Only three words, from Adjective to Noun to Verb

Navigating new content material while continuing to integrate knowledge effectively is a task that requires complex continuity (in the pedagogical sense) but real patience in the “home-world” setting. This week was simply just one of those weeks where getting out of bed even felt confining for both my son and me. No matter what angle we seemed to approach this week’s material, even trying to be as jazzed up as possible and placing reminder quotes on the white-board Makerspace hallway to “make this week count” seemed to be lacking any inspiration for us.

Our physical bodies are even becoming different as the weeks are moving into months. A lack of sun, in our area this spring, could be a root cause. I forced myself to complete at least three days of intense physical activity to ward off the body feeling as if it was healing fresh from a surgery (though there had been no surgery). The quiet of the household is what is becoming daunting in our stay-at-home experience. This may be only felt by those who are without a family unit. A large family caught in a tiny space may have an entire other set of feelings creeping in, like crowding and over-stimulation. The quietude and lack of friends and family voices around us, the touch of their hugs and physical beings (even the lack of footsteps around) is beginning to play a significant part of the entire experience. As I mentioned in the very first blog, keeping the mind and body active regardless of the varying circumstances being experienced (both physically and emotionally) is a profound skill set to practice in periods of this kind of gray.

Quite honestly, I grew tired of asking my son to remember to pick up after himself. I grew tired of trying to be the “all” to “all” things in the household (though, this is such a familiar, unacceptable role for so many women on any average day- just now compounded with the addition of home-schooling); from taking out the garbage to baking homemade breads to trying to roast a turkey mid-weekday; to teaching school to one person and trying to work on work-related projects at night; to being the recess lady and then shifting quickly to the cook; and then to the counselor; and back to the teacher; and then back to employee; and then to the wife without a partner; and then to the nurturing mom and to the caring daughter; and then to the woman reachable to God; to me? There was no moment in this newly vast sea of time now granted to us from the stay-at-home experience to reconnect with the self. I saw it in my son, too; at a different level of course, he missed my mother (his grandmother who has played a significant role in his life without a strong father-figure around). He missed his best friends, and I did too. Our “mom” chats in the parks while the kids played have been lost to screens, as the virtual world just can’t offer the same effect as the smiles in the tangible form create.

So much of our identities are built by communities. My son missed his grandmother so much, because part of his identity is connected to her. I imagine I feel this sense of isolation in a different way than those with larger in-tact families and households. Rather, they are seeking a space of quiet; I imagine having come from a strong, larger family. They most likely are attempting to carve out a retreat-space from all of the hoopla, not craving the very hoopla itself. Not me, or my son, we continue to seek connecting to our “true” selves by trying to dissipate the lull of the quiet. The Balance is off. Even the nurturing glow of the sunlight we are patiently awaiting. The voices of our friends and family at a table are treasures that we need for basic emotional survival (those alone understand or single parents can relate to this feeling during quarantine). No matter how exciting and interestingly complex our “school-day” becomes, we are literally dragging from our personal lives being left so quiet and gray.

It is rather a surreal experience in that I feel as if the career piece and the personal relationships have been inverted and reconstructed in just a short period of time. After all, we are only going on a little over a month in this state of living. This is such a small sacrifice in the larger Universal schema; yet, the invertedness of the experience is enough to notice and to try to understand and respond in a sensible manner. When I reflect on this week for learning, I think about all that was tackled; all of the work the school sent that we turned in digitally as well as attending the weekly Zoom meetings, but there was only one glimpse of a true connectedness to learning and to fun in our midst this week (unlike the previous weeks where the fun was unfolding at an intrinsic level at varying natural intervals). Was I just tired, and my son was reacting to this weariness?

No, I reasoned, I have taught for too long and knew in my heart that I could easily navigate and exchange activities when any form of weariness came on- to keep a strong pace going without becoming marred in the emotional pieces that heavily tax educators. I had learned that survival skill years ago. This feeling was very different.

Heeding onward, we decided to venture back to the Humanities’ project by Wednesday. This was our glimpse of light during the week. I watched my son go from a young guy who was always timid about writing to a dabbling writer with a purpose. He had watched at a younger age (when I taught at a boarding school) the skill and seriousness with which my young writers took when approaching a subject. He watched their relationships with the subject matter of writing and my relationship as teacher with the students, continuing to respect and challenge them. I never knew how intimating the whole experience was to him--at that young age--in his early observations of schooling and the arts. I had always just felt that he was uninterested in the subject. Because his mom taught this subject, he wanted to be different and find his own identity, so I respected that part of his reluctance to the Arts. I left it alone, wishing for him to discover his own interests in academics on his own terms. In this last week, the real reason appeared.

During this newly formed “home-schooling” experience, he finally opened up to me about writing and why it was so intimidating to him. I supported his reasoning and invited him to try (with me) to compose a poem that he could insert into his newly-shaping comic scenes he had begun last week. He was frozen and refused to write a word. I promised I could get him to write a poem, starting with just three words, if he gave me a chance. I asked him to trust me; just like he saw, in the years of students who trusted me to help them learn to discover their own voices. Truly, it just wasn’t as intimidating as he might believe, I explained. He used that word, “intimidating” from the very start of our discussion. He explained, “Mom, it’s just intimating. It is. I don't know how to describe it, Mom. Math is certain. Writing asks too many questions.”

We looked at each other for a moment (until I received the “go-ahead” from him), and then we pulled up the project slide I had created, and I asked him to read and scroll through the elements on the page. He clicked on various links that led him to other worlds of culture and music and lyrics. He listened to these lyrics from great composers, and suddenly Irving Berlin was becoming accessible to the nine-year-old. I asked him to close his eyes and to listen to two songs, Blue Skies and God Bless America, and based on his research he had completed the week before, to use three words for each piece he had listened to; a noun, an adjective, and a verb. From there and a few drafts later, he composed his first poem that he was proud to call his own. He told me he wished to write more next time we did something like this, and that he might, just consider trying to write a poem for his characters to speak in his comics' dialogue.

Spanning genres along with time periods, and creating light, in this moment, was an experience beyond the educator's grasp. I had, before this time, felt a similar transformation for the ease of getting over the self when writing stumbles upon blocks in so many of my students in our classrooms and have celebrated alongside them (with great sincerity) their achievements, but never had I been able to share a moment like that; to witness the experience in my own son’s attitudes towards writing and the arts. I watched the ease with which he composed- along with the excitement that followed when he wished to write another! Somehow through those connections of the three words, he was able to disconnect the emotional being from the words and move outward to holistic expression. That is the essence for moving in the directions of uncovering the writing voice and one method for discovering how to write. I always believed that, somewhere in his education, he’d experience a teacher that would help ease this block in him, (in ways that I had in my own educational journey—I remember the English teacher who saw the Artistic spirit in me and suddenly I was cast as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, only the class play, but it meant something in that class at that time.) I had hoped for him to experience something similar as the years unfolded. I never could have dreamed it would have been me, during such an off and gloomy week.

These are our poems on Berlin, as I never ask a student (even my son) to write something that I would not write side-by-side in an earnest attempt:

Our Responses to Irving Berlin Jack’s Humanities’ Project Poem

A heart of the Sky that is.

God bless these blue skies. New love within.

Skies that can sing and are singing a name.

His name. What kind of color do you see?

Ms. Porcupine’s Humanities’ Project Poem

The Lyrics of the Heart,

Could it be possible?

Smiles surround God's bold-faced beauties.

Roaming among us all, in a Nation, with

Lyrics stemming beyond any usual call. If you would like a copy of the Humanities’ Project to try working out at home, please feel free to reach out. I am happy to send a digital, complimentary copy to help support the arts during this time. This is a great project for multi-age learning that can connect various family members due to the nature of the content explored in the various projects in the constructive curriculum unit itself.

Postscript: I also learned a little extra something this week; his writing looked and felt a lot like mine did as a kid. What a subtle discovery. I hope your upcoming week is one filled with love and surprise under any luminous skies of gray you are feeling at this moment in time.