fall comes in with wet footprints

 

Autumnal Equinox, ‘21

this year the Autumnal Equinox 

was not of the heavens,

it was not of clarity of expression

as to the equal hours of light and darkness,

instead rain settled over us

the day and night merged 

with each other within shades of gray,

a fulling Moon lightened the night,

and the clouding of gray continued,

we have had weeks of highs in the 90s

and high enough humidity to scare sweat from evaporating,

after the Equinox, temperatures changed:

highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s,

the air no longer smudging lines

but crisping the view of tree and self,

in the garden Kentucky Wonder pole beans,

 pie pumpkins, and gourds are of fruition,

the last potatoes just dug today,

only a few tomatoes still release themselves,

most stalks are ready to be pulled,

the basil gave up the ghost weeks ago,

as did the precious muscadine,

school feels more of spring and beginnings than of fall and endings,

I feel in my classes that the students are perennials,

and I celebrate as they harvest product after product

that their efforts in September have pulled into being,

efforts that have a traceable past

from family, from preschool, from their first grades,

from how they are themselves,

from how they have been seen and appreciated, and helped

by parent, by caregiver, by teacher,

each apple that reveals itself 

deserves to be celebrated for its current wholeness

and also for the power of the journey

for which this fruit is but a step on a continuing path.

by Henry H. Walker

September 25, ‘21

the storm of the pandemic

 

long effects of the pandemic

the challenging effects of the pandemic can linger in the learner,

many students, being back to in-person learning, 

seem to feel as if disabling weight has been removed from them,

extra poundage that held them back from sprinting forward,

those students seem able to shrug off the effects of the pandemic,

now we notice more of the long effect on other students:

the energizing of anxieties and self-doubt,

the siren-call of lethargy and bad habits,

the lack of clarity of how to move from here to there,

for many students, motivation has returned as help and a good ally,

nevertheless some ways forward

have no easily-seen path as to how

to get through the brambles and the blowdowns,

the way forward is far more open for many

as school approaches normal,

but the storm of the pandemic

has also made some journeys fraught with troubles.

by Henry H. Walker

September 16, ‘21

back to the classroom

 In-Person Learning Now

Question: how are students responding to the pandemic 

once back to in-person school?

My hypothesis: students are excelling as best they can.

Observations:

I am enjoying classes,

students seem to be enjoying classes and learning.

I have the highest level I can remember of excellence on assignments.

An eighth grade student volunteers:

“I am more motivated now than I was before the pandemic.”

Another student, sitting next to him, agrees.  She had been home-schooled last year.

the difficulties of distance learning

seemed to strand us in a desert,

and we were all thirsty, parched,

now, being back in class, we have found an oasis,

and every assignment now can be a drink

we had been hoping for,

a school, at its best, should be just what the student needs,

it is sad that the pandemic had to be a way for us to learn how thirsty we were,

each moment in class, as students rise to the best which calls to them,

I am almost overcome by joy in the rightness which reasserts itself.,

as thirsts find a good drink to help with what has been lacking.

by Henry H. Walker

September 11, ‘21

circles and advisees

 

To my advisees, 9/9/21,

As a school, and as an advisee group, 

the fire of each student should center us,

as if each of us forms together circle after circle

to hold the light of each young person,

to hold it in a way to give it air

and allow it to know itself 

well enough to flame brightly,

the genius we can be as a school

is to know that each connection is vital,

the learner needs to not be alone,

the teacher, the advisor, the student

 needs to realize

that each of us is important

and that each of us is but a piece,

a piece of circles that have held each of us before now

and will hold each of us after now,

when we get together as an advisee group,

we must work to keep the circles unbroken.

May the fire that is you blaze brightly within and without!

from Henry,

who is proud to be your advisor