The Ocean Inside

Last night I read through all the "crash and burns" I wrote at the beginning of our creative writing classes this past school year. C & B is a stream-of-consciousness technique used to burn off things that are on the mind in order to open up to creativity. I always write with the class.

I was a bit taken aback by the many irritations I revealed in the writing. When I think of the school year, I seriously don't remember that stuff.  But then I realized it was because I "crash and burned" it -- I dumped it on the page so I wasn't carrying it.  Cool revelation. It was working!

Anyway, in October I came across a poem I wrote during the crash and burn. I immediately recognized the subject as being something in the book poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge.  I had read a chapter called "the poemfish out loud as a way to get started in the crash and burn. (Some kids appreciate having the prompt to get them going.)

Here is what I wrote:

The poemfish swims
on rough days when no one
can remember who or what
they are. The poemfish won't
stop knocking at the door, coming
back for Chromebooks. The poemfish
thinks I wrote a referral when it
was just a lunch detention. The
poemfish knows it is not worth it
to let a student fail -- and the
poemfish really doesn't care. The
poemfish will write an ode to
something long ago & missed.
The poemfish will refill her
water bottle and order more
Rescue Remedy and go to yoga
because there is no better way to
adjust from a day of busy aggravations. 
The poemfish figures missing items
are not coming back and, oh well.
I want to settle into my house &
play mandolin and maybe finally
organize my music I said I would
do last winter. The poemfish knows
it's getting harder & harder to schedule
time with the writing group, our lives
so much busier and crazier. Yet
the poemfish has discovered that
her life can have balance. Yes --
balance after all.

3:20 pm    10/3/18

I was a bit delighted finding this, so I went back to the chapter in Susan's book and found this in the chapter:

The poems really are messages to me whispering, Be calm, go deep, go slow. There's a long poem brewing in me, "The Poemfish," still rough,

...When the poemfish moves
the sea lights up
with stars that dip and swim...
The poemfish lives
in the night ocean.
If you sleep mouth open
the poemfish might swim in.
You'll dream salty words
that swim away sideways, slow...

And now I remember. Worrying about what people think of me and my poems always gets me in trouble. I get lost "out there."  It's the process of writing poems that helps me bring my heart back home. It put me in touch with the ocean inside I can never lose, where poems come from and where I connect to me. (50)

When I go back and look at my "poemfish" poem, I see that it is full of past and present, of calming myself down, of coming to terms, of revelation, and yes, even a weird shift in point of view. In some cases the poemfish was other people who were coming and going. On first read, I think, What a mess. But in reality, it is a useful exercise in revealing the ocean inside, the place we are in any given moment when we are able to just let our thoughts glide by. This writing was connecting me to me. And that is all that matters.  That is what kept me afloat during the school year.

For that, I'm truly grateful!



(Painting graphic "Entre Amigo" by Felix Murillo)

Wind

Inspired by the poem "Don't Bother the Earth Spirit" by Joy Harjo.  The first line is from her poem.

This is no ordinary story

it is as small as making dinner

as large as running for president

it is as small as these marks on a page

as large as music that fills the spheres

it is as small as a cup of tea

as large as the sun on the mountains

We do not live in ordinary ways

We are minute and gigantic at the same time

in the same moment

Follow the breath

It is the wind of the world

Reflections on the 2018-19 School Year

In May, language arts teacher and author Pernille Ripp wrote a blog post called What Did You Want to Be This Year.   I vowed to write my own.

Today I pulled the three pages of notes I made last summer with the title "Keep Your Focus" that I used as my outline for the year.

Short answer: I did pretty well.

In May 2018 I had looked at my reading class and thought, "I have not helped them become readers." Thus, my mission over the summer became one of figuring out how to make that a reality.  I read extensively, created a plan, sold the plan to my reading coach, administration, and reading department, and when the school year began we were ready.

The plan was simple: allow 10 minutes of free reading time in every reading class, as well as during the lunchtime period which has extra time built into it.  Reading teachers taught readers how to make a goal for their reading, our media specialists took time to make sure all classrooms had books available, and we were off and running.

It worked way better than I ever anticipated. The kids bought in immediately. It was like they were waiting!  In fact, the biggest complaint I heard over and over again was that they weren't getting ENOUGH time to read their own books.

Winning!

But back to the purpose of this post -- to reflect on my success in being who I set out to be.


I have five categories that I reflected on to prep this blog.  Here is how I fared:

I wanted to be focused on what was most important: What this means is the emphasis on independent reading, goal setting, and some standard classroom activities that set the right tone. In general, I stuck with this. There was only a short period of time during 2nd quarter when I got a bit off my focus, but in general I remembered what was important.  Sacred reading time. That alone made for a calmer classroom.  And a calmer teacher!

When stressed slow down: This mostly came after I went through my 2nd quarter blitz when I was trying to cram in too much. I happened upon a book called We Got This: Equity Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be by Cornelius Minor. His wise words helped me get much more purposeful about my approach to everything: conducting class, assessing, grading, and relationships. It caused me to write a new mission statement based on the acronym BRIDGE:

Build relationships
Illuminate discovery
Generate expression

Once I had this formula, I knew better what to do in every moment.  I will be revisiting Minor's book before school begins again to be sure that I am implementing as many of his ideas as possible for a successful 19-20.

Get feedback from the classes: With Pernille's insistence, I made sure I was surveying my readers as much as possible to be up to date on what they were thinking about our class.  I then made sure they knew I HEARD their concerns, and we adjusted each class accordingly. This is one of the simplest things a teacher can do, yet in the past I didn't always take the time. Now I know it IS the most important work.

As good as surveys are, I think I will be implementing more class meetings as well this coming year.  Minor has a very short version that gives just a few minutes for kids to express concerns. I am committed to this as a way to keep updated on a more regular basis.  Our classes meet every other day, so I will probably put the meetings on Fridays when we have class.

Create space: It was the glitch in 2nd quarter and the Minor book that made me realize I had to create more space for readers to share their reading experiences.  I hadn't actually made a plan for that, so at the beginning of 3rd quarter I implemented "Reading Fridays" as a way to be sure we connected as readers. This took a variety of forms: watching and responding to videos about the benefits of reading, playing games like CLUMP to share our books, making one-pagers and writing book reviews, and letting our reading coach take a day to have the kids make recommendation tags for the library.  This is a must to kick off at the beginning of the next school year. Class meeting then reading day.  Perfect.

Reduce technology: For several years we had required computer programs for reading, places to go to assess or build skills.  I thankfully was able to set that aside this year. I don't think anyone missed it, and the work we were doing in class, be it independent reading or any of our activities, were obviously more valuable than mindlessly going through a computer program. Through a variety of formative assessments, personal observation, and self-reporting by readers, I could see that all classes grew as thinkers and readers.


PLANS FOR NEXT SCHOOL YEAR

My experience this year -- which created a less stressful environment for me, even though I was teaching four preps -- left me with some energy at the end of the year to begin to think about how we can build on the foundation we began this year. I'm working closely with my partner teacher and reading coach to move toward more directed standards-based learning and grading, as well as deeper instruction in research. We determined as a team that research skills are lacking in our students, and it is time to reclaim what we used to do. The AP for our Reading Dept. has great ideas for this, and will lead us in the right direction. I find this very exciting!

Writing is also going to become a greater part of what we do. I meant for it to be included more last year, but when I ran into roadblocks, I didn't take the time or energy to figure out how to fix the problem. I am being more proactive on writing this year, as it will be implemented more strongly from the start.

Many of our reading teachers are interested in the Global Read Aloud, and we are preparing for it as well.  The community of educators I have met online via Pernille's page as well as the GRA page keep me motivated and hopeful. There are teachers all over the world who believe in their mission and are putting everything into it. I am proud to stand in solidarity with them.  If our readers can be part of a GLOBAL reading community, how much more importance it will hold.  It also may help us try new things like Flipgrid as a way to communicate with others. So many possibilities!

Final answer to the questions Was I who I wanted to be this year?  I'd say 85% of the the time.

Next year I'm shooting for 100% once again. I feel I have the support and the community around me I need to make this happen.  I have no doubt that by keeping my focus, getting feedback, creating space, and being more purposeful, I can succeed.

And nothing feels better than that!

Rock Throwers, Wisdom's Daughters

This summer is starting to shape up differently than I anticipated.  Well, I'm not sure what I anticipated, but there is definitely a feeling of a shift happening with me in many ways.

Given this feeling, I returned to one of my favorite books: A Woman's Book of Life by Joan Borysenko.  In this book published in 1996, Joan explains how women's lives break down into segments of 7 years.  I've been following this for some time, and since I'm now 63, I am entering another era in my life.  This is what I'm feeling, I know. And I find it exciting.

This summer I've also started practicing the found poem as a way to deepen my attention to text. Given all these things together, I decided to write a found poem from Joan's chapter called "Ages 63-70: Wisdom's Daughters."  I am sure I will have much more to say on this topic as time goes on, but here is a starter poem on the topic near and dear to me right now.

Rock Throwers, Wisdom's Daughters

Throw a rock in the water
the ripples are far-reaching
words and actions touch other
                  in positive ways

How different the world could be
         with the
                      compassionate
                      empathetic
                      interdependent
                      intuitive wisdom
                                     of the feminine

This is the time of women

Freedom years, a shift:
      value nature and technology
      honor diversity
      learn from each other
      preserve health
      foster longevity

Usher a new worldview into being

Restore balance in a troubled world.

Not Jaded (Thank God)

In my vow to do some purging of stuff that has simply been sitting here TOO long (such as student surveys from 2010 that, honestly, I still may have trouble parting with), I found a couple of things that formed together this blog post.  They reinforced that not only am I not jaded by my teaching career, I continue to thrive -- for I have a grounding in the key to success.

The first thing I found was this quote from Amy Pohler:

...ambivalence is the key to success.

I will say it again. Ambivalence is the key to success.

You have to care about your work but not about the result. 

You have to care about how good you are and how good you feel...

This made sense to me when I first read it, and it still makes sense to me now.  For I know the more I stick with not being attached to outcomes, the better outcomes I receive.

But that's not all.  I then found this:

Back in an earlier life, I made some money with a part-time job promoting a Read-A-Thon to elementary and middle schools in the Northeast Ohio area to benefit the Multiple Sclerosis Society. It was lucrative and fun, and put me in front of lots of audiences to use my speaking and teaching skills.

The ink on the page above represents my thoughts about working with young people, written on January 27, 1998.  The thing that struck me is that I could write every word of this today and still believe with the same fervor. 

At the time, I was a volunteer youth sponsor for Unity Church's teen group called Youth of Unity. More importantly, I was just starting to toy with the idea of becoming a teacher, and what that meant: years of college, resting on an uncertainty of even beginning to make that happen. So much happened afterward, and less than a year later I was taking my first two college courses.

Here is what I wrote that fate-filled day:

to be filled...to connect with a child...to listen to a teen...to listen to laughter...to see the answers appear through their eyes...to help them see new ways...to listen when they have new ways...and AFFIRM...to encourage them to be their best...to know they have a best...to honor their journey...to know they have sacred contracts with those in their life, so judgment is never needed or necessary...to be a natural adult...to not be part of the wound but part of the light...to nurture their dreams...to be available...to witness their passion...to guide their souls...to care always, not just when it's convenient...to not play a comparison game...to guide gently...to use tough love sparingly and thoughtfully...to comfort...to cherish...to smile genuinely...to plan and prepare, yet be flexible...to open to the voice of spirit in times of trouble...to let go gracefully when the time has come...to keep a safe boundary...to teach them safe boundaries...to pray with...play with...work with...team up with...and in every moment knowing that there is no place better.

When I Say "Teacher"

Inspired by a section of "Whereas" a poem by Layli Long Soldier

Whereas...

I am a teacher and it
currently brings pity
from the masses when
I say I teach, the reply
is "You're so underpaid,"

but no will or action to
change it, just an
acknowledgement that
here is the fact, like

clouds form in the sky
and mountains will erode,
we have no control,
no say in it.

Yet...

when I say

"I'm a teacher"

I'm speaking of a spiritual and soul practice
that makes me
want

to

live

forever.