A VERB IN THE CLASSROOM

This may sound strange, but in my classroom I try to be more like a verb than a noun. I think of my teaching life more as “events” that are constantly unfolding than as a solid, unchanging “person” who is supposedly responsible for the teaching and learning in the room. After all, nothing in this life is stationary or fixed, including me. My cells are continually dying and being reborn, second by second, and so is everything around me in the classroom. The atoms in the air come to my students and me from vast distances, and they’re gone before the class is over. Process is everywhere and stasis is nowhere. In my classroom, I am a new idea every moment, and then a new action, and then another new idea. It happens continuously, with no pause. It’s verbs, not nouns. Who am I? I am “Laughing” or “Pointing” or “Speaking” or “Smiling”, not a lackluster, cast-iron person called “the teacher”.

TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH STYLE

I hope my classroom – and my teaching – has “style”. When the students enter my room, I’d like them to think, “Wow, this place has some style and taste.” We often think of classrooms as drab and dreary places, but does it have to be that way? Why can’t a classroom for teenage English scholars have some panache, some feeling of youthful and street-smart chic? And why can’t a teacher, even an elderly and furrowed one, have a little style in his bearing and behavior? Why can’t he wear sprightly bow ties and impeccably pressed shirts, as much as to announce, “This teacher has some technique, boys and girls”? Why can’t I show a sort of flamboyant confidence and manner, as if to say to the scholars, “This is the way I live, and it’s the way I read and write, too – with style -- and you can too”?

Adam Bede Cottage, Wirksworth, UK

Adam Bede by George Eliot

This is, in some ways, a very sad story. The heartbreak and despondency of Hetty, Adam, and now Arthur is almost unbearably sad. I'm hopeful for an inspiring, optimistic ending, but right now, about 3/4's through the book, it's a somber and distressing story. Hetty has been "transported" to Australia for murdering her newborn child, Adam is bereft and grieving, and Arthur, the gentleman landlord and protector of his many tenants, is enlisting in the army and will be gone for years, perhaps forever. The one uplifting note is that Adam has forgiven Arthur and the two have renewed their friendship. It's also encouraging that the author has given the reader 100+ more pages here at the end, which suggests that regeneration and renewal may lie ahead.

DISTRIBUTION AND CIRCULATION IN ROOM 2

I’ve come to think of teaching and learning as more of a distributive process than an accretive one. When I’m teaching, I’m not adding anything to the students’ academic lives as much as I’m helping them distribute the wisdom of the universe among themselves. Learning doesn’t happen by piling up facts and insights, but by being open to the free dispersal and circulation of understanding. The universe we inhabit is teeming with knowledge, and all the students have to do is feel and enjoy it as it flows through their lives, and all I have to do, really, is make sure I don’t get in the way.

ALERT BUT RELAXED

Like a good driver, a good teacher must stay both alert and relaxed. When driving on an icy road, I have to be watchful for especially slippery sections of the road, but I also have to remain relaxed enough at the wheel to maneuver the car with deftness and flexibility. I have to stay both tense and comfortable. I must be determined, in the sense of being committed to watching every inch of the way ahead, but I must also be open, flexible, and accommodating to whatever the circumstances might provide. I sometimes picture a good driver on a bad road as having furrowed brows (the alertness) but a slight and genuine smile (the relaxation). He’s working hard but still somehow enjoying himself. I picture a teacher in a similar way. Certainly I have to be totally alert to every shade and tone during class. I need to have fifty eyes instead of just two, and a few dozen ears wouldn’t hurt. Thousands of mental and verbal events happen in each class, and I need to be aware of all of them. However, I must always balance my watchfulness with an equal amount of lightness and easing up. Teaching teenagers the rudiments of fine writing and serious literature often resembles navigating a frozen mountain road, and while I’m ever on the alert I also need to be relaxed enough to move the class along the zigzag road that’s always created when free-thinking, restive adolescents come together to discuss the art of speaking from the heart in written words. I need to ‘drive’ the class with the coolest kind of awareness, with an attentiveness that feels like dancing.

YIELDING

One of my favorite dictionaries says the most common meaning for “yield” is “to produce or provide a natural product”, and, in that sense, I hope a great amount of yielding will occur in each of my classes. Just as a farmer looks forward to an abundant “yield” of crops each year, I look forward to the ripening and flowering of untold ideas in my classroom. The students, you might say, are the fruitful and fecund soil, out of which will slowly rise a plentiful crop of wholesome thoughts. Someone passing my room and glancing in might be reminded of harvest time down on the farm. Another common definition of “yield” is “to give way to pressure”, as in “He yielded to the demands of his peers.” My students don’t make demands on me, but they definitely bring pressure to bear during class – the pressure of their own attentive and sensible lives. It’s a quiet and gentle pressure – the kind of loving pressure that most young people tend to exert wherever they are – but it’s also an intense pressure. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned over the years is to yield, as gracefully as possible, to this pressure of my students – to this steady and useful wisdom of adolescence.

AN UNHURRIED TEACHER

As I look forward to the new school year, the word “unhurried” comes to mind as a description of the kind of teaching I hope to do. I don’t want to rush through a lesson, run through a review, sprint through a ‘to do’ list, or charge ahead with impulsive words and actions. I want to do everything the way the sun rises: slowly, peacefully, beautifully. There’s never any need for urgency in teaching English to teenagers. The planet will continue turning whether I cover three or six or zero comma rules in a class period. Our hearts will continue beating and our trillion cells will keep being reborn no matter what happens (or doesn’t happen) in 8^th grade English class on Barnes Road. Nothing need be done except with patient attentiveness and consideration. Flowers can’t be hastened into blooming before their proper time, nor can good teaching be rushed. I must make each 60 seconds in class be utterly comprehensive and satisfying. All the moments in Room 2 will be priceless ones, so I may as well slow down and be grateful for each one.

"I Am From Him"

MP3 File

The Stars Will Continue Shining

MP3 File

This morning I began, at 5:00 am, with a hike up and down the hill in front of my house. I trekked up and down three times with a vigorous feeling, a sense that a stirring day was starting. A few birds were softly whistling, and a car passed occasionally, but mostly it was just the street, the houses, a cloudless dawn sky, and me. Day was arriving, and so, I felt, was another long series of fresh and surprising moments.

On Monday of this week, three friends helped me “ride my age”, and it will be a long time before I forget my recurring feelings of exhaustion and elation during the ride. It was a wearying six hours for me. I had not ridden my bike for more than three hours at one time during the summer, so the extra three hours slowly drained my get-up-and-go. There were many times when I just wanted to stop the bike, get off, and sprawl by the side of the road. All my muscles felt like flab and soft spaghetti. By the 50^th mile, I felt thoroughly washed out. My much younger mates were kind and considerate to me and tried hard to hold themselves to a reasonable “old timer” pace, but they still sometimes seemed to be racing, whereas I wanted to simply spin along as slowly as possible. However, every so often a sense of pure elation would take me by surprise, and suddenly my muscles felt full of youth again. They were feelings of happiness, hope, and especially gratitude – gratitude that I’m able to turn bicycle pedals on peaceful beach and farmland roads for miles and miles. At the very end, at mile 68, I felt totally fortunate to be out there under the summer sun with sweat soaking my florescent yellow shirt.

Yesterday I spent the warm, sunny morning with my three grandchildren. Jaimie purchased a wading pool a few weeks back, and the kids and I had fun flowing around in the shallow water, submerging our faces now and then, standing and posing, laughing and sometimes shrieking, sometimes holding out arms like the leader of the swimmers. Occasionally the kids felt the need to find some shade and soothe and settle themselves down. (At top: Noah Converse, Ava Elizabeth, and Joshus Michael beside the house.)

I took a long bike ride yesterday on a very humid morning. Everything seemed moist as I rode along – the limp trees, the relaxed roadside flowers, and certainly my arms and hands. I was wet with perspiration from start to finish. It was a sultry world I rode in, a muggy mixture of silence and slackness. It was an excellent ride, however, enlivened by lovely sights like the old boatload of morning glories pictured above.

Sun setting behind the trees in Wilcox Park on a warm and silent August evening.

Pictured above are four loaves of whole wheat bread, fresh from the oven. It's a hot day to be baking, but the freshness of the slices with cold seafood salad spread on top this evening will cool me like a nighttime breeze.

Today's bike ride was through summer mist and stillness. I started at 7:00 am, to beat the heat, and rode on some old roads that were strange to me -- long, hidden, and silent roads that wound among trees that were utterly still in the breezeless air. I stopped beside a place of dark woods, and as I watched for a few minutes I saw no leaf moving even slightly. A bit later, after pumping up a long and difficult hill, I passed the tree shown above, with the mist over the farmland behind it. Again, nothing was moving, all was still, no sound all across the hills.

I took this picture (above) while biking on an old country road this morning. The day was misty and seemed almost overcast, and the sudden dazzling light behind this tree caught my attention. The ride was a rugged one, up and down hills in the moist and warm morning air. I needed a break when I came upon this tree, and I stood still after taking the picture, enjoying some water and wondering if I would make it to the top of the upcoming hill. I did, and then rode down a rocky dirt road to visit some friends on the hilltop.

I rode over to Jan’s this morning to visit with Jaimie and the kids, and Annie and Gabe (on vacation and on the way to their dearly loved Maine for a week). It was a nippy morning on the bike, a fresh and fairly strong wind blowing, almost frigid places in the shade of trees, and a free and solitary feeling on the roads with almost no cars to dash past me. I stopped for a picture here on Rte. 1, (see above) looking out to a cove and then, way out, the sea. It was just one of countless painting-like scenes along the roads this mid-summer morning.

READING TO WEIGH AND CONSIDER, CHEW AND DIGEST

FLOWERS IN MYSTIC

While Jaimie and I were taking a walk along the quiet streets of Mystic yesterday, we came upon this colorful row of flowers (above) beautifying a fence in front of a house. It seemed a modest garden, one that probably needed little looking after and enjoyed growing on its own as it wished. We stopped for this picture, and then walked on, talking about serious things in our lives, but perhaps with the simple fenceful of flowers in the backs of our minds.

I passed this beautiful roadside garden (see photo above) on a bike ride this morning. Under the uninspiring grayness of the overcast sky, the flowers seemed full of life as they stood beside the Pawcatuck River. I was out of breath anyway, so it was a good place to stop for a picture. Another old guy was just passing at a slow jog, and he seemed as spirited as these distinguished flowers.

Today, two of my sons and I made what is, for us, a sacred journey up to Jaffrey, New Hampshire, where we climbed the revered Mt. Monadnock. We’ve done this climb as a family on many occasions, and it was wonderful today to renew the honored tradition. It was, as always, a strenuous trek to the summit. Some of the trails are precipitous and unforgiving, and there times, I think, when all of us wondered if the top of the mountain would ever appear. It was a perfect day for climbing, though, and we thoroughly loved ascending up through the cool and shadowy forests and across the bare-boned edges of the higher trails. We laughed and talked the entire way, sharing a father-son-brother comradeship that we’re all grateful for. At the summit, after a more than two hour climb, we enjoyed filling lunches and great amounts of water and some old stories about past climbs and the nature of the great stones of the earth. We hiked back down, over giant boulders and down almost unmanageable trails, and finally we reached the spring, near the trailhead, where we filled our bottles with the fresh and frosty water and sat on a log in the restorative shade of hundreds of firs and pines.
(Below is a picture of Matt and Jaimie near the summit, along with an audio version of this post. Feel free to make an audio comment, if you wish.)

"Fields Near Crowden", oil, by Sheila Vaughan

Yesterday I took what is best described as a restful bike ride. Everything seemed to be resting – the birds, the cows, the calming hills and roads, even the wind which seemed strong but somehow at peace. I passed many cows on the country roads, and all of them were stretched out on the pasture grass, sleeping or just lightening up the afternoon. Birds were soaring and sweeping around the fields, but always in a way that seemed still and undisturbed, and the old river water was wandering drowsily along as if it had just awakened. My legs worked hard on the ride (there were, as always, the bothersome hills), but they always found some rest on the flat roads that ran among farms and fields.

An ordinary moment on a bike ride

As I was riding along a quiet country road today, I came upon this rather 'ordinary' scene (see below) -- just a collection of wildflowers and weeds beneath an overcast sky on an uncomfortably muggy day. Nothing special, would have been my usual thought. However, I had just been thinking about the odd fact that everything is special, extraordinary, rare, and distinctive. Every present moment, event, person, and place is new and fresh and presented for our amazement. Those had been my musings as I pedaled past this everyday scene -- so I stopped and stared and snapped a picture. It was truly not an ordinary scene, in the sense that it contained, I'm sure, an immeasurable number of miracles: seeds forming, buds breaking open, small creatures of all sizes and shapes building their tiny lives as I stood there beside my bike.

NOTE: If you have a minute, you can click the arrow below to hear my recording of this post...and feel free, please, to add your comment.

"Summer Surf", oil, by Joe Mancuso

Yesterday was as unsullied and sunlit a summer day as anyone could want. I celebrated it with, first, a brisk 30-minute climb up and down the stairs in the park, then back home for a veggie omelet spiced with Worcestershire sauce and Tobasco, then some pleasant editing of my teaching journal, then a little laid-back reading, followed by a seafood salad sandwich and icy milk for lunch, then an uplifting bike ride out to the beach for an hour of fun with my sons in the rowdy surf, then an unruffled ride back home to get ready for an evening at school for a reunion of scholars and colleagues from long ago, then back home through the evening streets for a glass of Chardonnay and a look at the news and the Red Sox.