and lying among the distant stars,
but he doesn't know it,
so he never stops searching,
sending the sparks of his thoughts
through his life.

THE GIFT OF SPACE

We teachers give of ourselves in countless ways, but perhaps the best gift I can give my students is the simple gift of space. I see constrained, restricted lives in the eyes of my students – lives lived inside the anxiousness of all kinds of fears and alarms – and I take pleasure in setting them free in my class. There’s more space in their hearts and minds than they can possibly imagine, and making that space visible and accessible to them is one of my most esteemed responsibilities. Restrictions on thinking and feeling find no place in my classes: the landscape of our work is as wide as an everlasting series of mountains. When reading, they are free to find insights and truths wherever they wish to roam, and the same is true in writing, where their sentences can soar out to the far distances of sentiment and understanding. They do, of course, have to obey the accepted standards of orderliness and correctness, but those boundaries, if understood rightly, are also doorways to unrestrained thinking and feeling. LeBron James does indescribable feats of magic with a basketball while abiding by a bevy of rules and regulations, and so can my students in the limitless secret lives they bring to English class.

PULLING OUT THE RUG

I sometimes think one of my most essential jobs as an English teacher is to continuously pull the rug out from under my students. That may sound severe, but I actually think of it as a gift to the students – a constant reminder that all their cherished thoughts and theories are as insubstantial as summer winds. As soon as the students think they’ve found the fundamental truth in a poem or a story, it’s my responsibility to somehow show them that a measureless universe of opposing truths lies concealed underneath the one they’ve worked so hard to discover. The truth they’ve discovered is like a rug, and it’s my task to tell them that it rests on nothing but an infinity of differing thoughts and theories. I don’t want my students to ever become too comfortable with their knowledge, too sure of their understanding, too solidly positioned on some presumption or other. All the rugs they stand on in 9^th grade to convince themselves of their righteousness and wisdom will be pulled out from under them in due course, and part of my responsibility is to do some of the pulling when they’re 14. Perhaps it will help them find, sooner rather than later, that the universe of knowledge is vaster than the galaxies, and that all “rugs” do nothing but separate them from this bountiful and beautiful universe.