Today, a Taco Tuesday in the dining hall, was the first day back after a generous week off for Thanksgiving break. Long vacations such as these are well-deserved at boarding schools for students and faculty alike.
Yet it's the transition - ramping up to speed - that can be a challenge as November turns to December. It's been called the final sprint to the second marking period and the looming fall exams.
This morning, I was greeted by the sleepy eyes of juniors. This afternoon, the tired seniors showed the effects of disrupted sleep schedules. First days back I tend to tread gently and keep expectations low - the secret to happiness is low expectations according to Barry Schwartz argues in his TED Talk.
Tomorrow will be better as we transition to our second home here at WRA. Expectations are high - and the final push can be intense. Students and faculty up there game in preparation for final essays, projects, and exams. The reward: another long vacation.
However, I appreciate today. Despite the cold grey but dry day, there is an energy and excitement that buzzes on campus as students reconnect like a family reunion with stories and questions, smiles and laughs. I am reminded how special community is - and how special this WRA community is.
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And as another birthday passes and November ends - National Novel Writing Month, I think of another year without writing that unfinished novel; however, taking inspiration from Matt Cutts "Try Something New for 30 Days," I will blog for the next 30 days.
Thanks for reading. Here's to writing, again!
So I leave you with a final quote that I found on a new favorite site, brainpickings.org:
Ah Freshman! Nothing quite like dorm duty in Wood House, the freshman boys dorm.
I am tempted to email freshman teachers and let them know that they are not assigning enough homework.
This is what I say when freshmen start wandering the halls like animals prowling for food.
I ask if they are finished mastering their foreign language, memorizing their bio book, and annotating all the white space in their Rime of the Ancient Mariner...
Not to mention - have you completed AP multi-variable calculus?
There is always something to study.
A door bangs, and I hear pounding, "You can't close your door during study hours."
A door opens, and I hear a bag of cellophane snatched. More pretzels have been stolen.
Math homework is discussed in another room.
A pretzel thief tiptoes across the hall, seeking more salty snacks.
Another freshman strolls slowly down the hall to get a drink, killing time, then detours into a room not his own.
They move like Obi-Wan-Kenobi in the orginal Star Wars (Episode IV) - where he sneaks around the Death Star.
They think I don't notice their wandering and stealth strolling about.
I too am a Jedi, feeling the force.
I guess that makes me Darth Vader, roaming the hall; the Man; the bad guy; the faculty master, playing cop.
Freshman don't realize, yet that little goes unnoticed in a dorm, or at a boarding school. Eyes and ears are everywhere. It's a wonderful community where everyone (soon) knows everyone.
But everyone knows everything (sooner than later).
People talk, tweet, and text.
So "live with integrity" is not just part of our mission statement, but sage advice to heed.
At times, we choose our battles, but we hold them accountable. Admittedly, the homework is easy at the start, but it will pickup and requests for late lights will soon be frequent (and regularly denied to those who wander).
At 9:45 at the end of study hours, we allow them to have their cellphones - we collect them at 745 when study hours begin. Two hours without tweets and texts - no notifications vibrating and beeping. A freshman literally dances and moonwalks down the hall - the joy - the reunion of boy and iPhone.
I notice another wanderer; so I talk with him - a catechism of sorts: questions about his homework in each subject.
A boy down the hall sings a rap song from memory, but can't remember his homework assignments. A paradigm shift is in order. I must go. The music grows louder.
A new school year is upon us, and it's time to write again. The summer months passed far too quickly and my fingers never quite found these keys. I pecked out emails on my iPhone, but I confess it was a summer of action and travel. Now I write and reflect.
This fall I am teaching a senior English elective on "The Poet's Life". We will read delve deep into a handful of poets while sharing favorite poems and poets, finding new favorites in the process. We will follow the advice of Elizabeth Bishop to an aspiring poet circa 1960:
Read a lot of poetry - all the time... Read Campion, Herbert, Pope, Tennyson, Coleridge - anything at all almost that's any good, from the past - until you find out what you really like, by yourself. Even if you try to imitate it exactly - it will come out quite different. Then the great poets of our century - Marianne Moore, Auden, Wallace Stevens - and not just 2 or 3 poems, each in anthologies - read ALL of somebody.
So we began the course with summer reading, Jay Parini's biography of Robert Frost: A Life. Parini spoke on Brian Lamb's Booknotes on C-SPAN in 1999. Frost was onsidered the most celebrated American poet from his rise to fame in 1915 to his death in 1963; Parini spent twenty five years researching this biography. In 2008, Parini taught two teen vandals from Ripton, VT more than a few things about Frost and poetry.
Now, we will read more Frost poems. We will listen to Frost recordings. We will watch video ("Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening") of him too. We will take a closer look at "The Road Not Taken" and see if we can find a deeper understanding of the work by knowing the man. We will also memorize a favorite Frost poem. We will also create each create a Prezi presentation of one Frost poem.
This year's Knight scholar, Ian Cheney screened his documentary The City Dark in the Wilson Lecture Hall. The film made me think more about light and night pollution than I ever have. His journey in making this film lead to unexpected discoveries which were fascinating - see the film. The Q&A with director, writer, and producer Ian Cheney made the experience truly special with excellent questions from students for over half an hour.
Consider this post as a teaser to see the film, rather than a review, and more of a reflection of how it resonated with me.
After the thought-provoking film, I began walking back to my apartment at Wood House and noticed our lighted campus. I could see down Brickrow from Wilson to the Metcalf Bookstore - a mark of a safe campus, yet felt a new sense of guilt for the generous light from which one could easily read a book. I felt nostalgic for my first couple years where there were fewer lampposts and many more shadows.
A Frost sonnet, "Acquainted with Night," echoed in my head, especially the third line.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
So that's what I tried to do, outwalk the furthest campus light.
I headed to the cross country hill. My eyes noticing lights everywhere, a pink hue to the clouds, and a scimitar moon - with a star or a possible planet a few inches to the right above the moon.
To be honest, I wish I knew my stars like my father, a sailor, who once navigated by star light in the Virgin Islands. He had a telescope that as children we played with like a toy, losing parts to his chagrin.
Yet on the hill tonight, in the shadows behind a wall of remaining pine trees, I could still see all ten tennis courts, light near the hocky pond, and distant cellphone towers and truck lights flashing from Interstate 80.
I was sad to see so few stars and more clouds than I should.
I thought of Peter Lee, former physics and astronomy teacher, and his frustration with night pollution. My first year, seven years ago, on a similar night, I needed a walk before bed, and I came across Peter in the observatory. It was a memorable experience for me, yet he was disappointed. Forlorn, he said, there used to be more stars to see.
However, alone tonight, I was still reminded of how insignificant I was in the grand scheme of moon and stars and universe and global commerce with trucks rumbling all night across the country, and cell phone messages whirling faster than bats.
I simply stood and wondered.
The paradox of progress - and connection via technology - that disconnects us from nature and darkness.
The dark. The fear of the unknown. The fear of uncertainty.
If you're not a fan of Twitter, this post is for you. If you don't get it, you have to watch the TED Talk below.
Or not, but odds are high that your friends or your students are already on Twitter.
In this 2009 TED TALK, Evan Williams, Twitter founder, speaks of the unexpected uses of Twitter. It seems like ancient history now, but if you're already on Twitter and tired of mundane updates - you may want to consider the friends you follow...on Twitter.
Consider the possibilities of real-time mass communication via Twitter, watch this TED Talk. Maybe then you'll understand last year's historic revolution in Egypt.
Williams is not the most exciting speaker; however, when I watched this talk last year, it made me rethink how one could use Twitter for multiple audiences.
If you want to follow a social media maven on Twitter, follow former WRA faculty member and graduate, Brendan Schneider @schneiderb. His blog schneiderb.com offers priceless advice on using social media in independent schools. He writes, "I use Twitter for three [reasons]: to share information, to connect, and to communicate."
After "listening" to Brendan's wisdom for a few months on Twitter, we started using Twitter last spring for WRA's lacrosse program, sharing real-time information with players, parents, and alumni @WRALacrosse. This year, I am sharing information with my English classes @KOBsENGWRA, for student life at WRA, a boarding school @clubsactivities, and as a head coach @CoachOBrienk. Each has a specific audience that I wish to share, connect, and communicate with in an effective manner.
On Twitter, like life, it's all about who you follow. For each account, I follow Twitter users that are relevant to each audience and retweet pertinent information. For example for my English classes, I follow @advicetowriters, @newyorker, @grammargirl, @quotes4writers, @oedonline, @poetryfound, @parisreview, @theatlantic - the list goes on. I have embedded Twitter feeds on each of my blogs (that's another post). Easily switching accounts on my cell phone, I only read Twitter a couple minutes a day, but I find much to share. (Now, it may seem like I am an ego maniac. No, I have no aspirations to be a Twitter celeb like Ashton Kutcher.)
But I teach 10th and 11th grade English, serve as a class dean, and lead the boys lacrosse program. When considering the different hats that one wears at a boarding school, it's all about communication. There's so much information out there...I like to channel information with a discerning eye, and tweet, "Hey, you may find this interesting - or inspiring." Yes, some information tweeted is even essential.
Like any technology, it can be abused; however, Twitter is not going away. Students are using it, and more are going to be using it. My two cents: meet them where they are and teach students how to use Twitter responsibly and effectively.
My message to students: tweet wisely as you "Share, Connect, Communicate." If your tweets would embarrass you, your parents, or your school, please think again. Or at the very least, make them private. Public tweeting means literally anyone in the world can see those tweets.
Final thought: perhaps, begin by simply "listening" on Twitter. Follow your interests and people that inspire you - and learn more.
Make no mistake: They are no relation, Kate and Frederic, yet they are inextricably linked in my mind. Although we were three obstreperous boys, my two brothers and I would calm down like Pavlovian dogs whenever my mother listened to Chopin on the stereo, which was often in my memory. Much older now, I, too, have fallen in love with his nocturnes and sonatas, calming meditations through music. I now associate Chopin with the brilliant performance of Albert Wang.
In college, however, I read The Awakening, and when I came across this scene where Edna listens to Mademoiselle Reisz play Chopin, I think of listening to Chopin, the composer, as a boy.
Kate Chopin writes:
Edna was what she herself called very fond of music. Musical strains,
well rendered, had a way of evoking pictures in her mind. She sometimes
liked to sit in the room of mornings when Madame Ratignolle played
or practiced. One piece which that lady played Edna had entitled
"Solitude." It was a short, plaintive, minor strain. The name of the
piece was something else, but she called it "Solitude." When she heard
it there came before her imagination the figure of a man standing beside
a desolate rock on the seashore. He was naked. His attitude was one
of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its
flight away from him.
Another piece called to her mind a dainty young woman clad in an Empire
gown, taking mincing dancing steps as she came down a long avenue
between tall hedges. Again, another reminded her of children at play,
and still another of nothing on earth but a demure lady stroking a cat.
The very first chords which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano
sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier's spinal column. It was not
the first time she had heard an artist at the piano. Perhaps it was the
first time she was ready, perhaps the first time her being was tempered
to take an impress of the abiding truth.
She waited for the material pictures which she thought would gather and
blaze before her imagination. She waited in vain. She saw no pictures
of solitude, of hope, of longing, or of despair. But the very passions
themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the
waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking,
and the tears blinded her.
Mademoiselle had finished. She arose, and bowing her stiff, lofty bow,
she went away, stopping for neither, thanks nor applause. As she passed
along the gallery she patted Edna upon the shoulder.
"Well, how did you like my music?" she asked. The young woman was
unable to answer; she pressed the hand of the pianist convulsively.
Mademoiselle Reisz perceived her agitation and even her tears. She
patted her again upon the shoulder as she said:
"You are the only one worth playing for. Those others? Bah!" and she
went shuffling and sidling on down the gallery toward her room.
But she was mistaken about "those others." Her playing had aroused a
fever of enthusiasm. "What passion!" "What an artist!" "I have always
said no one could play Chopin like Mademoiselle Reisz!" "That last
prelude! Bon Dieu! It shakes a man!"
It was growing late, and there was a general disposition to disband. But
some one, perhaps it was Robert, thought of a bath at that mystic hour
and under that mystic moon. (72)
When Edna is "unable to answer," she enters the liminal en route to her awakening. Without words, the music has not conjured her imagination, thoughts in her mind, but something more powerful than intellect: "passions themselves were aroused within her soul." As an artist, Mademoiselle Reisz expresses herself through music, playing for herself, and Edna "the only one worth playing for."
Through art, whether it be music or Edna's painting, creative expression resonates with each of us as human beings. As unruly boys, we connected with Chopin. As a young man in college, I connected with Edna's plight as she searched for her voice. As I write this, and teach The Awakening again, I find new meaning through writing.
