the value behind the eyes

 

Self-Doubt

the self can be a troublesome thing:

on the one hand, if conditions are right,

we can joy in the moment,

in finding how to make the steps 

that carry us forward,

we can trust that the next moment 

will be just like the last moment,

or maybe even better,

on the other hand,

we can learn that the throw of the dice

can make what comes next,

as a child we can learn a pet can die, 

a grandparent, a marriage, a friendship,

and we are lost for a time,

the future no longer just a repeat of the past,

we can wonder if we are responsible for a loss,

if we have lost the mandate of heaven,

adolescence accentuates the darkness of unpredictability,

the positive of what is right can feel dwarfed

by the sureness of what is wrong,

it can be easy to feel dominated

by the power of negativity,

the love of self at war with the hate of self,

some doubt can be good, 

like acidity in a dessert,

a tempering of over-confidence,

a growing-up into realizing limits, mistakes,

that the glass may just not fill,

as a middle school teacher for half a century,

my charge has often been to balance the scales,

to help the young person to hold the positive

with a bit more power than the negative,

I've loved to challenge kids to take a risk

with a comment, with a poem, with an essay,

with being on stage, with taking care of another,

friendship can be a soothing antidote to self-doubt,

as powerful connections with another

can validate who we are,

one speciality I've labored to have there for them is the stage,

acting, singing, dancing with a cohort of others,

each lifting the same weight for the same audience,

I've also loved sports for middle school students,

for there, like in plays with the applause,

a young person can excel as an individual,

and can excel as part of a larger whole,

I worry until I can see when a student

moves from doubting self

to appreciating the value behind their eyes.

by Henry H. Walker

June 10, ‘24

one lens with which to see ourselves

 

to act upon the world?

when we are born,

we differentiate toward self,

no longer in the Great Sea,

our skin touches the cooler air,

and the shock can wake us up,

I remember holding my grandson

when he first seemed to realize

that his feet were also him

and that he had control over them,

acting upon the world with foot and hand

allows us to know ourselves in relationship to things,

and then in relationship to each other,

knocking down blocks and discovering how to stack them,

hugging a parent and a stuffed animal,

walking, then running, across a room, a field,

we discover games, early on "Peek-a-Boo"

where we move with joy from absence to presence,

a ball intrigues us,

and we build relationship with it, through it,

in sports we can discover ourselves

as we act upon the world,

and it feeds consequence back to us,

when we strive together

our bodies become more skilled in acting upon the world

and learning how to act together with our team,

and in competition with others striving to do their best,

our heart and lungs glory in being used,

and then our body can allow our spirit also to grow stronger,

any time we excel in effort, 

we can work to excel in result,

the very effort validates us

as being worth the breaths we take,

and the results can help us 

appreciate who we are even more,

much of life is about coming home to who we are,

the person we've always known ourselves to be,

despite how lost we can feel

in the trackless wood that too often seems to swallow us,

sports can be one way for us to realize

that we are truly of worth

and that we can be part of a larger whole,

that is both us as we are

and us as we can be

if opportunity and effort come together

into moments that reveal to us 

who we are, and it is good.

by Henry H. Walker

June 9, ‘24

the joy in learning

 the value of a liberal-arts education

the reason for a school is first utilitarian:

the learning of skills to read, to compute, to write,

to thus be enabled to act upon the world

with paper, books, keyboards, computers,

then it's time to deal with the "why" to have those skills,

is it to be marketable? to have a job?

or is even having a job a means to another end?

is not the role of a job to enable us to have a life?

we are not here on Earth just to provide for our body,

though that is a prime directive we must follow,

after our material needs are met, life can be much more,

for example, there is joy in learning, 

in realizing that the universe is wondrous

in the rules by which it runs,

in every lens through which truth can be glimpsed,

in the awesome beauty readily accessible to us

with a walk outside,

with the pushing of ourselves into a sport,

into an art, into a release of the intelligence we have

in the understanding of ourselves in the physical,

in the inter-personal, in the introspective, in the spiritual,

at each step in school, we should embrace the joy of just learning, 

of appreciating where we are ignorant

and thrilling in the awareness of every step forward

in feeling the rightness revealed,

as a species we need a liberal arts education,

to be stretched academically, to learn for the sake of learning,

to approach a class that might feel dauntingly foreign

until we get to know it as a friend,

we stretch ourself into learning about ourselves and how we learn,

and sharing that journey with our friends,

if we choose to be a welder, or a cook, or a bus driver, great!

particularly, if, in our soul, we still search every moment

for what it can teach us,

for what it can reveal of how the universe works,

our species needs us to open our selves to revelation,

revelation accessible to all who but think and feel with passion.

by Henry H. Walker

June 7, ‘24

"What are you going to do?"

 

Retirement Looms Closer

I have heard that people in Europe

can readily believe that life starts when you retire,

that work is but an admission ticket to the main event, retirement,

many ask me: "What are you going to do when you retire?"

while working as an educator for over half a century,

I never felt I couldn't get to something important to me,

I just had less time for extra things:

I traveled, well,

the Smokies, the Southwest, the Sequoyah,

New Zealand and Hawaii, Iceland, the wonders of Canada,

I wrote, well,

pulling two books together into hardback, 

child development and Alzheimer's,

and sharing my poetry of the year for decades,

eulogizing those we've lost, honoring students and teachers

for how full their efforts were,

I photographed, well,

capturing people, events, the natural world,

I read well, 

losing myself in books and finding myself then fuller,

I've loved well, family, friends, life itself,

so why am I retiring?

I am tired of the grand effort of fitting the school schedule,

I want fewer nightmares Sunday night

as my fears of how I might mess up Monday morning slap me,

I am also tired of hearing what is most current for academics, 

the last few years asserting a way of looking at teaching 

that doesn't speak to me clearly of student attitude, 

attitude, which is the first key to any movement forward,

that underlying truth is the foundation of learning, 

for me, primary research involves understanding 

the relationship of student with learning, 

the relationship of student and teacher,

I share the goal, I share the hope, 

with every staff member on the front line,

but I lack the energy to avoid going down rabbit holes,

I need the energy to know where the student is, who the student is,

so that we can work to figure how 

we can meet them and move forward together,

I don't know what retirement will be for me,

I just know I need to be more who I am,

more being there for myself,

with less of required presence 

and with less of well-meaning others distracting me

from the prime directive of what works best for the student,

I plan to keep doing what my soul needs,

just more of it.

by Henry H. Walker

May 26, ‘24