Notes from public school - Day 3

I’m reading a book.

This is no easy task for an elementary school teacher.

Since the first day of school on Tuesday, my brain tightly shuts by 8 PM and my eyes by 9 PM.

This book, though, is for my brain AND my heart.

What elementary school teacher (or any kind of teacher) doesn’t need a book for the heart?

A Book of Uncommon Prayer: 100 Celebrations of the Miracle and Muddle of the Ordinary by Brian Doyle is one of those kinds of books.

If anyone finds the miracle and muddle of the ordinary, it’s an elementary school teacher.

Miracle - quiet, thoughtful Danny, an immigrant kid from Mexico, drew and shaded a picture of a bird, an extraordinary picture, while he waited for his bus after school.

He did a # I Wish My Teacher Knew project for me and wrote, “I wish my teacher knew that I love to create.”

“Did you create your picture of the bird from your brain, Danny?” I asked.

“No, Mr. Barton, I created it from my heart,” he smiled.

Miracle.

Muddle - trying to get a class of nine year olds to write a Who, What, When, Where and Why story of their best memory of summer on a deep afternoon on the third day of school.

Muddle.

As I muddled out of my house after school to take out the trash, I miracled a flower on our rose bush.

By ‘miracled’ I mean that I slowed down, looked carefully and listened closely to the flower.

And I was astonished at the beauty in the plain, the genius in the simple, and the wonder in the ordinary of it all.

Thanks Brian.

Thanks Danny.

Thanks public school.

I celebrate you.