Sunday, March 17, 2024

Science Day '24!


 the doors can be open!


I thank Mr. Rogers for impressing on me

the power of the door opening:

who might come through?

where might we go?


I teach middle school, 

a time of immense developmental changes,

when young people realize their lives

are a "choose your own adventure," 

full of choice, 

each choice potentially, shockingly, important,,

the "terribleness" of being two

comes from the imperative of making choice after choice

that are not that important, though they seem like they are,

a time of not having the wisdom yet

to know how and when to choose wisely,

and still feeling the drive to choose anyway,

now the forks in the road can really matter,

interests and possibilities in middle school

are imbued with a power that can matter 

far more than what to eat, what to wear,

what the momentary whim shouts,

in middle school mists start to clear

and possibilities can intrigue and draw,


what am I good at?

what am I interested in?

what might I be good at?

what might I be interested in?

so, for me, the charge of a middle school is to make sure

as many doors stand open to the student as can be,


today the doors were of science,

for decades CFS has had a Science Day each spring:

we start with an inspiring keynote,

this year about sleep,

and the overpowering reality of its value in keeping each of us

empowered, so that all of our systems are "go":

rebooted, revitalized, reintegrated,


then the students wound their way into classrooms

for workshops about a truth revealed by the scientific method,

asking a question and constructing a way to see how it might be answered,

can we know of snakes, actually there in person?

how can we deal with stress?

or how to make an air-propelled rocket?

how can we use chemistry and ingenuity to demonstrate what works?

how does DNA work? so let's extract it from strawberries,

will a heavier ball fall faster than a lighter one?

what's up with marijuana? with drinking water?

a popular workshop explores how engineers help us with potential danger,

we have engineering challenges with marshmallows and pasta,

with a mousetrap, a ping-pong ball, 

and the demand for a compelling story,


one grad student acknowledged my point about doors,

remembering how her path to who she is now

was powerfully influenced by a book read in middle school, 


for decades I have helped pull off middle school Science Day,

and I don't know if anyone will pick up the baton

and continue to run with it,

I do know that any middle school

should work very hard to name the doors

and help the students consider 

whether going though those doors

is what they can, maybe should, do.



by Henry H. Walker

March 15, ‘24

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

the effort of a life

 

Frank Clayton


a neighbor drops by:

"Frank has passed. . . "


Frank, a son of my buddy Welton,

the patriarch of our neighborhood,

a role he assumed after James Ellison passed,

the patriarch just before,


I have known Frank near 49 years,

I have known his distinctive personality,

an "acquired taste" some would say:

Frank would not suffer fools gladly,

and it was easy to come across as fool to him,

a harshness in his judgement of others,

that he probably leveled against himself, also,

he had a deep sweetness to him, but he hated to let you see it,

the going was often tough,

and he steeled himself to deal with it,

her preferred work to whine, the barb to the sugar,

the razzing when his team would beat mine,

the complaining about "your President"

when he didn't like a political turn,

a teasing about sports and relationships,


but who better to be there for you?

when we'd go off from home

it was Frank who'd get our mail,

water our plants,

take care to get in our packages,

give us some deer sausage, okra from his garden,

appreciate the cooking we'd share with him,


when I'd ask him this last year how he was doing,

he'd answer: "I'm falling apart!"

just getting around, harder and harder,

then two days ago, he fell,

a friend found him on the floor,

got him into a chair, got EMS there,

they wanted to take him to the hospital,

but Frank would have none of that,

he knew how he wanted to live his last days,


and a day later he was gone,

found by his friends who had spent years

honoring him with their time, their care,

their food, their patience with his distinctiveness,

their going the extra mile however they could,


nobody really knows the effort each of us lives,


Frank worked as hard as he could,

as long as he could,

and then he had to lay it all down,


I stand outside his house with family and friends,

and I watch his draped body come out the door,

down the stairs, across the lawn,

and then into the hearse,


Frank, I honor you,

I honor the effort of your life,

the goodness of your soul,

the tragedy that what might have been didn't happen,

how sad that the world was not able to see you true

and help you seize a life

that would have been more what you deserved

rather than what you got.



by Henry H. Walker

March 11, ‘24

Sunday, March 3, 2024

into the dustbin of history

 

retirement looms


retirement looms:

when my last day of contracted work comes to an end,

I feel it as an impending release,

a release from external expectations that direct my days,

those expectations no longer front and center for me to have and follow,

I feel a release coming,

like at the end of a workday, coming home,

like at the end of an awake day,

sleep allowing care to forget itself

until interior currents metamorphose it back into dark dream,


on the journey toward letting go,

many small goodbyes, many small deaths,

come at me, call to me, 

my understanding, knowing, doing about to be replaced

by another's different answer to what they will feel is the call

they should follow, my calling irrelevant to them,


the last few years other teachers have left,

impressive replacements have arrived,

often so sure in their own music to follow

they seem to not even consider other rhythms, other melodies,

decades of evolved American history curriculum not even worth considering,

instead the source for their own methodology

was what they consider they can provide,

at the best what they think the students need to thrive,

and, to be honest, that's how I was when I started,

ready to make my own mark,

mostly lost in what my will could create,


the insights and achievements of the ideas I have brought 

to CFS middle school for over half a century

will probably be comfortably tucked away,

at best into nostalgia,

with no imperative to see me even as an elder

from who one might learn,


in my own teaching I have shamelessly learned from others:

carefully considering the kids and what they need,

carefully considering what I'm good at, what I can give,

carefully considering what I can know 

of what fellow teachers have carried forward,

their insights worth taking seriously,

even if I feel another way seems even better,


a great and deep truth is that individual revelation and control

is at the heart of great teaching,

another great and deep truth is that other teachers

share the same goal and find other paths to get to it,

and that we can learn from considering those paths,


as I move toward retirement,

I fear that my insights will be more of a forgettable past

than of a vibrant, inclusive future:

the Day of the Dead, the School Store, Science Day, Around the World,

the decades of scrapbooks, the stored artifacts,

my almost unique chalkboard,

distant from the present, like being at a museum

and only worth a moment of remembering,

"Hey, I remember when a movie cost only a quarter!"

and then it's time to move on to what's new,

the books my classes have read, the writing forms we have used,

my overarching vision of "why" and "how" not really relevant,


I'm old, and part of me lives in the past,

I savor the memories of seeing kids, knowing kids,

of helping kids see themselves truly,

and releasing the power of their selves 

that should not, that will not, be denied,


it is outrageous, and wonderful, that a school exists

that can every year renew itself and be there

so that that of God in each person can know itself, can reveal itself,

may that truth continue, even without my help.


by Henry H. Walker

March 2, ‘24