Two Extremes

Last night, as he struggled with typing another unit of lesson plans, my son, the student teacher, who had suffered a particularly trying day at the mercy of that lethal triangle: high school students, administration, and parents, bemoaned, "I don't know why anybody in his right mind would actually choose to teach high school as a profession!" This was quite a switch from his formerly-held views on the subject, and, hopefully, just a reflex reaction to a bad experience.

This morning, on the way to school, my student riders bemoaned the fact that they had so many years of school left. When I teased them, saying I had taught here for seventeen years and never got to graduate, they responded with: "Yeah, but it's really easy for you. You just write something on the board, give us an assignment, and sit over there and eat!"

No fair! I never eat in class. True, sometimes I drink a cup of coffee, and some days I give them a writing assignment, but what about all the lectures, and stories, and discussions, and grading, and tailor-made tests, and reading books to put on the accelerated reader program? What about directing plays, and academic team practices and tournaments; running concession stands and suppers for class sponsorships; holding parent conferences; typing letters and press releases; inputing grades; earning continuing education credits and doing self-studies for school accreditations.....

Ah well...they are young and innocent, and I like them that way so I think I'll just give them an assignment and sit over here and eat a cracker...after I scribble something on the board.

Junior/Senior Fun Day

Here's a bunch of pictures from our annual junior/senior skip day. If you don't know these kids and my school, feel free to skip this one. I guess, really, you're free to skip any you wish...since it's only a blog and not an assignment. Sigh.

Three of the girls were too adventurous in their hiking choices and ended up stuck high on a cliffside. Fortunately, they had cell phones with them and texted us a "help". Their classmates were eager to help; they solved the problem by making a human chain both above and below the girls and handing them down. It doesn't look very scary in the picture, but that's because you can't see how high it really was.In this picture, one of the girls is already down.

Look Who's Walking?

Six months from the terrible accident that befell our school, the teacher and driver of the Suburban involved is now walking. This is a wonderful thing. We didn't know if Patty would ever be able to walk again, or even have legs. It's great to see her smiling face in the halls, for the last couple of months in a wheelchair, and now--for short little trips--on her own legs and feet. God is good to us.











Update: A year later

Christ the Lord is Risen Today

Sons of Men and Angels Say:

Hallelujah!

Growing, Growing, And Gone...but hopefully not too far away

The neat thing about teaching in a small school for years and years is that you get to see whole families of students grow up. These eighth graders, who managed to squeeze into the first-grade desk are both the youngest children of families who sent all their children to our school. I taught them all. Two have graduated; two more graduate this year, one is a sophomore, and then these two. It's an honor to be part of the lives of these families and to watch the children grow up.

The desk, however, has its own history. I bought it at a school sale when my oldest daughter was two. She and her sister and brother sat in it--each in turn--then a little cousin from the city, then four little cousins from Texas, and finally, my grandson and grand-daughter. When they got a bigger desk for their playroom, I put this one in my classroom. It needs paint, of course, but I think, for sturdiness, you couldn't find a better desk.It has feet solidly planted on the ground...like the families of these students. They are fortunate kids.

My favorite time of year...well one of my favorites...

is when the wheat is green and luscious over all the little hills.






The red road stretches forward, and black cows graze in the fields.




Beside the road, the golden grass, awaits the month of May, when it will green and the wheat will gold, and the wind blows fiercely through the day.

As Classes Go....

...It's a good one.


Now I know you probably think that teaching 18 boys--all seventh or eighth graders--should be classified as hazardous to ones sanity, and you might be a little hesitant to commit to a class like this one every day for an hour, but you just don't know these guys.

They ask questions without being obnoxious and are obedient without being sullen. They are witty and pleasant and reasonably polite. I've only had to hold them late for lunch twice this year.

Here they are--taking a test on the lives of Samuel, Saul, and David, and--lest you think this test is easy--why don't you try to name the three sons of Zeruiah, or tell me who Ziba was...or Ishbosheth. These guy can do that...because they listen in class...and some of them even study outside of class.
Of course as soon as the test is over they play chess or stratego. It's an unwritten rule in this class that they may not talk until everyone is finished, but those are quiet games and you can whisper "check".



P.S.
I never tell them when everybody is finished with the tests...shhh...because I love these times of peaceful quiet too.

Little Birds

Our lesson this morning was about worry...as opposed to peace. Sure the hard times will come, but they are not unknown to God. He has been ahead of us and behind us and is all about us.

It reminded me of last Monday's walk. I had decided to walk up to the gym instead of tread-milling there, but I waited a little for the afternoon heat to abate. By the time I started walking, the weather was perfect, and I arrived at the gym in good time, ready to face my white, toning dragons in their iron circle. It went well. (I'm up to fifty reps now and plan to keep adding until I can stay caught up to my age--like birthday candles. By the time I'm one hundred years old I'll be able to do 100--well, it might take me all day, but that's the plan) Anyway, back to the subject.

When I started walking home I realized that the wind had shifted. It was blowing fiercely from the north. As I hurried and fretted, things got worse. The temperature plummeted; I was shivering with cold; little pieces of straw, leaves, and Oklahoma red dirt drops, were hitting me in the face, and I wondered briefly if the wind was going to knock me over. Then I saw a little bird on the lawn beside the street. He was oblivious to the wind, hopping and poking about looking for bugs and such in the rippling grass. I wondered why the wind wasn't carrying him before it, tossing him into the branches like another sailing leaf. . .He was at peace; the winds raged over him, but he did no raging.

So I laughed and yielded to the pleasant joy of wind in my face; it wasn't far. I loved the walk...but I didn't eat any bugs; some things I'll leave to the birds.

One World

I saw in the news today that, with work starting on the new trade center in New York, the Port Authority is changing its name from Freedom Tower to One World Trade Center, because, they say, it's more marketable.

Governments are euphoric over the possibility that man is going to bring about a world-wide, Utopian, society where everyone is tolerant and sharing. Then we can destroy all our warheads and defense shields because nobody will fight another nation and there won't even be "smack talk" between heads of state. It would be a laughable concept, given the nature of man and his propensity to selfishness, except for its fearful possibilities. History is full of "one-world" government wanna-bees: Assyria, Babylon, Macedonia, Rome, Napoleon's France, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's USSR. They only failed because there were still people left with the power to oppose them, other nations strong enough to say, for example, "Your annihilation of people groups within your borders is wrong. We are willing to fight for our freedom and for theirs", or, at very least, "we will accept your fleeing refugees and record for history their tales of your savage treachery."

Why would anyone want a government to be worldwide in scope? Well, it leaves no opposition; no options; no place to run. "As long as that government is morally sound, protective of individual freedoms, and run by exceptional, self-actuated men, it could work", they say, "Men of integrity. Honest. Upright."

Those kinds of people might start a revolution, because they have high hopes for man's goodness, and great pity for the downtrodden? But they don't run the revolution, and certainly not the resulting government. They haven't the callous barbarism it takes to stay in power and crush the opposition. They fade quickly from the halls of authority, taking with them the constitutions and compacts that soothed the masses.

Who is left in power? People who have no respect for promises, for rules and constitutions; who vacillate with the political wind; who decry loudly and indignantly the very crimes they are guilty of committing; who hide behind the tangle of a cancerous bureaucracy.

Hello, "One World"
Goodbye, "Freedom"

It Snowed; It Really Snowed!

Not a gently drifting, lots of white flakes parachuting down to snuggle midst the tulips kind of snow either. It was a blustery, blizzardy, slap in your face kind of snow with a real attitude, and it followed a few hours of weather vacillation:


I think I'll be fog today, no wait, maybe gently blowing rain, or pounding rain with clouds of thunder and lightening above. Yes, hail would be good too. I'll cover the ground with so much hail that it looks like snow and then freeze it to the ground with a good layer of sleet. Yah! There's the ticket! But...oh I'll just empty the whole lot. They shall have snow too. Hours and hours of sideways flying, drifting in the pauses, clouding in gusts off the rooftops snow!


And in the morning. Quiet. Cold.
Buried tulips. Shrouded cedars. Beautiful spring snow.

Now maybe the sun will come out.

It Rained. It Really Rained.

and I enjoyed the drops as they came driving in and landed on my sleeping face and all about my pillow. Well, I did get up and close the window, but I lay there a while and gloried in the sound of water falling from the flashing sky. It was wonderful.




In other news, I took a picture of my smallest class yesterday...the last hour of the day. All of my classes are wonderful this year, and these girls are no exception. You can tell how bright they are and how friendly as well--I won't use "sweet" because, well, it's over used.

I heard two freshman girls talking yesterday morning at school. (They weren't in my class; I was just sitting in the corner eavesdropping.)It was a hysterically funny conversation that went like this:

"I really should have been born blond, you know."
"You think so?"
"Oh yeah, I'm so totally blond, you know,like all the time I'm like, 'where's my book and I left it and when I go to find it...I'm all saying the dumbest things and all".
"Then maybe you should dye your hair."
"You think so? What color?"

The Sky is Scenery Too

I remember when we lived in Colorado. People there knew that we had moved from Oklahoma and they used to ask us how we could stand living where there were no mountains...no gorgeous scenery. Well, I have to agree that mountains are beautiful, but so are green fields. So is a cloudy sky. This evening I took these pictures of our exquisite scenery. So far, no rain out of all this, but you must admit it looks promising.

Spring Break

Well, I haven't been blogging much, but that doesn't mean I've been sick in bed with influenza type A, or on vacation in the Bahamas, or even gadding about shopping malls with a glazed look to my eyes and lines on my arms from the heavy, plastic sacks.


I've been on spring break...and around here that means "Let's get stuff done!" Income tax took a day or two, but there was a little physical labor as well: I pulled nails and moved furniture and hauled off trash and helped my daughter unload more pots from her paint studio.

I had a breakfast one morning with my daughter and grandchildren at the coffee shop, got my hair cut, got my eyes checked-- and it seems they are no worse for their ten-year hiatus from inspection--washed about a dozen loads of clothes, typed two hundred questions for the next academic tournament, played geo-challenge on facebook, slept with the window open and breathed the wonderful air of spring.


On Saturday, I drove for a couple of hours into Texas and saw my mom, dad, brother, sister, and sister-in-law. We visited for a few hours and shared the cares and joys of our lives. I loved it. Even the trip was enjoyable and serene. I took a lot of pictures...lonely roads and miles and miles of beautiful, wind-full, scenery. It was such a peaceful interlude in my much too busy life.

"Early in the Morning...before the sun was up...

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup..."
no wait...I'll have to alter that quote.

Early in the morning, while all the town was still
I rose and saw the shimmering fog on every daffodil
and I heard the coo-coo-cooing of the doves up on the hill.



The birds were loud proclaiming
that the rains had come at last
And the branches were exclaiming
Ah! Winter's finally past.

And I, a silent listener,
in the fog that wrapped the moon
dared not to move, or crunch a leaf
Lest the beauty stop too soon.

Ok. Snow Will Do.

We had such a great day at school today--big beautiful flakes of snow, snow angels, snow men, hot chocolate, the warm vanilla smell of baking schnetka, grilled steak for lunch and freshly made rolls, watching Prince Caspian in CS 7/8, first the boys group, and later the girls-- the entire class fitting on one great overstuffed couch...these are the great days you look back on later and treasure.

Let it Rain!

Clouds, clouds, billowing and piling and streaming and tossing and hovering and teasing...will it ever rain?

We got a few sprinkles last night, and the sky is gray again today...but will it ever really rain?

The farmers are anxious, their faces reflecting the empty clouds and the hopeful fields. ..wanting green, wanting moist, dark dirt and dripping stalks.

Yesterday one of my farmer friends said:
"We're supposed to be under a tornado watch, but it doesn't really look very promising."

I think it's time for rain.

That's Fred

The same man who has tended the clock tower all these years still tends it. That's Fred. He has served faithfully in a lot of city jobs, more than I know, certainly, but I do know that he was, for several years, the county commissioner. Recently, however, feeling like it was time he retired from a few of his more strenuous jobs, he surrendered the "setting up all the Christmas lights on the square" job to the Lions' Club. They did it one year, and the next year they decided it was so much work they would have to "simplify". A couple of years ago he painted the red steps of the courthouse--a painstaking job with a bucket and brush. At the time, he announced that someone else would have to do that next time. I don't know who. Nobody will be as careful as Fred. As far as the clock goes, however, only Fred knows how it works and what to do if it suddenly goes crazy and starts chiming out too many hours. So he patiently tends it. Some things you can't retire from.

Everybody Needs a Pile of Legos

...and a grandmother with a camera.

Our Town- - -A Fifties Kind of Place

Well the word is...

They are making a movie, using our town as a backdrop for a mystery story from the fifties. It makes sense. Our quiet square looks like it hasn't changed since then. The cars are modern, but the buildings, particularly the fronts, have a frozen in time look.

There are old apartments over all the stores on the square, and some of them are still lived in. Most, however, sit vacant, screaming for someone with enough money to put a new roof on the buildings to come do it...so the old offices with half wood, half frosted glass doors can be reopened.

They would make wonderful studios for painting, sculpture, music lessons...or neat little coffee shops where books lie open on the tables and on shelves within easy reach of old leather couches. Or they would also make great apartments...for all the people who don't live here anymore, having run off to big cities where the jobs are and the excitement.. .leaving the shining clock tower, the covered apartment stairs, the deep red of courthouse steps, the evening smells of pizza buffet and the morning smells of bacon, biscuits and gravy.

Auditions for extras were today. I didn't go. Not that I wasn't alive in the fifties, but I'd want to see the movie before I decided to be or not to be seen in it...and since it hasn't been made yet...that's impossible. But if I were the director, I'd use these steps.