Mega phone…
Do you ever feel the sadness of a place???
Last September I spent some time on Saltspring Island…
The weather was warm,
the scenery was spectacular,
and I was on my way to spend a day with horses…
I should have felt on top of the world,
and for many moments I did,
but in-between those moments,
I cried from my guts…
Squeezing out grief I didn’t recognize,
from my own experience,
of the here and now…
And I didn’t know how,
to make sense,
of it all…
She rules her life like a fine skylark...
When I talk about those things the odd person asks me,
Aren’t you over-emotional???
I ask back,
What does that mean???
and wonder to myself,
what would a reasonable level,
of emotionality be???
and who for that matter,
would we put in charge,
to decide on,
and measure,
the acceptable,
or reasonable,
amount of feeling???
Would it be you,
or me,
or some outside expert???
I worked with a student,
when she was in Kindergarten,
and Grade One…
For about a month or so,
everyday,
at the beginning of Kindergarten,
her mom would bring her into the classroom crying…
Her mom didn’t know what to do,
and I didn’t really know either,
because although I’d seen things,
like separation anxiety,
many times before,
over the years,
but this felt different…
So I,
or the other teacher in the room,
held her,
until she stopped crying…
Sending her home,
until she was ready,
to be there,
wasn’t an option for me…
I knew that she needed to be here…
I didn’t problematize her behaviour…
I didn’t call a School Based Team meeting…
And I didn’t send in the clowns…
But I made sure that I whispered right into her ear,
It’s okay to be sensitive…
And don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re too much,
the world needs people just like you…
She smiled through her tears,
as she cried them,
and after some time she smiled through her day,
with her new found friends,
because this class was chock full,
of sensitive,
small people,
who get a full picture,
whether they like it,
or not…
At our first Three-way conference,
where student,
and parents,
and teacher meet,
to discuss strengths,
areas for development,
and an articulated commitment,
from each party,
to support the student selected,
learning goal,
this girl’s parents told me,
in their English as a Second Language,
Our daughter knows what we need before we know…
She gets things ready for us when we don’t even know what we’re going to do yet…
She feels our feelings and it seems like she reads our thoughts…
And we don’t know how we can help her…
Can you tell us what to do???
I didn’t have any answers for them,
because I didn’t know what to do either,
this was beyond my scope of experience,
as a teacher,
as far as I’d been aware…
All I knew,
in that moment,
is that she needed to know,
that she is perfectly okay,
and that she has a gift,
to be treasured…
The year she turned six,
in Grade One,
the Resource Teacher tested her for reasoning ability,
and she scored at fifteen years of age…
There aren’t tests for the other things that she knows,
or feels…
I had a dream last week that my parents were in my bed…
Their heads sticking out from under the covers,
looking sheepish…
I firmly told them to get out of my room…
I said,
This is over now…
I’m not going to carry your stuff anymore…
And I woke up feeling so much lighter,
and clearer…
After that day with horses I opened up a book I had bought the day before,
at one of the island’s bookstores,
and I read something about the history,
of the place…
A dark history,
searching for recognition,
and freedom…
You've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real... (photo: Starshine)
High balls…
What is it about ice rinks???
Last Winter,
every time we went for our skating lessons up at Britannia Community Centre,
Starshine and Little Gem would go in and out of the skating rink,
a few times,
before we would go out to the parking lot,
and drive our way home…
They would both say,
I love it in there…
And once you’re inside for a few minutes you have to go back out,
because you get used to the smell,
and you lose it…
I asked them,
What does it smell like???
They said,
Fresh…
The other morning when we were waking up,
Little Gem pushed her face against my neck and said,
You smell so good…
I asked her,
What do I smell like???
She said,
fluttering her eyelashes against my skin,
You smell like my Mama…
A few years ago I worked with a student for grades one and two…
I was told by the Kindergarten teacher,
and the speech and language pathologist,
that this particular boy certainly had attention deficit disorder…
I saw no such sign…
He struggled with reading two dimensional text,
but he could read his environment with a fine tooth comb…
He always knew what I was going to ask the class to do,
before I said it…
He told me that when he went to ski lessons he would ski down the hill,
and when he got to the bottom,
his instructor would say to him,
How did you know that I wanted you to do that???
In answer to such questions,
the boy would simply say,
I just knew…
One day I was out on the playground with my class,
and I watched this little guy pick up some paper that was laying on the grass…
I watched him sniff it,
and then put it back down on the ground…
I stood there for a moment,
rubbing my eyes because I couldn’t believe what I had just seen,
and then asked him,
when I finally found the words,
Why did you just sniff that paper???
He said,
Because I wanted to know what school it came from…
The school I worked at shares a playground and field with a private school…
I asked him,
What school is it from???
He said,
It’s from our school…
I asked,
How do you know that???
He said,
The paper from the other school smells different…
I know that because one day after school I was over at that baseball diamond with my dad,
playing ball,
and I saw some paper on the ground,
and I smelled it…
I still have those squares of black construction paper in my possession,
as evidence of sensitivity,
for the purpose of storytelling,
This boy and I had ongoing conversations about smells,
and how we liked the smell of some people,
and disliked the smell of others…
This made me think about how much information children are picking up,
in a classroom environment,
through their five senses,
and beyond…
And how they are then expected to produce,
quickly,
efficiently,
and creatively,
when they are still so small,
and so open…
How can you produce when you are distracted by the very smell of your classmates???
And what if you don’t like the smell of your teacher???
What do you do then???
Last night I was picking Starshine up from soccer practice in the cool crisp smelling like an ice rink night,
and I overheard three boys talking in competition,
about the smell of their bedrooms,
trying to be the smelliest of all…
I heard one boy say,
Oh yeah,
well my room smells like,
like,
like a bag of hockey equipment…
I wanted to follow him home,
to see what that was like…
But that kind of thing just wouldn’t be appropriate…
Can you imagine???!!!
an eleven year old boy walking me past his parents,
and up the stairs to his bedroom,
briefly mentioning,
over his shoulder,
as he puts his soccer kit down in the hall,
This lady drove me home in her station wagon,
for the intents and purposes of experiencing my perfume…
The only option I was left with,
was to stand there,
dying of curiosity,
and giggle with gratitude,
for the age of innocence,
and the smell of hockey…
I am standing up at the water's edge in my dream...
Buffalo eyes…
When the human world leaves him in peace,
the child feels like the son of the cosmos…
And thus,
in his solitudes,
from the moment he is master of his reveries,
the child knows the happiness of dreaming which will later be the happiness of poetry…
Gaston Bachelard, in The Poetics of Reverie
This morning I had a dream,
that there was a pair of boxer shorts laying on a tiled bathroom floor,
and outside of the room there was a hide-a-bed,
pulled-out and made-up,
but empty…
The person who was staying in the room wasn’t there,
but his clothes were…
I sat down and read the sports section,
while I waited for him to return…
Hearing the sound of your voice in the house... (photo: Starshine)
An hour later Starshine woke up and came into my bed…
She said,
in her first talk of the morning voice,
I had a scary dream…
I was with a group of people,
adults and children…
Some of my friends from school were with me…
We were being forced into a school portable by these big men wearing darkness…
One of them looked like the Joker…
They were pushing us towards a door,
and then the doors opened up…
I woke myself up just as we were all about to be pushed over a cliff…
We just stayed there for a few minutes,
breathing together…
And then I felt her calm down,
I felt myself relax,
and I felt the fear go away…
I asked her if she felt better…
She said,
Yes I do…
Then we all got up to start the day,
in a panic of course,
because we knew that the school bus was coming,
and now we were running late…
Things like this make me wonder,
why do I still feel anxiety about going,
and getting to school…
Yet when I am in an institution with a big group of children,
like I was yesterday,
hula-hooping to Mamma Mia during lunch hour at my children’s school,
I am completely at home…
I always had lot of scary dreams as a child,
But after I got to be a certain age I was no longer allowed to go into my parents bed in the morning…
I always went to my father’s side,
and I noticed that my sister still could go to our mother’s side,
for years to come…
My parents gave me a reason why,
but I could feel something else I didn’t have words for,
and I thought I had done something wrong…
So I just stayed in my own room,
with my nightmares and my dreams…
Including the dreams where I could fly,
just with my body,
and other children,
in the indigo sky of dusk…
At that perfect time when the sun has gone down,
and the moon has come out,
but it isn’t quite night just yet…
I practice taking off and soaring and landing,
all blissed out of my mind…
Sometimes I still have flying dreams…
I haven’t forgotten everything that I can do…
Sweet dreams are made of things like this…
When appropriate,
I sometimes told my students about my dreams,
as I was starting them for our daily writing practice,
even as I worried I was being too personal,
and not professional enough…
My dream-telling inspired my students,
gaving them permission to share,
and draw,
and tell stories abut their own dreams,
without fear of imposed interpretation,
or being marked,
for life…
One boy, whose first language is not English,
drew this picture…
Home is where you are...
I watched him draw,
using a ruler to painstakingly make the squares and triangles,
and then colour them in…
He told me that he wanted me to finish writing the story of his dream…
He couldn’t get the words down fast enough,
knowing the buzzer for recess,
was about to go off,
and he said,
Yesterday I had a dream about patterns and the patterns were an odd number….
And there were millions of squares in my dream but this picture only shows part of it…
The pattern was colourful…
I felt sad when I woke up because it was so pretty and I wanted it to continue…
Some of my dreams I have five days in a row and every day I woke up I was feeling a little sadder because it keeps getting prettier and I want to stay in the dream…
Three days later he added another page to his dream…
He brought the focus in like a microscope…
Angels on the skytrain...
This is a much closer view of the patterns and shapes that I see in my dreams…
The closer view is more colourful than the far view…
The next morning when this boy came into the classroom I asked him if he wanted to show his dad the story of his dream…
He did…
His father looked and listened,
standing in silent awe of this child who is his son…
His dad,
a lovely sweet man,
told me…
I had no idea that my son experiences such things and can communicate about them like this…
I really didn’t know…
When this boy was six he was tested for reasoning,
and showed up at 11.5 years of age…
I gave the boy a picture of a fractal image a few weeks later…
He said,
That is what I see in my dreams…
but this is the closest I could ever get to drawing what I can see,
with my hand…
I just got lost...
Canuck'd 