And Suddenly, It's Year 20

 

It won't be long now and I'll be back in the classroom. For weeks, I have been pouring time, thought, and creativity into my direction for this coming year.

At the end of this last school year, I was ready to walk away from middle school. I thought I'd had enough. I heard internal whisperings I needed a new direction. I misinterpreted this at first, thinking I needed to leave my school. But in short order, I realized otherwise.

Things are changing in a great direction for me, as it turns out. I will be getting a Creative Writing class back. (YAY!)

Thankfully, I have escaped the scripted program that had me down the last couple years, no matter how many times I felt I rose above it. I wasn't rising. I was merely tolerating, and I know that now.

I will be back to teaching almost exclusively 7th graders, which is fine with me. 

Many things have pointed me in the direction I need to go. First, the less than stellar curriculum needs a lot of help to make it work. Second, the behavior issues caused by a multitude of reasons (not the least the poor curriculum), need to be addressed in innovative ways.

Then synchronicity! Recently, I went with my husband to his periodontist and ran into a former student who worked there. She recognized me, and then it brought back a flood of memories. Brittany was in my English 3 Honors, one of my favorite courses to teach as it focused on American Literature.

When I got home, I recalled that Brittany was probably in a "thank you" video her class had made for me. And sure enough, I watched it again and saw all those faces and heard all their comments about how much they liked the activities we did in class, how it helped them grow. 

Running into Brittany was serendipity for sure. It was like a confirmation to me that my chosen direction was the right one.

It reinforced what I had already decided: I need to get back to the way I used to teach. The way before Chromebooks took over and COVID made Google Classroom the be-all and end-all, as well as the overload of computerized programs that are required of our learners.  ENOUGH!

Little by little I've been pulling what I call my "greatest hits," and figuring out ways to implement. TP CASTT for poetry. The mentor text sequence to dig into meaning and connotation and create summaries. Reciprocal teaching to unpack a text together. DEAN (description, explanation, argument, narrative) to discover how a writer creates a piece. Socrative Seminars for chewing on text. Defend, Challenge, Qualify for debating. Time dedicated to independent reading choices with worthwhile activities. Projects galore!

And always...ALWAYS...working collaboratively. One thing I know...just one year away from being able to work with each other during the pandemic year crippled our learners, and trying to get that back has felt like more effort than it's worth. But I am devoted to making it happen, even if it takes months to click in. I am stepping away from "fill-in-the-blank" education which has caused many to give as little thought as possible to what they were doing. Now we will be back to looking at each other, and listening, and considering ideas and perspectives, and how to give voice to those in writing.

I consider this year as a celebration of the teacher I am deep in my core. I want to take what I'm given (which is NOT scripted!) and spin it into gold. My plan is to report here when I pull on former ideas I haven't used in a while, and reflect on the process.

There is much more on my mind, but I will leave this here. Just know that when it comes to #Year20, I am committed 100%. I haven't been this excited about a school year since 2019.

It's about time!

I'm thinking...

This is a Natalie Goldberg prompt I used in combination with color tiles during a Creative Writing Club meeting on March 14, 2023. I just now found the poem, and decided it was worth publishing!

I'm thinking of simple sorrow

    in sugarplum blue

I'm thinking of Mojave desert

    in surges of gold

I'm thinking of every doorway

    where everything begins

I'm thinking I'm too weak to fly

    but I can walk in the stony brook

I'm thinking of beating on the walls

    slowly and unafraid

I'm thinking I need toys of desperation

I'm thinking of how light moves into

    an unknown sea

I'm thinking of running down the road in a fringed jacket

    laughing and playful

sprouting my true colors

jazzy zigzags and singing

    songs not yet sung

 

 

“presiding over all those miracles”

Winding backwards on a morning walk at my local beach, I am thinking of this Billy Collins poem:

 

Dogma

I might be an atheist

were it not

for all the tall angels

and the pudgy cherubs

in the silvery clouds

presiding over all those miracles.

While driving, I saw ice rainbows in the clouds....

Tall angels in the form of osprey....

Pudgy cherubs in sunrise clouds…

Pudgy cherubs in the silvery cloud reflections…

 So many dragonflies...this one posed for me, then flew on...

I find my broken tree, drop my shell in, and speak out loud that God and I will always preside 

over these miracles together.

The Glory of Nothing?

 

Prompted from last lines of the poem “The Pleiades” by Rumi.

You see clearly the glory of nothing

and stand, inexplicably, there.

You wonder where the writing

muse has gone, sidetracked

to a wooded riverbank, waiting?

Why are there no new things

to say? Where is the creative breath?

The force that moved you all these years?

There are more questions than answers.

You didn’t even pretend you’d write this summer.

And you haven’t. 

Is there glory in nothing? Is this

the starting point? Here?

Prompt #7--Saying Goodbye

 Response to prompt #7 of Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones Deck.

What will you have to say goodbye to when you die?

The first answer that came was READING. I no longer will be able to know someone else's thinking on a subject or read a story that will help me know how to be a better person. I think it's weird it was the first thing I thought of, but this morning I've been planning my reading going forward.

Of course, if it happened now I'd have to say goodbye to Jim and all my friends and family and neighbors. But that goes without saying, right?

Or do I stay with them in some way, shape, or form? It's a possibility!

I'll miss wine and sushi and MUSIC--although, again...will I know music on the other side? It's possible, I suppose, being as heavenly as it is.

I'll miss going to the library. Yoga class. Driving in my car listening to Classic Vinyl, going somewhere I really want to go.

I'll miss the Grand Ol' Opry. The woods. Spotting an eagle or a swallow-tailed kite in the sky.

I'll miss ART. This past Friday I saw some spectacular art that really wowed me. How unfair it will be gone from my vision.

Some things I'll miss I have already pretty much said goodbye to -- The Blue Ridge Mountains. Nashville.

Oh, but the classroom interactions -- the really good ones, memorable ones. My own classroom and college. Everyday jokes with co-workers.

And laughter.

Everywhere I Am

 

I had been having a rather rough Father’s Day. This time of year is always tough, as my father made his transition in May 31, 1998 and his 69th birthday would have been that June 23rd. Father’s Day is always plopped right in between. We get to this time of year and it’s dad reminders everywhere.

The 25th anniversary was noted, but since I was traveling, the day passed without too much thinking about the relevance of it.  My sister and I visited his grave the next day, something I rarely do. His birthday will come again this Friday, and my 68th birthday in August. You can bet I’m thinking about how short his life really was, as I enter the same year that took him away.

Today I cried early on, and then did my best to let it go. Later, my sister Margie texted me her sadness at the moment I was reading the above Facebook comment my friend Kara had reposted. I told Margie I was feeling similar sadness, and perhaps it is the rain and lack of sun that was adding to it for me. I sent her the post, and she loved it as much as I did.

I was glad to have the Sunday yoga and meditation class to rest my mind and body into, and was happy that my favorite teacher, Linda, would be doing the class today. The thing is, Linda forgot the key to the studio at home and so we decided to have a short class outside, right there in the outdoor hallway next to a fountain and under a canopy. The rain had stopped, but it was still overcast and there was a cool breeze, a real blessing in our area in June.

Linda had brought her crystal bowls, and so after some movement we settled into a crystal bowl meditation. The rain began again, pitter-patting on the canopy above us, adding to the ethereal crystal vibrations and the bird sounds and the water fall of the fountain. It was then I remembered the post. I looked at the moment and realized that my father was here. Hadn’t I been the one silently asking for rain all week to cool things down? It was an answered prayer.

 I looked further, and could see him in the yoga and the bowls and the cool breeze. It had all come together in an unusual and spectacular way. Once I looked, really looked into the moment,  I could see he is everywhere I am.

And I knew despite the way it sometimes appears, nothing has ever been lost. 

Finisterre: That’s Not You

 

The road beating you down is not the only road.

The moon is over your home while the

sun shines here on a spring Sunday.

The future is now in a new question

and that comes with a willingness to

be open to the messages of the universe,

the butterfly and sunflowers drew the

voice to your awareness and that is

all good: miracles are at hand.

Those from the past are very present.

Leave your shoes, your books, and

walk to a new beginning when the

time is ripe. You truly were giving up

too soon. And we know that is not you.

Become part of all that is and

stand in the trees, stand on the shore,

then walk on, no matter what.

(Inspired by people I know who just finished walking the Camino in Spain, David Whyte’s poem “Finesterre,” and Paul Simon’s Seven Psalms.)