Kickshaw Teacher This and That

If you've ever had a genius as your teacher you realize that there is a point beyond which you begin forgetting yourself, your life, and what you had in mind.  You become what you really were meant to be all along because someone else notices some part of the universe that you concentrate on, admire, or remember.  When this happens laughing and crying are not enough.  Something must be made, fashioned.  Hopefully, it is not a weapon but, o.k., it could be a dream that is made real, material, and left for others to study.  Now, you have been lugged out of isolation for a bit, even if that's where you really dwell.  Your teacher points to the path.  Yes, it is lonely.  Lovely.  Your teacher will walk with you there for awhile.  You may be noticing nuts, berries, but there are other things too that your teacher points out like the present as well as the past that suddenly ran up ahead and beckons to be caught up with.  It calls on a telephone from Vancouver Island and has the patience of a silverback gorilla shopping for kickshaws in a crowded, dusty fair.

Longer

Although I had long dismissed it as a cold case, I realized that my Nome files may have to be re-opened, dusted off.  Even on summer break from my "day job" as "teacher" it would only be in my favor to revisit the eyeblink that was Nome, a place known for its Nugget, melting summer streets, and visitors from worlds away.  Yes, I would have to give the Eskimo yo-yo a whirl and unroll the blanket for some light tossing.  The Olympics were in sight now and there was no reason to not get in shape. This all involved sheer mental preparation.  Two weeks of Professional Development (courtesy of Race To The Top) would commence in approximately ten days' time.

Some quick backtrack thinking produced the results of the summer break:  taking care of an new eye exam, glasses, and removing an unwanted cyst from my back.  Plus, that scant trail of evidence left on Tom Clark/Beyond the Pale.  O.K., more than that.  Let's just call it the summer of the wonderful garden and eyeblinks about my other life.

Google Schurz

Google Earth

Going on Google Earth to see the Rez again.  I could not find our house but something that looked like an abandoned parking lot—the state of Nevada?  But then I travelled with the mouse over the hills toward Yerington, toward where Wovoka was born and the feeling I got was a lot like the feeling I had wanted way back then. 

Googled Oregon, up the Umpqua, looking for Toketee Lake.  I can only picture it now, how it was last summer, refreshing when I swam there.  Moon at the tent.

Mr. Schuh, Carol Alpert. Thank you.  My teachers there.  Tom Connolly, Mrs. Worell, Jackie (Lamb), sweet teachers in Missoula.  Mr. Connolly let me and Shawna come in late after lunch, asked us which was more important:  experience or imagination?  I thought experience

back then.

Dear Bill and Melinda (Gates),

Please visit my classroom
at your earliest convenience.
Please be our guest speakers

maybe talk a little about gadgets
their use and misuse
about tests and testing
about teachers and their Q
quality.
You will need
pepper spray (just in case), lots of pens and pencils (the students don't bring their own), earplugs (but if you are used to hearing fuck off, fuck you, bitch, cunt, you could go sans, go insane) and I suppose some computers would be usefully distracting

and you might need to bring some spare change
for the students
besides the 75 mil for the state
you might be asked if they can 'borrow' some
this, the only amount they will see 
because many do not use their free meal card/bus pass/I.D.
it has been lost
the cafeteria is not entered
at all for most
because they are talking to their friends
well, fighting or filming the fights
with cell phones &
oh yes, there might be a need
for thick skin, a steely gaze
to go with a firm yet caring smile
when the School Design Team, Principal,
On Site School Review Team, and District
come in to check
the current

centerpiece of the Macrohard universe.

Summer Break 2012

Their pets are getting old and dying.  After sneaking in and out.  My name in Hebrew means Lily.  They are poisonous to cats.  She was a cat named Lily.  Today, she was put to sleep.  Today, I am burying her beneath the Rhododendron out front, pink, that I watered every summer at their house.  Their dog, next.  A sadness all around.  I want this life to slow down, mean something.

The carpets are all cleaned but what does that mean?  Who will care about it tomorrow?  Why do I want to plant things, see them grow?  Why does my life seem over, too, soon, as well?  The young deer in the ditch.  It had been hit, its guts beginning to stink.  A rancher came over to talk about the hay, missing his wife.  Now, his now-lady friend, a lovely woman, too, but still he cries about Deb, about Jake, his Border Collie, eight puppies from Jake, but still, not Jake.

From Big A to Little K

Not quite sure that being called "Big A" is all that flattering (by the students). 
Their graduation--quite something.  The seven ti-leaf lei I made started to smell ripe
in the plastic bag from Long's.  I gave them away and yes

sad to not be seeing them day after day and observing them
more than the faces of my own family
I should know that they are as excited
and lost as I am in the world
of petroleum products everyone thinks
they know what to do with.

Student Perception Data

"Success seems feasible, press for effort, perseverence, and rigor."

about students:
encouragement, support, interesting, relevant, connected, integrated

ideas:
press, lessons, students with students, about students
are elicited and respected

culture: 
behavior

precis:
Why am I here?  The jumble.  The piece, thesis.  I wonder about the fact that the info. was easy to digest.  These things too.  The mandatory experiment to explain the same thing over and over using the same words.
Who knows these anymore? What are these for and what is supposed to happen here?

I remember the other morning as a student, liking and not knowing what to expect and where, when, and why.  This was Ed Dorn's teaching style and way.  I remember caring too much about him and his classes--trying to decide exactly what I was learning--what was it?  I did not especially know.  Another rigamorole, a challenge in that is the best and other day dream. 

Back in February it was winter and it was the same thing that the done deal inside takes on everything.