Fran Haley

Lighting the way

/ Fran Haley / 15 Comments

Lumos

Yesterday a fifth-grader caught me in the hallway:

“Mrs. Haley, do you have a copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in your room?”

 “I have two copies. Ask your teacher if you can walk with me to get one.”

He did. As we walked, I said, “The Chamber of Secrets is a great book. I enjoyed it more than The Sorcerer’s Stone.”

“Yeah, I haven’t read Chamber of Secrets. I saw the movie and my favorite part is when Harry gets the cloak of invisibility and finds that mirror where he sees his family.”

“Ah, the Mirror of Erised … I just read that aloud to two classes at another school last week while they were studying fantasy.”

In that chapter, Harry receives the cloak of invisibility at Christmas with an anonymous note explaining that it had belonged to his father; he is admonished to “use it well.” He sneaks around Hogwarts, hidden by the cloak, and ends up in a remote, off-limits part of the building in what appears to be a storage room. He finds a large, ornate mirror. Erised backwards is desire – looking in the Mirror of Erised shows a person the deepest desires of his or her heart. Harry’s family is dead; he desperately wishes he could have known them. He is transfixed by their images in the mirror – they wave at him, and his mother wipes away her tears as she smiles at Harry.

I think, as I rummage through my basket of Potter books, Fascinating how it’s the humanity that draws us, more than the magic. 

“Here you, go,” I say to the student. “The Chamber of Secrets.”

His face lights up when I place it in his hands. “Thanks, Mrs. Haley!”

“Read it well,” I call after him, as he walks away, flipping pages.

I look around my room, my own chamber decorated with Potter memorabilia that draws children from across grade levels. They love to drop by to show me their owl collections, to ask if I’ve read The Cursed Child, to share anything Harry Potter that they’ve recently acquired. The Harry Potter club meets here twice a month, students from third through fifth grades, and we talk so much more about what motivates the characters than the magic they employ.

My Lumos glass box gleams in the corner by the doorway. I think of all the times that teachers might wish we had magic wands to show us everything the kids need, to fix all that needs fixing. I recall J.K. Rowling’s quote from her 2008 Harvard speech, now connected to her Lumos charity on behalf of children:

“We do not need magic to transform the world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already.”

It’s apparent whenever I read with the kids, whenever the Potter club meets and someone has an epiphany about a character, whenever I walk into a classroom to write with students and teachers. The essence of teaching, of reading, of writing more than anything else, is the connection of human minds and hearts. It’s all part of same story, the triumph of the human spirit. Teach it, read it, write it well – tap into all you’ve known, all you’ve loved, all you’re wrestling with, and watch their faces.

It’s all inside you. Light the way.

slice-of-life_individualEarly Morning Slicer

 

 

 

Spectacle

/ Fran Haley / 10 Comments
Glass doors

Untitled. SupportPDX. CC BY

“Bye, Mrs. Haley!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Haley!”

The fifth-graders hugged me as they left summer enrichment camp. Their parents, present for camp graduation, made a point to speak to me, too:

“Thanks so much for this experience. My son loved it  – he wants it to last all summer!”

“My girl wants to come back next year!”

I laughed, shaking hands with the gracious parents, all the while basking in an inner glow: I did it! I successfully organized and taught this thing!

Just then, I spotted a student’s notebook left on the floor.

Oh, no! She’s going to need this  – the whole point of compiling it is to have a resource in sixth grade!

I glanced through the glass lobby doors. My student was with her mom, getting into a blue Honda. I snatched the notebook up from the floor. If I hurried, I could catch them before they pulled away.

I sprinted for all I was worth across the crowded lobby and – BAM!

For a nanosecond, I wasn’t sure what had happened. That sound was immense. Then I realized: I was the sound.

I found myself lying on the cold stone of the lobby floor.

There were loud gasps, maybe even a small scream.

“Mrs. Haley!”

That’s when I knew: I had run full blast into the closed glass door.

In a lobby full of parents and kids.

I sat up. Deep, throbbing pain spread across the bones of my face. I quickly ran my tongue over my teeth – were they knocked out?

No, they were intact.

Get up! said my brain. Before anybody comes over here.

Squaring my shoulders, I popped up from the floor, grabbed the notebook I’d dropped, OPENED the glass door, and scurried through to the blue Honda.

My student and her mom looked at me dubiously as I approached the driver’s side. The mom slid the window down.

“Um, your daughter forgot her notebook,” I said, holding my nose with one hand. Blood  seeped through my fingers. I extended the notebook with the other hand.

“Uh – thanks,” said the mom, taking it from me.

“Hey, Mrs. Haley, your nose is bleeding!” said my student, craning over in the front seat for a better look.

“Yes, I know,” I answered, “but it’s fine. Enjoy the rest of your summer!”

I slunk back into the building where people stood, gaping. Giggles rippled through them. Without making eye contact, I marched past them into the bathroom to survey the damage.

I didn’t look too mutilated. The nosebleed was already slowing.

The bathroom door opened and one of my colleagues came in.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I think so,” I said. I leaned closer to the mirror. “Oh, no – look! My nose is turning black already!” How bad will the bruising be? Will I have two black eyes?

“Let me see,” said my colleague. She came up close to scrutinize my nose. She touched it gently.

I winced.

A grin spread over her face.

“That’s ink from the newspapers you were holding!” She doubled up with laughter.

This is just great. Assured that my nose was going to be fine, I had no choice but to return to the lobby after I washed away the ink and the blood.

Most of the folks had cleared, thankfully. Only my colleagues remained; they’d propped open the offending glass door. “You need to see what you did to the door,” one of them told me.

I went to check it out, wondering if I’d somehow managed to hurt the door more than it had hurt me.

And there on the clear glass before me was a perfect mask of my face, thanks to the foundation I wore. An oval with two eye-holes, a complete set of lips in faint lipstick, even the little vertical lines in my lips, all captured there on impact better than any artist could have painted.

As I stared in horror at this specter of my visage, one of my colleagues called, “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

They all howled while I frantically wiped my phantom make-up mask from the glass.

“One thing’s for sure,” one of them said, wiping her eyes, “no one will ever forget this camp graduation!”

Indeed. The success of the camp itself is not a topic of conversation anymore, but as for me – I’m legendary.

slice-of-life_individual

 

 

 

Writing the truth

/ Fran Haley / 17 Comments

i-like-my-mom

Ernest Hemingway once said that it is the writer’s job to tell the truth. In A Moveable Feast, he describes his process:

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

I am sharing here one of the truest pieces of writing I have ever seen.

The background: When he was small, our younger son often went with my husband to church early on Sunday mornings. The little fellow sat in the church office and busied himself with writing sticky notes that he delivered to me on my arrival.

I saved them – they’re all in the bottom of my jewelry box.

This one is my favorite. As you can see, the note says “I like my mom.”

Not love, mind you . . . .

But this is a two-pager (see the staples?). The sentence continues on Page Two:

most-of-the-time

“I like my mom – most of the time.”

I ask: Has a truer sentence ever been written?

slice-of-life_individual

Service

/ Fran Haley / 8 Comments

The restaurant was packed with the after-church crowd on Sunday. The boy halfway wondered if he should have chosen a different place for lunch, but he had a hankering for a steak today. 

The waitress took a long time getting to him for his order; he suspected it might take forever before his food actually arrived. Well, I’m really in no hurry, he told himself. That steak better be good, though.

The noise got to him a bit. Clinking glass at tables where busboys hurried, a screaming toddler, the hum of conversations, bursts of laughter, too-loud music. Why do restaurants continually raise the volume of the music above the volume of conversation? thought the boy. People are just about shouting to each other! 

The host passed his table, followed by an elderly woman with a walker who gingerly navigated the tables and chairs to be seated a short distance away from the boy. He sipped his sweet tea, wondering if he should make it last, as a refill any time soon did not seem like a remote possibility. The restaurant must be short-staffed today, or something.

The woman with the walker was alone. I wonder why? mused the boy. Is she a widow? Maybe she doesn’t have children. Maybe her husband is in the hospital. Or maybe a nursing home. It’s Sunday; maybe she’s been to see him, or maybe she’s going to see him after lunch.

It bothered him that this woman was alone.

It did not bother him that he was alone. Sometimes he ate with friends after church and sometimes he just enjoyed solitude. I am young, though, he thought. She is old. She should be with someone.

Maybe someone is meeting her here.

No one did.

The woman’s long wait jangled his nerves. He forgot that he, too, was receiving terrible service today; this old woman deserved better treatment. 

His steak eventually arrived. It was good. He savored every bite. When the bill came, he asked the waitress:

“Do you see that woman over there,  by herself?”

“The one with the walker?”

“Yes. Bring me her bill, too, please. I am buying her lunch today.”

And so he did. He left the restaurant feeling peaceful inside, before the woman knew her lunch was paid for.

His story brought tears to my eyes. The boy is just nineteen, a college student, working his first steady part-time job.

“You have one of the best hearts of anyone I’ve ever known,” I told him. “You truly do.”

He half-smiled like my father used to, sometimes.

“It was the only thing I could do for her, Mom.”

And, sated with steak, he went upstairs to the quiet sanctuary of his room, humming his favorite tune, the first one he ever learned.

Amazing Grace.

slice-of-life_individual

Crossing the bay

/ Fran Haley / 12 Comments
cape-charles-beach

Chesapeake Bay, Eastern Shore, Virginia. Ken Lund. CC BY-SA

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
   Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
   Turns again home.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Crossing the Bar”

I walked the little beach many times in the five years I lived in Cape Charles. With the ebb and flow of the tide, tiny periwinkle snails bury themselves in the sand. Gulls hovering overhead cry in their piercing, lonely voices. Storms churn the Chesapeake Bay, stirring its hidden contents so that afterward, treasures can be found on the shore – sand dollars, whole and unharmed, prizes to a beachcomber. I collected many.

I was alone on the beach the day I saw the old train coming to the end of the line at the harbor. I’d never seen it come through – Cape Charles is a tiny railroad town that almost didn’t survive the loss of the industry.

Where’s that train going? I wondered. Has it gotten on the wrong track? There’s nowhere to go – nothing but the bay ahead of it. Will it turn around, somehow? Or back up? 

Is it going over the edge, into the water? 

The train kept rolling forward, slowing to a stop at last.

I relaxed.

And the train began to float away from the land, as if by magic, as if it were Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, sprouting a flotation device.

It’s on a barge!

I watched, marveling, as the train sailed out into the bay, a majestic, most rare sight. I imagined visiting fishermen looking up from their bait and tackle to gawk as the train drifted by their boats.

There was something poetic about it, both grand and poignant, filled with awe and tasting of sadness. The gulls cried; a salt-tinged breeze caressed my face. I watched as the train grew smaller and smaller on the bay, until I could see it no more, and turned again home.

slice-of-life_individual

 

Titanic relic

/ Fran Haley / 7 Comments
pier-54-april-2012

Pier 54,  April 21, 2012 – exactly one hundred years after the sinking of the Titanic.

Arriving by bus in New York City, the tour guide said, “This is Hudson River Park.”

Looking through the window, I saw a sign: Chelsea Piers.

Chelsea Piers – why does that sound so familiar?

The words buffered around my brain for a second or two, retrieving the information: Chelsea Piers is where the old old ocean liners docked. 

Pier 54 is where the Titanic survivors were delivered by the Carpathia – hey, that’s exactly a hundred years ago this week!

I scrambled for my phone and opened the camera.

I took the shot just as we passed.

There is no magnificent dock anymore, only a corroding steel arch standing like a neglected, tired sentinel as people go about their daily lives. It’s hard to imagine this unremarkable structure as a portal to luxury, to adventure, to the stuff dreams were made of over a century ago.

C.S. Lewis wrote in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, in the chapter entitled “The Dark Island”:

“Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams  – dreams, do you understand – come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams.”

In other words, nightmares.

I tried to envision the crowd, the men in overcoats, the women in long dresses, everyone wearing hats, as the Titanic survivors disembarked on April 18, 1912. It was night. For a fleeting second, I could sense the darkness, the shattered dreams, the unspeakable horror of watching that massive, beautiful ship break apart in the icy sea, taking so many passengers with her to a deep, watery grave. The nightmare was real; it would never leave the survivors.

In an instant, the darkness vanished, my glimpse of long ago ended. I blinked in the broad daylight. As my bus sailed on, I studied the photo. A bright light shines in the very center of the arch, which once bore the words White Star. I cannot tell if my camera was poised just right to reflect a flash in the window, to be captured perfectly in the middle of that haunting remnant, or if it is a phenomenon of light from some other source; nevertheless it shines like the sun over this relic of ruin, like day following night, driving the nightmares, the ghosts, away, hallowing this entrance to another time.

slice-of-life_individual

 

 

Red rubber boots

/ Fran Haley / 18 Comments

red-rubber-boots

It is Sunday, the day my Granddaddy is off from work at the shipyard. It is the day we usually walk to the playgrounds behind the churches across the busy city street, my small hand clasped in his large one, as we wait for the traffic light to change. Today it is raining and we can’t go out. I sit by his recliner on the braided rug beside his feet – he wears black lace-up shoes every day – and sigh.

“What’s the matter, Duck?” he wants to know. Sometimes he calls me Duck, sometimes he calls me Pig. I do not know why. He just does.  It makes me feel warm inside.

“Granddaddy, the girls in kindergarten have red boots to wear when it rains. I don’t have boots.”

“Oh, I see. I guess you been wanting some of those boots?”

I nod my head and crawl up into his lap. “Yes, Granddaddy. For a long time.” His black leather cap is on the side table by the recliner. I pick it up and put it on my head. It smells like him. A little Vitalis and a lot of goodness.

He wraps his arms around me. “Tell me about these boots, what they look like.”

“You can pull them over your shoes … ” I begin.

He got them for me, of course, those red rubber boots that I proudly wore to school and stored on the bottom shelf in the cloakroom, beside the boots of the other girls.

At the time he got them, I did not know that his retirement was imminent, that within the year he’d move back home to the far reaches of eastern North Carolina, three hours away. I would only see him a couple of times a year from then on.

I grew up. I had children of my own. When I went to visit Granddaddy, I sat on the stool by his recliner, as close to him as I could get. He patted my arm. We sat this way for a long time, without any conversation, just being together.

“You remember them red rubber boots I got for you?” he asked eventually. His blue eyes twinkled at me. Every now and then, across the decades, he’d mention those boots.

“Oh, yes, Granddaddy. I remember. I loved them so much.”

He chuckled, patting my arm with his large, wrinkled hand.

He was retired for thirty years, living to be almost 93.

I had nearly forgotten the red rubber boots when I happened to see a pair at the store a year or so ago. They were so like the boots he gave me when I was five.

“Ah, Granddaddy,” I whispered. “You’re never far away.”

I bought them.

They protect me from the rain; they keep me grounded, connecting me to the earth that my grandfather loved, for he was a lifelong farmer even though he had to find better-paying work to provide for his family. The color brightens the gloomiest day. I wear my boots with deepest gratitude for a humble man who knew about sacrifices, great and little, fiercely proud that his blood flows in my veins.

I remember, Granddaddy. I always will.

slice-of-life_individual

Around the bend

/ Fran Haley / 10 Comments
white-peacock

Rezervatia de zimbrii Dragos Voda. Cristian Bortes. CC-BY 2.0 

I live in the country.

Long before daybreak, a rooster crows for all he’s worth, a passionate, guttural cry signifying that the dark night is ending.

My kitchen bay window faces east, catching the first glimmers of pink in the sky.

A short drive on the winding road by my home carries me past weathered stables and tobacco barns, abandoned unpainted houses from a bygone era, and fields where farmers still make their living.

There’s a horse or two in the pastures, innumerable goats, and the occasional delightful donkey, silvery-gray and calm. I have learned that donkeys keep coyotes away – how extraordinary.

One day, along a bend in the road, beside an old gate overgrown with brambles, a peacock strutted, the morning light electrifying the brilliant blue of his body. I slowed down, wishing I could see the long green train of his feathers fan out, but the peacock was skittish and went back through the gate via some hidden hole. Surely he should not have been out by the road, although the sight of him made me grateful to be alive. From then on, I looked for him.

Until the day I rounded that same curve and there, in the middle of the road, stood a white peacock.

I could not believe my eyes – I never knew such a thing existed.

But there he was, gleaming like some divine messenger, standing right on the double yellow lines. I slowed to a stop. He looked at me through the windshield; I hardly dared to breathe. He took his time heading back to the lush bank by the brambly gate, as if he owned this road, maybe this entire world, his long white tail feathers dragging behind him like a bridal train or a king’s ermine robe.

I watched him go, oblivious of everything around me except the sheer splendor of his presence.

I have learned, then, that every day is new, that there are unexpected wonders waiting just around the bend. In the middle of the familiar and mundane might be something rare, glorious, breathtaking.

Be watching.

slice-of-life_individual

 

Signals

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments
signals

Untitled. abarndweller. CC-BY

The Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, in “To A Louse: On seeing one on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church”:  O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us/ To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us…

I have often pondered that idea, people needing to see themselves as others see them. To see myself as others see me. What a frightening prospect. Certainly the power to see ourselves as others see us would free us from many a blunder … one would hope.

The lines spark a question I pose to myself and teacher colleagues: What signals are we unwittingly sending to students?

Years ago, I wasn’t sure I wanted to teach. I thought I would try it, almost reluctantly, as I needed a job and my own children were still in school. I wasn’t thinking of teaching as a calling or whether or not I was cut out for it. I took a temporary position, fifth grade remediation in reading and math, with some trepidation.

“I am not sure what to do,” I confessed to the hiring principal. “I don’t know if I can really help the kids.”

She smiled. “Just love them. The rest will come.”

Here goes, I thought on Day One, as I stepped into a classroom where kids milled about, working collaboratively on math. It’s sink or swim.

From across the room, a boy saw me standing in the doorway. He didn’t know me, didn’t know why I was there, but he shot across the room through the throng of his classmates to throw his arms around me.

That was my induction to being a public educator.

A child, sinking fast, clung to me like I was a life preserver. Perhaps he perceived, instantly, that we were in – or out – of the same boat. It was sink or swim for both of us.

In this classroom, I watched the boy try his hardest to swim. He struggled academically. He struggled with controlling his impulses. He struggled socioeconomically – he wore the same heavy black ski jacket every day, even when the weather was hot. He was chastised by his teacher for every infraction, great or small. The teacher – widely respected by colleagues – was clearly suffering from burnout,  undoubtedly tired of swimming herself. Whether or not she intended it, she sent a signal: Do not approach me or question me.

Do we, as teachers, send a signal – with  or without words – that we are safe harbors or treacherous ground?

I remembered a teacher of my own. She stayed in a constant state of frustration with our geometry class, once giving me detention for leaving paper in my desk despite my impassioned protest that I hadn’t done it. Math wasn’t my strong suit and I sank to the point of dropping the course, as I had all the math credits I needed to graduate. Later that year I landed a role in the school play and this teacher came to watch it. As people congratulated me backstage after the performance, this teacher stepped forward:

“Well,” she said, “I never would have believed you had it in you.”

You decide: Would I have ever been successful in her class?

One last note on my little friend back in the fifth grade: He went on to graduate.

On his behalf, I thank all those teachers who were, along the way, safe harbors for him.

Reflect: What messages do you send to others, verbally and non-verbally, about their value? Think of the teachers you had: Were they repellents to the learning in their classrooms, or were they encouragers? Were they the treacherous ground or the safe harbors? Write. Find a viable preserver when you need to. Rest a for bit. Then keep on swimming, mindful of those who are swimming so hard, so close by. 

Open a book and dance

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

dance-metaphor

During a recent study of Who’s Doing the Work? How to Say Less So Readers Can Do More (Burkins and Yaris, 2016), the facilitator encouraged participants to jot notes or sketch on blank bookmarks as reflections of our learning.

Throughout the book, the authors use dance lessons as a metaphor for how learning to read works. As aspiring dancers watch proficient ones with a desire to emulate them, to navigating increasingly challenging choreography, so young readers develop skills along with a desire to read for the sake of it. My chapter was “Independent Reading: Learning to Love to Read,” in which independent reading is compared to a dance recital. Students have practiced and the teacher watches from the wings, not interfering when there are missteps, but “noting ways to fine-tune the their next performance.” The line that struck me most: “Most important, teachers let students read, allowing them the glorious luxury of falling in love with books.”

That got me thinking about my early reading life and the hand that teachers played in it.

In fourth grade, my teacher began the year by reading Charlotte’s Web to the class. Naturally we wept at the death of Charlotte (don’t we all, still?). I was so captivated by the story that I bought a copy at the book fair, to reread it to my heart’s content. This teacher knew what she was doing: she ended the year by reading Old Yeller aloud to outright sobbing from the class. I had to read the book again on my own, to grapple further with Travis’s extraordinary courage and the horror of the decision he had to make after that old yellow dog had saved his life. Old Yeller was outdone only by my own discovery of Where the Red Fern Grows in the school library – I cried every day for weeks after that one. I remain eternally grateful to Mrs. Cooley for hooking me with the power of story.

My fifth-grade teacher suggested that I read the Little House series. I loved Laura so much that I sometimes wore my long brown hair in braids and had my mother make sunbonnets for me (to wear at home, not to school). Laura was real. She wasn’t perfect and she knew it; I admired her backbone and the way she faced challenges. I also loved going back in time, reveling in Laura’s descriptions of the natural world and everyday life long ago. There’s such poignancy in the line “Now is now. It can never be a long time ago” (Little House in the Big Woods). As a child I pondered that line, knowing the story took place over a hundred years in the past – then realized that, in the pages of a book, time is preserved, all that happened is still unfolding, those who are gone still live. In the pages of an engrossing book, at least, now is now. How wise my teacher was, guiding me to books that would make reading part of my everyday life.

I was given lots of opportunity to explore books in the sixth grade. That year I was scouring the school library shelves for titles I hadn’t already read when I encountered an especially intriguing one: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  “Sounds interesting,” I thought, taking it from the shelf, never suspecting what a defining life moment this would be. When I opened the cover, the magic poured out and pulled me in; I devoured every one of the Narnia Chronicles with an insatiable hunger. I loved them for the beauty of the setting, for their Britishness, for the author’s gift of turning a phrase and his humor, and most of all, for the hope they contain. I was encouraged to reenact scenes from the book for my classmates: I roped a friend into portraying Jadis while I dressed up as Aslan, complete with mane and tail. It’s the old good vs. evil theme, resurfacing many times throughout one’s academic and life experiences.

The influence and insight of my  of my teachers, along with the freedoms they gave me, had much to do with the reader I am, with person I am, today. They provided me the “glorious luxury of falling in love with books” – as you can see in the bookmark above, my tribute to them. I was never much of a real dancer, but metaphorically speaking – as a reader – I dance each day with wild abandon and absolute joy.

Reflect: Who helped you fall in love with reading? Write about this experience – and if these people are still living, write to thank them for their great gift to you. If you teach: How can you better provide “the glorious luxury of falling in love with books” for your students?