This is a post I wrote back in December. It was in my drafts. Somehow I didn't publish it. I was just talking with my sister-in-law about the ridiculous amount of information we teachers need to hold in our brains at all times, and this demonstrates that point exactly:
Me, from across the room: "No, don't use that laptop. Someone just put it away it's lost all its charge by now. It's going to shut off"
I traverse the terrain of 3-inch binders and clumsily covered textbooks, wondering why I hadn't insisted that they be put away what with the laptops being present and all. I pull a laptop from the bottom of the cart, unhooking it with deft movements of a fish thoroughly in water; "here, use this one. I don't think anyone's used it today so it should be all ready to go."
And my student, dumbfounded: "How did you do that? How did you see that from across the room?"
Me: "Well, I'm a teacher. That's my job."
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"If the angel deigns to come, it will be because you have convinced her, not by your tears, but by your humble resolve to be always beginning." Rainer Maria Rilke
tutto di me
- teach people not books
- Second year educator; social justice minded; sworn enemy of teacher shoes everywhere; figuring out how to do what I do as best as I possibly can, without losing myself in the process.
sagacity
"Our lives begin to end the day that we become silent about things that matter."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Choice is illusory to the degree it represents the expectations of others. While all transition involves change, not all change results in transition."
Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness
"'Curiosity never killed this cat.' That's what I'd like as my epitaph."
Studs Terkel
"Whenever I am asked to do a good thing, I say yes right away."
Maya Angelou
"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."
James Madison
"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing / than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."
e.e. cummings
"As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole lives. It is never isolated, or simply added as treasure to our stock. When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before."
Henry David Thoreau, "Winter"
"As long as we continue to mindlessly defer to institutions that have themselves begun to cynically drop any pretence of being moral, just, or respectable - why should the government listen? it's doing just fine."
Arundhati Roy
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality."
Dante Alighieri
" But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife. / You are still the bread and the knife. / You will always be the bread and the knife, / not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow-- the wine."
Billy Collins
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
Albert Einstein
"The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. . . Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measure of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform."
Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
"'Well, how can you talk without a brain?'
'I don't know, but some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?'"
Dorothy & Scarecrow,
The Wizard of Oz
"Poetry (and now my voice is rising) / is not all love, love, love, / and I'm sorry the dog died. / Poetry (here I hear myself the loudest) / is the human voice, / and are we not of interest to each other?"
Elizabeth Alexander
"But plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet success mustn't be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate response to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure. "
Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
"Seed hope. Flower peace."
Daniel Berrigan
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Choice is illusory to the degree it represents the expectations of others. While all transition involves change, not all change results in transition."
Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness
"'Curiosity never killed this cat.' That's what I'd like as my epitaph."
Studs Terkel
"Whenever I am asked to do a good thing, I say yes right away."
Maya Angelou
"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."
James Madison
"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing / than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."
e.e. cummings
"As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole lives. It is never isolated, or simply added as treasure to our stock. When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before."
Henry David Thoreau, "Winter"
"As long as we continue to mindlessly defer to institutions that have themselves begun to cynically drop any pretence of being moral, just, or respectable - why should the government listen? it's doing just fine."
Arundhati Roy
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality."
Dante Alighieri
" But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife. / You are still the bread and the knife. / You will always be the bread and the knife, / not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow-- the wine."
Billy Collins
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
Albert Einstein
"The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. . . Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measure of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform."
Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
"'Well, how can you talk without a brain?'
'I don't know, but some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?'"
Dorothy & Scarecrow,
The Wizard of Oz
"Poetry (and now my voice is rising) / is not all love, love, love, / and I'm sorry the dog died. / Poetry (here I hear myself the loudest) / is the human voice, / and are we not of interest to each other?"
Elizabeth Alexander
"But plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet success mustn't be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate response to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure. "
Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
"Seed hope. Flower peace."
Daniel Berrigan
provocation
stimuli
labels
- body politic (18)
- d-r-e-a-m-y (1)
- for art's sake (19)
- g.w. is a d.b. (4)
- grown-up books (8)
- methods resources (2)
- not teacher chic (1)
- poetry (25)
- ramblings of a first year teacher (47)
- recognition (4)
- science (1)
- teacher chic (12)
- travelogue (1)
- unapologetic consumerism (2)
- writing workshop talk (3)
- y.a. books (10)
5 comments:
I get a kick out of using their street lingo on them. They are always shocked and I say Do you think I am not listening when you talk ? Daaag...
my favorite is "don't sleep on this [insert assignment, essay, test, quiz, project]." oh, and "you're going to have to be on your grind this week, because we've got a lot of work to do."
i put a big "DO WORK" sign on my clock. they love that.
the funny thing is, there's more lingo in my natural speech than theirs in some cases, since they're from the land o'plenty and i'm. . . not. things like "my bad" and "i'm not playin' with you right now" come out pretty naturally.
i feel like this paragraph embodies my entire day every day. do you remember when that crazy SpEd professor (who shall remain nameless...) used to go on and on about "with-itness," and how it's the most important part of teaching, and everyone would just be like, "what is this asshole talking about?"
i think this paragraph is what he was talking about. not such an asshole after all, i guess.
yeah, i thought that it spoke volumes, too. did you ever see someone doing their job, and doing it well, and think "i know exactly the zone they are in right now--exactly how their mind is feeling?"
that's the best feeling.
Haha. Nice moment there.
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