Race to the End

I'm sitting at my computer for a few quiet moments while my two kids are playing nicely in their bedroom. Who knows how long it will last? I'm trying to reflect on the imminent ending that awaits me at my school. Ten days from now it will be over (mostly). The Spring exams will be done, graduation will be over, the final in-service of the year will be complete and my 17 years of service will be essentially over, as well. Why doesn't it seem real?

I think I must be experiencing what some retirees experience. It just doesn't seem real at first. As a teacher I'm quite used to endings. I like both the beginnings and the endings that come with teaching. Each new school year I get a new batch of kids to meet, greet, and come to love. By the end of the year we've gotten to know each others quirks and idiosyncracies; we've come to appreciate each other. We've learned some things together, too. And then the end of the year comes. We say our good-byes and that is that. Perhaps we run into each other at the mall or the grocery store, but pretty much the relationship is over. I'm used to the rhythms of the school year; this feels much the same.

Yet different. The days are passing too quickly-racing by. I imagine the seniors are feeling the same. It's exciting and daunting at the same time. Endings and beginnings. Beginnings and endings.

PAUSE

I'm back. Since the last paragraph my two children have just run their first race. My husband came home saying their was a race just about to begin - 1 K sponsored by the Cellcom Marathon. Why not do it? They would race by age group, leaving the Lambeau parkinglot, running through the player tunnel and into and around Lambeau field, and back out again. The horn blew. They sped off with about 30 others not venturing into something new. Their hearts raced. Anna had to walk a bit; Alec did not. The finishline came soon enough. They both finished and they did great! They were so excited to get medals at the completion of the race. We were very proud of them. It was all over in a blink of an eye.

There must be an analogy in here somewhere, right? Funny how that works. This leg of my race is soon done.

A Tribute to Mom

My mother is a poem
I'll never be able to write,
though everything I write
is a poem to my mother.
~Sharon Doubiago

It’s Mother’s Day! Happy Mother’s Day to all of the moms out there reading this. As one who wished for many years to become a mother, let me say I know this day isn’t always a happy one for my female friends. Let me also say, whether or not you are a mother, have a living, do or don’t know your mother, mother’s day can be an emotional day.

While I could muse about being a mother or becoming a mother, I’d like to use this platform to honor my mother. (Sorry, Mom, this is it this year – no diamond necklace or flowers!)

A Tribute to MOM

That best academy, a mother's knee. ~James Russell Lowell
One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. ~George Herbert

My mom cannot separate herself from her role as mother and her role as teacher. This has always been true and continues to be true in her newer role as grandmother. She’s always teaching. She’s most in her element when she can read a story, give a story or activity book, play BINGO or YAHTZEE, or ask questions on a myriad of topics. Living with a mom for whom buying toys usually meant something “educational” quite likely brought me to my career as a teacher. That and our long homework sessions when she helped me memorize the multiplication tables in grade school and later the 50 inventors, their inventions, countries of origins, and years in 9th grade. And who could forget how we learned what rodents and insects were thinking when mom would begin talking for them and carrying on full conversations!

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. ~Honoré de Balzac

My mom has the patience and forgiveness of a Saint. I’ve never known her to hold a grudge or to grumble about someone “not getting it.” I wish I could say both of these qualities have found their way down the bloodline, but I fear my capacity for forgiveness is greater than my patience.

The mother's heart is the child's school-room. ~Henry Ward Beecher

My mom has a heart of such capacity that she managed to mother not only her two children successfully, but hundreds (maybe thousands) of others, too. Confirmation kids, grade school children, youngsters with special needs, and English language learners. Through her love and care we’ve all grown to reach our full potential.

One of the very few reasons I had any respect for my mother when I was thirteen was because she would reach into the sink with her bare hands - bare hands - and pick up that lethal gunk and drop it into the garbage. To top that, I saw her reach into the wet garbage bag and fish around in there looking for a lost teaspoon. Bare hands - a kind of mad courage. ~Robert Fulghum

I can beat that. My mom could stick her hand into a drawer in the bureau at our cabin and pick up with her bare hands the mouse nests there (or in the outhouse!) Once she even actually picked up baby mice! (Okay, that time it wasn’t so impressive as she screamed so long and loud that Dad thought she must be having a heart attack.) But she did it. She also could scrub bat guano off the floor or furniture. Set a mousetrap or empty a mousetrap without flinching. She could cook eggs in a cast iron skillet on a cookstove without burning it. Those same hands could cook Sunday dinner (Preacher’s casserole or chicken and rice or potroast or goulash) or Christmas supper (Norwegian meatballs, riced potatoes, apple pie, and lefsa) or something for a Sunday potluck (green Jello with celery or a pie) or make homemade jelly, homemade soap, homemade candles, or handmade clothes. Those very same hands could pour alcohol on an open wound (yes! It really hurts like heck) and then squeeze you tight.


For all you do and all you are, THANK YOU, Mom! I love you no matter how near or far we are.

Legacy

For several years two colleagues and I included a project in our Senior English classes called "The Legacy Project." This was a wonderful project which required senior students to work together in groups of their choice to conceive, create, and execute a legacy of some kind - that is, they were to leave something of significance behind for the school or greater community. It was a complex procedure that utilized a variety of skills useful in the workplace and culminated in things such as a stained glass window, memorials of a tree and a marker for a fellow classmate who had died, a new club at school such as SADD, etc. This idea of leaving a legacy was important to them and to us.

Also in the Senior curriculum we would read "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller. In it, Willy Loman hopes to live a prosperous life as a salesman and then die the death of a salesman. That is to say, he hopes that his life has touched so many people and clients, that when he dies the church will be overflowing with mourners who speak fondly of him and how "well-liked" he was. (Those of you who know the play, also know the ending - I won't spoil it for the rest of you!)

Now, as I find myself one month away from leaving my school community of 17 years, I've begun wondering what my legacy to the community and the school is. While I don't have such grandiose hopes as Willy Loman I will say this: without going into detail, I have begun to realize that my mere presence actually DOES make a difference to all of the teachers and students there. I have learned this because by leaving it, I see the changes that are happening (some are fine and some are very disappointing). So, in a very odd way, I'm finding that I must have left a legacy.

What would I LIKE my legacy to be? I'd like to think that my passion, love, sweat and tears (I know it is cliche, but it is also true), that somehow these things have impacted the 2000+ students who I have encountered there over the years. To be sure, academic lessons have been a focus, but I hope that life lessons and work-related skills will be my legacy, as well. To my colleagues, I hope I have touched their lives with my optimism and energy, my passion for teaching and the IB. To those teachers I have mentored over the years, I hope their own teaching and perspectives have been influenced positively by me somehow. To the curriculum, I hope to leave behind a value for authentic learning (like portfolio assessment, goal setting, and reflection). I'd like my legacy to be that the school culture and community has changed for the better because I have walked the halls there.

Even more importantly than these things is the legacy left to me by those at my school. How have I been touched? I've come to value my faith as it interacts with my vocation. I've come to see how important searching for TRUTH is. I've come to see how important it is to give away some of the control to my students so they can grab it, run with it, take risks, be creative, and GROW. I've grown in my teaching practice, my leadership, my joy, my ability to appreciate all kinds of people, my understanding of different cultures and times and places. Mostly, I value the people and the place that has been my school family for the past 17 years. More than ever, I realize life is not about stuff but relationship. This is what I shall take with me to Korea.

I'm young yet, and hopefully have many more years to live. But when all is said and done, I hope my legacy reaches beyond the classroom and the walls of any PLACE. Perhaps my hopes are like that of Willy Loman, to have been "well-liked" AND to have made a difference.

I came to you on a whim and divine providence

I came to you on a whim and divine providence.

Maz had said, I think Notre Dame is hiring. Why not see?
Forty-eight hours later I smiled nervously as "TBA" at new teacher in-service.
In an innocent instant one life had passed and another began.

Seventeen years later I marvel at how time flies.
The familiar rhythms of a school
Familiar faces in colleagues and students
Familiar lessons all make it seem easy now.
Can it be I began with only two sentences to guide my lessons?
Can it be I've seen a dozen administrators come and go
And likely 5 times that of colleagues?
Can it be I've taught and been taught by 2000 adolescents?
Phase I and II of renovation, new tennis courts, teachers' parkinglot, new football field all mark physical changes in the grounds,
Though the institution remains unchanged.
How could I have known a simple job inquiry would turn vocation,
sustaining me for so long?
How could I have known a simple job inquiry would see me through
two adoptions and the death of my father-in-law?
How could I have forseen the support of fellow POETS
And the coming and going of so many dear friends?

We live in the moment - like infants who
think you only exist when you are present;
We are most present to the time and place of Now.
So while the places we've been go on without us, we often don't think of them.
Sure, every now and then we dream of that perfect beach
we reclined upon once long ago
or that friend we haven't seen in years, but
Mostly we live each day as it comes.
Life demands it be so-
And that is how it should be.

I came to you on a whim and divine providence.
I leave the same way-
Off to some new adventure
The next leg of my life's journey.
I'll continue to BE and you shall, too.
We shall exist simultaneously but separately.
Every now and then we shall dream of one another and check
FACEBOOK for a message or a word,
for some way to keep connected while worlds apart.
No doubt your prayers for me and my memories of you
shall keep me anchored through the awkward
Beginnings in my new land.
No doubt I will tell them-

I came to you on a whim and divine providence.