Notes from public school - day 53

As a teacher, I’m trying to help my students become people who use their ingenuity to build a better world for everyone.

I’m trying to help them become something beautiful for the world.

I’m trying to help them become filled with wonder.

I’m trying to help them become.

The truth is, they are helping me become, too.

Every time I help a student write a sentence that expresses exactly what she wanted to say, I think, “Hey, I just used my gifts as a writer to make the world a little clearer, a little better.”

Every time I smile my biggest smile for a student and give him a fist bump and say, “I’m glad you’re here. I’m here for you,” I think, “Hey, I just played a small part in making a beautiful moment in this big world.”

Every time I exclaim, “A blue whale’s heart is so big, you, my students, could walk around in it!” I think, “That light I see in their eyes is the presence of wonder in their lives.”

Here is a poem I wrote about becoming. It’s who I want to be...it’s what I hope to do...in the world.

                               Liberation Song

we become

the tear

on the hungry child's cheek,

the callous

on the old farmer's hand,

the wrinkle

around the worried mamí’s eye,

the blister

on the campesino's foot.

- Trevor Scott Barton, poems for a brown eyed girl, 2019