A SINGLE LIGHT

"East End Sunlight", oil, by Cooper Dragonette

Some birds I noticed yesterday
were building mansions
made of sticks and leaves,
and little rivers of happiness
were passing among them.
They were pointing toward pleasure
with their beaks,
and breaking sorrow into pieces
in the summer sky.

A single light shines
inside this universe
which knows no boundaries,
just like the joyfulness
of these birds.

THE ADVANTAGES OF FOLLOWING

This morning on the way to school, when I fell in behind a steady, seemingly safe driver and stayed with him for nearly thirty minutes, it brought to mind the occasional advantages of following, both on the interstate and in my classes. Staying behind this driver today made it easy for me to relax and enjoy the drive, just as following my directions on an assignment may allow my students to loosen up somewhat and perhaps actually get some pleasure from an assignment. If they’re following me on the path I set out for them, the writing or reading could resemble a leisurely trip down the highway for them – turning, so to speak, when I turn, braking when I brake, and sitting back and settling in for a reasonably stress-free journey. Does it mean the students can’t be as creative as they might, since they’re following me instead of striking out on their own special writing and reading roads? Well, perhaps, but isn’t efficiency just as important as creativity? Isn’t getting a job done smoothly and correctly as valuable as getting it done with zest and gusto?

THE POWER OF SUNSHINE -- AND UNDERSTANDING

Last week, after days of steady rain, revitalizing sunshine swept across the countryside one morning and made me think about the brightening that happens in my classes when understanding suddenly comes to us. We might say quite casually, “Oh now I understand”, but those words don’t come close to capturing what happens when some kind of realization all of a sudden presents itself to us. It is, in fact, a fully transformative experience, sort of as comprehensive as what happens when sunlight lets itself loose after showery days. Even something as seemingly small as finally seeing the sense in a passage from Julius Caesar can remake a student’s inner life as thoroughly as a day of the best sunshine. It’s that “aha” moment, that instant when understanding remakes our minds like breezes remake my backyard’s air. One undersized but spanking new thought can do it, just something as simple as an insight into one sentence in A Tale of Two Cities. One moment you’re Jimmy Smith or Mr. Salsich, and the next moment you’re a thoroughly new and vivid Jimmy Smith or Mr. Salsich, someone the world, for its benefit, needs to know.

SEEING THE WIDE OPEN SPACES

When I’m teaching, I sometimes purposely see in my mind the far-flung plains of Kansas, for it makes a good reminder for me to take the widest possible view of the vast spaces presented to my students and me during class. Since it’s all too easy to see myself and the students as prisoners in a confined space called "9th grade English", struggling with countless small, restricted academic tasks, my imagined scene in Kansas (where I studied for several years) spreads it all out so I can see the enormous scope of what we’re actually dealing with in English class. Like the rolling, seemingly endless swells of the prairie, limitless works of literature and innumerable ways of writing words and sentences make up the landscape of our work. If we discussed the meaning of Julius Caesar forever, would we even come close to the final limits of the subject and a satisfying finish, or can anyone possibly count the numbers of ways a distinguished sentence can be composed? Truly, in the middle of teaching a class, I sometimes feel like I’m lost in the center of a never-ending Kansas, which, if it weren’t so stimulating and inspiring, could be a rather alarming feeling.

“THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I HAVE NO COMPLAINTS.”

 When I heard recently about someone who died with these last words, it occurred to me, somewhat unexpectedly, that I could probably say them at the end of almost every English class. In fact, I do try to say thanks to the kids as they leave the classroom, since they all bring remarkable gifts to class each day. Some bring newborn wisdom won from other classes or video games or books or movies or small talk with friends, while others simply bring their special behavior, be it stillness or noisiness, openhandedness or restraint, confidence or timidity. Some, of course, bring occasional discourtesy, but even that is a gift we benefit from as we promptly bring their incivility around again to graciousness and learn a good lesson. I could also say “I have no complaints” at the end of any class, because, honestly, what is there to complain about in working with flourishing, audacious, and essentially kindhearted kids? Certainly there are mistakes and disappointments in every class, but that’s no worse than sunny skies turning temporarily cloudy or a stream swerving one way around a rock instead of another. Who can complain about the way waves wash onto a beautiful beach on different days, or about the strange and astonishing occurrences in a class of teenagers? It’s totally clear to me that this life -- and this work of teaching -- deserve way more gratitude than grumbling.

EVERYTHING IS CONTINGENT

I often fall into the odd belief that what I accomplish in the classroom is dependent only on me, forgetting the wonderful fact that everything in the universe depends on everything else. Every sentence I say to the students, every glance and gesture and shift of my arms, comes about because countless other things came about. Even in the minutes preceding any class, dozens of miniscule events occur that can cause what happens in the class to alter ever so slightly. A sip of fine coffee coupled with some strange, accidental thoughts and a few words from a friend as the students enter could shift my lesson a shade this way or that. It’s actually somewhat uncanny to consider the innumerable numbers of occurrences that lead up to every event in one of my classes. Any words I speak in class wouldn’t have occurred to me if some event called A hadn’t happened, and A wouldn’t have happened if B and C hadn’t happened, and B and C wouldn’t have happened if D, E, F, G, and H hadn’t happened … and on and on back to who knows where. The fact is that everything’s contingent on everything else. I would have no chance of being a good teacher today if a few zillion things hadn’t occurred in precisely the correct way – including my mom falling in love with Pete Salsich, the doctor delivering me successfully, the sun shining a certain way on some day in ’67, the egg-whites and blueberry bagel this morning making a flawless breakfast -- all of which reveals teaching as the irrepressible, chancy, and exhilarating enterprise it truly is.

THE BENEFITS OF YIELDING

As I make my long daily drive to school on the interstate, I often have to swing to the outside lane to let a driver enter the highway, and this morning it made me think of the satisfaction that yielding can bring in English class. One dictionary includes “give something up” in the definition of the word, and I, for one, must give up many things during class if I’m doing my work well. I sometimes have to give up my own esteemed ideas as I listen to the students share theirs. No matter how basic and unsophisticated they might seem, the students’ ideas have just as much right to “the road” as mine do, and I must be ready to graciously yield and let their thoughts come along beside my own. After all, we’re all hopefully traveling toward the same destination -- the truth -- so why not surrender some space in the discussion to their perhaps ill-considered but often thought-provoking ideas? Of course, the same applies to the students as well. I insist on the importance of yielding as they discuss a topic among themselves. A discussion is not a contest to see who’s superior, nor is it a free-for-all to find which student is the fastest and loudest talker. A classroom discussion, like a drive on the highway, should be simply a satisfying effort to both get somewhere and enjoy the journey, which means all participants must be willing to sometimes wait, slow down, listen, and possibly yield. For both my students and me, yielding makes for a far more elevating experience than just pressing forward and hard-driving our own ideas and disregarding others who, like cars, seek to merge into the flow.

PRAISE FOR EVERYTHING

Now and then there is talk among teachers about pulling back praise, about saving it for only the most special occasions, but I tend to think in a different way, that we actually should be giving praise more often. Praise might be said to be the expression of respect or gratitude toward someone, and shouldn’t I always respect and be grateful for my students? I don’t have to always like the way they behave in class or carry out their English duties, but my respect for them as distinct human beings, and my gratitude toward them for being precisely who they are, should never waver. I can give a student a failing grade because she made a mess of an assignment, but at the same time  carry praise in my heart for her secret and sometimes startling uniqueness. I can berate a boy for his silly behavior, but still be grateful that such a disquieting and interesting student is in my class. Even a lesson that collapses in boredom and puzzlement deserves some praise, for how else can I learn but through my own errors and breakdowns? Truly, don’t we learn best by being broken and then mended and renovated? Don’t even our occasional classroom disasters deserve some praise?

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.