Gratitude: "Love is Everything"

I could post a list of things for which I am grateful. I did in my journal this morning. It has been a great year in so many ways, and yes, I am thankful.

But today it is about Love.

Love of the family I will celebrate with today.  Love of the people I have celebrated with in the past...so many now long gone.

Thanksgiving 1984  Minerva, Ohio

Thanksgiving 1986  Orlando, Florida

Love is everything.  George Strait released an album this year with that title.  I heard the album for the first time on May 31st -- the 15th anniversary of the death of my father.  I was brought to tears.  Strait's album has been my favorite go-to all year...when I'm stressed, when I'm happy, when I'm confused.

Love answers every question. Love heals every situation. The fact that a huge percentage of the population doesn't believe this doesn't change the fact.  Anyone who has applied love in a tough situation knows the power and impact it can have.

A Course in Miracles makes it clear:  One problem (lack of love).  One solution (love).

Of course I'm talking about the application of love -- a change of heart -- the melting of the ice we often employ to protect ourselves from others.

The song George Strait recorded is not available on a YouTube video.  Guess that just shows how old school George can be.  So I've provided the words below.  Check it out on iTunes if you are so inclined.

May you have a beautiful day, full of Love and Grace and Blessings realized.

Love is Everything

Songwriters: Casey Beathard and Pat McLaughlin

Love is everything

It's a whole lot more than going to the store for a wedding ring
It's kissing' and a hugging' but it's also the kicking and the cussing thing
I've been told

Love is everything
It's a smile on your face on a cold winter day at the thought of spring
It's getting up at night for the cry of a little bitty baby thing
And it's growing old

Love is everything
It's those fires that daddy stoked those nights to keep you warm
It's the hell your mama went through the day you were born
And it's a thunderstorm

Love is everything
Oh, it's going off to war, it's the back and forth on a front porch swing
It's the kiss that you got in the old parking lot of the Dairy Queen
And it's you and me

Love is everything
It's looking out for everybody else but number one
And it's all that really matters when all's said and done
And the race is run

Love is everything
It's a rose on a stone, it's the words in a song that the choir sings
It's the tears of goodbye and the place that you fly to, to get your wings
Yeah love's the king
Love is everything
Love is everything

One Friday, Fifty Years

One Friday, fifty years

Life so very different then

Black and white, prayers said

A world tilting off its axis.

We did not know this was

just the beginning.

We did not know how crazy

it would get.

We did not know

how this would resonate.

We just sat.

And watched.

We were quiet.

We were stunned.

We were sad.

Step one in the loss of innocence.

Book Title Poem

Recently, a friend posted an idea called the Book Shelf poem -- lining up your book titles to create a poem.

It has taken me a couple of weeks to get on it, and finally I have.  I collected over 60 book titles -- just writing down ones that stood out to me, not necessarily my favorites.

I thought a lot about whether I would add extra words.  There are not rules for this kind of thing, so I knew I could if I wanted to.  But somehow, I didn't want to.

Then I hit on an idea of using something else to tie the book titles together -- categorizing them as I often have my students do with words and phrases.  I decided to use song titles that asked questions -- and I allowed that sometimes I would be using questions in the songs themselves, not necessarily the titles, if that worked.

I set out about 16 different song title categories, and began matching up the book titles.  I discarded quite a few book titles and a couple of the song titles that didn't seem to work.  Then I considered what kind of theme this whole collection represented and, of course, it has to do with the journey we travel in this life.  It gave it a frame, anyway, however loosely.

I numbered the categories.  Here is a portion of the layout:

 

 So now...the poem!

***

Krik! Krak!

Hot Damn!

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

Good Times/Bad Times

Living Juicy

Trout Fishing in America

Just a Couple of Days...

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Dreaming of Babylon

Archeology of a Circle

Notes from the Underground

Interrogations at Noon...

How's It Going to Be?

The Force of Spirit

Finding What You Didn't Lose

Writing for Your Life

Krik! Krak!

Hot Damn!

Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

The Road

Far from Home

A Separate Peace

Chasing Down the Dawn...

Do You Remember?

Finding Florida

Florida Stories

Florida Poems

The Wild Heart of Florida

Forever Island

Krik! Krak!

Hot Damn!

What's Love Got to Do With It?

The Root of This Longing

Warriors of the Heart

Small Wonder...

Who'll Stop the Rain?

The Metamorphosis

Fate and Destiny

Mist

Heart of Darkness...

Do You Know?

The Language of Life

Colors of Freedom

The Rebel

You Can't Catch Death...

Where is the Love?

A Lamp in the Darkness

Catching Fire

A Circle of Quiet

Sailing Home

Krik! Krak!

Hot Damn!

Can You Hear Me Knockin'?

Calling Me Home

By the Light of My Father's Smile

I Thought My Father Was God...

What is Love?

Being Peace

The Red Tent

The Color Purple

A Stone for a Pillow...

How Will I Know?

Sacred Contracts

The Glance

Grace (Eventually)

Couldn't Keep It to Myself

Krik! Krak!

Hot Damn!

Is This the Real Life...?

Things Seen and Unseen

The Path

A Wrinkle in Time

News from the Universe

God Never Blinks

...Is This Just Fantasy?

Above the River

A Woman's Path

Joyful Noise

Riverwalking

Ceremony...

Remembering the God to Come

***

Free the Mind, Equip the Heart

This is an incredible speech by a young man named Ethan Young from the state of Tennessee.

He nails it.

Addressing the issues with Common Core, teacher evaluation, standardized testing, and overuse of data he speaks for every teacher I know.

Teachers that are tired.  Teachers that are scared. Teacher that are looking to flee because of the incredibly outlandish and unworkable demands being made on them.

And a question that needs to be addressed:  Haven't we gone too far with data?

Everything this man says is true, and what teachers have been saying for years.  Somehow we are always met with the refrain that we somehow don't want to be "accountable" -- a word we've come to abhor because nothing is further from the truth.

Ethan Young gets it, and speaks of the disconnect quite elegantly. Here are other gems from Mr. Young which bear repeating:

As a craft, teaching is an interaction. Thus, how can you expect to gauge a teacher's success with no control of her students' participation or interests?

The task of teaching is never quantifiable.

If everything I learn in high school is a measurable objective, I have not learned anything.

(Are all the people who insist we post an objective, explain the objective, repeat the objective, and quantify if the students learned the objective listening???)

My favorite part is when he does the takedown on school only being useful to prepare for college and career.  He rightfully evokes the Founding Fathers "screaming from their graves"...

We teach to free minds.
We teach to inspire.
We teach to equip.
The careers will come naturally.

Yes, they will.  I believe that because I've seen it and experienced it myself during my many years on this planet. 

****

I first saw this video the same day that I read about Microsoft dumping their hated stack rankings -- the same kind of ranking used now with teachers.  In fact, right here in Florida the court has ordered the state to release the unstable VAM scores used for teacher evaluation, known to be unreliable, leaving media outlets open to publishing this data--as if it really said anything valid about teachers.

This happened in Los Angeles last year.  A teacher took his own life over it.

Public shaming is now what you get with a career in education.

With all of this being said, it is easy to believe that the point of all of this is to bring public education to its knees so that private firms can take over.  Legislators have already starved the schools of any meaningful funding, made pay increases nearly impossible for teachers, and are now implementing unproven standards at a pace that no reasonable human being can keep up with.  I am only in my tenth year, but the changes in funding have produced noticeable negative effects, and more so every year.  All of that while the pressure increases on everyone involved -- especially the children.

It's insanity.  It's misdirection.  It's confusing to the public. It's confusing to those of us in education who can't figure out how anyone thinks any of this is a good idea.

Is there any other profession that has outsiders dictating everything?

I've known some teachers who have bailed for other opportunities, and I defend their right to do so.  Everyone has to follow their own heart. And let's face it, sometimes the decision comes from the financial stress of teaching without raises and spending so much of our own money on classroom supplies and fundraisers.

But I won't be walking away.

When others talk of leaving, I know I'll stay.

Why?

Because I teach to free minds.  I teach to inspire.  I teach to equip -- with communication and critical thinking and writing skills.  I know I am not a data point, a VAM score, a tick mark on an iPad.  I know what I do is not quantifiable -- yet, I can see the results.  I like that the greatest minds come together in a Language Arts classroom -- and not just all those famous guys, but the great minds of our young people who truly do have something to say if you give them a chance. 

I teach because this is who I am -- and life is simply too short to be someone else. I teach to free the mind and equip the heart -- mine and my students.

I came a long way to make my teaching career happen.  It was forged out of years of doing every other kind of job imaginable. When I found this mission for the second half of my life, I knew it was the right and perfect thing for me.  I have said for years that God has not brought me this far to see me fall on my face.  I believe there are still many lessons for me to learn and perhaps an influence I can have.  I just cannot get sidetracked from what I know.

This is my mission.  As hard as it is and may still become, I'm sticking to it.

Being What Counts -- A Truly "Found" Poem

It's been a dry spell with this blog, but perhaps I'm making my way back today.

I scheduled a personal day off for some thinking and writing time, and so far, so good.

I found the following poem while pulling together another poem.  I wrote it during the National Writing Project Summer Institute on June 28, 2012.  It was prompted by a reading from Lucy Calkin's book The Art of Teaching Writing.  She addresses this idea of being joyfully literate and how as teachers we must teach the writer, not the writing; teach the reader, not the reading.

Obviously this inspired me, and my personal teaching philosophy poured out on the page. Now that I have found this poem again, I am inspired once more.  What follows is what I've learned is the best way to teach, and represents my best days in the classroom -- when I remember. When I don't get sidetracked -- which is all too easy.

Today I made the decision that JOYFUL LITERACY is forever the premier goal in my classroom.  It will be posted for all to see.  I am determined this time not to forget!

Joyful orchids on Useppa Island

Being What Counts

Joyfully literate

Conversation and intention

Moving through the spirals

of structure, the structure

of meaning, the art of

conversation

 Vocabulary

Joyfully literate -- able

to talk easily, to find a 

way in, any way in,

the mark on the page,

framed and signed for all

to see.

We rush

this text, that text,

interruptions

"no time" becomes a mantra

let's see it as an excuse

Slow down.

Join the conversation.

Be vulnerable.

Okay not to know

Okay to simply ask

"What do you think?"

Can we see this as a strength?

Must we be know-it-alls?

Is that joyful?

Do we write, revise, model

for our students?

Do we actively read and 

share what we read?

Are we joyful?

Imagine...

Being with text

What emerges?

Where is the way in,

the opening?

It all counts.

Do we take time to

contemplate

or do we expect

easy quick answers?

Do we only think about

what "counts?"

Can we re-imagine what

"counts" means

Does it "count" toward

greater ability to

THINK?

Does it count toward

greater creativity?

Does it count toward

greater communication?

Isn't it true that these

things that count are

hard to quantify in

an A, B, C, D, or F?

Conversation

matters.

Expression 

matters.

Openness

matters.

If we teach our children well,

if we teach them basic safety, 

we usually use these words:

STOP

LOOK 

LISTEN

These words will form 

the basis of everything

I do.  

STOP            Take time

LOOK          Really "see"

LISTEN      For the next step

The way in

to Joyful Literacy.

hms  9:30 a.m. 6/28/12