NEW NAMES

He received a new name today.
It says he is someone new,
someone the sunshine will bless.
This name never blames, only praises.
It lives in his heart,
and wears its letters
like a prince inside him.
It might as well be the name
of Summer, or Celebration,
it's that special.
Tomorrow, he'll receive another name,
and the next day, and the next.
You can do this too.

THE BROKEN SKY

One warm evening
the sky was suddenly broken.
There was a crash
and a shout from friends
afraid of being separated,
and then the pieces
of the precious sky
descended upon our simple lives,
our lives that shine
at every compliment,
that sing whenever someone loves us.
We stood outside
and saw the shards of the sky
settling in the trees
like invitations to happiness,
like calls to stop struggling
and just see.
There was sky in the streets
and sky in the pockets of friends.
We came home to our families
with specks of blue
and grains of gold in our hands.

DIGNIFIED EASE

“This was a scene which had always been part of his home--part of the dignified ease which had been a matter of course in his life.”

     -- George Eliot, Daniel Deronda

     I can’t think of a more fitting phrase to describe the way I try to teach – and live – than “dignified ease”. I try to teach the way trees stand as tall as they can while still being springy and supple. I try to speak to my students with both solemnity and easiness, as though I’m a wind that’s strong but also useful. I hope, when a visitor stops in my classroom, that I seem serious and yet happy-go-lucky, focused and yet completely comfortable.  I come to nature for endless examples of this kind of careful effortlessness. I see it in breezes that can carry ships across oceans, and yet are as soft as silk as they pass you. I see it in mountains that stand in solid but seemingly stress-free ways, rising stalwartly but peacefully above us.  Most of all, I see it in water that works its way through the world with both persistence and lenience, always letting itself flow in the strongest but easiest ways. I could do no better, as a teacher, than be a breeze or a mountain or a mighty but mild-mannered river, making its sure but easygoing way toward teaching teenagers something useful for their lives.

HE WAS DRINKING

He was drinking the darkness
one night, and he never stopped,
so the darkness didn't stop either,
didn't stop stuffing his life
with the little pleasures of darkness --
the way lights shine
only when it's dark, the way
water in darkness can sparkle
like shaking stars, the way
a wish sent into the darkness
doesn't die, but spreads
its wings and disappears
and helps him have hope.

ITS WONDERFUL WAY

“Paul and his mother, ripple and great wave, had flowed into her life and ebbed out of it forever.”
     -- E. M. Forster, Howards End

           

     Today, like all days, I will be part of a ceaselessly flowing “ripple and great wave”, and the wonder is that it won’t take any work on my part to be part of it.  Each moment will be the making of the flowing motion of life – the coming and going, the giving and taking that fashions the immeasurable surprises of our lives. Even if I’m simply steering my bike down sunny morning roads, or just sitting in my classroom with my students, the surge of the tides and currents of the universe will be working its wonders through all things. If I lift my hand, the stream of life will shift its course in a small but complete way. If I smile at someone, a slight and new ripple will roll across the cosmos. It’s always strange to realize that I really don’t have to do anything to be a seamless part of all this mighty movement.  I don’t have to work or toil or try or organize or manipulate or make things happen. It’s already happening, always. All I have to do is don’t get in its wonderful way.

THIS MORNING

There were sweeter songs
this morning. The water in the shower
sang of days of peace,
and all his steps across the rooms
convinced him that people
were singing in happiness
in many places. The blood
in his veins wasn't struggling
but singing, and his hands
rose and fell when he asked,
just like the melodies of Mozart.
He knew the face of the earth
was smiling as it listened.
The lamps of his life
were all lighting up
as the music of Tuesday
was starting.

WISPS OF HAY

“Clever talk alarmed her, and withered her delicate imaginings; it was the social counterpart of a motor-car, all jerks, and she was a wisp of hay, a flower.”

     -- E. M. Forster, Howards End

   

     I have never been interested in fostering “clever talk” in my classroom, or in my life. It’s the slick and glassy talk of those who love to speak words but are not often concerned about the substance of the words. It’s the way people speak who are always prepared to pretend they know thousands of truths, but are rarely ready to descend into those truths and shine serious lights on them. Clever talk comes in fusillades and cascades, so dense and unceasing that all you want to do is disappear from it.  I’m much more interested in the opposite of clever talk, which might be called straightforward talk, or user-friendly talk, or just plain talk.  This is the kind of talk that sort of takes you by the hand and leads you to one or two modest ideas.  It speaks with simplicity and saneness, and with the purest of words.  It sets out a few simple thoughts for careful consideration, and then sometimes just stops. Plain talk, unlike clever talk, takes pride in using as few words as possible. It wants to work out the truth, not put on a performance. In my classroom, there aren’t many verbal performances, not many manifestations of oral sorcery.  I want the students to state the simplest of thoughts in the clearest of ways, and if this means occasional hesitancy and uncertainty in our discussions, like the unsettled fluttering of wisps of hay, then so be it. After all, in the midst of the hesitancy and uncertainty there might shine the always mild light of truth.  

TRUE INSIGHT

“True insight began just where his intelligence ended.”

     -- E. M. Forster, Howards End

     I wonder when we will develop a way to test students’ “true insight” – or perhaps it’s just too immense and multifaceted to truly test. Perhaps it would be like making mountains go through some tests to see if they’re actually majestic, or putting rivers through a series of examinations to see whether they could be called beautiful. A student's true insight – her or his ability to break out into sudden wisdom – is as measureless as a sky full of stars.  We occasionally create complex testing situations for students, trusting that we can then calculate their intelligence, but how do we determine their facility for finding truth -- for seeing the wisdom in the words of a story, or the light that shines in the lines of a poem? We may as well try to tell how many separate breezes blew by us yesterday, or precisely how beautiful a rainbow is. Perhaps it’s possible to test what we call “intelligence”, but insight – the skill of seeing something shining where everyone else sees darkness – is as measureless as our thoughts.

SIX O'CLOCK

Six o'clock, he said
to a student ...
be here by six o'clock,
and then he went
where there were no clocks,
no deadlines,
no do's and don'ts,
just spring sunshine
in its joyous dress.
He jumped up
a few times,
just to find the spring
in his life again,
the buoyancy
that brings him
and the sunshine
and his conscientious students
around to six o'clock.

BEING A SUMMER BIRD

“Thou art a summer bird,

Which ever in the haunch of winter sings

The lifting up of day.”

     -- Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2

          No doubt there’s considerable darkness in the lives of my young students – mostly the darkness that comes of being teenagers at a somewhat frenzied and comfortless time in history – and perhaps part of my task as a teacher is to bring “the lifting up of day” for 48 minutes. Of course, my main responsibility is to share my insights about English literature and language, but along with these technical matters might come some useful truths for the students about how to live quieter and brighter lives. Perhaps in showing them the wisdom in poems and stories I could create a little more light for these kids who so often seem lost in an easygoing but steady sort of darkness. It would not be a small victory to make the days of 37 teenagers turn a little clearer and happier, and I could do it so easily. A smile, even, could set a student off on a luckier road for the rest of the day. A few nods toward a student when she’s sharing her thoughts with the class could carry blessings as bright as sunshine, and a sincere statement of praise could, for a few moments, bring a boy what a sunny day sometimes brings. I like to let the students in on some of the secrets of fine reading and writing, but perhaps I can also, in doing so, drop some soothing light into whatever large or small darkness they might be experiencing as they’re sitting in English class.

NO POWER

"Afternoon in Spring", oil, by Don Gray

There was no power at his school,
so he sat outside
and used the sunshine
as his power, and prayed
to the powerful flowers
in the garden, and gave thanks
to the forces in the fresh grass.
It was good to get strength
from a light breeze
blowing by, 
and from  a tree
full of youthful birds
that had no need of
laptops and lights.

OPEN AS DAY

“He hath … a hand

Open as day …”

     -- Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2

     It’s a joy to be a generous teacher, one who helps the whole world be better by simply bringing all the gifts he has to his students.  It’s a simple thing, really -- just setting out what I have and letting my students help themselves.  I have no money to share, no fancy frills or uncommon abilities or glamorous wisdom -- just the small gifts the universe gave me and which I give again to my students. I have the gift of assiduously attending to what a person is saying, the gift of speaking the truth in a sympathetic way, the simple gift of kindness -- and these gifts I openhandedly hand over to the students in each class. I wish I had more to offer – more to make my classes electrifying and brimful of cheerfulness for the children – but the best I can do is be myself. I am just a softhearted 70-year-old searcher for truth who took to the road of teaching 47 years ago and is still walking, still watching for wisdom about how to do this wonderful work. All I can do is just be as “open as day” and donate what I have, all my meager but maybe useful gifts, to my students – and it’s my privilege to do so day after happy day.

SEEING THE UNIVERSE

“He would one day push his head out of the grey waters and see the universe.”

     -- E. M. Forster, Howards End

     How often I live in the “grey waters” of small-mindedness, searching for solace for my small, separate self and seldom noticing the loveliness of the universe that surrounds me! In Forster’s novel, Howard Bast feels beleaguered by the boring aspects of his world, and wants to somehow rise to see if there’s anything wondrous that he’s been missing – and I can sympathize with him. I have had a life of relative leisure and satisfaction, but, like Howard, I hear the call of a still finer life, a way of living that’s boundless and fascinating. It’s as if I’m living in “grey waters” with a vast and flourishing ocean just beyond my sight. Perhaps surprisingly, I sometimes think my first task as a teacher is simply to show my students this wondrous life that surrounds them, and to help them learn to live in it and love it. I’m just an English teacher, certainly not my students’ minister or psychologist, but still, given the literature we read and the essays we write, I wonder if some of the mysteries of life can loom a little larger to my students because of English class. I wonder if working with written words that spring from honest hearts and minds -- theirs or the great writers of the world -- can lead them to where they can get a look at how miraculous life really is.  No doubt the lives of my teenage students can seem somewhat “grey” now and then, monotonous and mind-numbing like Leonard Bast’s, and maybe my modest, commonplace English class can call forth some of the astonishment that this kind of universe deserves.

FOOTSTEPS IN THE LIBRARY

He heard footsteps
across the carpet --
a student carrying
his books to a table.
He thought of footsteps in a forest
when he was a boy,
when news was brought
of the wide wilderness
surrounding his life.
He lay in a little tent
and tried to see in his mind
the making of stars
millions of miles away,
and the way silence
stretches around us
with no bounds.

His small footsteps
to the circulation desk
sounded far off,
like stars stepping
across the universe
above the tiny town
and its small school
and library.

DELICATE WORK

“One little twist … and the instrument might be in tune. One little strain, and it might be silent for ever.”

     -- E. M. Forster, Howards End

     I sometimes think of myself as an orchestra conductor when I’m in the classroom, which is why this quote came across to me so convincingly yesterday. My young students are instruments of the most subtle and elusive kind, and helping them make their uncommon music is the delicate duty I’ve been charged with. It’s a tricky task, because, as Forster describes, one slip-up can create complete silence instead of superb scholarly accomplishments. A word said in the wrong way,  an assignment made in a hasty manner, even just a glance given in disapproval or censure – each of these can cause a young student to set aside his best ideas and settle back into silence. As a teacher, I am constantly "tuning" the students so they can “sing” their most daring and striking ideas, but it’s risky work. I still question my ability to do the job. I still wonder sometimes if I’m up to the task – if I’m of a sufficiently sympathetic and understanding nature that I can gently twist and tighten my students in just the right way so they show their distinctive brilliance. 

ON NOT BOWING DOWN

      I actually take a great many "gods" with me when I go to my classroom each day, and, in a sense, I worship them. There’s the god called “my lesson plan”, a set of steps I pay homage to as if they have some separate power that can provide me with success. I set it before me before each class and respectfully request its help in getting to the goals I have given myself. It’s just words spread across a computer screen, but somehow it seems like a force to be revered and followed. Then there’s the god called “the students”. “Oh please, students”, I almost say to myself, “grant me the respect and reverence necessary to know how to be a good teacher today.” It’s as if the students have the power to provide me with success or failure, either a triumphant day of teaching or a catastrophe. If they agree to be alert and whole-hearted scholars, I win; if not, I lose.  It’s a little silly, really, this reliance on powers that have no more power than passing thoughts. The universe flows along through its light-years with no help from my miscellaneous gods, and I need to remember that I’m part of that free-flowing power. All I must to do to be a good teacher is trust the forces that flow through and around me, make a good plan, and praise each of the countless, short-lived, and exceptional moments.

HELLO

"Hello," he heard,
and then a happy sparrow
sang some old song,
and a stretch of grass
gave a shout as a breeze
blew across it,
and six clouds came together
and created something handsome
above his head.

He held up his little life,
looked at it,
and let it blow off
in a brand new breeze.

MAKING FRIENDS WITH SPEED

Make friends with speed.”

     --- Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2

     

     I don’t usually push for speed in my classes, but there is a place for it, for sure. My students and I need the kind of friendly speed that comes from a feeling of confidence, a feeling of being bold readers and writers who can race among written words the way winds race effortlessly among miles of trees.  Making ourselves into swift thinkers is the first step, and from there we become the kind of brash writers who want their words to take off across the computer screen like sleek horses, and who want to sprint through the pages of books like runners in a festive race.  We learn to love the light-heartedness that comes from doing something with both swiftness and affection.  This doesn’t mean that I want my students to write and read in reckless ways. Written words are sacred things, but sacred in the same way that open roads are sacred to runners. I sometimes want my students to sense the same high-spiritedness as they read and write that runners feel when they find themselves free and comfortable in the midst of a long run.  I want them to feel as fortunate when they’re reading and writing as bicyclists feel when they follow each other in fast-paced lines on clear and limitless roads. There’s a joy in speed that all of us know, and there’s almost nothing like the happiness of seeing your written words race out ahead of you, or feeling the flow of ideas as you dash through the sentences of a story.  

TWO POWERS

     I was raised to respect the power of my will, but I’ve learned it can produce problems as well as successes, especially in the classroom. I have sometimes shoved my way through whole school days, determined to do what my willpower wanted to do. On those days I wasted no time taking advice from intuitions, instincts, hunches, or short-lived feelings, for I knew what needed to be done, and I did it. My will power was the trailblazer. It told me I could take on any task, and that whatever I did – and did well and with a strong will -- would do some good for the students. Over the past years, though, I have learned of a different and superior power – the power, you might say, of simply stepping back. I have learned to stay silent more often and just listen to the little ideas that don’t shout like willpower, but quietly call out useful and sometimes surprising suggestions. It’s like sailing, perhaps, when you stop struggling with the wind and just settle back and see where it takes you. There’s a wind that works like that in teaching, but I have to tell my willpower to wait in the corner in order to see where this wind wants to go.  

SHY RAIN

The rain was shy,
with nothing to say
but some splashes
on the stones beside the school.
It came quietly,
like it was looking
to pass by quickly
with no one noticing.
He never knew rain
would worry about being seen,
or that clouds, maybe,
would make themselves small
so someone outside in spring
would see the sunshine
instead of the clouds,
and the clouds could carry on
with their journeys
in silence and solitude.
He, too, was shy,
just seeking to blend
with the background,
so he understood the ways
of this bashful shower
as it sought to escape
and just be itself
in the woods
beyond the school.

I EAT, I BREATHE, I TEACH

(First posted on October 20, 2005; revised on May 15, 2012)
   

   I found yesterday's classes very satisfying. What happened in the classes fulfilled every expectation I had. I had mentally prepared myself for an inspiring experience, and thus when the classes began, I was fully expecting them to be harmonious and fruitful -- and they were. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because I was anticipating good things happening, they happened. The classes were satisfying because they fulfilled an abiding desire of mine to be involved in excellent teaching and learning. I have many desires in life, but none greater than that. I yearn to teach classes that are thoroughly stimulating and profoundly instructive, and my classes today came close to meeting those criteria. They also answered a essential need of mine. I don't just want to be a good teacher; I need to be one. I need food and water to keep me alive, and I need teaching. My heart beats, my blood courses along, I breathe in and out, and I teach. At this point in my life, they all seem equally important to me. Yesterday's superb classes were as beneficial for me as breathing in fresh air.

STRAIGHT

He wants to stand straighter,
so he searches for things that are straight
to show him the way,
but surprisingly,
he finds very few.
The far-off clouds always curve
and lean over,
and most trees
make crookedness seem handsome.
The years have disfigured
some of the hills he sees, 
and even the streets
twist around in misshapen ways.
He guesses 
it's sometimes good
to be bent,
the way trees are
when they lean down
to look at the spring grass,
the way the wind is
when it tilts along a hill.


He'll keep his back
as straight as possible,
but he'll still have praise
for things that bend and bow.

WISE WORDS ON READING

     I will always be grateful to a physician at a local hospital for a visit he paid to my classroom a few years ago.  In his free time, he is a faithful reader, and he left us with some useful thoughts about reading. He told us, for instance, that he doesn’t “like” all of his patients, but that he tries to appreciate their worth as distinctive and special human beings, and he said the same is true of his reading. He doesn’t love every book he reads, but he does try to be thankful for their literary value and the common sense they may carry in their pages. I’ve often talked to my students about that very difference between liking and appreciating, so I silently celebrated when he said that. He also said that, to him, life is like an endless hallway with a limitless number of doors leading off from it. He said that when he reads a book, he opens one of the doors, which in turn leads to countless other doors, which lead to more and more doors. He told us we can’t possibly open all the doors in this hallway, but we must remember that each book we read leads to a never-ending number of discoveries. Each book is the beginning of a new life of revelation and recognition. Finally, he said that, when we read, we must try to make the book “ours”. Until we get completely “into” the book and truly make it our own, it remains just a scattering of words on pages. If we make it ours -- by annotating it, taking notes in a journal, talking to other people about it, or just reading it with responsibility and passion -- book after book can bring our lives to completely new places.

LISTENING

He heard
his mighty heart
holding itself steady
in his chest.
He heard a tree
telling its story to a storm,
and the tires of cars
singing the songs of open roads.
When we walked,
he heard coins calling out in his pocket.
He heard heaven
quietly opening its doors
every moment of his day.
He heard happiness
sailing in his bloodstream
like the softest boats.

TIES OF GLADNESS

Each school day morning for the past many years, I have tied a brightly colored bow tie around my neck, knowing, I guess, that gladness sometimes goes along with color. I can come to my classes scowling or smiling, and since smiling makes more sense to me, I choose ties that might generate some joy – mine and maybe my students. I show I’m glad by the ties I wear – glad to be a teacher, glad to be teaching these certain and singular students, glad to be alive. Somewhere in the Bible St. Paul says we should put on the armor of God, but I also believe in the armor of bright bow ties. Being a teacher brings me into contact with the countless emissaries of discouragement and pessimism, but my lively ties look them in the eye and laugh. My ties tell my students I’m more interested in being joyful than miserable, more willing to whistle and sing than moan and groan. Kids get their fill of fear and distrust these days; I want to show them what poise and self-assurance looks like, and sometimes a brightly striped tie can do that.

A SINGLE FLOWING FORCE

     No real music ever comes from my classroom, but there’s always the harmony of thoughts that seem to have the mysterious skill of appreciating and assisting each other. The thoughts my students and I think in a certain class period may show no superior wisdom – may, in fact, appear ordinary and undistinguished – but they always seem to mix and mingle in useful ways. They’re like the currents that carry rivers along, each one a separate stream yet each a part of the powerful river itself. I always sense this harmony in our thinking – this intermingling of thoughts into a thoroughly unified flow of intelligence. This may sound strange, even naïve and somewhat ridiculous, especially considering the differences among us as we sit in my classroom, but my years as a teacher have carried me to the conviction that thoughts – those supremely powerful forces of life – like to live together in agreement more than in argument. My students and I make countless thoughts in each of my classes, and under the surface of seeming confusion I sense an almost melodious stream of wisdom. I can almost hear it sometimes -- a musical movement of ideas that would rather flow together than fight. I sometimes sit back in my chair and listen as the thoughts of the students surge along in a discussion. It’s like sitting beside a stream and seeing, not various currents working against each other, but a single flowing force heading somewhere in harmony.  

WAITING

He was waiting

for the computer to boot up,

but he was also waiting

for wide-open ideas,

and for the wildness

of letting in

whatever ideas come.

The computer will come alive

when it wants to,

but ideas bring their insights

second by second,

and he needs to know

how to hold the doors open

and help them come in.

Ideas don’t stay

unless we welcome them,

so his arms are always open,

even as the computer

is calling his name

with its promising wisdom.