As of three months ago! Candice is such a blessing and truly a remarkable woman!
12.22.2011
7.18.2011
6.17.2010
wow. it's over.
Today was my last day of class. You will note that there is a significantly notable gap between this post and my last post. That gap, which spans my first year of teaching, has been marked by anything but absence. If there is nothing here in this space, it is only because those other spaces I inhabited are so full...
But today was my last day. Perhaps some nostalgia, some sense of missing it will come, but it is certainly not here yet. Today I feel exhausted, depleted, yet overjoyed at having come to the end not feeling like a failure. Sure, my successes have not been as tangible as TFA might like, but nonetheless, this has been a terrific year. A part of me can't believe it's already been a year. The other part (the larger part) feels like so much more time has past.
I sincerely love what I'm doing. At reunions, when I contemplated other paths I could have chosen, I was thankful that I found this job. I am blessed to be teaching some of the best high schoolers in Oakland. Students that have already overcome so many more obstacles than I have ever (and may ever) face, and continue to persevere.
But dealing with teenagers day in and day out is exhausting. I am so impressed with everyone who teaches, who wakes up everyday and faces a new day, a new lesson, in front of students. I will never take for granted the amount of work that my teachers must and done (and still continue to do)
I can honestly say that I am excited for next year. I cannot say, however, that I can't wait for it. Today, I will celebrate in the feeling that next year can wait, and will wait, and will ultimately be another wonderful year.
Also, I promise to (in some format) do a better job of filling in this gap with post dated stories about teaching that I may, finally, find funny.
But today was my last day. Perhaps some nostalgia, some sense of missing it will come, but it is certainly not here yet. Today I feel exhausted, depleted, yet overjoyed at having come to the end not feeling like a failure. Sure, my successes have not been as tangible as TFA might like, but nonetheless, this has been a terrific year. A part of me can't believe it's already been a year. The other part (the larger part) feels like so much more time has past.
I sincerely love what I'm doing. At reunions, when I contemplated other paths I could have chosen, I was thankful that I found this job. I am blessed to be teaching some of the best high schoolers in Oakland. Students that have already overcome so many more obstacles than I have ever (and may ever) face, and continue to persevere.
But dealing with teenagers day in and day out is exhausting. I am so impressed with everyone who teaches, who wakes up everyday and faces a new day, a new lesson, in front of students. I will never take for granted the amount of work that my teachers must and done (and still continue to do)
I can honestly say that I am excited for next year. I cannot say, however, that I can't wait for it. Today, I will celebrate in the feeling that next year can wait, and will wait, and will ultimately be another wonderful year.
Also, I promise to (in some format) do a better job of filling in this gap with post dated stories about teaching that I may, finally, find funny.
7.31.2009
teaching america
Oh dear readers,
It has been so long since I've found you here. For those concerned, I am well and life has been, at least, amazing. If this screen has been empty it is only because life outside this world has been so full. I am still writing. I have always been still writing, and I hope to have something good enough to share.
I am sitting in Los Angeles, an hour before my last summer school class. This is the first class I've taught, and today is the last day I will see them. They are so brilliant, and while I sincerely hope that I have taught them something, I have no doubts that the mark they have left on me is bigger than any I have left on them. They will have dozens of other teachers in their lives, but they will always be my first class. They are the first students that fell asleep while I was talking, the first students that looked at me confused because they were awake. They are the first students that thought I was funny (sometimes), and the first students to actually understand things that were being taught.
I will miss them.
It has been so long since I've found you here. For those concerned, I am well and life has been, at least, amazing. If this screen has been empty it is only because life outside this world has been so full. I am still writing. I have always been still writing, and I hope to have something good enough to share.
I am sitting in Los Angeles, an hour before my last summer school class. This is the first class I've taught, and today is the last day I will see them. They are so brilliant, and while I sincerely hope that I have taught them something, I have no doubts that the mark they have left on me is bigger than any I have left on them. They will have dozens of other teachers in their lives, but they will always be my first class. They are the first students that fell asleep while I was talking, the first students that looked at me confused because they were awake. They are the first students that thought I was funny (sometimes), and the first students to actually understand things that were being taught.
I will miss them.
1.12.2009
For the Sake of One Good Poem
It is rare that I read something so moving that I feel motivated to find it and post it.
[From Rilke]
"... Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you had long seen coming; to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in a joy and you didn't pick it up (it was a joy meant for somebody else --); to childhood illnesses that began so strangely with so many profound and difficult transformations, to days in quiet, restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that rushed along high overhead and went flying with all the stars, -- and it is still not enough to be able to think of all that. You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of women screaming in labor, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again. But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the scattered noises. And it is not yet enough to have memories. You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves -- only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them."
[From Rilke]
"... Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you had long seen coming; to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in a joy and you didn't pick it up (it was a joy meant for somebody else --); to childhood illnesses that began so strangely with so many profound and difficult transformations, to days in quiet, restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that rushed along high overhead and went flying with all the stars, -- and it is still not enough to be able to think of all that. You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of women screaming in labor, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again. But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the scattered noises. And it is not yet enough to have memories. You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves -- only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them."
12.24.2008
10.06.2008
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