He is here

So much of what I'm feeling and thinking recently has to do with where I am throughout the day. Of course, when I'm at home, I'm thinking about being at school, and when I'm at school, I can't wait to get home. That's just part of who we are as humans - we can't quite grasp the present, can't quite see things the way they really are.


I just read a great post on The Good Book Blog called, "Hello, My Name Is YHWH." (It's a great site, by the way.) The author of the post, Kenneth Way, refers to an article he read himself about what the

Martha Baum's Paintings

I don't know much about art. A few years back I was out of work, and I would go to the library almost every day (oh, that was good in so many ways!). My first stop was the art section where I would grab the same copy of van Gogh; I would turn to the same pages every day: The Road Menders, Starry Night, and anything else of his with trees. There was just something about those colors and the way the lines moved my eyes over them - I couldn't get enough.

These days I don't look at much art, but I've stumbled upon Martha Baum's paintings. For some reason I thought of those days with van Gogh when I saw her work, which is not much like his. Yet, something in the colors, again, makes me go back. There's also something about lots of the subject matter. Many of her paintings are of boats, and it's these simple works that I like so much.

The Poetry of C.S. Lewis

I've been a Lewis fan since I was a young boy. I started with The Chronicles of Narnia in my preteen years, only to read and reread them many times since. When I go back to those seven books, I travel not only to Narnia, but also to my childhood. That's the beauty of a book; those experiences you had so long ago roll back under your nose and you breathe them again. I remember well sitting on our front lawn on a sunny day in southern California reading about Prince Caspian and his rebel forces. I remember the rainy days too (as close to winter as we got), curled up in front of a fire, galloping through the air with Fledge. Now I look forward to making those same kinds of memories with my boys. In fact, I just might look forward to those times even more fervently than I look back and long for another day full of reading as a child.

Teacher-reading

Toward the end of January I started to carry a book in the halls of my school. Most students walk by without making eye contact, even the ones I know (sometimes especially the ones I know). One student, though, seemed to make it a point to poke fun at the fact that I "always have my nose in a book." After a few consecutive encounters with him, I asked,

"Do you like to read?"
"Well, no, not really."
"Hm, I think you might like some of the stories I read..."
"Yeah, but if my friends saw me carrying a book, they'd just laugh."
"Ah, I see. Don't you think the skills you'll gain from reading are more important?"
"Yeah, I know."
(Surprised at how quickly he responded in my favor) "Yeah - there are some great things to read out there..."
"Yeah, I know."

Reading Goal

I have given my students the requirement of reading twenty books by the end of the school year. I assigned the requirement the second week of January, and I am giving them up to the very last day of school, May 26th, to fulfill it. So, naturally, I am going to meet the same goal. You can see my progress on the left side of this blog.

My inspiration came from a book by Donalyn Miller called, The Book Whisperer. I have been astonished at the difference this goal has already made in my classroom - which is, of course, combined with at least fifteen minutes of reading time every day. Just barely over a month and my students have read and written more

Reflection on Yeats' "Leda and the Swan"

I finished reading my little book of Yeats. It wasn't the first time I had read it, and I didn't realize how much he wrote about mythology, and especially about Troy and Helen. The poem in the title of this post, "Leda and the Swan," is about the rape of Leda by Zeus. In the myth, Zeus takes the form of a Swan and forces himself on the beautiful Leda, who then bares Helen. The poem Yeats wrote about it is short, and if I didn't know the myth I would have been lost.

Yeats mentions Helen and Troy in several of his other poems, such as "No Second Troy," and, "A Prayer for my Daughter." All of these poems got me to thinking about Zeus and how he functioned as the god of gods; "Leda and the Swan," the poem and the myth, make him a father to beautiful Helen.

Zeus the deadbeat.

An English Teacher Confession

Here it is: I'm a horrible speller. I lean on spell check heavily. So heavily in fact that the other day, when I was responding to student letters, I opened a Word document to check myself (this is a normal practice). I just typed the words in and left them there throughout the day.

Well, when I was done with my document, I looked at the words I had checked. And they are:

Butterflies harbor dying succeeded likable similar easier nickname criticize suspenseful? Awful verse sonnets explain nonsense mean description rereading

I'm not sure where the question mark came from, but it fits, doesn't it? Maybe this doesn't make any sense to anyone else, but I thought it was entertaining. Not to mention the "Awful verse...explain nonsense mean...rereading." Ha! I love poetry, but I know there is so much awful verse out there. If you can call it verse at all - does anyone actually try and write verse anymore? And don't tell me free verse is "verse." Gag. That's poetry (poetry?) I rarely read because I find it so lacking.


I recently picked up my lone copy of Yeats. I'm rediscovering a few gems, including lines like, And live alone in the bee-loud glade, ("The Lake Isle of Innisfree") and, Come away, O human child!/For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand, ("The Stolen Child"). And even though I don't like all that I read of his, Yeats has his moments - some very profound. I like what he says about the nobleness of his well-beloved in "The Folly of Being Comforted." Not a quality of a woman that is much praised these days.


My human child is crawling on me, so I'll stop.