English Department Meeting

I love our department chairperson.  I love my colleagues.  We are so awesome and powerful, and we mean so well.  And we would never deliberately trash an agenda.

But today at our meeting, it disintegrated into a general despair, a desperation arising from two weeks that have gone something like this:

• 156 English students to get to know, whose writing I need to read, who I want to be okay and believe that I know not only their names, but their styles, their reading tastes, what skills they have at this point.
• 23 advisory students I'm supposed to be tracking and getting to know personally so I can become their advocate.
• National Board Coaching Saturday
• Open House
• Freshman commits suicide
• Parent Teacher conference night
• My own children's parent teacher conferences
• Professional Growth Plans due
• Progress Report Grades Due (not to mention the grading)
• National Board Workday (include:  making sub plans)
• Evaluating opportunities to earn extra $ tutoring for AIMS or teaching after-school classes.  Deciding it's just not possible, even though funds would be helpful.
• My own son gets kicked out of school and I have to interrupt teaching to go pick him up
• Multiple real estate transactions we are working on
• Conference time with students replaced twice by a) pep rally and b) PSAT proctor training (rgh).
• Computer lab taken over by another teacher who went there on the wrong period; lab not available another period because the office doors are all locked and nobody is anywhere to be found.
• Planning, grading, planning, grading and planning and grading for three separate courses.
• Trying to track down and help several individual students who worry me.
• web development on seven separate wikis.
• flat tire on the very warm roof of the parking garage.
• tech work orders for network connections, software installation, etc.
• National Board candidate support meeting.

Well, that's my list anyway.   About every other item could be replaced by every other teacher in that room with their own personal troubles and obligations.  Several expressed that they feel like first year teachers again with the class loads we have.  I have been feeling that way, but I thought it was because of National Boards, which is really causing me to look closely at my students and what they are learning or how they are developing as readers and writers.

No, it turns out we are all feeling the pressure.  Classes start so early this year it is hard to meet with students individually.  The bell schedule is all wacko.  We are all trying so badly, as we always do, to compensate for the difficulties of the system-- it's the nature of being a professional in the educational system.  You are a trooper.  You go for it, despite...   You care, despite...   You can't stop trying out new instructional ideas, despite...   You make field trip plans, despite...

It's a wacky time, folks.  I'm feeling alternately exhilirated, refreshed and re-energized in my teaching and also exhausted, overwhelmed and helpless at the same time.  It's a cliche, but it's true that the students keep me going.  And it's only week 6.  How long until we all catch bronchitis and stay home for a few days?

Well, that thought-dump really helped.  I'm off to bed.  To sleep?  Perchance to dream?  For more than 5 1/2 hours?  A pleasant thought indeed.

Things That Make No Sense #2

Freshman commits suicide.

Teachers are asked to read aloud official announcement that he has "died at home" over the weekend.

Teachers are asked not to condone rumors and gossip during times like this.

Students report that it was due to bullying.

Teacher downplays rumor but allows discussion to continue.

Students say that they perceive that teachers, staff and admin do nothing about bullying.

No official communication regarding bullying issue.  Other children continue to get bullied each day.

Cyberbullying workshops are arranged and scheduled.

Nobody ever admits that the workshops have anything to do with the recent suicide.

?

If we address the issue of bullying, we do so based on a variety of assumptions instead of being able to provide whatever real information may be available.

Meanwhile, kid is dead.  A kid described by my students as "warm," "kind," and "just a baby."

Feeling That Seaside Need

This is sort of a follow up from my previous Seaside reveries.

Haven't been sleeping well.  And when I'm trying to relax at night, convince my lungs to expand and admit cleansing breaths that extend throughout my body, I visualize the beach in Seaside, Oregon.  My healing place, spiritual fountain and mind blank place.

More photos and memories.

Emily Dickinson and Tucson's Big Read

Many of my classes will be participating in one form or another in The Big Read, sponsored by Kore Press and NEA.
The Big Read is a program through National Endowment for the Arts, and this year the featured poet is Emily Dickinson.  Many other organizations are partnering up throughout the fall, including the University of Arizona Poetry Center, to put together an incredible run of events.  Teens may be especially interested in Logan Phillips' Slamming Emily writing and poetry slam workshops.  Logan visited my classroom last year, and really connected with my students and inspired them to write some great poetry.

Emily Dickinson at age 16

Many students are totally unfamiliar with Dickinson's work, and others may stereotype her as an old maid and a hermit writing old-fashioned poetry, but Emily Dickinson was a pre-modern poet, bending and breaking the rules of the poetry of her time. Though she lived in 19th Century Massachusetts, her voice is modern and always surprising. Together with Walt Whitman, she is credited with helping develop a truly American poetic voice. However, I see her as having a more individual voice, especially seeing that her poetry was not widely recognized until the middle of the 20th century.

Below, find a list of some poems which may help engage you with her work. Her poems are categorized by number and title.  The poems were not originally titled, but are conventionally given a title using the first line. The capitalization and punctuation of the titles is true to the original-- Dickinson was known for her unconventional use of punctuation and capitalization. In early volumes of her work, editors changed the capitalization and punctuation to their tastes, but the poems are now treasured for these idiosyncratic details.  Below the poems is a list of Emily Dickinson resources I've collected.

I will continue to revise this page as I find new resources.

 

Selected Poems:

I measure every Grief I meet
Because I could not stop for Death
I heard a Fly buzz
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
There's a certain Slant of Light
The Soul unto itself
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--

Fantastic Video:
Emily Dickinson – Her True Self from Flash Rosenberg on Vimeo.

 

Emily Dickinson Links

Emily Dickinson Links

Writing in the Margins

Thinking about my role as a teacher after the news that yet another of our students committed suicide over the weekend, a freshman. Not one of my students, but it just as well could have been.

Writing in the Margins

I try to write in the margins
not sprawl purple ink on your precious words
and I'm not saying precious with a snarl
What I am skirting around is the truth
that whether or not you will ever be literary
or grammatically correct
or well-organized
is really irrelevant
although I do kind of fall for the literary types
they are my favorite, I won't lie
as long as they are open to feedback
those and the truly witty jokesters
and the strong girls

But where I am headed here is that...

Your words are precious
You are precious
Too precious to allow the words or thoughts of others
to have the power to destroy you
So long as you use words
you are human
and you are vital
the moment your voice goes mute
whether by noose, pills, force
or silent withdrawal
you lose the power to save yourself
to save others
to discover what you cannot save
to hope to save
to love
to let go
to free yourself

you lose it all
and we lose you
and, really, we need you
the world needs you
you have a place within it

I'm sure there is a metaphor
that will say it better
but listen
I'll leave it to you
to critique this poem
suggest more figurative language
talk back to it
write all over it
I don't care
I'm sure it has greater possibilities
but so do you.