Pajamas Inside Out and Backwards...

It is every kid's dream and we do not outgrow it...the morning that the announcement confirms hopes and suspicions that school is closed and there is no need to scramble out the door. Today, it happened again for the district in which I am teaching this week. Honestly, I am a lucky charm for snow days. Especially this time of year. This is the third year in a row, in fact, that on a Wednesday in late winter, while I am teaching at this particular school, that the snows have seized the day.

I love the gift of the extra time to do other things, believe me. I appreciate not leaving my host's home at 6:30 a.m. to make the drive to start first period at 7:45, the faces of tired and semi-interested adolescents before me as I start the "Georgia Show," to have one day to myself. That seems decadent and delicious in the midst of my schedule. 
 

But, as a teaching artist, it also means a day lost in my process, as well as creates the need to figure out how to reschedule everything or lose a day's income when the billing is finalized. In some schools, a snow day is not excluded. Other schools will not pay the lump sum. It depends on many factors. So a snow day is also a mixed blessing.
 

This morning, I am tending the fire in the fireplace, sipping a third cup of coffee, catching up on my blog, and getting ready to finish reading a great book by an icon and wayshower in the worlds of poetry and arts in education, Richard Lewis. Richard was honoring the poetry that is inherent in children's hearts when I was becoming a poet myself in the early 60s. The book for the morning is when thought is young:  Reflections on Teaching and the Poetry of the Child. 

 

Another of my very favorites is Richard's anthology of poetry from students of English-speaking countries, Miracles. This book is out of print but I have consistently found it on line used. Although published in the mid-60s, the poetry is still relevant. It also depicts quality poetry that can be created by young minds, young writers. Too often we rely on adult words to fulfill student interest. It is so easy for them to then draw the judgment that they are unable to do what the grownups can do. With this resource of delightful and insightful poems by youth, it supports the assertion that our students can make poems that others want to read and that they, themselves, can be proud of sharing.
 

Still at the work in 2010, generous with his gifts and insights, gentle of voice and nature, Richard has given me the perfect fireside reading while the world outside is all aflutter with flakes and I feel like a small figurine inside a snow globe.

Back in the World!

This fall I had another nasty bout of bronchitis that had me housebound for most of a month, except for the teaching that was required. I retreated from the world while I tried to heal my body. I left the computer up in my office and broke my Facebook addiction. I neglected my blog because I had no energy for creativity. I did manage to knit a great deal and am now well versed in the latest season of Project Runway and multiple reruns of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and The Supernanny. I also admit that Jo Frost has very helpful suggestions in communication and discipline!

The fall was a gentle incline towards the busy schedule I will be keeping for the rest of the 09-10 school year. I had three different teaching experiences that were primarily unrelated in material and focus. I taught a discussion seminar for the Honors Department at Syracuse University called "Reading the World," a course for the Downtown Writer's Center on contemporary and emerging African-American poets, and a residency with 4th graders in a Syracuse elementary school. It was a light schedule compared to my usual pace and I could manage to get through most of my instruction without coughing myself to death and without infecting anyone. The rest of the time, I was a slug in the house with little capacity to think, read, walk the stairs, little appetite. It was a mess. But my teaching was terrific because I love my work and the students, whether they were 10 or in their 20's, even 60's, always bring energy and enthusiasm to my life.

The 4th graders were so wonderful. We worked together to create autobiographical poems that showed the kids with light, humor, poignancy, and their best efforts to use language to their ability. The teachers were wonderful to work with as well, supporting my efforts while I was on site and completing the tasks from each successive lesson to have students ready upon my return each week.

Teachers have to make a lot of room for an artist such as myself to come into their classrooms. There are may needs and demands with the school calendar, expectations for learning, tests (the damned tests) and more tests, particularly in elementary school. I dearly appreciate that my work with their students not only creates work for them as well but that the routine is shaken to the core for whatever time my residency lasts. I also appreciate that the teachers with whom I work value what I bring to their students enough to take on all that it requires.

This week and next, I am working with 3rd and 4th graders. We are engaged in a terrific experience in which I have set up the premise that we are all participants in a living video game called "Poetry Detectives." They are totally on board and we are having a lot of fun.

And today I got to have the same moment of bliss that the entire school experienced: SNOW DAY announced. Back to sleep, an unexpected decadent day to myself to catch up on other work and gaze out the window at the expanse of new snow.

Rolling with the Circumstances

My teaching has me on the road frequently. I have discovered several things in the years that I have been traveling to share my work with school communities: I am a magnet for snow days and fire drills, I will always be packed with clothing for the wrong weather, I sleep well on good mattresses, and I always feel like a pack mule.

Snow days, inevitable in the Northeast from January through March, are the mixed blessing. The unexpected day off is generally a delightful surprise. However, it slows down my process and usually means I lose a day of work with the students and, often, a day of billable hours.  No matter that I have lost the day and am far from home so I cannot reschedule. Even if I did reschedule, it messes up the timing and flow of the process, already under serious constraints anyway.  

But one snow day this past winter was incredible. I was staying at a friend's house in the country in Orange County.  It is a small home in the country and there are huge windows on one side of the house in every room, including both bedrooms. Because she is not living there year round anymore so there is no cable or internet access, I had to have a friend in NYC look on line to see if school was cancelled very early that morning. The news was yes. In fact, even the Big Apple was closed for business due to snow! So I made coffee, got back in bed and watched the snow fall as if I lived in a giant snow globe.  t was incredible. That morning I completed reading the new Toni Morrison novel; that afternoon, I journaled, did the NY Times Sunday crossword; that evening I revised poems and my lesson plans for the remainder of the week.

Now the weather is warm, it is fire drill season. I have been in two this week already, one in each of two districts where I am working. One year, I was in three in one week in the same school because they were making up their yearly quota. The teachers said it was me that brought the fire drill mojo and they may be right. I will be in that school all next week. I am sure that we will be rushing out the door into the spring air to practice for emergencies, stepping over the goose poop in the fields surrounding the school.

I have to pack for all weather because the Northeast is moody. Yesterday I wore a sweater and it was in the 70s. I brought a cotton tunic for today because the weather forecast said it was to be warmer today but the rain overnight changed things. Oh well. I will be warm in school and the car has a heater for the drive home.

Not only do I need to pack for my clothes and daily needs, I also need to pack all of the supplies and teaching tools that I will require for my visits. I have a car that resembles Shaquille O'Neal's rollerskate. It is always jammed with bags of books, boxes of books, computer case, suitcase, roll-along tote, chart paper, magazines for cutting words out for collage poems, and a healthy selection of CDs for drive time. I imagine I add a lot to the car's overall weight with this cargo. Fine in the winter. I need the weight to keep the car connected to the road. But I do not make the best or most efficient nomad. But the work is great and being in different communities is fascinating in many ways.

For now, time to iron the cotton after I unfurl it from the suitcase. I teach in 90 minutes and I need to get ready and out the door, then head home again after school. I will continue to monitor the fact that I am a magnet for snow days and fire drills. Three more weeks of teaching for me after this. There is plenty of time for more journeys into the sunshine in the middle of a lesson.