Tag Archives: education

To Look at Any Thing

Posted on June 1, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I have had a rare opportunity in life to be a teacher. The pinnacle was being a teacher at Stony Creek. I knew what it meant to be a teacher. I had several conversations today about what we share with each other. John Moffitt wrote this beautiful poem. I interpret part of the poem as being the need be present and share our stories. Teachers and hockey coaches can make a difference in children’s lives. I need to be vulnerable. Parker Palmer suggested teachers live at the most dangerous intersection of personal and private life. I will miss that aspect of the classroom. I got to be a teacher. I got to know what that meant, because I looked at it and lived it as fully. It brought peace to my life.

To look at any thing,

If you would know that thing,

You must look at it long:

To look at this green and say,

‘I have seen spring in these

Woods,’ will not do–you must

Be the thing you see:

You must be the dark snakes of

Stems and ferny plumes of leaves

You must enter in

To the small silences between

The leaves,

You must take your time

And touch the very peace

They issue from.

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Posted in Community, Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, education, John Moffitt, leadership, Mindful Practice, poetry, teacher as transformer, To Look at Any Thing. Bookmark the permalink.

The Opening of Eyes

Posted on May 31, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

David Whyte wrote this wonderful poem and it resonated with me today. We hold considerable wisdom collectively and individually. We each need to open all our senses and be receptive to what we hold. It is in the silence that we learn so much.

Today, only a few students attended. I decided some time ago that our Fridays would be art day due to the low attendance. Students focused on activities and silence reigned. I heard in the silence they want to finish the year positively.

That day I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.

It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.

It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground.

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Posted in Community, Education, Lesson Plans, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged Art, community, creativity, David Whyte, education, Mindful Practice, poetry, teacher as transformer, The Opening of Eyes. Bookmark the permalink.

Silver Star

Posted on May 29, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

William Stafford wrote this wonderful poem. Today, as I wondered what I should post, I came across it. It is weird in a way, but I am rarely concerned with what people think about me. More accurately, I do not place much emphasis in quantity. I prefer quality in my relationships, people who think of me for the right reasons. They care and their words are true.

People are aware I am leaving the profession. It is to hear words of gratitude from students and their families, including former students. I do not hear the whole world say, “Good job”, but I hear the right part of the world saying it.

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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Posted in Community, Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged community, creativity, education, Mindful Practice, poetry, school, Silver Star, William Stafford. Bookmark the permalink.

The Road Not Taken

Posted on May 21, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Several asked asked several times what I would do after the end of the school year. There is no set plan, but we spent a fair amount of time on the weekend beginning a website and some design of a logo for my next adventure. This is an opportunity to continue with several loves: learning, writing, and try make a difference, albeit a small one in the world. There is no certainty of where it takes us. Unlike the bureaucracies I tangled with my entire adult life, this is an opportunity to, as Robert Frost said, “take the road less traveled.” Where I go will not be planned out, but will be an opportunity to make a mark on the trail that others might find and follow.

I get to do this with Kathy. She is much sharper than I am when it comes to the details of a website, planning a logo, and setting the direction the first steps need to take. I get to combine a number of things I love deeply in this new adventure.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

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Posted in Education, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, education, learning, Mindful Practice, poetry, Robert Frost, teacher as transformer, The Road not Taken, writing. Bookmark the permalink.

Think Different

Posted on May 18, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

We are on the road today as this is the May long weekend in Canada.

I found this poem the other day and it spoke to me. I love being in the classroom. It is a creative place where I do not worry about pegs and holes. I grew to call my classroom the geometric paradigm where we learned to find the pegs that fit each of us any given day. This poem is a part of Apple‘s advertising.

Without those who do not fit in some way, who cause a certain amount of discomfort, and seek ways to change things up are we able to innovate and create. It is both uncomfortable for those who try to bring about change and to those change impacts. To make it work, we all have to be a little crazy together. Here’s to each of us who embrace a bit of craziness and weirdness.

Here’s to the crazy ones.

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,
disbelieve 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?
We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones,
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, Leadership, Mindful Life and tagged advertising, Apple, community, creativity, education, Mindful Practice, servant-leadership, teacher as transformer, think different. Bookmark the permalink.

I walked a mile with Pleasure

Posted on May 17, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

This is a difficult post. I started it this morning and let the day unfold around Robert Browning Hamilton’s poem. I sensed it would be a day of both pleasure and sorrow.

I resigned from my teaching position. I won’t go back next year. There is nothing calling me back now. My heart has a special place for Stony. It is not a school. It is more, a community where people meet, greet each other, and learn together. That faded and I leave while I still hold the goodness and richness I found there; my narrative untarnished.

I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chatted all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow,
And ne’er a word said she;
But, oh! The things I learned from her,
When sorrow walked with me.

I learned the most about who I was and about what was important to me through loss. I almost resigned a year ago, but Kathy, with her uncommon common sense, convinced me, for various reasons, to return. I am glad I did. I looked forward to work each day and learned with this small group of students. I completed grieving about the loss of a one of a kind school, “but, oh! The things I learned from her/When sorrow walked with me.” Last year was the wrong time to leave. I would have remembered only the bitter and not tasted the richness of the fruit this journey bore.

John Kabat-Zinn said, “Find a Job with a capital J. Stop doing other people’s work.” I would add one small caveat: complete the journey before you exit. Leave nothing behind and look back only at the good that came of it. Know you served well those you met on the path. Hold your head high.

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Posted in Community, Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Uncategorized and tagged community, creativity, education, I walked a mile with pleasure, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mindful Practice, poetry, Robert Browning Hamilton, teacher as transformer, uncommon common sense. Bookmark the permalink.

Elegy in the Classroom

Posted on May 16, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Anne Sexton wrote this wonderfully provocative poem. I am unsure of her context for the poem, but an elegy is a lament or a mourning for something past. As with anything, when we grow past the love and passion for what we do and the compassion for the people we do it with it is time to take our leave. I want to be remembered as ‘gracefully insane’ or eccentric. I love learning with my students and their families the second greatest reward I can receive. The first is learning with my family. I think, in both cases, I could be called somewhat ‘disarranged’.

Teaching is a place of great creative for me and fills a whole in the hole of my soul.

Oh my, Anne Sexton discovered and chose great words for teachers.

In the thin classroom, where your face
was noble and your words were all things,
I find this boily creature in your place;

find you disarranged, squatting on the window sill,
irrefutably placed up there,
like a hunk of some big frog
watching us through the V
of your woolen legs.

Even so, I must admire your skill.
You are so gracefully insane.
We fidget in our plain chairs
and pretend to catalogue
our facts for your burly sorcery

or ignore your fat blind eyes
or the prince you ate yesterday
who was wise, wise, wise.

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Posted in Education, Humour, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Uncategorized and tagged Anne Sexton, education, Elegy in the Classroom, Mindful Practice, poetry, servant-leadership, spirituality, stewardship, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

What I Have Learned So Far

Posted on May 1, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I wonder if I do enough. Is there more that I can do? Certainly, I discover the seed Mary Oliver referred to in quiet moments of meditation. What can I do so it grows and I move beyond indolence? Yesterday, a former student visited. He is a success story in my career, a young man who was disengaging from school in late elementary. His parents supported our efforts and the result was a high school graduate, a married man with two children, and he is headed to Africa for work.

He reminded me through his visit that I had done more than talk the good story. We sowed the seed and it flourished.

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of — indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

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Posted in Education, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, education, eloquent questions, leadership, Mary Oliver, Mindful Practice, poetry, teacher as transformer, What I Have Learned So Far. Bookmark the permalink.

For the Raindrop, Joy Is Entering the River

Posted on April 30, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

It was a long day with lousy weather, but I wore sandals without socks. I was an optimist today and felt the warm weather, just around the corner, will be more joyfully experienced. A student asked why I wore sandals and I answered him that way. I want to be hopeful about what is coming. There is enough unhappiness in the world without adding to the weight of it. Weather is a small thing, but small things add up and I can begin that thinking here. I lighten the weight of the larger things in life. I appreciate the richness of life as Ghalib writes about in this poem.

For the raindrop, joy is in entering the river –
Unbearable pain becomes it’s own cure.

Travel far enough into sorrow,
Tears turn to sighing;
In this way
We can learn how water can die into air.

When, after heavy rain,
The storm clouds disperse,
It is not that they’ve wept themselves
Clear to the end?

If you want to know the miracle,
How wind can polish a mirror,
Look:
The shining grass grows green in spring.

It’s the rose’s unfolding, Ghalib,
The creates the desire to see –
In every color and circumstance,
May the eyes be open for what comes.

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Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments and tagged creativity, education, For the Raindrop, Ghalib. poetry, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Cutting Loose

Posted on April 25, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Only four students attended today. These students struggle with school for various reasons. I think it is because they are cast aside by adults. They want adults in their lives to set boundaries and be real. I asked a student what he had learned after we completed a Math question together. He responded you are always right, meaning me. I made a mistake in my calculations. We laughed. I told another student I did not like Math when I went to school either. When adults lighten up and are genuine they make an impact on children who need help.

William Stafford reminded us to be genuinely human, cut loose, and have fun. Parker Palmer suggested: “Teachers live on the most vulnerable intersection of public and private life.” Yes, we are vulnerable , but children and adolescents smell the disingenuous when we are not authentic.

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.

Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past trouble.

Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path — but that’s when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here on earth, again and again.