STEADY, AND SOMETIMES STAGGERING
In these uneasy economic times, many people are worried about whether their supply of money will be sufficient to carry them through, but all of us – including my young students – can rest in the guarantee that our supply of good ideas will always be more than ample. The scholars in my class may not have enough money to buy a rock concert ticket, but they can always get an adequate amount of ideas to write an intelligent essay. Money isn’t always ready and waiting to flow into their lives, but ideas, in a sense, are. Each of my students is at the receiving end of a pipeline from an infinite reservoir of thoughts, and the thoughts are always prepared to start flowing as soon as the student opens the pipeline. That’s all it takes. The students simply have to open a gate in their minds and let the brimful thoughts spill down into their lives, and into the essay. Students sometimes say they don’t have any good ideas for a specific essay, but that’s like saying there’s no water coming out of a tap that hasn’t been turned on. Of course there’s no water, and of course no ideas are evident if the students don’t realize they have to turn on the tap of their minds. It’s really a question of trust, of acceptance. The ideas are there, filled up full and all set to sustain and nurture my students. The kids just have to open the pipeline and accept them. If I can help them learn to do that, my students will find that the stream of ideas will be steady, and sometimes staggering.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
DEATH IN ENGLISH CLASS
A lot of death is evident now in the autumn trees in my part of the country (New England), and, surprising as it may sound, I hope a lot of another kind of death is evident in my English classes. While the multicolored leaves are floating down from the trees outside my classroom, old ideas of a wide variety are, I hope, dying and drifting away inside my students’ minds. Each week, I hope the floor of my student’s minds are littered with layers of old, crinkly, cast-off ideas, because how else can there be room for new ones? Leaves die to provide space and nutrition for new growth in the spring, and used-up, useless ideas must quietly die so that new thoughts can bud and blossom. It’s an old story in nature that the old must make room for the young, and the same is true for thoughts. And who knows, perhaps dying thoughts, in a way, are just as beautiful as the dying autumn leaves. The leaves show us their best beauty as they depart, and the "aged" thoughts of my adolescent students may also show some blaze and sparkle as they sail away during an English class discussion. I sometimes picture in my mind the dog-eared, dilapidated, but strangely colorful ideas floating away from the young people as new ideas arrive. I picture myself walking around the classroom, stepping lightly on the refuse of jettisoned teenage thoughts.
A lot of death is evident now in the autumn trees in my part of the country (New England), and, surprising as it may sound, I hope a lot of another kind of death is evident in my English classes. While the multicolored leaves are floating down from the trees outside my classroom, old ideas of a wide variety are, I hope, dying and drifting away inside my students’ minds. Each week, I hope the floor of my student’s minds are littered with layers of old, crinkly, cast-off ideas, because how else can there be room for new ones? Leaves die to provide space and nutrition for new growth in the spring, and used-up, useless ideas must quietly die so that new thoughts can bud and blossom. It’s an old story in nature that the old must make room for the young, and the same is true for thoughts. And who knows, perhaps dying thoughts, in a way, are just as beautiful as the dying autumn leaves. The leaves show us their best beauty as they depart, and the "aged" thoughts of my adolescent students may also show some blaze and sparkle as they sail away during an English class discussion. I sometimes picture in my mind the dog-eared, dilapidated, but strangely colorful ideas floating away from the young people as new ideas arrive. I picture myself walking around the classroom, stepping lightly on the refuse of jettisoned teenage thoughts.
YO-YO-ING AT FACULTY MEETINGS
I occasionally do a few tricks with my old yo-yo, and I sometimes feel like doing it during faculty meetings, especially those in which we pass judgment and set labels on kids. I’m fairly good at yo-yoing, but I have no skill in judging and pigeonholing people. Who am I, for heaven’s sake, to presume that I can analyze, classify, and label another human being? You may as well ask me to analyze the movements of the stars or paste a label on a cyclone. I can be fairly competent in describing student behavior, but not in branding that behavior, giving it a name, putting it in a category, placing an identifying sticker on it. I know what my students do, but I have no idea why they do it. It’s hard for me to sit in these meetings and pretend that I understand the inner-lives of kids who are as multifaceted as the solar system. Something I do understand is how yo-yos work, and one of these days my colleagues may see me rise from my seat and begin doing rock-the-cradles.
I occasionally do a few tricks with my old yo-yo, and I sometimes feel like doing it during faculty meetings, especially those in which we pass judgment and set labels on kids. I’m fairly good at yo-yoing, but I have no skill in judging and pigeonholing people. Who am I, for heaven’s sake, to presume that I can analyze, classify, and label another human being? You may as well ask me to analyze the movements of the stars or paste a label on a cyclone. I can be fairly competent in describing student behavior, but not in branding that behavior, giving it a name, putting it in a category, placing an identifying sticker on it. I know what my students do, but I have no idea why they do it. It’s hard for me to sit in these meetings and pretend that I understand the inner-lives of kids who are as multifaceted as the solar system. Something I do understand is how yo-yos work, and one of these days my colleagues may see me rise from my seat and begin doing rock-the-cradles.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
WHO (OR WHAT) DOES THE WRITING?
Years ago, I read somewhere that writers in medieval times sometimes did not sign their writings, because they believed God had actually written them – and I’ve always found a grain of good sense in that approach to authorship. I’m not a religious person in the traditional sense (I don’t believe in the conventional God who rewards some and punishes others), but I do have great respect for the immeasurable force (whatever name it might be given) that surrounds and saturates this universe of which we writers are a part. When my students write, words somehow come to rest in their essays, but how this happens is a wide-ranging mystery. To take the easy path and say the students’ brains create the words is like saying clouds create rain. The origins of every raindrop go infinitely far back to the origins of the entire universe, and the origins of the words in the students’ essays are every bit as shrouded in vastness and timelessness. It’s convenient for the students to put their names on their papers, just as it would be convenient to say the bulb creates the light in my desk lamp, even though a force far more immense and ancient than a student or a light bulb actually does the creating.
Years ago, I read somewhere that writers in medieval times sometimes did not sign their writings, because they believed God had actually written them – and I’ve always found a grain of good sense in that approach to authorship. I’m not a religious person in the traditional sense (I don’t believe in the conventional God who rewards some and punishes others), but I do have great respect for the immeasurable force (whatever name it might be given) that surrounds and saturates this universe of which we writers are a part. When my students write, words somehow come to rest in their essays, but how this happens is a wide-ranging mystery. To take the easy path and say the students’ brains create the words is like saying clouds create rain. The origins of every raindrop go infinitely far back to the origins of the entire universe, and the origins of the words in the students’ essays are every bit as shrouded in vastness and timelessness. It’s convenient for the students to put their names on their papers, just as it would be convenient to say the bulb creates the light in my desk lamp, even though a force far more immense and ancient than a student or a light bulb actually does the creating.
Monday, October 26, 2009
UNLOCKING WITH LAUGHTER
I heard some students giggling during study hall today, and, for some reason, it seemed like the sound of good education. “They must be learning something,” I said to myself – and as I thought about it for a minute or two, it became clear to me that I’ve always believed, without realizing it, in the pedagogic power of laughter. When we laugh, we are happy, and when we are happy we are relaxed, and when we are relaxed, the doors of our lives are open for a visit from wisdom. I love to see the students laughing in my classes, because their laughter means their lives are momentarily unlocked, ready to be surprised, perhaps even astonished, by a line from Shakespeare or the rules governing semicolons.
I heard some students giggling during study hall today, and, for some reason, it seemed like the sound of good education. “They must be learning something,” I said to myself – and as I thought about it for a minute or two, it became clear to me that I’ve always believed, without realizing it, in the pedagogic power of laughter. When we laugh, we are happy, and when we are happy we are relaxed, and when we are relaxed, the doors of our lives are open for a visit from wisdom. I love to see the students laughing in my classes, because their laughter means their lives are momentarily unlocked, ready to be surprised, perhaps even astonished, by a line from Shakespeare or the rules governing semicolons.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
A+ for CONSISTENCY
The other day, at a meeting about students, I threw out the casual remark that a certain student was “inconsistent”, but later I wished I hadn’t been so brusque and blasé about it. As I thought about the comment over lunch, I realized that, at least in one sense, no student is inconsistent. If consistency means a level of performance that does not vary greatly, then all my students are consistent thinkers. They are always thinking – always entertaining thoughts of widespread variety and freewheeling power. While I’m muttering to myself about their inconsistency in paying attention to my lesson, the scholars are being exceedingly consistent in welcoming the multitudinous thoughts (on topics ranging from skateboards to the weekend to – with a bit of luck -- my lesson) that waft their way during a 48 minute English class. At the next meeting, perhaps I should say, when asked about any student’s performance in my class, “Oh she’s a very consistent thinker. I’ll give her an A+ for that.”
The other day, at a meeting about students, I threw out the casual remark that a certain student was “inconsistent”, but later I wished I hadn’t been so brusque and blasé about it. As I thought about the comment over lunch, I realized that, at least in one sense, no student is inconsistent. If consistency means a level of performance that does not vary greatly, then all my students are consistent thinkers. They are always thinking – always entertaining thoughts of widespread variety and freewheeling power. While I’m muttering to myself about their inconsistency in paying attention to my lesson, the scholars are being exceedingly consistent in welcoming the multitudinous thoughts (on topics ranging from skateboards to the weekend to – with a bit of luck -- my lesson) that waft their way during a 48 minute English class. At the next meeting, perhaps I should say, when asked about any student’s performance in my class, “Oh she’s a very consistent thinker. I’ll give her an A+ for that.”
Friday, October 23, 2009
DISCOVERING A LESSON PLAN
I’ve been slowly realizing, over the long years of my career, that I don’t make lesson plans for my classes: I discover them. The idea that I can actually create lessons for my students -- can fashion and produce something that didn’t exist before -- now seems silly to me. I no longer have this picture of myself as a shrewd and astute educator who can build the exact lessons that his students need to grow wiser. The truth has become clear to me: I am not a builder, not a creator, not a wise maker of ingenious curricula – but rather an explorer, a hopeful and alert traveler on the lookout for good ideas. Lesson plans are ideas, and I don’t believe ideas are made – just discovered. They drift through me and around me by the zillions, and every so often I’m lucky enough to notice and collect one that seems especially wonderful for an 8th grade English class. I’m a voyager in a universe of ideas that have been shining somewhere for eons, and sometimes a dazzling one comes into my ken and I set it into a lesson plan. I don’t make the ideas any more than an astronomer makes the stars. We both just watch and wait and hope.
I’ve been slowly realizing, over the long years of my career, that I don’t make lesson plans for my classes: I discover them. The idea that I can actually create lessons for my students -- can fashion and produce something that didn’t exist before -- now seems silly to me. I no longer have this picture of myself as a shrewd and astute educator who can build the exact lessons that his students need to grow wiser. The truth has become clear to me: I am not a builder, not a creator, not a wise maker of ingenious curricula – but rather an explorer, a hopeful and alert traveler on the lookout for good ideas. Lesson plans are ideas, and I don’t believe ideas are made – just discovered. They drift through me and around me by the zillions, and every so often I’m lucky enough to notice and collect one that seems especially wonderful for an 8th grade English class. I’m a voyager in a universe of ideas that have been shining somewhere for eons, and sometimes a dazzling one comes into my ken and I set it into a lesson plan. I don’t make the ideas any more than an astronomer makes the stars. We both just watch and wait and hope.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
KNOWLEDGE AND ACKNOWLEDGE
Teaching has something to do with knowledge, of course, but I’ve been realizing lately that it has way more to do with acknowledging. When we acknowledge someone, we express total recognition of the presence or existence of that person, and, as odd as this may sound, it’s one of the greatest challenges I face as a teacher. Since I come into contact each day with dozens of young people, each with countless impenetrable character traits and each with an inner life as complex as the largest galaxy, it is a daily challenge to fully accept them – to acknowledge them as the infinite miracles they are. It’s easy, when faced with the complexities of teaching so many diverse, multifaceted, and unique human beings, to simply scan them superficially for 48 minutes, working through the step-by-step lesson and largely ignoring the depth and breadth of the lives that sit before me. It’s an easy habit for a teacher to fall into – sort of riding the lesson plan through a class period the way you might ride a jet-ski over the water, while the real lives of the students wait unseen along the shore. Of course, I have a curriculum to teach and goals to meet, but I should be able to do that and also fully acknowledge the bottomless and inscrutable lives of my students. My students are not machines to be fine-tuned or engines to be tested. They are oceans of ideas, vast mountain ranges of distant peaks and secret valleys, skies of thoughts that never end. Until I acknowledge the immensity of their lives, until I really notice their inner greatness, until I recognize that I’m dealing with dozens of unknowable human enigmas each day, my teaching will be utterly superficial and silly, like taking a snapshot of the sky and pretending that you therefore understand it.
Teaching has something to do with knowledge, of course, but I’ve been realizing lately that it has way more to do with acknowledging. When we acknowledge someone, we express total recognition of the presence or existence of that person, and, as odd as this may sound, it’s one of the greatest challenges I face as a teacher. Since I come into contact each day with dozens of young people, each with countless impenetrable character traits and each with an inner life as complex as the largest galaxy, it is a daily challenge to fully accept them – to acknowledge them as the infinite miracles they are. It’s easy, when faced with the complexities of teaching so many diverse, multifaceted, and unique human beings, to simply scan them superficially for 48 minutes, working through the step-by-step lesson and largely ignoring the depth and breadth of the lives that sit before me. It’s an easy habit for a teacher to fall into – sort of riding the lesson plan through a class period the way you might ride a jet-ski over the water, while the real lives of the students wait unseen along the shore. Of course, I have a curriculum to teach and goals to meet, but I should be able to do that and also fully acknowledge the bottomless and inscrutable lives of my students. My students are not machines to be fine-tuned or engines to be tested. They are oceans of ideas, vast mountain ranges of distant peaks and secret valleys, skies of thoughts that never end. Until I acknowledge the immensity of their lives, until I really notice their inner greatness, until I recognize that I’m dealing with dozens of unknowable human enigmas each day, my teaching will be utterly superficial and silly, like taking a snapshot of the sky and pretending that you therefore understand it.
LIGHTING A LAMP
In a meeting today, when a teacher was speaking about something that concerned her, she happened to catch my eye, and I smiled – and it seemed to light her up. It was as if an extension cord was stretched between us and the power flowed through it when I smiled. I even imagined – or hoped – that it might have lit up her hour, maybe her day. As I watched her for a few minutes, I thought her words somehow had more shine and polish on them as she finished her comment, and I pictured her carrying a brighter inner light with her when she left the meeting. Of course, I’m probably exaggerating the effect of my simple smile, but it did start me thinking about the brightness I could bring to my students’ lives just by quietly smiling at them when they’re sharing a thought in class. If it’s an honest smile – a spontaneous and sincere gesture of my appreciation for what is being said – it could start up a small glow inside a student. It won’t alter the student’s life, of course – won’t be a cause to raise a shout of gladness -- but my smile might at least make his or her day a little less cloudy.
In a meeting today, when a teacher was speaking about something that concerned her, she happened to catch my eye, and I smiled – and it seemed to light her up. It was as if an extension cord was stretched between us and the power flowed through it when I smiled. I even imagined – or hoped – that it might have lit up her hour, maybe her day. As I watched her for a few minutes, I thought her words somehow had more shine and polish on them as she finished her comment, and I pictured her carrying a brighter inner light with her when she left the meeting. Of course, I’m probably exaggerating the effect of my simple smile, but it did start me thinking about the brightness I could bring to my students’ lives just by quietly smiling at them when they’re sharing a thought in class. If it’s an honest smile – a spontaneous and sincere gesture of my appreciation for what is being said – it could start up a small glow inside a student. It won’t alter the student’s life, of course – won’t be a cause to raise a shout of gladness -- but my smile might at least make his or her day a little less cloudy.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
A PERFECT DAY AT SCHOOL
It occurred to me this morning that I was in the midst of a perfect day at school. Granted, the idea of perfection is much disparaged these days (“Nothing is perfect” is a phrase I often hear), but I have a more positive thought about it. One dictionary defines “perfect” as the condition of being “as good as it is possible to be”, and this school day fits that definition. This day at my school is, in fact, as good as it is possible for this particular school day to be. It may not be the kind of school day I love or was hoping for, but for this specific day – October 20, 2009 – it’s as good as it can be. It’s exactly the kind of day it has to be, which is another way of saying it’s perfect. My students may not be behaving the way I wish they would behave, my lessons may collapse in heaps, and I may receive dozens of bothersome emails, but for this day, everything happened as perfectly as possible. Some of the students’ behavior was perfectly annoying, a few lessons were flawless failures, and my emails were impeccably vexing. Even what was wrong with this day was entirely wrong. It was as wrong as it could possibly be. If I’m sounding tongue-in-cheek, I honestly don’t mean to be. The perfection of each day is a serious reality to me. A school day might not be my particular dream-come-true day, but each one is as good as that particular day can possibly be. Tomorrow will be different than today, yes, but not any better.
It occurred to me this morning that I was in the midst of a perfect day at school. Granted, the idea of perfection is much disparaged these days (“Nothing is perfect” is a phrase I often hear), but I have a more positive thought about it. One dictionary defines “perfect” as the condition of being “as good as it is possible to be”, and this school day fits that definition. This day at my school is, in fact, as good as it is possible for this particular school day to be. It may not be the kind of school day I love or was hoping for, but for this specific day – October 20, 2009 – it’s as good as it can be. It’s exactly the kind of day it has to be, which is another way of saying it’s perfect. My students may not be behaving the way I wish they would behave, my lessons may collapse in heaps, and I may receive dozens of bothersome emails, but for this day, everything happened as perfectly as possible. Some of the students’ behavior was perfectly annoying, a few lessons were flawless failures, and my emails were impeccably vexing. Even what was wrong with this day was entirely wrong. It was as wrong as it could possibly be. If I’m sounding tongue-in-cheek, I honestly don’t mean to be. The perfection of each day is a serious reality to me. A school day might not be my particular dream-come-true day, but each one is as good as that particular day can possibly be. Tomorrow will be different than today, yes, but not any better.
Monday, October 19, 2009
A NOTE FOR A FRIEND
Recently I’ve been trying to help a friend who is feeling unloved by someone whom he dearly loves, and an amazingly reassuring thought about his situation came to me yesterday, one which I am anxious to share with him. It suddenly occurred to me that my friend was thinking of love as something personal. He was, I think, picturing love as a commodity, a material substance – like money, for instance – that could be given from one person to another. He was thinking of love as something material and therefore personal – something he could own and keep and treasure. His friend had given him her love, much like you might give a special gift, and now she had taken it back – and he felt devastated, forsaken, unloved. What I realized yesterday is that love is not at all personal. It sounds crazy, I know, but it struck me as an astonishing truth, a plain and undeniable fact: love is totally impersonal. It doesn’t belong to any one person, can’t be owned by any person, isn’t made by any person. It’s not a material “thing” that can be made, given, and taken away. An analogy that came to me is the air: The air is everywhere and is freely available to everyone, and so is love. No one would think of saying to someone, “You gave me this air I’m breathing, and you can’t take it back.” The air can’t be granted and then recalled, and nether can love. Both air and love are just there –always and for everyone. While my friend is feeling unloved, all around him love is being enjoyed and expressed – by his friends, by his family members, by his estranged loved one, by her family, by millions and billions of strangers, and, of course, by him. My friend (like all of us) is positively surrounded, overwhelmed, and engulfed by love, but he (like most of us) doesn’t see it and feel it, because he wants it to be personal. As with most of us, he wants the love to be for him personally. He wants to own love and keep love, and he feels like his loved one took it away from him. The truth is, though – and this is what I want to share with him – that no one can take away any of the love that surrounds us. Love is wider and farther and bigger and more boundless than any one person. It’s with us always, like the endless air. When we’re despondent and desperate, the air is still there, waiting for us to breathe it in, and so is love. The love may not be specifically and personally directed toward us (including my friend), but that’s just because it’s too immense, too limitless, too never-ending. My friend’s loved one has turned away from him, but the love that she and all of us are part of is still with him. He can’t escape from it, just as he can’t escape from air. I hope my friend can relax a little and begin to breathe in this everlasting power of impersonal, shared, free-of-charge love.
Recently I’ve been trying to help a friend who is feeling unloved by someone whom he dearly loves, and an amazingly reassuring thought about his situation came to me yesterday, one which I am anxious to share with him. It suddenly occurred to me that my friend was thinking of love as something personal. He was, I think, picturing love as a commodity, a material substance – like money, for instance – that could be given from one person to another. He was thinking of love as something material and therefore personal – something he could own and keep and treasure. His friend had given him her love, much like you might give a special gift, and now she had taken it back – and he felt devastated, forsaken, unloved. What I realized yesterday is that love is not at all personal. It sounds crazy, I know, but it struck me as an astonishing truth, a plain and undeniable fact: love is totally impersonal. It doesn’t belong to any one person, can’t be owned by any person, isn’t made by any person. It’s not a material “thing” that can be made, given, and taken away. An analogy that came to me is the air: The air is everywhere and is freely available to everyone, and so is love. No one would think of saying to someone, “You gave me this air I’m breathing, and you can’t take it back.” The air can’t be granted and then recalled, and nether can love. Both air and love are just there –always and for everyone. While my friend is feeling unloved, all around him love is being enjoyed and expressed – by his friends, by his family members, by his estranged loved one, by her family, by millions and billions of strangers, and, of course, by him. My friend (like all of us) is positively surrounded, overwhelmed, and engulfed by love, but he (like most of us) doesn’t see it and feel it, because he wants it to be personal. As with most of us, he wants the love to be for him personally. He wants to own love and keep love, and he feels like his loved one took it away from him. The truth is, though – and this is what I want to share with him – that no one can take away any of the love that surrounds us. Love is wider and farther and bigger and more boundless than any one person. It’s with us always, like the endless air. When we’re despondent and desperate, the air is still there, waiting for us to breathe it in, and so is love. The love may not be specifically and personally directed toward us (including my friend), but that’s just because it’s too immense, too limitless, too never-ending. My friend’s loved one has turned away from him, but the love that she and all of us are part of is still with him. He can’t escape from it, just as he can’t escape from air. I hope my friend can relax a little and begin to breathe in this everlasting power of impersonal, shared, free-of-charge love.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
SCATTERING WORDS
As I was enjoying my grandson’s company at a playground yesterday, I also enjoyed the look of the autumn leaves scattered on the floor of the nearby forest, and before long they led me to think about the teaching of writing. The leaves were beautiful as they lay in a sodden and confused clutter among the trees. There was obviously no order to their arrangement, no formula to their placement among the trees, and yet they made a perfectly beautiful picture. They were an untidy but lovely jumble. Recently I’ve been wondering, and I got to thinking about it again yesterday, if there might be room for a similar “lovely jumble” in the essays I ask my students to write. I teach them to write well-planned and highly structured papers, but could there be room among the methodical paragraphs for the kind of strewn and speckled beauty I saw in the woods? If the students occasionally “scattered” words through a sentence the way they generously spread their laughter among friends, would a reader perhaps sense something special in the writing? I’ve read some beautiful formal essays this year, but none more beautiful than the informal disarray of leaves I saw in the autumn woods yesterday.
As I was enjoying my grandson’s company at a playground yesterday, I also enjoyed the look of the autumn leaves scattered on the floor of the nearby forest, and before long they led me to think about the teaching of writing. The leaves were beautiful as they lay in a sodden and confused clutter among the trees. There was obviously no order to their arrangement, no formula to their placement among the trees, and yet they made a perfectly beautiful picture. They were an untidy but lovely jumble. Recently I’ve been wondering, and I got to thinking about it again yesterday, if there might be room for a similar “lovely jumble” in the essays I ask my students to write. I teach them to write well-planned and highly structured papers, but could there be room among the methodical paragraphs for the kind of strewn and speckled beauty I saw in the woods? If the students occasionally “scattered” words through a sentence the way they generously spread their laughter among friends, would a reader perhaps sense something special in the writing? I’ve read some beautiful formal essays this year, but none more beautiful than the informal disarray of leaves I saw in the autumn woods yesterday.
Friday, October 16, 2009
ESSAYS IN POTS
Out for a walk the other day, I passed a beautiful pot of flowers on a doorstep, and it brought to mind the beautiful writing my students often do. You might wonder how good writing can possibly be compared to flowers that have been trained, trimmed, and pressed into a pot, forced to grow where and how we want them to grow, trained to look the way we want them to look – but I am actually thrilled to receive essays each week that are reminiscent of the pots of flowers my mother used to keep on the back porch. The writing in these essays may not be terribly “creative” or liberated or dazzling or unconventional, but it is often orderly and clear, and there’s usually some kind of beauty to be found in orderliness and clarity. An art masterpiece in the Louvre has orderliness and clarity, as do chrysanthemums in a back porch pot, as do the simple essays my 9th grade scholars share with me each week. As my mother used to do with her flowers, the students sometimes treat their sentences with great care, sensibly crafting them and placing them in uncluttered arrangements that bring out the distinctive qualities of their words. They gently “plant” them in an essay, you might say, and then they present the essay to me the way you might give a carefully wrapped gift to someone. I haven’t received a pot of flowers in years, if ever, but each week I get dozens of essays, many made up of neatly arranged paragraphs in full bloom before my eyes.
Out for a walk the other day, I passed a beautiful pot of flowers on a doorstep, and it brought to mind the beautiful writing my students often do. You might wonder how good writing can possibly be compared to flowers that have been trained, trimmed, and pressed into a pot, forced to grow where and how we want them to grow, trained to look the way we want them to look – but I am actually thrilled to receive essays each week that are reminiscent of the pots of flowers my mother used to keep on the back porch. The writing in these essays may not be terribly “creative” or liberated or dazzling or unconventional, but it is often orderly and clear, and there’s usually some kind of beauty to be found in orderliness and clarity. An art masterpiece in the Louvre has orderliness and clarity, as do chrysanthemums in a back porch pot, as do the simple essays my 9th grade scholars share with me each week. As my mother used to do with her flowers, the students sometimes treat their sentences with great care, sensibly crafting them and placing them in uncluttered arrangements that bring out the distinctive qualities of their words. They gently “plant” them in an essay, you might say, and then they present the essay to me the way you might give a carefully wrapped gift to someone. I haven’t received a pot of flowers in years, if ever, but each week I get dozens of essays, many made up of neatly arranged paragraphs in full bloom before my eyes.
THE PARAGRAPH TREE
As I stood outside looking up at a colorful fall tree during a free period yesterday, it slowly came to me that good paragraphs are like trees. I allowed this idea to expand for a few minutes, then walked eagerly back to my classroom and asked the students coming in for the next class to join me outside. We stood beneath the tree as it shook and rustled in the cold wind, and I asked the students if they saw anything in the tree that reminded them of something we have learned in English class. They shivered and huddled together and stared at the tree, with its substantial trunk and three main branches and countless swaying limbs and shaking leaves. Soon a girl said, “I guess it’s sort of like a paragraph.” “Yeah,” a boy said, “the trunk is the topic of the paragraph,” and another boy added “and the three big branches are the supporting points.” We trembled in the wintry wind and talked for a moment more about the analogy -- a small, somewhat reserved girl said all the shivering leaves were like the words in your paragraph that you want to shiver inside the reader – and then we returned to the classroom for a lesson on irony. Every so often I glanced out at the tree as it bent and bowed in the wind, the countless leaves shaking like lively words.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
SCRAMBLING
I realized today, in a flash, that I believe in the value of a little “scrambling” now and then in English class. The flash occurred in the middle of a stirring lecture delivered this afternoon to the teachers at my school, during which the speaker (a well-known consultant) mentioned the idea of scrambling. I don’t recall the exact context of the remark, but he was suggesting, I think, that we need to consider scrambling our sometimes rigid approaches to class sizes, age groupings, assignments, and other areas of our work with students. We need to sometimes toss our best and most hallowed ideas into the figurative frying pan, mix them up, and see what comes to pass. For some reason, the idea – certainly not a new or world-shattering one -- turned on a light inside me. I, who have always taught my students the importance of taking an orderly approach to writing assignments, suddenly began to picture what could happen if they occasionally took a rowdy and riotous approach. What if they sporadically wrote an essay by tossing a bunch of disparate ideas into the frying pan and doing a little scrambling? For example, what if I asked them to write an essay about how Chapter 6 in To Kill a Mockingbird relates to, let’s say, a sock, a bird’s nest, and a puffy cloud? Or what if we picked out three random words from the dictionary, and they had to write a paper relating the words to a Shakespeare sonnet? As I thought about it, my scrambling ideas got even more lawless. What if I told the students to write some kind of paper (their choice) about Chapter 6 in Mockingbird? I could give them some very simple rubrics for grading (evidence of deep and inventive thinking would be at the top of the list), but the rest of the assignment would be left to their best scrambling techniques. Soon I found myself picturing me as I'm preparing my occasional scrambled egg breakfast. Yes, it is a rather haphazard, unlegislated process (a few eggs, maybe three or four spices, and let’s see, perhaps some Tabasco and wine vinegar, maybe some smoked cheese, or maybe not), but the end product, as it sits on a flowered plate on my table, is quite wonderful to behold -- and eat. Everything got heedlessly scrambled into a perfectly appetizing delight! Perhaps my students, at least now and then, could do this type of scrambling in their writing – just toss words together, add some spicy ideas, swirl it around, and see what the printer prints out. It might just be as attractive and enticing as my morning eggs – and maybe, in some cases, more appealing than the time-honored, thoroughly arranged, spick-and-span formal essay.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
INVISIBILITY
Because things that are not seen are often more useful and compelling than those that are, I’ve been working lately on developing – and understanding -- “invisibility” in my classroom. For instance, one of my criteria for choosing literature for the scholars to read is the presence of invisibility in the pages – the presence of truths that cannot be seen, at least on a first reading. I purposely choose poems and stories that have an aura of obscurity and murkiness, so that the students have to wander in the dark for a while as they sharpen their inner eyesight. I don’t mean that the literature is gloomy – just that the gems and gold in the pages lie hidden from the eyesight of hasty, lackadaisical readers. I’m also trying to appreciate the true invisibility of each of my students. I occasionally fall back into the bad habit of thinking that I “know” the scholars quite well, but the reality is that their true selves are as invisible to me as stars in the daytime. I actually have no working or helpful idea about the nature of the students’ inner lives, which, of course, are their real lives. In that sense, the scholars are invisible to me, a fact that I need to constantly recognize and accept. A final fact that I’m working on welcoming and accepting is the importance of invisibility in the teacher. I would like to be almost as invisible as the wind. Like the wind, I want to stir up the students, blow some new thoughts their way, perhaps utterly destroy some slapdash ideas – but like the wind, I want to do it in a secret and concealed way, imperceptibly. I want the voluble, front-and-center, all-controlling teacher to disappear. After a productive class, I want the students to look around (while I’m standing quietly in a corner) and wonder where all those good ideas came from.
Because things that are not seen are often more useful and compelling than those that are, I’ve been working lately on developing – and understanding -- “invisibility” in my classroom. For instance, one of my criteria for choosing literature for the scholars to read is the presence of invisibility in the pages – the presence of truths that cannot be seen, at least on a first reading. I purposely choose poems and stories that have an aura of obscurity and murkiness, so that the students have to wander in the dark for a while as they sharpen their inner eyesight. I don’t mean that the literature is gloomy – just that the gems and gold in the pages lie hidden from the eyesight of hasty, lackadaisical readers. I’m also trying to appreciate the true invisibility of each of my students. I occasionally fall back into the bad habit of thinking that I “know” the scholars quite well, but the reality is that their true selves are as invisible to me as stars in the daytime. I actually have no working or helpful idea about the nature of the students’ inner lives, which, of course, are their real lives. In that sense, the scholars are invisible to me, a fact that I need to constantly recognize and accept. A final fact that I’m working on welcoming and accepting is the importance of invisibility in the teacher. I would like to be almost as invisible as the wind. Like the wind, I want to stir up the students, blow some new thoughts their way, perhaps utterly destroy some slapdash ideas – but like the wind, I want to do it in a secret and concealed way, imperceptibly. I want the voluble, front-and-center, all-controlling teacher to disappear. After a productive class, I want the students to look around (while I’m standing quietly in a corner) and wonder where all those good ideas came from.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
A STRING QUARTET IN ROOM 2
As I was listening to a Brahms quartet the other day, once again enjoying the way the melodic themes weave their way through it from start to finish, I thought about the “music” of my English classes. The artistic quality of the piece by Brahms derives, in part, from the way the central melodies are intertwined throughout the quartet. He starts with a theme, comes back to it again and again (though in many variations), and brings the music to a close with a strong final restatement of the theme. This overall unity and coherence helps to make the music an enchanting work of art rather than just a collection of agreeable sounds. On the other hand, I’m afraid my English classes are simply collections of agreeable (or sometimes disagreeable) sounds – nothing close to works of art. I do make careful lesson plans, but I don’t think of them as artistic creations. I more or less outline my goals and objectives and the steps we will take to reach them, but I don’t think of myself as creating something beautiful or enchanting – just a successful English class. However, would it be possible to think of an English class as an art form? Could I “paint”, “sculpt”, or “compose” my classes in such a way that a central theme weaves its way through from start to finish? Could an English class be so beautifully artistic that my students might stand and applaud at the end? Of course I’m stretching things there – but seriously, why don’t we teachers think of ourselves as artists? Why couldn’t I design my classes instead of plan them? Why couldn’t I – thinking of Brahms – embed a theme in every class, and make sure the theme intertwines with all the activities? In a sense, of course I do try to build in unity and coherence when I make my lesson outline, but only in a very pragmatic way. When I plan my classes, I’m thinking of myself as a teacher, not an artist – as a technician, not a creative designer. Could I change? When I sit at my desk to make a lesson plan, could I picture myself painting on a canvas, or composing at a piano?
Thursday, October 8, 2009
TEACHING LIKE AUTUMN LEAVES
Driving along one of the picturesque roads in my part of the country today, I noticed some autumn leaves sailing along in the blustery wind, and I began wondering if I could teach like that. I sensed an appealing kind of insouciance and liberty as I watched the leaves toss and tumble in the air. They were going wherever the wind took them. If I could imagine the leaves as people with feelings, they would be people of the most relaxed and carefree type – people who know that resisting harmless forces is a wasteful and hopeless pursuit. I wonder if I could teach like that. I wonder if I could relax my guard more often, loosen up a little, stop trying to control every millisecond of class time, drift a little with whatever wind of learning is currently blowing in the classroom. I come to class each day with a comprehensive and detailed lesson plan, which is certainly important, but I wonder if it sometimes acts like a cumbersome anchor that keeps me from letting the students sail with the power of whatever we’re discussing or doing. I’m always thinking about the next step in the lesson plan, when perhaps I should be paying closer attention to the gust of ideas that’s just now swirling among the students. Maybe my lesson plans, ironically enough, keep the class and me tied to the dock instead of sailing on the open waters of learning. Leaves aren’t teachers, of course. Leaves have no choice but to follow the wayward winds, whereas, I, as a teacher of teenagers, must make many choices each day. I guess I hope I can occasionally choose to raise anchor in English class and catch the good wind passing by, come what may.
Driving along one of the picturesque roads in my part of the country today, I noticed some autumn leaves sailing along in the blustery wind, and I began wondering if I could teach like that. I sensed an appealing kind of insouciance and liberty as I watched the leaves toss and tumble in the air. They were going wherever the wind took them. If I could imagine the leaves as people with feelings, they would be people of the most relaxed and carefree type – people who know that resisting harmless forces is a wasteful and hopeless pursuit. I wonder if I could teach like that. I wonder if I could relax my guard more often, loosen up a little, stop trying to control every millisecond of class time, drift a little with whatever wind of learning is currently blowing in the classroom. I come to class each day with a comprehensive and detailed lesson plan, which is certainly important, but I wonder if it sometimes acts like a cumbersome anchor that keeps me from letting the students sail with the power of whatever we’re discussing or doing. I’m always thinking about the next step in the lesson plan, when perhaps I should be paying closer attention to the gust of ideas that’s just now swirling among the students. Maybe my lesson plans, ironically enough, keep the class and me tied to the dock instead of sailing on the open waters of learning. Leaves aren’t teachers, of course. Leaves have no choice but to follow the wayward winds, whereas, I, as a teacher of teenagers, must make many choices each day. I guess I hope I can occasionally choose to raise anchor in English class and catch the good wind passing by, come what may.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
DOING ART, DOING ENGLISH
Yesterday I supervised an art class when the teacher was out on a field trip, and, as I watched the kids working on their drawing assignment, I admired what I saw -- and wondered why I don’t see more of it in my classes. The art students were totally focused. Heads were bending over papers, hands were clutching markers and moving them with care, and quietness was reigning. Close friends were side by side, yet few words were spoken. All I could hear was the sounds of markers sliding across papers and the occasional shifting of attentive bodies in chairs. It occurred to me, with some sense of dismay, that this kind of attentiveness doesn’t seem to happen very often in my own classes. I usually see more vacant looks than intense gazes. There seems to be more lethargy than passion, more daydreaming than concentration. I don’t mean to put myself down completely, because my students are always quiet and well-behaved, and I know there are times of curiosity and focus in my classes – but I’m afraid it happens intermittently, whereas I’ll wager it happens regularly in art class. What I saw there today was kids doing art. They weren’t listening to a teacher drone on about participles or semicolons; they were listening to their own inner voices telling them precisely how to move the markers, and they were moving the markers. They were engaged. They were absorbed in work they enjoyed, and when the period was over, many were disappointed. They had enjoyed doing art, whereas in my classes I’m afraid the students do more listening than doing. My challenge: Find more ways to let the kids do English.
Yesterday I supervised an art class when the teacher was out on a field trip, and, as I watched the kids working on their drawing assignment, I admired what I saw -- and wondered why I don’t see more of it in my classes. The art students were totally focused. Heads were bending over papers, hands were clutching markers and moving them with care, and quietness was reigning. Close friends were side by side, yet few words were spoken. All I could hear was the sounds of markers sliding across papers and the occasional shifting of attentive bodies in chairs. It occurred to me, with some sense of dismay, that this kind of attentiveness doesn’t seem to happen very often in my own classes. I usually see more vacant looks than intense gazes. There seems to be more lethargy than passion, more daydreaming than concentration. I don’t mean to put myself down completely, because my students are always quiet and well-behaved, and I know there are times of curiosity and focus in my classes – but I’m afraid it happens intermittently, whereas I’ll wager it happens regularly in art class. What I saw there today was kids doing art. They weren’t listening to a teacher drone on about participles or semicolons; they were listening to their own inner voices telling them precisely how to move the markers, and they were moving the markers. They were engaged. They were absorbed in work they enjoyed, and when the period was over, many were disappointed. They had enjoyed doing art, whereas in my classes I’m afraid the students do more listening than doing. My challenge: Find more ways to let the kids do English.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
WANDERING IN ENGLISH CLASS
Most teachers wouldn’t be flattered if someone used the word “wandering” to describe what the students were doing in one of their classes, but I’ve grown to appreciate the value of occasionally allowing my students to wander for a few minutes during class – maybe to meander through some pages in a novel or drift back over their essay drafts. I usually think of the work we do in class as focused and product-driven, but surely there is room for the kind of wandering that can lead to unexpected discoveries. When I aimlessly stroll through a forest, I always come across a few surprises, and from time to time I like to encourage that kind of unhampered, directionless “wandering” in my class. A discussion about a short story, for instance, could be at its best when it rambles among many topics, stopping here and there when a comment shines especially bright, going down any of countless paths when the way opens up. Re-reading a chapter or a few pages could also be done in a winding, roundabout, laid-back way, sort of the way you might wander through a castle you first visited on an orderly guided tour. You have no particular purpose other than discovery. You’re meandering because you want to be surprised. In my classes, we usually do our academic work in fairly straight lines (following specific directions, doing step-by-step assignments, aiming for explicit goals, etc.), but I try to balance this measured marching with a little unregulated wandering now and then. Perhaps the students will stumble on revelations the way I often do when I’m ambling through the woods, or when I’m turning down an unfamiliar but appealing street on a bike ride.
Most teachers wouldn’t be flattered if someone used the word “wandering” to describe what the students were doing in one of their classes, but I’ve grown to appreciate the value of occasionally allowing my students to wander for a few minutes during class – maybe to meander through some pages in a novel or drift back over their essay drafts. I usually think of the work we do in class as focused and product-driven, but surely there is room for the kind of wandering that can lead to unexpected discoveries. When I aimlessly stroll through a forest, I always come across a few surprises, and from time to time I like to encourage that kind of unhampered, directionless “wandering” in my class. A discussion about a short story, for instance, could be at its best when it rambles among many topics, stopping here and there when a comment shines especially bright, going down any of countless paths when the way opens up. Re-reading a chapter or a few pages could also be done in a winding, roundabout, laid-back way, sort of the way you might wander through a castle you first visited on an orderly guided tour. You have no particular purpose other than discovery. You’re meandering because you want to be surprised. In my classes, we usually do our academic work in fairly straight lines (following specific directions, doing step-by-step assignments, aiming for explicit goals, etc.), but I try to balance this measured marching with a little unregulated wandering now and then. Perhaps the students will stumble on revelations the way I often do when I’m ambling through the woods, or when I’m turning down an unfamiliar but appealing street on a bike ride.
FALLING LEAVES, GENTLE DEATHS
Driving to school this morning, I passed through a corridor of old maple trees, and some of their golden leaves were slowly fluttering to the road. They floated with complete gracefulness and ease, and it occurred to me that I had never seen death depicted so serenely. For these leaves were all dead. They had slowly “passed away” over the last few weeks, and finally, this morning, they had severed their connection with the tree – with life – and now were drifting here and there across North Main Street on their way to their final resting place. It was death at its most peaceful – death the way I hope I meet my death, whatever form it may take. It seems to me that death – maybe even violent, sudden death -- could be a tranquil event, something that happens as gracefully as leaves fall or rivers flow or the sun drops down in the evening. After all, death is an intrinsic part of life; without dying, there would be no living. Death is the rich soil from which life sprouts and blossoms. It’s the soft, nourishing breast from which life takes its sustenance. Death is often hard on those left behind, but perhaps it doesn’t have to be hard on those who are dying. If I can prepare myself to accept and even embrace death as a natural development in the ever-flowing stream of life – just another easy bend in the river -- maybe, when my time comes, I can die as gently and placidly as the shining leaves I saw sailing above me this morning.
Driving to school this morning, I passed through a corridor of old maple trees, and some of their golden leaves were slowly fluttering to the road. They floated with complete gracefulness and ease, and it occurred to me that I had never seen death depicted so serenely. For these leaves were all dead. They had slowly “passed away” over the last few weeks, and finally, this morning, they had severed their connection with the tree – with life – and now were drifting here and there across North Main Street on their way to their final resting place. It was death at its most peaceful – death the way I hope I meet my death, whatever form it may take. It seems to me that death – maybe even violent, sudden death -- could be a tranquil event, something that happens as gracefully as leaves fall or rivers flow or the sun drops down in the evening. After all, death is an intrinsic part of life; without dying, there would be no living. Death is the rich soil from which life sprouts and blossoms. It’s the soft, nourishing breast from which life takes its sustenance. Death is often hard on those left behind, but perhaps it doesn’t have to be hard on those who are dying. If I can prepare myself to accept and even embrace death as a natural development in the ever-flowing stream of life – just another easy bend in the river -- maybe, when my time comes, I can die as gently and placidly as the shining leaves I saw sailing above me this morning.
Monday, October 5, 2009
UNFINISHED BREEZES, UNFINISHED CLASSES
Note: The sentence labels are guideposts that I require in my students’ writing. They stand for topic sentence, supporting detail sentences, commentary sentences, and concluding sentence. Each body paragraph must have three "chunks" of information. I've use colors to highlight the chunks.
TS This morning, one of my classes was interrupted for a fire drill, and we ended up not being able to properly finish the class. TS 2 Walking back to the classroom, I was feeling distressed about this for a moment or two, but before I reached the classroom, a breeze brushed across my face, and it changed my perspective completely. SD As I waited for the next group of students, I asked myself whether a breeze is ever “properly finished”. CM Will the breeze that blew past me come to a neat and tidy end somewhere? CM Will that particular breeze, at some point and in some place, eventually be completed, done, accomplished, and fulfilled? CM Will it curl up in the grass somewhere, sighing and settling back and feeling like a skillful and productive breeze that had done its job with utter thoroughness? SD Of course, these are silly questions, and perhaps it’s just as silly for me to worry about leaving a particular class unfinished. CM Both breezes and English classes are parts of endless weather and educational systems and therefore they can’t be said to start or finish anywhere. CM Both the weather and learning are constantly occurring on an immeasurable scale, and passing puffs of air and short-lived classes are simply momentary manifestations of these vast forces. CM Weather and learning never stop, even though a breeze soon disappears and an English class is dismissed. SD Later this morning, after lunch, I thought some more about my unfinished class, and I decided that, in fact, it wasn’t unfinished at all. CM Like a passing breeze, it was just gone, not unfinished. In the vast landscape of our lives, the class was a fleeting few moments of education for my students and me, and a zillion more moments are still to come. CM It’s a single, vast process, this extravaganza called education. Nothing ever starts; nothing ever finishes. CS The breezes of learning are always blowing, even during fire drills.
Note: The sentence labels are guideposts that I require in my students’ writing. They stand for topic sentence, supporting detail sentences, commentary sentences, and concluding sentence. Each body paragraph must have three "chunks" of information. I've use colors to highlight the chunks.
TS This morning, one of my classes was interrupted for a fire drill, and we ended up not being able to properly finish the class. TS 2 Walking back to the classroom, I was feeling distressed about this for a moment or two, but before I reached the classroom, a breeze brushed across my face, and it changed my perspective completely. SD As I waited for the next group of students, I asked myself whether a breeze is ever “properly finished”. CM Will the breeze that blew past me come to a neat and tidy end somewhere? CM Will that particular breeze, at some point and in some place, eventually be completed, done, accomplished, and fulfilled? CM Will it curl up in the grass somewhere, sighing and settling back and feeling like a skillful and productive breeze that had done its job with utter thoroughness? SD Of course, these are silly questions, and perhaps it’s just as silly for me to worry about leaving a particular class unfinished. CM Both breezes and English classes are parts of endless weather and educational systems and therefore they can’t be said to start or finish anywhere. CM Both the weather and learning are constantly occurring on an immeasurable scale, and passing puffs of air and short-lived classes are simply momentary manifestations of these vast forces. CM Weather and learning never stop, even though a breeze soon disappears and an English class is dismissed. SD Later this morning, after lunch, I thought some more about my unfinished class, and I decided that, in fact, it wasn’t unfinished at all. CM Like a passing breeze, it was just gone, not unfinished. In the vast landscape of our lives, the class was a fleeting few moments of education for my students and me, and a zillion more moments are still to come. CM It’s a single, vast process, this extravaganza called education. Nothing ever starts; nothing ever finishes. CS The breezes of learning are always blowing, even during fire drills.
Friday, October 2, 2009
LAW ENFORCEMENT IN ENGLISH CLASS
One of the definitions of “apprehend” is “to arrest and take into custody”, which suggests to me that the students and I do a great amount of law enforcement work in my English classes. Scenes from old cowboy movies come to mind, where the sheriff rides after a slippery outlaw, over hills and across deserts, and finally lassoes and arrests him. In English class, you might say we, too, are chasing down things that flee from us -- themes, ironies, metaphors, interpretations, and such. We vigilantly ride through stories and poems and essays, always on the lookout for the “culprits” – the veiled meanings, the hidden motifs, the subtle undertones and moods. These so often escape our notice when we are reading; they seem to hide among the sentences like the bad guys hid in the rocks in old Gene Autry movies. My youthful scholars and I are determined, however, to apprehend these elusive details in a work of literature – to hunt them down through close readings and insightful discussions. Like the old-time sheriffs, who were often called “peace officers”, we intend to bring some peace to our literary co-mates and ourselves by uncovering the hiding place of truth in a short story or a poem. We are determined to apprehend the essential significance of what we read, to take it into custody in our minds, no matter how evasive and shifty it might be. We don’t have lassoes or handcuffs, just pencils, paper, and dogged hearts. We’re the posse in Room 2.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
WITNESSING IN THE CLASSROOM
I often like to think of myself as a witness in my classroom, someone who watches carefully and can “testify” as to exactly what occurred. This seems to go against the common perception of a teacher’s role – that of an active participant, someone who is too busy guiding and pushing the students to take time to be a passive witness. The teacher, we think, should be a contributor to the class, not a watcher – a doer, not a spectator. If we visited a classroom and saw a teacher just silently observing her students, perhaps for many minutes, we might wonder if she’s dodging her duty. However, shouldn’t a teacher also be a scientist of sorts? Isn’t part of a teacher’s responsibility to study his students the way a scientist studies material under a microscope? How can I effectively plan beneficial activities for the students on Tuesday if I haven’t painstakingly observed what they did on Monday – and how can I observe unless I step back from the action and be a silent witness? It’s hard for me, though – hard to quit talking and thinking and bustling around the classroom, hard to just stop, get quiet, and look at what’s going on. I’ve never been the scientific type – the kind of person who can watch something for a period of time just to see what it does and how it works. Yet that’s what’s demanded of a good teacher, I think – the willingness to observe the students as carefully and intelligently as a wildlife biologist observes her subjects. I have to learn to occasionally be a bystander, someone who pauses to see what’s actually happening. If I did that more often – if I became more of a witness than a performer – my “scientific” notes would surely tell of wondrous occurrences among the scholars in Room 2.
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