Tag Archives: creativity

Shoulders

Posted on January 25, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Yesterday, a student grumbled about not liking Math. I responded by saying I did not enjoy it either in school. She looked at me and asked me why I taught it. I explained I am not a Math teacher which elicited a comment about how good I was at it. It all reminded me of the adage: “We do not teach subjects. We teach children.” Or that is what I should do.

I looked for a poem that addressed this need to be a teacher of children. It is a calling. I think of the teachers I had who enjoyed being in the classroom and they carried each of us gently. Naomi Shihab Nye spoke about this lifting up of children and learners. I choose to be a learner with my students. I owe them being able to teach them Math even if I don’t enjoy it.

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.

We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

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To be of use

Posted on January 24, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Yesterday, I spoke with a frustrated parent. Our little school thrived because parents contributed in meaningful ways to their children’s education. This parent said she was felt like an unpaid employee whose efforts were no longer valued. Now, she could have been just being nice, but she told me she felt welcomed and appreciated in my classroom.

When we ask people, of all ages, to do something they should feel welcomed and worthy of the effort they give. Marge Piercy wrote about this human need to do real work. We find purpose, worth, and identity in our calling. Voice and vocation come from the same etymological roots. We find voice in the work that chooses us. Real work calls us and makes us whole.

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

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First Reader

Posted on January 23, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

We experienced a good day today. We are writing fractured fairy tales which are parodies of the originals. Students turn the story around and rewrite it with a twist. One student explained that the boy who cried wolf was visually impaired and was the victim of pranks by the sheep. Another student told the story of the Billy Goats Gruff through the eyes of the troll. Would you like it if someone were clacking around on your roof? The handsome prince dumps the beautiful princess for the maid in Rapunzel so someone did live happily ever after. The kids have fun with this activity and we talk about perspective. What if I were the Big Bad Wolf? We learn to understand that life is revealed through many eyes and experiences.

Billy Collins wrote this poem which I think expresses the way we learn and shape our learning. Occasionally, we need to let go, just be in the moment, and experience learning. I think we did that today.

I can see them standing politely on the wide pages
that I was still learning to turn,
Jane in a blue jumper, Dick with his crayon-brown hair,
playing with a ball or exploring the cosmos
of the backyard, unaware they are the first characters,
the boy and girl who begin fiction.

Beyond the simple illustrations of their neighborhood,
the other protagonists were waiting in a huddle:
frightening Heathcliff, frightened Pip, Nick Adams
carrying a fishing rod, Emma Bovary riding into Rouen.

But I would read about the perfect boy and his sister
even before I would read about Adam and Eve, garden and gate,
and before I heard the name Gutenberg, the type
of their simple talk was moving into my focusing eyes.

It was always Saturday and he and she
were always pointing at something and shouting,
“Look!” pointing at the dog, the bicycle, or at their father
as he pushed a hand mower over the lawn,
waving at aproned mother framed in the kitchen doorway,
pointing toward the sky, pointing at each other.

They wanted us to look but we had looked already
and seen the shaded lawn, the wagon, the postman.
We had seen the dog, walked, watered and fed the animal,
and now it was time to discover the infinite, clicking
permutations of the alphabet’s small and capital letters.
Alphabetical ourselves in the rows of classroom desks,
we were forgetting how to look, learning how to read.

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Blessings

Posted on January 22, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

The retreat was a welcome retreat. It was a time to be quiet and still find one’s voice. A theme which resonated throughout the weekend was a sense of being spiritually lost and what we should do when that happens. Part way through, I recalled an outdoor education class I took during my undergrad days. An expert outdoors man, Mors Kochanski, spoke to us about being physically lost and he gave us the same advice as I walked away with this past weekend. When you are lost, find a place to sit down and be quiet. Sometimes I know what I need to know and I only need to sit down and be quiet. The wisdom is there.

Ronald Wallace wrote this poem and it reminded me of blessings I take for granted and help me to find my way in life when I stop and am quiet. I can do all those things. I only have to stop and be quiet.


Occur.
Some days I find myself
putting my foot in
the same stream twice;
leading a horse to water
and making him drink.
I have a clue.
I can see the forest
for the trees.
All around me people
are making silk purses
out of sow’s ears,
getting blood from turnips,
building Rome in a day.
There’s a business
Like show business.
There’s something new
under the sun.
Some days misery
no longer loves company;
it puts itself out of its.
There’s rest for the weary.
There’s turning back.
There are guarantees.
I can be serious.
I can mean that.
You can quite
put your finger on it.

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Where I’m Headed

Posted on January 20, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

It was an excellent first part to the retreat. We have a short session on Sunday, but already I feel replenished. I take prodigious notes at these events and do very little talking. I figure I talk enough in the classroom that this is a time to step back. I always have multiple notebooks on the go and the one I grabbed was quite well used. I glanced through it and found this from several months ago. It hibernated and is out for an early spring, I guess.

Where I’m headed

No planned routes

Markers do not set out a path

My GPS is non-digital.

This is adventure

Being lost has panache

A flair

It exhilarates.

I discover wonder

The I don’t knows fill life

They summon me

They make me whole.

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Replenish

Posted on January 19, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I head to a retreat tonight and I hope that it replenishes my creative spirit. These are the lyrics to a song by Claudia Schmidt. The poem has a nature theme, but the idea of replenishing one’s self is strong, natural, and metaphoric in this case.

We go on, we go on,

Canoe under the hot sun,

The upturned paddles guide liquid to our

dry mouths.

Water within us, water surrounds us,

A great mystery our becoming dry at all.

Replenish, replenish, all must be replenished.

The water within and without.

All that fills, all that surrounds us:

The great whistling pines,

The tenacious beaver,

The ancient loon,

The rush of the young eagle’s wings as it

dips low over our canoe.

Replenish!

The eyes bathed in this delicate solitude,

The trembling eternity,

Called back in mid-sweep only to be

assessed by green parched eyes

Replenish!

Each shriveled heart

Which has its moments only at events set

aside for its song,

But cannot fly for the connection

Between the rock and the human body,

The heron’s wing and the hope in our souls,

We go on,

We go on.

Our paddles dance with the lake water to

the music in our throats.

We will grow dry again

Perhaps leap into the water

A small and symbolic celebration of a great

and endless task

Which gracefully undertaken,

Might allow us to go on, and on, and on.

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Poem Against the First Grade

Posted on January 18, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

When I read this poem, I do so with care. George Venn wrote it in the voice of a six-year-old, but I can easily imagine anyone so excited about learning that they trip over their words and speak so fast words just run together. The poem reminded me of the way small children or a learner of any age, stops in mid-sentence and makes pronouncements in ways that do not always fit the conversation, but seem so right.

What a marvel when I do not worry about the need to be expert or proficient. I can just be in that moment a small child excited by the newness of my life.

Alex, my son, with backberry jam
smeared ear to ear and laughing,
rides his unbroken joy with words
so fast we let him get away
on the jamjar without clean cheeks first.

He spills frasasass
tea with milk and honey;
a red-chafted schlicker
beats our cottonwood drum.
Thumping the pano keys
like a mudpie chef,
he goes wild with words
at the wittle wooden
arms inside, a hundred
Pinoschios to singsong.
If he can’t wide byebye
bike to the candy store,
where he is Master Rich
with one penny, words turn
to tears in his mouf. Once
in a while, he walks home
with pum-pum-pumpernickel bread
his nose twitching so fast
a wabbit would love him.

Now this language is not taught in first grade.
Alicia, his tister, knows this fact.
But he juggles it around all day
until she makes him spit it out like
a catseye marble or a tack. “Ax,” she says,
“that’s not right.” She’s been among giants
who wipe off the dialect of backberry jam,
then pour hot wax on each bright mistake.

I hope for a bad seal on Ax and tister,
encourage the mold of joyous error
that proper sad giants, armed to the ears
with pencils and rules, all forgot.

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When Someone Deeply Listens to You

Posted on January 16, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

John Fox wrote this beautiful poem. He is part of an organization called The Institute for Poetic Medicine. When people feel deeply listened to they feel cared for, cradled lovingly, and able to speak their truth. When we listen to each other this it is magical and peaceful. I know I feel wanted.

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you’ve had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind’s eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!

When someone deeply listens to you
your barefeet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

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Stone

Posted on January 13, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I spent today catching up. Most of it was digital. It is interesting how much email built up, but I was productive today. This poem by Charles Simic spoke to me. Children wonder and hold the world in awe. Adults lose track of the beauty of mystery. I am not sure what next week holds. Perhaps, I will write poetry. Although I relied on the words of others, noted that many of these poets were new to me and that was transformative. I spent time wisely.

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.
From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.
I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.

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A Note

Posted on January 12, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Well, I made it to the finish line this week and had a good day today. I ran out of steam after lunch, but afternoons have been kind this week. We are writing Fractured Fairy Tales and students get into this activity. I find opportunities to work 1-on-1 with students who need a little extra help. It is a great unit plan and can be modified for different ages.

Wislawa Szymborska wrote this poem. It fits with recent reflections about the extraordinary nature of ordinary life. My father-in-law, Bill, used to ask, “Who has more fun than people? More people do, of course!” I recalled his quirky, wise sayings as I read this poem. It is simple things, often overlooked, that give life its fullest meaning.

Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on sand,
rise on wings;

to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;

to tell pain
from everything it’s not;

to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes;

An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment
a conversation held with the lamp switched off;

and if only once
to stumble on a stone,
end up soaked in one downpour or another,

mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;

and to keep on not knowing
something important.

 

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