During our poetry unit at school, I showed students how to write a tanka. A tanka is a poem in the haiku family with a syllabic pattern: 5,7,5,7,7. The poems are meant to encapsulate a certain mood or moment in time. As my students were crafting theirs, I created the tankas below. Which one is your favorite?
Gram, you passed down the values of community service, love of family and country, and music for the soul, and I am ever so grateful to you for those gifts. Please give great-grandma a big hug from me and my family and tell her TV is even worse now. My final song to you was "5 Foot Two, Eyes of Blue." I played it on your guitar, and I hope you liked it. It brought tears to my family's eyes, but that was only because of my singing. I know Jim must be excited to have his "gal" back. He's been waiting 50 years. Happy trails.
A student asked me today if I write poetry and post it to my blog. I told her I did occasionally dabble in poetry, but had not yet posted anything online. Here is a reworking of one I did recently for a class I am taking.
“All too often we [educators] hear only criticisms. Indeed, many of us ourselves produce critical analyses of some part of the educational system. Constructive criticism serves many useful purposes and should always be encouraged. A free society must provide opportunities for both constructive and destructive criticisms. But criticism that is based on erroneous assumptions, that uses slogans rather than facts, or that takes the form of wild accusations does not further the public interest.” Care to guess the year he gave these remarks? Sound familiar? A Google search for "What's Right with American Education," produced more articles about what is wrong. Media, parents, politicians, and the public in general have all bought into this notion that American education is failing, is getting worse, is wrong. But is it? Lord knows it's not perfect, but is it FAILING? As with any politicized issue, there is more misinformation and uninformed opinion than objective analysis. Is there any balanced analysis of the state of American education that anyone can point me toward? Oh, and the remarks were made in 1969. In remarks at a Psi Kappa Delta gathering at Wayne State University, Ira Polley began his speech with the following: Memories abound of bedtime stories with my children. We all loved sharing goofy, hilarious, and impactful stories of dancing hippopotamuses, thoughtful bears, spontaneous wombats, famished caterpillars, and hustling, bustling trains. We learned and laughed and, all the while, according to a story on BBC.com, our minds were being unknowingly warped--warped by hidden messages. What if we subjected our favorite children's book to psychoanalytic scrutiny? Is Pooh really a gluttonous, self-centered slob? What could Barnyard Dance be but a treatise promoting same-sex and interracial marriage? It's interesting to revisit books from our childhood once we get to be adults. There are all sorts of things we might have missed when filtering stories through our child minds. But, are there really "insidious secrets" sprinkled about in them? According to Hephzibah Anderson's article on BBC.com, Dr Alison Waller, Senior Lecturer at the University of Roehampton’s National Centre of Research for Children’s Literature, stated, “I don’t think you can ever dig too deeply for meaning.” I decided to test her assertion.
In perusing the bookshelf in my son’s room, I selected the first book that caught my eye: a board book titled, “Sometimes I like to Curl Up in a Ball.” It was a frequent selection on our nightly bedtime rotation. The story surrounds a playful wombat that lives in the moment. Sometimes he likes to curl up in a ball; other times he likes to scream loudly. This endearing little marsupial likes to live spontaneously, happily doing whatever tickles his fancy. In the end, his favorite thing to do is to curl up in a ball and sleep comfortably with his mother by his side. And that is exactly what is wrong with this book. The message to children it conveys is that a person can shirk responsibility, take unhealthy risks, and trod upon the rights of others, and then, at the end of the day, sleep soundly despite having been a rampaging egomaniac. What if one gets the urge to yell out loud, interrupting the lives and goings-on of others? Go right ahead. How about making a mess of my clothes? Not a problem. Who cares that my parents will have to do the washing? Of course, deeper analysis extrapolates the consequences of such a dangerous message to their later experimentation with sex and drugs. What’s keeping a young person from acting spontaneously and engaging in risky behavior? Certainly not this wombat. It’s simply a reprehensible message to impressionable children. Or is it? In rethinking D. Waller’s hypotheses, it seems that one can dig a bit too deep for meaning. Thomas the Tank Engine stories aren’t meant to promote communist propaganda; Snoopy and the Red baron isn’t actually about Snoopy’s decent into schizophrenia. Modern children’s stories are what they are: fun ways to teach values, model reading skills, and entertain. To paraphrase an often misquoted Freud, “Sometimes a children’s book is just a children’s book.” Scene (Year 2044. A used e-reader store in a nondescript suburban strip mall. A raisinly and well-bearded gnome of a man shuffles about arranging and rearranging old electronic reading devices. Enter a customer.) Bookstore Clerk (with a well-trodden voice): Good day to you, sir! May I help you find something today? Customer X (pausing to look about the room, his face full of imminent satisfaction): Not today, my good man. I’m just feeling nostalgic. Had a hankering to be around some old friends (picks up a random e-reader from the shelf and, closing his eyes, puts it up to his nose). I just love how these old devices smell—the very essence of long-forgotten memories. E-readers are the wave of the future of books, much like iPods became the future of music. Or are they? Certainly iPods effected a massive shift in the music industry, but we still have CDs, right? Will e-readers replace paper books or just take their place along side their pulp-based first cousin? Science has weighed in on the issue, albeit a bit tangentially. A recent study (ironically read on the internet) has made an intriguing find: reading paper books is better for a person in multiple ways than reading using an e-reader. I was happy to hear this only because I felt I was quickly becoming that grumpy, recalcitrant old man who was destined to be the last paper book reader on Earth--even if all I had left were a few yellowed and tattered pages of Welcome to the Monkey House . I would end my days like a street-corner evangelist spewing contempt and insecurity at the heathen e-readers going straight to monograph hell. I have tried e-readers, but found it to be a bleak experience. And, I cannot fathom the above scene playing out in 30 years. Science bears me out. Paper books are tangible, not only for my eyes and fingers, but for my soul! My soul, people!
Weigh in. What are your thoughts on paper versus programmed? I assigned my students to write an original myth, fable, or legend. I thought I would write one, too!!
God created Man and Woman. Man went hunting for game in the woods and valleys; Woman tended the fire, fed the family, and raised the children. While Man and Woman were apart, they were very lonely, though being apart was necessary for their family’s survival. One night, they prayed together for companions and gave offerings of the best deer meat and carefully roasted acorns. When they awoke, 2 four-legged creatures appeared out of the deepest part of their cave. They barked happily and wagged their tails as the twins ran up to Man and Woman. Man said, I shall name the beautiful brown one with grey eyes, “Hyena.” Woman said, I shall name the beautiful black one with dark eyes, “Dog.” Both Hyena and Dog were outwardly loyal and obedient, but inwardly, where Dog was gregarious, Hyena was always jealous. Dog accompanied Man on his hunts, while Hyena stayed behind and helped protect Woman. Hyena secretly grumbled. He did not want to stay and protect anyone; he wanted to hunt. Dog often returned with colorful stories of the hunt, and of how Man would throw him cuts of fresh meat. Hyena was green with envy, for he had no exciting stories to tell. He just laid around the village eating what morsels Woman threw to him and playing with the children. One day, as he was lying about the village, Hyena spotted something moving in the woods. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up as he recognized the low, gutteral snarl. He ducked his head and peered intently into the dense forest, looking to see if his hunch was right. Soon, he spied the mane sticking up over a large raisin bush. A lion!! Thinking quickly, Hyena called to Man just as he and Dog were about to head out on the hunt. “Man, I have stayed home as a loyal servant should, but I should like to go out on the hunt today. May I accompany you while Dog stays home?” Man thought for a second, but before he could answer, Dog said, “Man, I would be happy to stay home and switch places with my brother.” “Very well," said Man, “you stay. Hyena will come with me.” And, with a sly smile and a furtive glance to the woods, Hyena set off with Man. All the while, Lion was watching, and he waited until Man and Hyena were out of earshot. Suddenly, Lion attacked Woman, throwing her to the ground and clawing and biting at her. Dog quickly jumped in and ferociously counterattacked, knocking him off of Woman. Dog quickly came between Lion and Woman and defended Lion’s manifold attacks. Soon however, the task became too much for him, and the enormous cat slashed his side, mortally wounding Dog. Lion crouched for his final attack on Woman, when Man, who was alerted to the attack by Ostrich the Messenger, came running back into his camp to ward off Lion, chasing him away. Soon, all attention was on Dog, who was dying from his wounds. Suddenly, Howler Monkey, the Forest Alarm, started making a ruckus and chanting, “Hyena knew the lion lay low! Hyena knew the lion lay low!” Man and Woman were furious with Hyena, for they realized how cowardly and sneaky Hyena had been. But, before they could move in to punish Hyena, a bright light descended from the sky. Qua Pom, the Spirit of Heaven’s Gate, the one who decides whether or not a living thing has lived its full life, appeared to them. Qua Pom touched Dog, and his wounds healed, for she knew that Dog had not lived his full life yet. She sent Dog into a deep, healing sleep. Qua Pom then turned to Hyena-- whose grey eyes looked down in shame, and whose silky brown fur trembled--and touched him. Suddenly his once beautiful smile turned into a hideous, repulsive grin, and his once sleek, brown fur now appeared mangy, spotted, and dirty. Qua Pom cast him out into the savannah to forever scavenge for scraps. Man and Woman would never henceforth look upon Hyena and his descendants with respect, but would forever despise and distrust them. Dog, for his loyalty and sacrifice, would become an integral part of the lives of Man and Woman, sometimes staying home to protect Woman, sometimes accompanying Man on the hunt, but he was always well loved and respected. He is loved and respected to this day. I don’t know how God created the world in 7 days. Just designing the octopus alone must have had raised his blood pressure to critical status, taking millennia off his life. I can just picture him hunched over his work bench creating, sweating, biting his nails, furrowing his brow, inspecting, celebrating, rejecting, contemplating, and throwing his hands up in utter frustration. I can only imagine what his trash bin looked like afterwards. On a far, far less divine scale, such was my experience with creating my own web log.
The first step was choosing what it is I want to write about. What creative, thought-provoking, interesting perspective did I want to relay to the world. Beads of sweat started rolling down my forehead. Of course, like Nuke Leloosh and every other blogger on the planet, I wanted to “announce my presence with authority.” I desired nothing of that insipid white noise that sits like the Oort Cloud in the dark, nether regions of the internet. I consulted some colleagues, who unanimously felt that random thoughts from various parts of my warped brain would fit my personality best. Shew! The toughest part was over. I stood akimbo on the mountaintop, looking confidently upon the masses. I had my singular ray of light to shed on the world, and using my five minutes of experience with blogging just knew that choosing a page design must be akin to a stroll on the beach. In a hurricane. Choosing Weebly as my starting point, I dove in head-first to the next step—the page layout. There were thousands of various themes and designs to choose from. Of course, I wanted to find one that fits me—after all, in the legendary section of my mind, I’m about to expose myself to millions of people (spoiler alert: it will amount to more like a baker’s dozen). Expose myself? Nevermind. The intrepid new blogger pressed boldly forward. None of the designs jumped out at me, despite looking through all 476,823 of them; thus, I decided to go with a more custom design with pictures and backgrounds of MY choosing. This is where things went horribly wrong. In trying to upload pictures, Weebly entered a slow-motion vortex—like trying to swim in a pool of jello. Uploading pictures took ffffffooooorrrrrrrrreeeeeeeevvvvvvveeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, and there were hours of waiting, refreshing, dumping the cache, exiting and logging back in, entering endless error loops, and losing hours of work. A desperate plea for help to Weebly technical support proved mind-bogglingly pointless. After multiple hours of self-flagellation, I finally gave up and changed blog hosts (I’m a slow learner, I admit). Enter Wix. I browsed the page layouts for Wix and set off on personalizing the lesser of their 45 dozen evils. Once again, uploading my own photos proved to be the scourge of my blogging existence. The first page glitched while downloading pics, and there was no “fixing the glitch.” I deleted that page and started over. Designing the second page proved equally as futile. After an hour of trying to edit and upload one picture, the picture that was supposed to have been on the side bar settled itself large and in charge into the center of the page. It was not to be moved. It really felt at that point like I was the butt of an evil prank (most likely perpetrated by my maniacal wife), and, I am not kidding, I looked around the room for hidden cameras (I'm still not sure I wasn't filmed ranting on). Two more hours of my life went up in a cloud of binary code. In the end, I settled with my original page on Weebly, whose potion had suddenly worn off and was back to being the amiable Dr. Weebly Jekyll. Thus, the world (or at least a good 13 or so people) now had—and I use this term liberally-- the “pleasure” of my blog. I certainly hope it will prove to be worth the sweat and tears. I'm just glad I didn't have to create the octopus! One of my all-time favorite students (you know, the ones of whom I remember their first AND last names) stopped by my class today to say hi. I quite enjoyed our short, but quaint visit. In the course of our conversation, she mentioned students at her school taking a break to larp..... Larp? What's larp? She explained to me that LARP is Live Action Role Play and consists of groups who dress up in character and play out various battle scenes (here is a lengthy, but thorough video on LARP). It seems to be a live-action version of dungeon and dragons with foam weapons, though I am sure there are countless variations on the theme. After listening to her explanation, I immediately came to realization that, should LARP have been a thing in college, I would probably have been one of them (doesn't every rag-tag band of warriors need half-schnockered supporters cheering them on?). If a person wanted to start LARPing (is LARPing a word?), there is a website dedicated to finding local LARP groups. I found out there is a LARP group just down the road from me! They even have their own land!! I don't think LARP is for me, though. I'm sure that one must be young and/or single and/or without children to play. I'm pretty sure two of my three children would die of embarrassment if word (or pictures) of their father got out of me dressed up like this (though it's not far from the everyday, I admit):
After 12 years, we all jumped into our rocket ships, gathered on one planet, and commenced our countdowns. Some stayed on and remained in the comfort of the old planets. Some of us took off on interstellar travel, watching out our little windows as our solar system became another white dot in a sea of white dots. We colonized other systems. We befriended, and we bred. We built our own little solar systems and forged new lives around faraway stars. Occasionally we succumb to the need to know if our former mates are still out there, and we jump in our rocket ships, and set a course for the one white speck in the night sky we know. We gather and we show each other our own little white dots in the sky and we talk about our new planets and we talk about our old planets. And, even though our common bond was often only that we lived in that old solar system, there remains a feeling of comfort knowing you are out there in that space, in this time, perhaps waving back. Millions of years ago we inhabited the same solar system. We lived on various planets in that system--some orbiting close to the sun, others way out there—but it was our world. It was us against the universe. We would often wave as our planets moved past each other. And, even though our common bond was often only that we inhabited the same set of planets, there seemed to be something comforting in knowing there were others out there in that space, in that time, perhaps waving back. |