Children
are works
of heart.
They will
give you hugs
when you come
to their room
after their teacher
quits.
They will say
Thank you
for teaching us.
One student
might even
hug you twice,
saying
You can never have
too much love.
overcoming
Let us remember
we are still here
despite our scars and stripes
every day another opportunity
to help and to heal
each other
Expectations
As a literacy coach and intervention team facilitator, I am tasked with communicating expectations of my administration and the district to my colleagues. It’s a tricky position (correction: these are tricky positions. Plural. Sometimes I feel like Bartholomew Cubbins, wearing 500 hats). At present, my fellow educators are, in the wake of COVID, undergoing state-mandated Science of Reading training while adjusting to new curriculum and new leadership. It all comes with new expectations.
Truth be told, however, many of these expectations aren’t new: Problem-solving as a professional community, finding what we need as educators to give the students what they need. Bridging gaps. Collaborative planning. Collective responsibility. None of these are new; they just feel new if they’ve not been done effectively before…the bottom line being the determination of this is what the kids really need; how do we make it happen?
It’s formidable challenge, in a time where there are many needs, and when educational philosophies, beliefs, and mindsets clash. I recently wrote about endurance (from a spiritual point of view). This new school year follows one of extreme exhaustion. We will not endure without leaning on one another. We will not build our strength in isolation. We will not succeed without stamina. Or vision. Where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29:18). Grappling with expectations is, well, expected. Everything, everything, everything rests on one of two beliefs: it can be done or it can’t.
I believe it can.
Yesterday my granddaughter visited. The hummingbird feeder rings I ordered for us had just arrived. Perfect timing. We took them out of the package, washed them, made a tiny batch of sugar water, and filled them. Off to the yard we trotted to stand with our arms resting on the fence near one of my two feeders where a handful of hummingbirds compete for their nectar throughout the day.
You can see for yourself, in the photo, my granddaughter thinking I don’t know about this…yet there’s a layer of hope and fear in her expression: Will the hummingbirds actually come drink from my ring? Will I be scared?
After a while: How long is this going to take?
The secret, my love, is patience and persistence. If it doesn’t work the first time, we will try again, and again. Hummingbirds have come to drink from the rings of other people in other places; they will eventually do so with us. Keep trying. Believe. I will stand with you until it does.
Oh, right.
I started off talking about teaching, didn’t I.
Expression of uncertain expectation. After she left, I went out again when the hummers were more active. A couple of them hovered nearby, considering me and my outstretched, ringed hand (hummingbirds are highly intelligent and curious). If they come to me…they will come to my granddaughter. I will see if can make it happen for her.
*******
with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge
Lighting a lamp
A quote from my planner:
If you light a lamp for someone else, it will also brighten your path. What are you struggling with? How can you help someone else with this and, in turn, help yourself?
Filling the bucket
Bucket of Sunshine. gfpeck. CC BY-ND 2.0.
Dandelions represent the return of life, the rebirth of growth and green after a harsh winter, and a display of abundant strength and power. – Lena Struwe, Director of the Chrysler Herbarium
At my school this year, every staff member is writing notes of encouragement and gratitude for each other. We are calling this “filling each other’s bucket” – everyone has a colorful designated bag for receiving the written messages.
I couldn’t think of better symbolism than this bucket of dandelions. Or the quote.
All too often, we never realize the collective abundant strength and power we have.
It is in the giving that we begin to experience it.
Charged
The first gathering
before regular workdays
even begin
is a Leadership meeting
called by new admin
to set the vision
for the year ahead
where lingering clouds
so widespread
start dissipating.
The atmosphere is changed
from June, when we left
depleted and drained:
All my colleagues’ faces,
all their voices and words,
shaking off residual traces
of drenching despair
in this positive charge
electrifying the air.
It can be done.
We have begun.
Explosion of positive energy. Łukasz Strachanowski. CC BY-NC 2.0.
Path to peace
Every day
has its gifts.
Learn to recognize them.
Give thanks for them.
Watch a new road
materialize before you
under a sky
of infinite
possibility.
The antidote
to despair
is not hope
but gratitude.
Light reading
A friend who knows my affinity for the natural world gave me The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times. It’s written as a conversation between Jane Goodall and her interviewer, Douglas Abrams. When I say it’s part of my current “light reading” I don’t mean easy (although it is) or frivolous (for it is not).
I mean light as in candleglow dancing on the walls of a dark room.
I’ve not gotten far yet but here are some lines that draw me in the first couple of chapters—flickerings of my own credo:
Hope is a survival trait.
The naturalist looks for the wonder of nature – she listens to the voice of nature and learns from it as she tries to understand it.
Hope does not deny all the difficulty and all the danger that exists, but is not stopped by them. There’s a lot of darkness, but our actions create the light.
And this from an Inuit elder, on confronting and healing our grief, which can manifest itself in the body as physical pain: Make space for grief…find awe and joy in every day.
—these, I believe. They are often the very reason why I write.
Recipe for Survival
Hold onto hope, and it will hold you
Open the ears, eyes, arms of your spirit
Perceive the call of awe, all around
Embrace it. Let the healing begin.
On this day
Nine months
since you entered the world
making mine
exponentially beautiful
every single day
Three years
since your Grandpa
had a massive heart attack
while driving
and the deputy sheriff
came to tell
your future dad, uncle,
and me (Franna)
that he’d run off the road
and was being taken
to the hospital
where we were told
he’d been resuscitated
they weren’t sure
he’d make it
he did
Grandpa lived
to see you
love you
and call you
“little angel”
I say
there must be
some mighty ones
all around
Micah, 9 months, looking up at her Grandpa ❤
Of the ages
It is said that
the Information Age
is ending
giving way to
the Experience Age
loosely defined
as moving from
accumulation
(our digital output
is greater
than our capacity
to store it
anyway)
to immersion
in the story:
‘Live every moment
of your life
to the fullest,
with as much
sensory detail
as possible!’
(a shift
reminiscent of
the writing rule
‘show, don’t tell’
although in truth
it takes both
to bring a story
to life
and in thinking
of narratives
I pause to consider
this thing called
the unreliable narrator)
then, this week,
I stumbled across
this phrase:
We live in the age of rage
I contemplate the why of it
as my brain follows threads
inextricably, impossibly knotted
through a psychological tapestry
of distortion
information here
experience there
narrative everywhere
(as I once heard a father
tell his child:
It’s your lie.
Tell it like you want to.)
people do tell it
and sell it
and buy it
like they want to
often, it seems,
without an eye
turned toward the age
to come
being too blinded
by continual bombardment
in the now
the Experience Age
I wonder if it might be
more aptly called
the Age of Escape
fleeting as it is
these are the things
I think about
when I sit to write
in the stillness
of early morning
before the sunrise
before the stirring of the birds
nature’s continuity
offering sacred respite
from the Age of Rage
where the broken road
inevitably sends one
teetering on the edge
if not over into
the abyss
of despair
lit bits and pieces 