Category Archives: Education

Driftwood

Posted on June 6, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

I am back. The retreat was enjoyable and tiring. Although it was called a retreat, it was different in the sense that it involved research, writing, and lots of conversation. I find retreats invigorating. They are not sit, listen, and try taking notes as a speaker blasts through their presentation.

Retreats have a conversational part. Parker Palmer counsels people at his retreats not to take notes. Instead, we spend time writing and conversing how we feel about various prompts. That was a purpose of this retreat. It is the Currere Exchange.

Currere is the etymological root of curriculum, meaning to run the course of one’s life. It is a subjective way of interpreting a planned curriculum in a school. Whether teachers understand it or not, they are doing this continuously. As one of my co-researchers told me we make decisions about what to teach and leave things out we really like.

In a sense, currere is polishing a planned curriculum. It is a multi-faceted and complicated conversation between a person (re)membering their lived-experiences, aspire to a particular way of teaching in the future, and synthesize those two moments into the present. Each moment acts as a curriculum to inform the other, complicating one’s teaching in a dialogic way. Others enter the classroom and add to the complicated nature of the conversation, each adding their curriculum to the dialogue. It is like a piece of driftwood, being polished by the forces it comes in contact with.

My story being polished,

I (re)member and imagine;

Washed up on a new shore,

Who I am reflected anew.

I am a character in my story,

I pause a moment,

Noting lustre and matte,

Interpreting new meanings.

Soaking in the contours of living,

Experiencing new awakenings,

Running the course of my life,

Each new moment polishing me afresh.

Kathy took this picture in Waterton Lakes National Park.

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Introduction to Poetry

Posted on May 28, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Billy Collins asks to play with poetry and its words as we read it. Let the poem speak to us and we do not have to beat it with a hose to find out what it really means. I find that each time I return to a poem I find something that eluded me the other times. Maybe it was the mouse trying to find its way out or the waterskiier waving at the poet’s name.

Hermeneutic phenomenology is much like that, as well. When I interviewed each person for my dissertation the first time, they hesitated in telling their stories. The second time, they each began recounting their stories from the first interview.

Paul Ricoeur said hermeneutics is digging below the surface of our stories to find what the text of our lives tells us. I recount the story in poetic, fictive language and understand each time I (re)member the story differently.

“Differences make a difference,” as I am mindful to different aspects of the story and me as a character in that story. I cannot beat the meaning out with a hose.

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

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Posted in Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath, teacher as transformer and tagged Billy Collins, creativity, eloquent questions, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Introduction to Poetry, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, Paul Ricoeur, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Think Different

Posted on May 26, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

This poem, writen by Rob Siltanen, was part of an early Apple advertising campaign. He was a creative director for the company.

It stands out for me, because it echoed a phrase that emerged from my dissertation: “Differences make a difference.” It is in difference we discover what makes us each exceptional. Without the differences, we blend into an indistinguishable mass mere copies of one another. Worse yet, we might only copy the worst of the people we see succeeding.

The poem reminds of the Michelangelo quote: “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

To be a teacher, is to inspire and allow each student to discover who they are. It is to be mindful and sensitive to what makes each of them different. It is to both serve and lead at the same time. It is to be different one’s self, as a teacher. How else could a teacher inspire?

The misfits.

The rebels.

The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,

glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.

They explore. They create. They inspire.

They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?

Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?

Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

And while some may see them as the crazy ones,

While we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think

they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

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Posted in Community, Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer and tagged Apple, community, conversational journey, creativity, education, Michelangelo, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, servant-leadership, teacher as transformer, teaching, think different. Bookmark the permalink.

On Wiesel’s Night

Posted on May 25, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Several years before I retired from teaching, a family approached me and asked me to tutor their child. Usually, I don’t tutor. Too often, it is about prepping for a test and is too rote for me.

After talking with the family and student, I agreed. The student was behind in some courses and wanted to be ready to transition from home schooling to attending high school full-time.

I helped her mostly in Math and Language Arts. I approach Language Arts through a cross subject method. I choose a novel and prepare a novel study. The students demonstrate comprehension, writing, grammatical, and other skills, instead of drill and kill method.

We discussed several possible choices for a novel study and decided on Elie Wiesel‘s Night, which is an autobiographical narrative of his time as a teenager in Nazi concentration camps with his family. I warned the student it was a tough read, but she insisted on the book. I asked her to read only assigned chapters and keep a journal.

The next week, she asked a question and confessed she read the whole book in one sitting. She asked if was OK to cry when doing a novel study. I said it was. We adapted and went through the book in a different way.

What I learned from that experience, is as hard as we try, as parents and teachers, there are things we cannot prepare children for in advance. This poem by Thomas E. Thornton, who was a teacher, echoed those sentiments. The poem is hard to read, but he wanted to impress upon students an appreciation for the horrors and violence of war.

I cannot teach this book. Instead,

I drop copies on their desks,

like bombs on sleeping towns,

and let them read. So do I, again.

The stench rises from the page

and chokes my throat.

The ghosts of burning babies

haunt my eyes.

And that bouncing baton,

that pointer of Death,

stabs me in the heart

as it sends his mother

to the blackening sky.

Nothing is destroyed

the laws of science say,

only changed.

The millions transformed into

precious smoke ride the wind

to fill our lungs and hearts

with their cries.

No, I cannot teach this book.

I simply want the words

to burn their comfortable souls

and leave them scarred for life.

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Silver Star

Posted on May 21, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

When I looked for a poem, this one by William Stafford found me. Mountains appear to be immovable and unchangeable, yet as people do they do so without immediate notice. Yet, when we revisit them, we realize the changes that occurred.

In the case of teachers, Parker Palmer speaks about asking the question “who is the self who teaches?” We are each teachers in our own particular ways, so asking this question is essential. We often overlook this question in pursuit of easier to answer questions about the what, when, where, why, and how.

When we ask who we are, we explore the values that anchor us in living life. In times of crisis, those values guide us and help us through those tough times. Attending to them in mindful ways each day as a gardener would her/his garden grounds us in them in times of real need. They have spiritual meaning that come to life in living and expressing them daily through who we are as a human being.

If we serve our values well, “we will hear the world say, ‘Well done.'” The patience of living a good life, which in Aristotle‘s terms, is indefinable will be the reward. Like a mountain guiding us on our journey, the values we live and express guide us and others on a shared journey.

To be a mountain you have to climb alone

and accept all that rain and snow. You have to look

far away, when evening comes. If a forest

grows, you care; you stand there leaning against

the wind, waiting for someone with faith enough

to ask you to move. Great stones will tumble

against each other and gouge your sides. A storm

will live somewhere in your canyons hoarding its lightning.

If you are lucky, people will give you a dignified

name and bring crowds to admire how sturdy you are,

how long you can hold still for the camera. And some time,

they say, if you last long enough you will hear God;

a voice will roll down from the sky and all your patience

will be rewarded. The whole world will hear it: “Well done.”

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The Uses of Not

Posted on May 20, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Jacques Derrida wrote, when we speak of one thing, we invoke its opposite and what it is not. For example, to speak of a man or woman I speak of its opposite a woman or a man. Instead of understood as opposites, things, including words and ideas, complement each other, making them whole.

Albert Camus suggested “there is no love of life without despair of life.” Without one, we cannot have the other. Compassion means to share one’s love and suffering with each other. When we look deeper and are mindful of what we see, we recognize the how what is not readily evident is needed to make the whole of something.

This is not a new idea. Lao Tzu wrote this poem about what makes something useful is what complements it: the hub and spokes of a wheel; the hollow of a pot and the clay; and doors and windows and the room. Each profits from what it is not.

Often, there is paradox in understanding how things and people complement one another, making them whole.

Thirty spokes

meet in the hub.

Where the wheel isn’t

is where it’s useful

Hollowed out,

clay makes a pot.

Where the pot’s not

is where it’s useful.

Cut doors and windows

to make a room.

Where the room isn’t,

there’s room for you.

So the profit in what is

is in the use of what isn’t.

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Watch “Damien Rice – Hallelujah” on YouTube

Posted on May 18, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Source: Watch “Damien Rice – Hallelujah” on YouTube

When I taught, I often played music when I arrived at school and left it on until we were ready to begin the day. It gave students insight into me as a person. Hallelujah is one of my favourite songs and I shared it with them in various forms.

Today, when George posted this version, I thought of the two versions I shared with my students. Granted, I have not heard a version I do not like. It may be it is because I have been a Leonard Cohen fan since the late 1960’s and he wrote the song.

Here is his version:

Kathy and I have seen k.d. lang in concert several times and her version, which she performs about half-way through the set, is spine tingling.

I first saw k.d. many years ago when she performed as part of The Reclines, which performed “punk country” and was a Patsy Cline tribute band. When I hear her sing Crying with Roy Orbison I cannot distinguish their voices.

In the introduction to the song, which she sang at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, the announcer referred to it as “a song of peace.” This is her version, which is the one many people think of when they hear the song.

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Posted in Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, teacher as transformer, Uncategorized, Videos and tagged education, Euzicasa, George Bost, Hallelujah, k.d. lang, Leonard Cohen, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, music, Patsy Cline, Roy Orbison, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

The Contract: A Word from the Led

Posted on May 13, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

William Ayot wrote this poem as a reminder to those who aspire to lead that there are people who are led. This weekend is important to me as I am being “hooded” for my PhD in the Philosophy of Leadership Studies.

In my dissertation, I argued teachers are leaders. To educate means to lead out of childhood and youth in a caring way. Pedagogy is to lead children. The leading teachers undertake is serving and transforming the world they inhabit, preparing a new generation for the unknown beyond the walls of the classroom and the moment.

I understand teaching as a vocation and calling that gives me voice. It is expressing who I am at the very core of my being and becoming. It was a dream I pursued for years and shared with others. Hannah Arendt said action transforms the world in ways we cannot anticipate and know. Unlike work and labour action transcends time and space. Teaching was never work for me and it was always voluntary.

As a PhD in the field of leadership it is essential to recall this as I move forward and become involved in teacher education at the university level, working with teachers, and writing about the leading teachers undertake. Andragogy is leading adults.

And in the end we follow them –
not because we are paid,
not because we might see some advantage,
not because of the things they have accomplished,
not even because of the dreams they dream
but simply because of who they are:
the man, the woman, the leader, the boss,
standing up there when the wave hits the rock,
passing out faith and confidence like life jackets,
knowing the currents, holding the doubts,
imagining the delights and terrors of every landfall;
captain, pirate, and parent by turns,
the bearer of our countless hopes and expectations.
We give them our trust. We give them our effort.
What we ask in return is that they stay true.

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For the Children

Posted on May 10, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Gary Snyder wrote this beautiful poem about children being adult’s saving grace in the world. What is new fascinates and they wonder about the newness. For a small child, most of what they encounter is new and calls out to the child to explore and wonder over it.

There is zen and mystical quality to the poem with a reference to meeting in peace somewhere in the future. The essential part of peace is staying together, learning the flowers, and going lightly.

It is not learning about flowers, but learning flowers and going lightly, which I think will take a different way of teaching. This is not a new way of teaching. Instead, it is more likely we have forgotten it, being together and living gently in a world that only has so much to offer us.

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us,
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light.

“Natural objects should be sought and seen as they are, not to suit observers, but respectfully as if they were divine beings.” — Goethe

I took this picture several years ago as I drove through Jasper National Park. It was late August before the rutting began, but the bulls were trying to assert dominance. Despite this, people ran into the ditch and talking loudly. I kept my distance and got some great shots from about 100 feet away. As Gary Snyder counseled, I went light.

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Miracles

Posted on May 6, 2017 by ivonprefontaine

Again, today I jotted some notes in a small coffee shop while sipping tea. I thought how counsels that each moment reveals the extraordinary. When we are mindful and sensitive to those moments we lift them up and they are miracles happening around us all the time.

I taught a student who had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. He was a sweet young man and I made sure I was at school to greet him each morning as he got off the bus. One morning, he got off the bus and was wearing a fedora. I greeted by saying “hi boss!” I told him looked like Frank Sinatra. He had no idea who that was, so I found videos and played Frank Sinatra. Whenever that student wore his fedora, I greeted him as the boss. He smiled as it seemed to mean something more than ordinary.

When I am not attentive and mindful, I miss many opportunities. It reminds me of Maya Angelou‘s quote: “A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face.”

What do I walk past?

It seems ordinary in passing;

Yet, looking deeper

I see it:

The (extra)ordinary.

The ordinary unfolds

Revealing its extra-ness

Its depth and breadth

Richness hiding in plain sight.

A moment holds miracles

Waiting to show themselves off

Asking to be seen with new eyes

Sharing their more-ness.

I took this picture in Glacier National Park. The driftwood was polished and on the beach of the lake we were hiking around. What do I not see and hear? It is in the story of how this driftwood ended up here.