SETTING OUR THOUGHTS FREE

Strange to say, but teaching is a lot about taking off chains and unlocking locks. It’s not so much about me making learning happen, but all of us – teacher and students – setting ourselves free from self-imposed restrictions. It’s as if we walk into the classroom confined in mental cages, and the correct task of each of us is to simply open our doors. Seen in this way, learning is a little work and a lot of delight. We might say it’s as satisfying as seeing prisoners set free. Over the years of our lives, my young students and I have found ways to confine our thoughts in close-fitting forms, and my classroom should be the place where freedom is found – where thoughts can frolic instead of falling back into their plain, customary patterns. Room 2 should be a stronghold of liberated thinking, a refuge for free thinkers.  There’s enough captivity in the world without creating more in my classroom. A sign on my door should say, “Enter, and set your thoughts free.”

A DAY FOR DARING

One day,
he didn't do what was on his list,
didn't go by the guidelines,
didn't follow the right road.
It was a day for daring.
The clouds cared little for rules,
the trees tried new tricks
with the wind, and
whatever came to his mind
moved like reckless things,
like fish finding new rivers,
like stars circling
in fresh patterns.

THIS YEAR

This school year, as usual, has been a year of contraries. I’m sure I have learned as much as my students have learned, and I’m just as sure I have failed as often as they have. I have flourished and diminished, seen failures and success, shown stubbornness and courage, deserved criticism and praise, endured difficulty and triumph. I have observed and pondered and wondered and worried. It’s been a year of greatness on some days and tedious dullness on others. The sunshine of inspiration has been bright on the best days, and done and gone on the worst days. It’s been a year like a little universe: whole galaxies of fresh ideas side by side with clusters of the silliest mistakes imaginable.  

A WORLD MADE FOR TEACHERS

During class, I sometimes find myself fretting because I’m missing something special in my lesson plan, but usually I settle down fairly quickly when I remember that everything is special, and at all times, and all I have to do is make use of the “specialness” that’s all around us in the classroom. For instance, if, in the midst of what I thought was a well-planned lesson on Romeo and Juliet, a drowsy lassitude lets itself down among the students, I can make use of the always-special look of the sunshine on the windows. “Shakespeare’s like the light on the windows,” I can say. “His lines are not always intense and spectacular, but there’s always light among the words, like this ever-present sunshine on these windows. Let’s look for the light.” Or, if a lesson on commas comes to a tiresome standstill, I can perhaps point to the spaces between each student and say the spaces are like commas, places where I pause to notice the individuality of students in a classroom or phrases in a sentence. The world itself is made just for teachers – not just the world of my sometimes insufficient lesson plans, but the wide world of windows and spaces and carpets and cups of coffee on the teacher’s desk. If I use the world to work some occasional wizardry in my classes, I’m just making use of what’s freely offered in Room 2, moment by special moment.

WHAT HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND

He overheard someone at school say,
"There's something you don't understand,"
and he said to himself, "Of course,
because there are trees
that turn in mystifying ways,
and clouds that come from nowhere,
and new ideas that don't seem
to ever actually start or stop,
and present moments like puzzles
with secret solutions."

He said there's a lot he doesn't understand,
and it's getting worse
and more inspiring
at the same time.

REMEMBERING WHO I AM

“Comfort, my liege; remember who you are.”

     -- Shakespeare, Richard II

     When troubles take hold in my classroom – small failures in the lesson, some ill-timed levity, hesitancy and unassertiveness in some of us – I just try to pause and remember who I am. I often get lost in the pretend performance called “Mr. Salsich, Superteacher”, and it’s a pleasure to pull out of it and recall that, really, I’m simply a piece in an endless and pleasing puzzle called learning. The process of education is as boundless as the sea or sky, and just as inscrutable, and I am lucky to be a part of it, a small wave or a far-away star that’s barely seen. The burden of teaching is not on me but on the wisdom the universe bestows second by second, like breezes constantly blowing whether I wish them to or not.  I often get discouraged in my teaching because I bring a wrong understanding of who or what does the work. Do I get down if dawn today turns dreary, or if winds are from the west instead of the east? Do I fret and feel diffident if my pulse rate is 64 instead of 66? Of course not, since I know that forces far more powerful than me are moving all things in just the best ways and toward flawless destinations. I just show up in the classroom the way I awaken in the morning: behold, at 4:30 a.m., there’s my blood rolling through my body, as always, and at 8:45 a.m., there’s learning letting itself be free among my students, as always. I don’t do the teaching any more than I do the shining or shadowing on a sunny day. The sun is the sole bringer of any brightness across the earth, and an inexplicable and everlasting force called education does all the duties in Room 2. I am, fortuitously, simply a witness to this force, a partaker of it, a piece of something that started back when the sun first started shining.  

A MINUTE

He wonders how far the earth
speeds through space in one minute,
or how many leaves sprout
in the trees in his yard,
or how many thoughts
the human race thinks.
Once he watched a second hand turn
for a full minute
while the sun made explosions
in some trees. Another time
he focused on a single shining idea
for sixty seconds,
and the idea
didn't stop shining,
and still doesn't.

A MESS

One day there was a thought
that tasted like honey,
and another that tasted
like peas with sweet butter
spread across them.
Then a thought presented itself
like a plate of pasta
with a zesty sauce,
followed by a thought
that sent up aromas
of the best strawberries.
He grew confused.
The thoughts were strewed across
the table of his mind,
a mess, for sure,
but a serene sort of mess,
since all the thoughts
were just where they must be.

CARING

Yesterday was a special day of teaching for me, and it was all about caring. I cared for my students in the sense that I was observant in my teaching in order to, above all, do no damage. We say we should hold a crystal bowl with care, and that is precisely the way I approached my teaching yesterday. I had 38 crystal bowls entrusted to my safekeeping, and I tried my best to treat them with consideration and understanding. I also tried to treat them with attentiveness, the way a painter might care for the window frames and sashes he is painting. He would paint with the finest care because he wants to bring out the beauty of the windows, and yesterday I taught with the same kind of care and for the same kind of reason. Like all of us, my students are people of remarkable inner beauty, and my job is to bring that beauty out through good-natured but vigorous persuasion. I used this kind of coaxing yesterday in dealing with unforeseen situations, just as physicians and nurses give emergency care when it is needed. I usually don't have dire physical emergencies in my room, but yesterday, as always, there were small, concealed crises of the interior kind -- a student's fear of being called on, for instance -- and I was ready to give faithful care to the kids when these situations arose. Often it just takes a warmhearted word from me to disperse the fears a student might be feeling. The emergency room doctor dispenses medicine, whereas yesterday, I simply dispensed kindness.

UTTER ASTONISHMENT

     I realized this morning that the only appropriate attitude for me at school today is sheer and constant surprise. I should go through my classes in a stupor of astonishment. I should feel like I’m sailing instead of standing. Students should be concerned about me, saying things like, “I’m worried about Mr. Salsich. He has this rapturous smile on his face, as though he’s in some sort of paradise.” Well, why shouldn't I smile, existing, as I do, in a universe that's  a staggering success, a universe in which there's no struggle or discord, ever, because there's never any "two-ness" to cause conflict, always just the restfulness of one-ness. This statement contains more wonder than I can comprehend: a universe without conflict, a universe that's totally and constantly harmonious, a universe that’s always as peaceful as the softest spring breeze. Of course, it doesn't appear that way, but neither does the earth appear to be rising and setting around the sun. Struggle seems to be everywhere, but so do train tracks seem to meet in the distance. The simple fact is that this universe is a seamless, smooth-working spectacle where all is precisely as it should be. This is what I am a part of today. This is where I will live, moment after moment. It’s as if I am the heir of a kingdom of measureless riches – a teacher who has absolutely no worries in the classroom, no fears, no insecurities, because he always has everything he needs. Life with its limitless wonders is totally present in Room 2 -- totally one and totally in tune.
      If you see me today, you'll probably see a a smile and a steady look of pleasant surprise.  
     

THERE WAS RAIN

There was rain,
and then there was winter
that wouldn't leave,
and then there was snow
in his thoughts,
snow that spread
so his life looked lovable,
and he let out his arms
like light wings
and lifted away from the school,
and the students looked up
and shouted,
"Stay with us, Mr. Salsich.
We need to know
about base clauses
and balance in sentences!" --
but he cruised across a cloud
and was seen no more.

WAKING UP

     Occasionally I softly scold my students with “Come on, folks, let’s wake up”, and just as often I say something similar to myself. There’s a strange drowsiness that settles upon me sometimes when I’m teaching, as though I’m half-asleep even while walking around the classroom, even while carrying out the particulars of a lesson. I can be bringing to light, for the students, the usefulness of participles in essays, and yet be slowly slipping across the borders of sleep.  It’s not a literal sleepiness, but a sleepiness of the soul – the kind of lassitude that makes it possible to perform duties without knowing why or what it all means. It’s similar, in some ways, to walking in a wilderness simply to see the end of the trail, all the while disregarding the beauties before my eyes. I teach in a small shangri-la called Room 2 – a place where work, to me, is more wonderful than play. My students and I share in the wealth of the world in our hearts and minds, and we make small miracles with the many thoughts and feelings that unfold within us in every class. What I want to do each day is be wide-awake to this glory and greatness that’s so freely given in my unremarkable, commonplace classroom.

BEHOLDING

I used to love the old Bible translations that used the word “behold”, and I still think of it sometimes when I’m working with my students. When we "behold" something -- at least, this is how I think of the word -- we step back in astonishment, and when we ask someone to behold, we’re asking for full attention to something that might be amazing. We don’t behold in a laidback way; when we behold, our customary routines come to a stop and something in our lives suddenly looks miraculous. Thinking of the word in this way, when I’m teaching I should almost always be “beholding”, since what I’m surrounded by are miracles. Each of us – students and teacher -- shares in the miraculous spectacle of life as we breathe in and out and bring our best ideas to birth. The blood in our bodies is refreshed each second of class, and fresh cells are formed moment by moment. Even the sunshine outside the windows is something to behold as it brightens and dims and transforms itself during class. As I’m teaching, what I should say – or shout -- to myself as often as possible is “Behold!” I should insist that I sometimes stop my incessant bustle and simply appreciate the wonders around me in my commonplace classroom. It might make me stand in complete surprise for a second or two.   

WRITING A POEM AT SCHOOL

There were voices in the next room,
and across the lacrosse field
there were yells,
and a plane was passing over
in the soothing sky,
and his fingers were clicking
on the keyboard,
calling for feelings to come forth
and follow each other
across the computer screen.

It was a time of triumph --
for the youthful voices,
and the unperturbed plane,
and his carefree, hopeful fingers.

THE KEEPER OF KEYS

In my work as a teacher, I sometimes see myself as a keeper of thousands of keys that can unlock learning of all kinds for my students. I see the keys hanging in bunches from my belt as I make my way among the kids, calling out the names of different doors they can open with the assistance of my keys. The classroom, in this vision, is a place of countless doors to lands of good learning, and I hold the keys to all of them. When I’m seeing teaching like this, a  48-minute class period is composed of continuous unfastening and swinging open and seeing truths the students have never seen before.  Of course, my work is not always as fairy-tale-like as this, but there’s some truth in the keeper-of-keys scenario. School is, or should be, a land of never-ending doors, all of which can be swung open with a simple turn of a key, and a good teacher takes a truckload of them into every class.  There’s no magic in it, really. The keys are made of the modest confidence that we, as teachers, can take students to truths they’ve never seen, to places of the mind and heart where wisdom is waiting. If we are both self-effacing and solicitous in our work with students, we will surely see new doors day after day, and will happily do the work of unlocking and letting them open for all of us.      

DUST

He saw the dust the mower made,
and it made him see the dust
of his own thoughts
as they pass across his life.
The dust outside swirled away,
like his thoughts that morning
had moved along his mind
and vanished forever.
He hoped to find
a few of those thoughts,
but he knew
you never find dust
once it disappears --
the dust from spring grass
or the dust from thoughts
let loose in your life.

ALWAYS WITH ME

There are times in the classroom when all my get-up-and-go seems to have gone, times when only little ideas are coming and all creativity has long since left. These are times when, try as I might, I can’t make heads or tail of this whole teaching business. It’s like a bright light has been dimmed down to almost darkness, and there I am, thinking the most meager thoughts and hoping for a fast end to the class period. Those are thoroughly discouraging times, but the bright side is that, almost always, the understanding returns to me that what I need – the power to produce refreshing ideas -- is actually always with me. Just as water is always waiting inside a faucet, so are stimulating thoughts standing ready to support and inspire me whenever I ask. My mind may sometimes seem blank as I stand before the students, but that’s like saying the mighty Mississippi has no water, or the sky has lost its air. All I have to do is settle myself down and see, once again, the great gathering of ideas inside me, the crowds of earnest and useful thoughts that only need my acceptance to start their wonderful work.

HIGHER POWERS

     In A.A. groups, members speak of “higher powers” – forces that are somehow larger than our own lives and that can care for us in ways beyond our limited abilities -- and I sometimes sense a similar power at work in my classroom. There’s only so much I can make happen in my teaching -- I with my relatively limited years of study and practice, and with a mind that often makes more confusion for myself than clearness. I stumble in my teaching at least as often as I triumph, and my many mistakes each day definitely don’t make me feel like an all-triumphant teacher. I take help wherever I can find it, and I often find it in a place that I can’t exactly put my finger on. Perhaps it’s the same interior place where people get comfort when life crashes in front of them, or where wisdom arises when we need it most. Maybe it’s the place where ideas first develop, especially the ideas that hold us up and help us see the light in times of enduring darkness. When I’m wandering around in a lesson, looking for ways to work at least some small magic on my students, I sometimes slow down, stop, and simply listen to my thoughts – and usually some of them start seeming stronger than anything I could make by myself. Some of them, it seems, were sent from somewhere I’ve never seen – from a power that sometimes finds me in the classroom when I can scarcely find myself.

STANDING IN SUNSHINE

A tree was standing in sunshine,
but it didn't do anything,
didn't bow and bend,
didn't dance or shake in happiness,
didn't seem any better
than trees in the shadow of clouds.
A flower was also standing close by,
not behaving in a special way,
not being any more beautiful
because it was springing up
in a limitless kind of sunshine
that was sprawled across
miles and miles of land --
sunshine that was wishing the best
to rivers and hills and towns
and to us,
to all of us
who stand in its brilliance
and are as bright
as we always are,
whether in sunshine or darkness.

THIS IS THE WAY

When I’m teaching, I often wonder what is the best way to go in the lesson, what is the appropriate next step, and sometimes I have to trust simple intuitiveness. It seems there’s a sensitivity inside all of us that instinctively understands situations and suggests what we should do, and I have learned to let it have its way, to let it lead. I often look in articles and books for bright ideas about teaching, but the best ones seem to whisper to me from inside. It’s impossible to describe, except to say there’s something in the heart that has the truth and tells it simply and unmistakably. I can’t count the number of times I have taught a lesson and utterly lost my way, when a voice inside said precisely what I needed to know, and I never looked back. It has brought me the ease and assurance all teachers try to find, the self-confidence that says the best ideas are always being born inside us. It’s like living beside a springing source of useful thoughts, and all I have to do is hold out my hands. The right way in the classroom is always right ahead of me, if only I make use of the free and easy wisdom that’s rightfully all of ours.  

 

WALTZING AND SPRINGING

He was sitting with his thoughts,

but his thoughts kept throwing themselves

around the room

and out the windows

to the winsome springtime air.

It was troublesome to try to control

those undisciplined thoughts,

the way they wandered wherever they wished

and thought whatever

they felt like thinking.

He soon found himself surrendering

and then starting to toss himself around,

just like his thoughts.

His little house lightened up

and let the roof float off,

and then the walls went away,

and there he was,

under the sky,

waltzing and springing

with his disorderly, adorable thoughts.

THE KINGDOM OF ROOM 2

     As a boy, I treasured the stories that spoke of kingdoms of various kinds, and, incredibly, it turns out that I’ve lived in a thoroughly enchanting kingdom for the past 34 years. My classroom is a conventional one, a small, plain space with tables and chairs, and yet it occasionally lends a feeling, for me, of something surprising and very special. The windows are simply windows, and yet, in daydreams, they sometimes seem like windows in a castle where wizardry regularly occurs. All we do in class is talk of literature and the tools of writing, and yet our words work, for me at least, a strange and superior magic. The princes and princesses in this kingdom are the valiant students who, like knights, endure the trials and tests set up by the age-old, wrinkled king, who, lucky for me, is me. Each day there are rituals which require the students to show their mettle and might, and in each class the king gets to care for his knights in new and honorable ways. There are honors bestowed and gifts given, and sometimes ovations and acclaims are heard coming from the room. It’s just a simple space, just a classroom on a country road in Connecticut, but it’s the kingdom I've counted myself lucky to come to for many, many mornings.

PERFECTION

     I have always been taught that trying to be a “perfect” teacher is a prescription for disillusionment, but in the last few years I have come to see it as the road to understanding the real nature of my work. It seems clear to me now that perfection is everywhere, including my classroom. It’s the foundation of everything, the start and finish, the final and irrefutable fact. This moment, this sentence I’m setting down, the words I will speak to my students today, the thoughts the kids will think during class – all is perfection, precision, accomplishment, and excellence. Of course, this completely opposes the widespread belief that perfection is nowhere, is never possible, is nothing but a dream – but still, I stand by my belief in it. I guess it’s a question, for me, of simple humility. Who am I, after all, to pass judgment on the various defects of this or that?  Where do I get the authority and expertise to say that this moment is defective, or that what a student said today is slightly off base, or that what happened in my classroom yesterday was a misfortune? Do I have the universal perspective necessary to say, for certain, that any particular moment is a mistake?  In fact, do I possess the comprehensive wisdom to pass judgment about the inadequacy of anything? Since my answer to the last two questions has become a simple No, I have stopped searching for flaws and failures, and have started accepting the simple rightness, or perfection, of whatever happens. This doesn’t mean I always like what happens – just that I understand that it is what is, and therefore is whole and unblemished just as it is. I believe this somewhat simple view of reality – a view that makes the best sense to me – has made me a better teacher. I now see the correctness in the commonplace things in my classroom – the way a certain student slurs his words, the curious analysis a girl gives when discussing a story, the peaceful feeling of following a student’s words as he describes his ideas. What happens in my classroom is not always what I want, but it seems to me it’s what the Universe wants – and so it needs to be not only accepted but embraced.  I may not always give students A’s on their essays and tests, but they always get A’s from me for the plain and simple suitability of their lives, just as they are. 
 

SWIVELING

His chair at school swivels,
and so does happiness
as it looks in all directions
and dares depression
to say its name.
No one is out of sight
of happiness
as it holds steady
and swings around
to see who needs it,
who's lost in sorrow,
who thinks she's seen
the last of happiness.

He swivels in his smooth chair
and sees happiness
in good health
going round and round
with its gifts.

EXTRAORDINARY DAYS

There are days in the classroom when even a white piece of paper seems polished with light, when even the smallest blossom outside shines with an unusual strength. Admittedly, this doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it tells me again what a gift I’ve received by being a teacher. Somehow I was shown, 45 years ago, that I would find a fortunate kind of life if I followed the path of an educator, but nothing prepared me for the everyday satisfaction I’ve experienced. Almost all my days in the classroom have been like choosing cheerfulness and comfort as a way of life, but there are those extra-special days when my teaching world seems suffused with an even more intense rareness. Just yesterday, a boy who usually brings only silence and moodiness to class actually carried the discussion along for a length of time. His face was bright with his wish to share his insights about some lines from Shakespeare. Even his gray shirt seemed strangely pressed and fresh as he spoke, and I remember noticing that the pictures on the wall where he sat stood out like spanking new ones. It was a moment like a little miracle, and it made me grateful, once again, that I am given this good life over and over, year after year after year. 

CLARITY

The windows weren't clear,
but, in a way, the whole world was.
He wondered about things,
and his wondering
was as lucid as the light-blue sky,
and his feelings seemed to shine
as if an artist
had just fashioned them.
He thought of the throwing of balls
by kids across the country,
and knew it was
simple and straightforward,
as was the standing up of skyscrapers
and the elegance of kindness
as it carries itself among us.

He stood beside the soiled windows,
and his standing there
seemed to burnish
this already bright world.

FRESH RUNNING WATERS

“… the fresh running waters of his mind’s fountain.”

          -- Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

"The Mystic River", oil, by Roxane Steed

     The above quote, which I came across yesterday after several freshly-flowing classes with my students, showed me once again why I feel so fortunate to be a teacher. You can try to find a vocation that feels more like living in the midst of the refreshing waters of healthy thoughts, but I doubt you will be successful. My students and I share ideas all day the way a river shares its countless drops and streams of water. We don’t so much sit in the classroom as flow, all our thoughts and feelings coursing and surging along for 48 minutes per class. Of course, the mystery -- the puzzle that never ceases to astonish me --  is that there sometimes seems to be no flow at all, as though all streams have stopped in stillness and slumber. A class of kids can quietly convince a teacher that trying to teach them is about as useless as trying to teach tables or empty boxes. I’ve sat among students who appear more like motionless stones in rivers than the rivers themselves. This, though, is just the usual illusion that fools so many of us teachers – that makes us miss the mighty flow of feelings and thoughts that’s always present when kids come together. Under the sometimes sleepy surface of English class, my students are streaming along with their always lively minds and hearts. Rivers of youthful thoughts are rolling along, even when my carefully planned lesson, say, on the life of Charles Dickens, is slowly dying away in dullness.

STAYING

"We're leaving",
he heard someone say,
but then he saw the sunshine
steering its graceful ship,
and the thoughts of friends
flowing across the field,
and the cares of someone he loved
lingering in the shade,
seeking his help.
Someone was leaving,
but he let the world
walk toward him
with its hands stretched out,
and he took them.

DOING NO HARM

“If he did not do much active good, he never did any harm.”

     -- Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

     It seems to me, more and more, that doing no harm should be the highest aspiration of a teacher. I sometimes see myself, when I’m teaching, as someone sitting beside a smoothly-moving, constantly shifting stream – and the last thing I want to do is step in and try to alter its course. The rivers of my students’ lives are flowing with a wonderful steadiness and inventiveness, and who am I to suppose I can enhance them? Can I make mountains be more majestic? Can I shift the winds from the east to the west? I sometimes wonder at the presumption of we teachers, supposing we can transform children’s lives, when it is no more possible than transforming the way caterpillars become butterflies. It would be a better approach to praise, at least to ourselves, the utter rightness of the students’ lives, the absolute appropriateness of each of them as they sit before me in class. Then, having embraced their intrinsic excellence, perhaps I can help them discover it for themselves.

WRITING WHILE STANDING

His feet felt fine,
holding him steady
as he showed his words
where they should place themselves
on the screen. He was not scared
of writing silly or stupid things,
or of finding strange truths
shining in his sentences,
or of seeing stars
and planets spiraling
among the words.
He was only afraid
his feet would feel left out
of the writing,
of the sunshine his sentences
might spread around
while his feet
just kept keeping him stable.