GRACE IN ENGLISH CLASS

grace |grās|

noun

* simple elegance or refinement of movement : she moved through the water with effortless grace.

* courteous goodwill : at least he has the grace to admit his debt to her.

* ( graces) an attractively polite manner of behaving : she has all the social graces.

Reading this definition this morning, I realized, with some surprise, how much grace there is in my classes. To take the first definition, there is, indeed, a simple elegance in our movements around the room – not the elegance of dancers, certainly, but very much like the ordinary elegance of breezes blowing past us or clouds carrying themselves across the sky. My students and I move the way we need to move – shifting in our seats, turning to take in what someone is saying, raising our hands – and we move the way human bodies mostly move, in a fairly fluid manner – with gracefulness, you might say. There’s also, generally, an abundant amount of courteous goodwill in my classes. This may be due, in part, to the fact that I insist on it, but it also arises, I think, from the sincere, unselfconscious kindness of the students. Most of my students don’t have to try to behave with civility; they do it quite naturally, the way sunlight shines. Lastly, there is a look of politeness in my classroom, the kind of good manners that made “the old days” so appealing to some of us. The students remain standing at the start of class until I officially welcome them all, and they hold the chair on their left until the person is comfortably seated. When a visitor enters, the students rise out of respect, and we always thank each other at the end of class. This is grace of a certain kind, I guess – an extraordinary kind that creates a daily sense of fulfillment and simple happiness for their senior citizen teacher.

"Strange, that some of us, with quick alternate vision, see beyond our infatuations, and even while we rave on the heights, behold the wide plain where our persistent self pauses and awaits us"

- George Eliot, Middlemarch

There’s great wisdom in this quote, especially for a teacher like me, who sometimes falls in love with his classroom tricks and stratagems and imagines that he’s reached “the heights” of his profession. It’s so easy to do that – to fantasize about how essential my work is and how successful I’m becoming in the pursuit of excellence in the classroom. I can easily drift off in my mind and “rave on the heights” about the significance of my job as a teacher of teenagers -- about how indispensable my profession is compared to some others. What I appreciate about Eliot’s words here is the swift awakening they bring, reminding me, like a neighborly slap on the face, of my relative ordinariness in this immeasurable universe. I don’t mean “ordinariness” in a negative way, just to suggest that my work in the classroom carries no more weight than any other work the universe does, be it the sweeping of a maintenance woman or the cerebral exertions of an astrophysicist. Eliot’s words bring me that “quick alternate vision” that enables me to see the somewhat pretentious actor on the “heights” but also the “persistent self” – the real me – that simply “awaits” for the acting to stop and the understanding to start once again. I know in my heart that so much of my life is an amusing show I put on, while the real me, as limitless as a “wide plain”, is somewhere in the background patiently observing. I just have to remember to balance the show – for instance, my “infatuations” with my teaching – with an equal amount of curious and good-natured observing.

NO HOPE IN ROOM 2

It might seem strange to think of hopelessness as a desirable quality in a classroom, but in one sense, a lack of hope plays an important part in my teaching. Being full of hope implies that there’s something missing in the present moment, something that can be supplied in some future moment, but my aim is always to help the students feel fulfilled and find contentment in whatever we happen to be doing at any particular moment. Since there’s already enough wishing for and anticipating and looking forward to and waiting for in their young lives, in my classroom I ask them to try to take pleasure in just what’s happening right now. Be hope-less, I sometimes want to say: be satisfied with the pleasures of studying this stanza, or answering this quiz question, or listening to the surprising words of the classmate who is speaking, or just following your own unforeseen thoughts as they continuously soar across your mind.

LEARNING HOW TO STOP

"Cascadilla Stop", oil. by Jeff Mahorney

It’s increasingly obvious to me that my students should be made to study the difficult skill of stopping. They’ve been learning how to start for all the years of their young lives, but the art of stopping is a somewhat mysterious secret to most young people. They know how to sit down and start writing an essay, but they’re not sure just how and when to stop typing and sit back and scrutinize their sentences. They haven’t learned the wisdom of simply not writing for a few minutes in order to see if the words on the screen could be assembled in more stylish ways. They also don’t seem to know much about making occasional stops when reading a book. They usually read in such a hasty way that pausing to reconsider a page or revisit some sentences is out of the question. They race from page to page like cars with bad brakes. In my classroom, though, stopping is a standard occurrence – a prerequisite, an absolute necessity. We put the brakes on every few minutes, just to consider and question and reassess. We stop as often as we start, which maybe makes for slow learning, but maybe the kind the kids can keep for a few years.

AVAILABILITY IN ROOM 2

"Two Trees", acrylic, by Carolee Clark

Lately, I’ve been seeing “availability” everywhere, even in my classroom. One dictionary defines the adjective “available” as able to be used or obtained, or at someone's disposal, which, surprisingly, seems to correctly describe the entire universe. After all, doesn’t all of reality exist only in the present moment, and isn’t the fullness of every moment totally available to me? What part of this moment, this one right here, am I not able to use and obtain and have at my disposal? Another dictionary says that “available” means present, in attendance, unattached, and isn’t each moment completely present, in attendance, and unattached – meaning belonging to no one and therefore to everyone? Isn’t each moment like a never-ending gift, a bestowal of infinite kinds of sights and sounds and thoughts, all presented to me to accept and enjoy as I wish? And isn’t the same true in my classroom? When I think about it, I find it astonishing that my small classroom on a country road contains so many available marvels – the words my students and I say, the sentences we see in books, the smiles and frowns and looks of confusion on our faces, the sunshine and shadows outside. It’s all there for us each moment – even some sorrow that may be in our hearts, or world-weariness, or the feeling of failure – it’s all available to be accepted and appreciated and wondered about. It’s a rich room I teach in, this Room 2 among imposing old trees in Connecticut.

GETTING NOWHERE

As a young teacher some 40 years ago, I always wanted to “get somewhere” in my profession – be a somebody, a prize-winner, a creative whiz kid in the classroom, someone students would never forget, blah blah blah – but now, with my senior-citizen’s silver hair and well-furrowed face, I have learned that it’s best to try to get nowhere at all. I look back on those years of racing and rushing and struggling and striving as so many years of wasted powers – years when I ignored the goodness of present classroom moments in favor of foolish, made-up future scenarios. If I thought Thursday’s class was great, I wanted Friday’s to be greater. I wasn’t satisfied with small successes in class; I had to make the super splash that everyone would talk about tomorrow. I was “getting somewhere”, climbing the mountain of admirable teaching, taking the teaching profession by storm. Trouble is, I wasn’t anywhere near as good as I thought I was, mostly because my mania for getting somewhere was only getting me far away from the simple happiness of helping students read and write a little better than last year. In my desire to become a super teacher, I forgot what I already was – a guy who truly loved talking about books and writing with teenagers. That’s really what teaching English is all about – not showboating, not flamboyant lessons, but just helping kids become better writers and readers. Nowadays I know this, and I also know, quite happily, that I never have to get somewhere, because at any given moment in the classroom -- I mean any moment --  I'm already there.

NON-STOP MENTAL ACTION

I sometimes grow concerned about the physical inactivity of most of my classes – a lot of sitting and speaking but not much standing or walking or working the muscles – but, at the same time, I am pleased to remind myself that there is always an abundance of mental action. No matter how motionless the students are, thoughts are constantly shooting through their minds like infinitesimal stars. Indeed, they can’t be stopped, these full-of-life mental creations of ours. Even a student who believes he’s bored and says “I can’t think of anything” is actually making thoughts faster then he’s breathing. This is good for me to remember, especially when a whole class of teenagers seems to be sagging under the tediousness of all things. I need to keep in mind that astonishing mental actions are happening right before my eyes, even as my students stare off toward the springtime trees outside. It’s never a question of getting my students to think deeply; they’re always doing that, in their own irreplaceable and boundless ways. I guess all I need to do is try my best to redirect their thoughts -- sort of start them shooting along my pre-planned academic paths.

TAKING MY WORK LIGHTLY

Over the last ten years of my teaching career, I have luckily learned to take my teaching lightly. For many years, I followed the famous advice and took my work seriously, but I’ve learned that light-heartedness is more helpful than grave intensity – that smiles and laughter lead to better teaching than long faces and glowers. I used to be a the kind of teacher who twists every dribble of learning from every moment of class, but now I see that an unspeakable kind of student boredom was usually bred by that approach, so now I teach from a different point of view. Instead of keeping my nose to the grindstone, you might say I keep my mind on the free-wheeling merry-go-round called “What Strange Things Will Happen in Class Today?” Instead of holding my feet to the fire, I prefer holding my arms out to welcome whatever surprises happen to pass our way during English class. I still work hard, but I do it in a more buoyant and breezy way.

A POT OF FLOWERS AND A TEACHER

"Petunia Panoply", oil, by Nancy Medina

Sitting on the patio this morning, I was admiring an overflowing pot of petunias, all the while wishing I could capture some of its grace and stateliness in my teaching. What’s interesting about the flowers is that just being in their presence is enough to fill a few moments with satisfaction and even happiness. They don’t have to do anything other than spill over their blossoms in profusion. Occasionally a few flowers will sway in a passing breeze, and sometimes small insects come for visits, but otherwise the pot of flowers makes me feel fulfilled just by being close by. I know there are duties I must perform in the classroom, and I do my best to carry them out competently, but I do wish sometimes that I could be more like the pot of petunias – more able to make inspiration happen in my classroom just by being there with my students. If a teacher has kindness and good wishes and at least a smattering of wisdom, shouldn’t those qualities simply spread out to the students without a lot of hype and hullabaloo? Can’t a teacher who is simply devoted to his profession perform at least some small miracles, like those patio petunias, just by being there?

USING MIST

"Morning Mist", pastel, by Karen Margulis

I’m sure it sounds strange to say that a teacher should occasionally use something like mist in his teaching, but I’ve often thought of this as I’ve led students through my often murky lessons and assignments. I actually like to purposely put the students into academic situations that seem shadowy and obscure to them, mostly because it gives them the chance to experience the pleasure of finally finding open space and understanding. There’s some mistiness, some puzzling haze, in all our activities in English class. It seems to me that providing complete clarity for students is somewhat like hiking with them only on flat trails at the base of a mountain, instead of setting off to test the steep trails to the top. If there’s no darkness now and then, there won’t be any dawns -- those moments, for instance, when students suddenly see the significance of a story or poem. Reading A Tale of Two Cities with 9th graders is like leading them up a sheer and misty trail, but the perplexity and murkiness only serves to make the sunshine of understanding at the summit even more satisfying.

THE GIFTS OF CANCER: A FANTASY

With so much talk of the terrors of cancer, I sometimes daydream about an imaginary person who is suffering from a severe form of cancer, but who continues to surprise friends with his talk about what he calls the “gifts” of his illness. I wonder if there could actually be such a person. In my imagination, he is enduring long stretches of intense pain, his body is sometimes pale and almost spectral, the doctors have taken all hope away, and yet he smiles more than frowns, and often speaks of the gifts the sickness has bestowed on him. He speaks like a person who is lucky in life rather than lost and passing away. In my imagination, I hear him say, for example, that he is grateful that he’s been given the opportunity to help so many people. He says his illness is giving nurses and doctors and other caretakers the opportunity to put into practice their commitment to serving others. He says they truly love their work, and his condition is making it possible for them to do what they most love in life – assisting those who are sick. They live to help others, and his need of help is providing them with that opportunity. My imaginary person says – and he admits this sounds strange – that he sometimes muses about the thousands of acts of kindness his “so-called” (his words) tragic illness will call forth from health-care workers, family, and friends. “How,” he says with a smile, “can something that’s tragic produce such wonderful effects?” He also smiles (in my make-believe story) when he speaks about the gift of courage the illness is giving him. He says he has always been a somewhat scared and anxious person, but his illness has slowly helped him see that courage is far stronger than any illness. Courage, he realizes now, is not a material thing that can be weighed and measured, and therefore it has no boundary line – no place where it is used up and comes to an end. He says courage is like a never-ending sky or a sea with no shores: there’s an everlasting amount always available to fight a “paltry” (his word) illness like cancer. I must admit that it’s far-fetched to imagine a supposedly dying man making more smiles in a conversation than grimaces, laughing about his situation rather than finding fault with it. I don’t really understand my little fantasy, but I have a puzzling kind of confidence in it. I suspect there are more of these surprisingly grateful cancer warriors than we realize.

THE TEACHER AS LAMP

"Quiet Light", oil, by Chris Greco

I have a lamp in my living room that always inspires me with thoughts about ways to improve my teaching. I love the fact that the lamp doesn’t do much of anything. If it was a person, it wouldn’t have a to-do list, wouldn’t be worried about bringing ten tasks to completion, wouldn’t do anything except be what it is – a softly shining rosiness that gives the living room a look of welcome and restfulness. When I enter the room, the light of the lamp always seems like a gentle invitation to think and feel freely and be at peace. I don’t have an actual lamp in my classroom, but perhaps I can be a lamp of sorts for my often struggling and hassled students. Perhaps, instead of a non-stop maker and doer of lesson plans, assignments, goals, and objectives, I can simply be a warm-hearted and earnest believer in their talents. Perhaps, like my lamp, I can let a spirit of openness and receptivity shine out into the room in an unobtrusive way, just enough so the students feel at ease and settled and ready to realize just how talented they really are.

THE TEACHER AS MIRROR

"Mirror, Mirror", oil, by Dreama Tolle Perry

I sometimes wish I could be more like a mirror when I’m teaching. Mirrors are long-suffering, self-effacing, and always gracious. They don’t do anything, really, but stay out of the way and faithfully reflect back just what’s in front of them. You might say mirrors don’t have a “personality” of their own, but continually change as the world in front of them changes. They don’t bustle about and interfere with anyone’s life. In fact, mirrors don’t do at all; instead, they show, reveal, uncover, and disclose – and that’s why I can learn something about good teaching from them. I bustle around my classroom way too much – chattering, questioning, sermonizing, and generally discharging vast amounts of words, most of which flow right past the students. I could use some of a mirror’s ability to stay put and simply accept what’s happening. Whatever comes before a mirror is welcomed by it, and that spirit of hospitality and tolerance would be a pleasing addition to my classroom. A mirror’s ability to reveal exactly what’s in front of it might also be helpful to my students. If they knew they could discover more about themselves in my class because their teacher, like an unassuming mirror, helps to reflect and reveal their personal talents, then perhaps they would enter the room with more enthusiasm than they do when they know Mr. Salsich is simply going to do more of his uninterrupted and sometimes tedious teaching.

THE TEACHER AS WATCHER

I sometimes wish I could be more of a watcher than a doer. When I’m teaching, I’m usually so perfectly focused on getting steps in the lesson accomplished that I lose sight of the importance of simply witnessing what’s happening. I guess I have too much of the officious busybody in me and not enough of the silent observer. In fact, I usually live my whole life that way – always doing, performing, carrying out, completing, achieving, and making, but rarely standing back and simply seeing what’s going on. I often wonder what would happen if athletic coaches worked like this -- constantly talking and showing, but never observing and studying. What if a basketball coach talked to the players throughout all the games and practices, and never once sat silently and just scrutinized their performances? I’m sure their season would be a mish-mash of hit-or-miss victories and losses, all led on by the loud words of the coach instead of the steadily improving skills of the players. I don’t want to teach like that. Perhaps there are professions where doing is everything and observing is nothing, but teaching isn’t one of them. Sitting back and studying students is just as helpful as having them listen and watch as I work through my teacher’s to-do list.

THE TEACHER CALLED PAIN

There are so many suffering people in the world today – so many innocent sufferers from untold numbers of disasters and diseases – and I’m sure none of them think of their suffering as being “perfect”, but still, it’s been occurring to me recently that, if a time of grievous suffering comes my way, I hope I can find the perfection in everything that happens. If that sounds utterly ditzy, let me try to explain. Since whatever happens to me at any moment of a given day is actually happening and therefore, at that moment, can’t be avoided or changed, in a sense it could be said to be perfect. The dictionary says something is perfect if it can’t be changed, and any particular moment of my life can’t possibly be changed, because it’s already happening. I can try to make sure the next moment is different, but this moment – and every moment -- is just what it is, and therefore you could accurately say it is perfect. At some time in the future, I may be faced with one of these perfect moments that is altogether made of suffering and sorrow – perhaps many moments and hours and days of it. My hope is that I can remember that each of those moments, no matter how painful they might be, are perfect just as they are. They can’t possibly be changed, and therefore you could say they are flawless in their distress and unhappiness. They are perfectly painful and painfully perfect. It’s interesting, then, to think of the possibility of appreciating pain, since it is another example of a perfect present moment. Usually I resist the pain in my life, but I’ve been thinking lately that this might be precisely what promotes the pain, and sometimes worsens it. If a painful moment, as it is, cannot be changed in any way, then it is without flaw, and perhaps should be welcomed as a new illustration of the perfection of each moment. I still find it uncomfortable to think of welcoming pain, but don’t I welcome other occurrences that seem perfect? Don’t I welcome a perfectly prepared dinner, a day of unblemished sunshine, a sprinkling shower that dispenses the ideal amount of moisture on our garden? Is it possible that I could also welcome a moment of perfect suffering – suffering that is ideal, just right, just the thing, faultless, flawless, and just what the doctor ordered? In fact, can’t all suffering be thought of as "just the thing", since it always brings with it lessons about how to live with valor and wisdom. Many wise people in the past have said that we should bow to suffering, invite it in, and ask what it has to teach us. Perhaps that’s what I’m saying. Perhaps, if illness or some other sorrow visits me, I should open the door and say, “Welcome. When does class start?”

THE CHOSEN

The idea of “the chosen” has appealed to people for eons, and lately I’ve been thinking that feeling chosen is a possibility for me at every moment. After all, the universe, it could be said, has chosen each particular moment for me to experience in my own special way. The universe, of course, is not a person, but still, in an odd way, it does seem that each moment has been carefully prepared – chosen -- over immeasurable millennia. Right here, right now, both this moment and I have been chosen. We are the special ones, the elite, the privileged, the cream of the crop – and this is true for all of us, and for every occurrence. Every spread of sunlight on lawns on a summer morning is a chosen one – just the right light for that singular moment. Each of the ways winter shows its cold and colors is a selected and preferred one, a chosen souvenir from the universe. I suppose, thinking about all this, that I should feel fairly special each day, each moment. I should probably feel as set apart as someone selected for a place on a podium, or a teacher picked, for some reason, for a special prize – every moment.

PLAYING “LET’S PRETEND” ABOUT TEACHING

At a faculty meeting the other day, I suddenly had the distinct feeling that we were all playing the old “let’s pretend” game from childhood, and it reminded me of what I often feel when I’m teaching. My colleagues and I were discussing various approaches to the teaching of writing, and it sounded like we were all quite sure that what we were saying had substance and merit – that we, in other words, knew exactly what we were talking about. We were politely agreeable toward each other, but still, it seemed like we were each quite sure that our opinions were the proper ones. “Sure of ourselves” might be a good way to describe what we sounded like. Oddly enough, I, who was easily the oldest and most experienced teacher at the meeting, felt totally unsure of myself. It seemed – and this is a feeling I often have -- like I was simply pretending to know something about teaching writing, like I was a surgeon who had no clue what he was doing but was an expert at making-believe. In fact, toward the end of the meeting, it all seemed quite funny, in a harmless sort of way. I chuckled on my way to the car as I thought of the humorous show we had all put on. I don’t mean to suggest that any of us were being insincere in our comments, or that we were purposely pretending. It’s just that, more and more, the entire enterprise of teaching other human beings seems as complicated as studying the movements of distant galaxies, and for any of us to suggest that we have discovered the best way to do it seems like the height of foolishness. It’s like saying we know precisely why the wind was moving across our arms the way it did yesterday at 9:21 am, or where exactly a certain summer sky came from. Teaching, to me, is a magical mystery tour, and, quite honestly, I have no sure understanding of how to do it well. I try my best each day, but it’s a little like trying to make the sun shine in a certain way. I can pretend the sunshine and my students are transforming because of my instruction, but the truth, of course, is something vastly different.

SUDDENNESS IN ENGLISH CLASS

When I looked up the word “sudden” in a dictionary this morning, I found this definition -- “occurring or done quickly and unexpectedly or without warning, as in a sudden bright flash” – and it immediately came to me that suddenness is something I constantly witness in my classes. There are sudden bright flashes moment by moment as my students and I make thoughts with the speed of strings of firecrackers. All our thoughts are completely unexpected, popping up in our minds like surprises, one exploding thought preparing the way for the next. Each thought is as swift as a sparkle of light -- a glint and then it’s gone. A 48-minute class is a spectacle of suddenness. Even the looks on our faces change with the speed of shadows under windswept trees, and feelings flow in and out of us so fast we can’t possibly appreciate them all. It’s good, I guess, that I encourage the students to work with slowness and consideration, but at the same time I know that suddenness is the supervisor of all of us.

CONSTANT COSTUMES

The other day, as I having lunch in a café, I noticed that a young man sitting near me was dressed in what looked like a carefully considered costume -- baggy pants, elaborately arranged chains, multiple tattoos and body rings -- and rather quickly it occurred to me that I, too, was wearing a costume, and that all of us do, including my students. The young guy had his carelessly saggy pants, and I had my properly pressed slacks; he had chains, and I had my suitably preppy belt; he was proudly exhibiting his ear and lip rings, and I was unquestionably conscious of how my striped bow tie showed off my supposedly esteemed stage in life as a professorial senior citizen. There we were, two well-costumed people pretending that we weren’t wearing costumes. We had both “dressed up” to play the roles we have chosen, but no doubt neither of us would usually be willing to admit it. As I thought about it later, it seemed apparent that all of us present our preferred costumes to the public each day – the kinds of clothes that enable us to play the “parts” we have selected for ourselves. Even those of us who wear supposedly commonplace clothes do so because it seems fitting for the role we see ourselves playing – perhaps that of the unassuming and straightforward person who desires the simplest of lives. Truth is, we’re all on stage all the time, including my teenage students. They come to my classroom dressed for their various roles – laid-back cool guy, shy waif, faithful friend to everyone, and even – occasionally -- business-like student. They sit before me playing their parts, and of course, I play mine with my bow tie-suspenders-colorful shirt costume. What may be surprising is that I see nothing wrong with this constant costuming that all of us do. In fact, it seems like a truthful and light-hearted way to live. Life, to me, is more like a fascinating show than a frightful contest, and so I rather enjoy observing all of us in my classroom as we carry on with the show. Who knows what will happen next in this absorbing drama called “9th grade English”? What sub-plot will be unveiled in the next few minutes? Like the guy who slouched to his seat in the café and found me for an audience for a few moments, which students will swirl with their costumes onto center-stage to steal the show?

GOOD PRESSURE

"Market Zinnias", oil, by Elizabeth Fraser

My 2nd grader grandson is studying rocks in his classroom, and it has started me thinking about the good uses of pressure. After all, many rocks we see today in our forests and fields were formed under intense and long-lasting pressure. I want to be sure to talk with Noah about that, perhaps to help him see in his mind the image of immensely powerful forces pushing down on rocks for eons, slowly shifting them into what they are today. If rocks could speak, they might say thanks to the steady pressure that produced them. Also, what about the small seeds that will make zinnia blossoms prosper in my garden this summer? The package suggests that a “firm tapping” – or pressure -- on the covering soil will send the seeds off to a good start, implying that pressure can create loveliness. And don’t we all live under a perfect amount of air pressure, which enables oxygen to push into our lungs and let our lives renew themselves? How fast we would die if this concentrated pressure didn’t persist, second by second! I guess what all this means -- for me, at least -- is that a reasonable but relentless pressure is good for my students, just as it is for rocks and seeds and lungs. When the students sweat under the load of my lessons and assignments, when they beseechingly ask me to lower the pressure somewhat, when it seems to them like letting-up and easing-off will never come, maybe I should tell them about rocks and zinnia seeds and the good air that’s always effortlessly flowing into their lungs.

LISTENING TO BIRDS AND STUDENTS

"Bluebird and Dogwood", oil, by Amy Hautman

This morning, working outside surrounded by the spring songs of birds, I decided to listen closely to them as I worked – sort of a special assignment for myself, you might say – and I soon started wondering why I don’t give myself similar assignments in my classroom. Just listening to students, for instance – just really focusing on the words they use to speak their surprising thoughts could be an absorbing project for a few hours. I would teach the lessons I had planned, yes, but at the same time I would be bent on bringing full awareness to what the students say and how they say it. I loved hearing the wide-ranging music of the birds this morning, and shouldn’t I love just as much the many ways teenagers use their voices to share their up-and-coming wisdom? I guess we don’t often think of conversation as music, but listening to my students’ voices falling and rising in a discussion in almost melodic ways sometimes reminds me of listening to a song. There are times, in fact, when I step back from the meanings of their words and just listen to the sounds of their voices – the sweet sounds of people placing their thoughts out front for others to see and be thankful for. This is music made for a morning’s or afternoon’s listening, an assignment I should give myself more often.

AS SOFT AS SUNSHINE

“… Who overcomes

By force hath overcome but half his foe.”

-- John Milton, Paradise Lost

         It annoys me to have to admit that I have often fallen victim to the “victory by force” theory of teaching, because in my heart I know that gentleness is far more powerful than mere force. The gentleness I speak of is the gentleness of rivers that simply stay steady in their course, no matter what obstacles present themselves, or the gentleness of lakes that let all leaves land on them with effortlessness, or the gentleness of grass that forever gives way for the soles of our shoes. In a baffling kind of way, this gentleness wins by seemingly losing, and gets what it desires by willingly giving. In my time in the classroom, I have sometimes shoved and pushed and dragged students to my various finish lines, as though sheer force was some kind of creative power, but I usually know better. The sun warms us on spring days in the softest way, and I guess that’s the way I want to teach. I can harass my students into learning, or I can bring them to it by being as soft as sunshine that noiselessly brightens miles of hills.

DIGNITY IN THE CLASSROOM

“…walks forth, without more train

Accompanied then with his own compleat

Perfections; in himself was all his state.”

-- John Milton, Paradise Lost

This description of Adam in the garden reminds me, surprisingly enough, of my students. Each day they “walk[ ] forth” into my classroom with their “own compleat / Perfections”, full of the inherent dignity that is seen in all of nature. Every blossom and grass blade I see these spring days is perfect in its own uncommon way, and so is each of my teen-age students. They may seem like ungainly, half-made adults, but, in very real and mysterious ways, they are each perfect at each moment – each just what they must be, just what this universe has invented at that precise instant. As they stroll to their seats, they stroll in a way that’s never quite been done before, and their looks of languor or enthusiasm are as perfect as they can possibly be. They don’t always get the right answer, but even their wrong answers seem wrong in a kind of distinguished and noble way. They’re perfectly wrong, so to speak. It’s impossible for me to say which clouds in a summer sky are the most perfect, and it’s equally hard to pronounce this student to be better than that one. All clouds and all students are special in their own curious ways. Any cloud carries itself with decorum and distinction, and so – to me, at least – does any student.

A STERN AND BRILLIANT TEACHER

When a friend of mine was recently diagnosed with a severe form of cancer, he told me, to my surprise, that, though he is filled with fears of the gravest kind, he is also feeling strangely grateful. He said that, in the past, he has often thought about the fact that, at any given moment, hundreds of millions of people are suffering in the most relentless ways, and it has always saddened him that he has not been able to truly identify with them -- to really somehow be a part of, and feel, their anguish. He said he usually would think about them for a passing moment or two and then go on his way, living his separate life as though these suffering people were no real concern of his. He told me a strange thing has happened because of this frightening diagnosis: the fear he feels is almost completely balanced by a sense of comradeship and solidarity with all the countless sufferers around the world. He feels like he has suddenly fallen into an immense and valiant family – immense because suffering people are next door and down the street and everywhere, and valiant because nothing brings on bravery better than suffering. He says, yes, he cries a lot these days, thinking about his loved ones and long days in the hospital and the power of the pain he may feel and the feel of death doing its slow work, but he also feels oddly euphoric sometimes. He feels like his time has come, at long last, to step out from life-long self-centeredness and seek the wider world of understanding and compassion -- a world that offers more blessings than he ever thought possible. He said several times that he’s almost grateful for this disease, because it’s proving to be a stern and brilliant teacher. He says he’s committed to learning its lessons well.

WORKING AND RESTING

I am hoping to learn how to work and rest at the same time, a phenomenon I very often see in the natural world. Trees, for instance, seem to be actively working when they sway in strong winds, tossing their limbs in a spirited manner, but they also seem entirely stress-free. Perhaps part of their secret is that they don’t resist the winds. They simply lean back and let the winds actually do the work, allowing the trees to sway tirelessly for hours. I see a similar situation in the autumn, when leaves don’t seem to be laboring as they offhandedly float to the ground, and yet in a matter of a few days they can completely cover whole square miles of land with their colors.  This is an astonishing achievement, one that would take we humans a supreme effort, and yet the loose and untroubled leaves do it in an almost soothing way. Of course, someone might say a snowfall is the most restful of nature’s activities, with whole armies of snowflakes working in utter peacefulness across the landscape. Within a few hours, a nation of snowflakes can cover an entire city with a soft but disabling sheet of white, and yet they do it in the quietest possible way. A snowstorm has a way of combining exertion and tranquility, something I greatly admire. Perhaps my goal in life should be to live like snowflakes live, with both zeal and serenity.

NEWNESS

          I am slowly coming to understand this important truth – that oldness is nowhere and newness is everywhere. To take one example, every day is a totally new day. The sunrise each morning makes the trees shine in a slightly different way than they ever did before, and every breeze blows somewhat differently from all the yesterdays. Also, totally new things will happen to me today – the way a person smiles at me, the way some students stand beside me at an assembly, the way sunlight lands on my shirt at recess. Even every moment is brand new. As I type this paragraph, new dust motes are scattered on my desk in arrangements that have never existed before, and the shadows from my fingers fall on the keyboard in a completely original way. What is most astonishing for me to realize is that each thought is utterly new each moment. The exact thought I am thinking right now has never been thought before – in the entire history of the human race. It’s startling – almost scary – to realize that I live in a universe of such breathtaking newness.

THOUGHTS

"Starry Night over Borestone Mountain", oil, by Elizabeth Fraser

If he sits quietly enough,

he can search his thoughts

for stars and even suns

shining as they always have.

His mind, like all minds,

makes galaxies of great lights

as good as the flawless stars.

It’s a gift from the universe,

these crowds of thoughts

that carry light

like the sheet of stars

that rolls itself out each night

above his silent house

as he sits in peace.