Notes from public school - Day 47

As teachers, we are in the middle of parent conference time.

I love to talk with the parents of my students.

I love the way their faces light up like the sunrise when I show them how well their little scholars are doing.

I love the determination in their eyes when I tell them ways they can help their children succeed in school.

I especially love to meet with the parents of my students from Mexico, Central America and South America.

One of my fathers from Honduras sat in front of me.

His calloused hands were stained with grease and grime.

“My family works very hard,” he told me through a translator.

“I want my son to do well in school so he can make a good life for his own family.”

Just that morning, his son told me, “My dream is to be a mechanic.

Like my dad.

I want to be like my dad.”

Now I understand why.

This small story is for my Latin American families.

It is for the life they left behind, and the life they’re building here.

I’m glad they’re here.

I’m here for them.

Story:

Her name was Izote. 

The izote is the national flower of El Salvador. 

It is white and fragrant, with thick pointed leaves. 

It is born again out of it’s own injured trunk.

It never dies. 

It is a flower full of the will to live.

She was like the Izote. 

She was beautiful.

She had been born again and again out of the wound of the civil war in El Salvador.

Tomás had never seen his abuela.

His mamí wore him on her back with a tattered piece of cloth as she trudged the rows of tomatoes and peaches along the South Carolina coast. 

He felt the heat that weighed on her shoulders. 

He saw the dirt and blisters on her feet as she walked on and on, picking and bending, until the sun set on the horizon. 

He listened to the songs she sang about his abuela.

He came to know his abuela through his mamí’s heart, feet and music.

What a beautiful way to get to know another person.

His abuelo would sit beside his sleeping mat on their old, dilapidated school bus and tell him stories about El Salvador and his abuela. 

“The land was beautiful,” he said, “With green fields on the mountain that stretched as far as the eye could see. 

They stretched all the way to the river that was as blue and crisp as the morning sky. 

We were happy there. 

The land was ours to tend.

The corn, the beans and the mangoes were ours to eat and sell and store away against the hungry season.

Your abuela was so beautiful standing in those fields. 

I would stop and stare at her, Tomás, and my heart would beat as fast as a hummingbird’s heart because of her beauty.

She was the field.

She was the hummingbird.

She was the Izote.

She was beauty.

She was love.”

i am made from dust

 dull sharp edges,

     untangle knots,

          soften glares,

              repair,

                 share,

                    become one with the dust of the earth

- trevor scott barton, ordinary time, 2021

from Trevor’s encyclopedia - F

(I love encyclopedias.

I know in the age of Google we don’t use them much anymore.

You can still find a set in a public school library or a second hand bookstore.

Like all quiet, out of the way things, they mean a lot to me.

We had a set when I was growing up.

Whenever my brothers Trent and Tyler and I got into an argument, World Book helped us resolve it!

Whenever I was feeling quiet and out of the way, I’d pick a letter, take the encyclopedia and read it for hours at a time.

Today, kids learn through YouTube and Tik Tok.

Then, I learned through World Book.

As an homage to encyclopedias, I’m creating one.

I’m taking a letter from the Alphabet and writing a story or a poem that incorporates that letter.

Would you do me a favor?

Would you let me know if you love encyclopedias, too?

And would you let me know if the stories and poems I tell are meaningful to you?

¡Gracias!)

from Trevor’s Encyclopedia

F - Feet

Gabby took the bus home to her apartment.

“Cómo estás, Luisa?” she asked the small woman in the window seat as she sat down beside her.

“Bien,” she answered. 

“A little tired. 

I cleaned a lot of rooms at the motel today. 

Y tu?”

“Si, bien. 

Un poco cansado, tambien. 

I served a lot of eggs at the Scrambled Egg. 

I can’t wait to put up my feet and rest them.

 What you doin’ this evening?”

“I’m going to cook for my family and take my daughter to help me clean the doctor’s office. 

Then I’ll rest.”

Gabby put her arm around Luisa’s shoulder.

“Eres una buena mujer,” she said. 

I’m glad you’re my friend.

“Y tu, mi Amiga. 

Y tu.”

Gabby got off the bus in front of her apartment.

 She lived on the west side of town.

She and her neighbors didn’t have much money, but they did have a lot of kindness for each other.

‘Sup Gab! How you doin’?” asked Bryant, who everyone called Big B. 

He had just come home from his job as a mechanic at West End Auto.

“Hola Big B. 

Not much. 

Just glad to be home. 

How was your day?”

“It was all good. 

The squeaky wheel got the grease.

Today and ev’ry day!”

“One of these days I’m gonna buy a car and the only person I’m gonna let work on it is you.”

“Bet. 

If you need anything, let me know, okay?”

“Sure thing, mi amigo.

Same here.”

“You could come over and cook up some steak and eggs for me, you know.”

“Ugh, anything except that. 

I’ve cooked enough steak and eggs today.

And ev’ry day!”

“I’m jus’ kiddin’ wit’ cha. Night Gab.”

“Night B.”

She took her key out of her pocket and opened the door to her apartment. 

It was one room. 

There was a holey sofa that pulled out into a bed with a small table and a lamp beside it. 

Three books were on a bookshelf made out of a cut board and two concrete blocks against the wall. 

An old transistor radio was in the corner. 

A painting by Jasper Johns of three American Flags, one on top of the other, smallest to largest, was on the wall. 

One of her regular customers gave it to her.

This room was simple and beautiful, like her.

She picked up a small book, Poems for Brown Eyed Girls, by Trevor Scott Barton, turned on the lamp, sat down on the sofa, and stretched out her legs in front of her.

She opened the book to a poem “An Ode to a Migrant Woman’s Feet.”

She read,

Her feet 

were calloused and cracked  

like rocks 

in plowed ground, 

like stones 

in turned soil, 

the soil 

she walked over 

barefooted 

as her grandfather 

turned the earth 

with donkey and plow. 

She had 

the feet 

of her grandfather, 

for she had walked 

beside him 

down the long rows 

of beans and corn 

since the time 

she learned 

to toddle. 

He had 

walked 

up and down 

those rows 

until his feet 

were broken and bent 

and made him appear 

to be 

continually 

genuflecting 

to God, 

or to the wealthy land owner, 

or to the land itself. 

Her feet 

would one day 

be broken and bent 

like that.

When her feet 

were in the soil 

it was 

as if 

they were part 

of the land, 

as if 

they held the secrets 

of the earth, 

as if 

they knew the mystery 

of how seed 

and dirt 

and water 

become 

a bean 

in a pod,

a kernel 

on an ear 

of corn. 

Her heart 

was in her feet, 

her heart 

was in the land, 

her heart 

was the mystery.

Her feet spoke, 

"Estoy aquí, 

I am here, 

Estoy aquí." 

Her feet 

were signs 

to the world - 

"I am 

a human being." 

“Estoy aquí,” she whispered. 

“I am here.”

from Trevor’s Encyclopedia

Q - Questions

“You always ‘a askin’ questions,” said my poppa to me one morning as I walked my shoeless feet through the freshly turned soil. 

His hands were on the plow.

He was following our old mule Charlie.

 I was following him.

“That’s a good thing, askin’ questions. 

Did you know questions drive the world forward, like ol’ Charlies drivin’ the plow down the row? 

Well sir, they do.

Did you know questions turn the world upside down, like the plow turns the hard, rocky ground into soft, helpful soil? 

Well sir, they do.

Did you know questions are like seeds we’re gonna plant in these rows? 

Well sir, they are.

It takes a long time to get from seeds to vegetables.

And it takes a long time to get from questions to answers.

But seeds change to food that feeds people.

And questions change to answers that make the world a better place. 

You keep ‘a askin’ questions, Carter. 

Always.

Always keep ‘a askin’ questions.”

I’ve always tried to do just that.

To ask as many questions as I can ask.

Yes sir.

Notes from public school - Day 46

Teachers are not super heroes.

Though I know some who are VERY close.

No, we’re not faster than a speeding bullet. (Wow, this hits me in my feelings as I think about the active shooter drills I have to practice with my students each year.)

We’re not more powerful than a locomotive.

We’re not able to leap tall buildings at a single bound.

You’ll never say, “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a TEACHER!”

No, we’re not super heroes.

Though we’d like to be.

We’d love to have the super power to instantly help kids read above grade level AND love reading.

We’d love to have the super power to help kids learn complicated math with one example.

We’d love to have the super power to help kids write about a small moment in their lives that would become #1 on the NY Times best seller list and stun the literary world with it’s insight and language.

(You can tell I’d REALLY love to have that super power, huh?)

But we can’t.

You know what, though?

Teachers may not be super heroes, but TEACHING is HEROIC.

This is what I mean by that.

Teachers show up every day and…

Spend extra time teaching our students who are below grade level how to read and how to choose books they love to read

Show students many strategies over and over for how to solve a difficult math problem

Listen to the stories of students lives and help them share those stories with each other (thus growing empathy in their hearts)

This heroic teaching changes our students.

It changes us.

It changes the world.

We may not be super heroes.

But we have grit.

 

And grit, as MacArthur Fellow Angela Duckworth says, is POWER.

The power of PASSION.

The power of PERSEVERENCE.

That’s the power we have.

That makes teaching heroic.

Grit.

Impressionism

Simple kindness. 

He remembered when he was a boy. 

He sat on a wooden stool in front of a broken window, looking out at the rain falling in great sheets from a black sky. 

His mamí stood behind him with her arms around his chest. 

"I love you," she said. 

Then she returned to her work cleaning their house and cooking their supper. 

In that moment he knew he was loved.

Did his mamí know that her simple kindness helped him love the world?

     

Simple kindness. 

He remembered when he was a teenager. 

He walked beside his papí in the late afternoon sun down long row of tomatoes. 

"Take my hand and come with me," said his papí.

He took him to a tree and sat with him under the shade of the giant branches. 

He took out a notebook, a notebook filled with words, beautiful words, powerful words, about people and about life, words he had written but had never spoken, for he was a quiet man who spoke little and worked 'lots. 

"These words are for you, my son," he said. 

Then he returned to his work weeding the plants and nurturing the tomatoes. 

In that moment, he knew his own thoughts and words were important. 

Did his papí know his simple kindness helped him write the revolution?

     

Simple kindness. 

He remembered when he was a young man. 

He was sitting at the foot of his bed. 

Gabby stood before him.

She lowered her dress to the ground. 

He saw her in her nakedness for the first time. 

He looked at her sonrisa, her smile, and it was as if the sun had risen upon him. 

He looked at her brown skin, and it was as if the rich soil of the countryside had opened it self to him. 

He looked at her body and couldn’t breathe for a moment, for it was as if all of the beauty of the world had fallen upon him. 

"Hold me close," he said and she held him and she held him for a long time.

They didn’t speak, but only held each other in tender solicitude. 

She was simple kindness.

Notes from public school - Day 45

On my best days, I’m quiet. 

"You have two ears and one mouth," said my Grandpa one day as we walked down a row of tomatoes together, "So you should listen twice as much as you speak. You might learn something if you listen." 

I looked into his blue eyes, watery with memories from his childhood on a dairy farm in Greenville, SC, from his service at Iwo Jima in World War II and from his work in heating and air conditioning with Freeman Heating and Air.

They were also watery with tenderness from raising five children, from caring for my Grandma through Alzheimer’s Disease, and from  tending gardens.

 I grinned at him with a twinkle in my own watery blue eyes. 

I didn't say a word. 

I was quiet. 

I was listening.

Listening is hard work and has to be developed slowly over time. 

We live in a world that teaches us to speak twice as much as we listen, or to speak without listening at all. 

Yet, over time, listening will grow the most important thing we can have in our hearts — deep empathy for each and every person we encounter each and every day. 

And, over time, listening will grow the most important thing we can have in our hands and feet and, indeed, our words — simple kindness.

As a public school teacher, I work hard to listen to my students. 

One day, I was talking with Geraldine about a wonderful book she was reading, Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee.

"Oh Mr. Barton," she said with a giggle, "I'm just like Ophelia in the story because she's a curious kind of kid and I'm a curious kind of kid because I want to know everything about everything." 

Then she became serious. 

"But she's a nervous kind of kid, too, because she's had a hard life and I've kind of had a hard life, too."

I looked into her earthy brown eyes and thought about the ground from which she came, for she came here from the fields of Guatemala with her family. 

For the first time, I noticed the faintest of dark circles around her eyes, the slightest of a downward turn at the corners of her mouth, and a hint of tiredness and sadness that should not often be on a 9-year-old’s face.

"Geraldine," I asked, "What's your life like?" 

And she told me her story. 

"I share a room with my mom, my aunt, my sister, and my two younger cousins," she began, "and my family works really hard."

As she talked with me about the book and about her life, a tiny tear appeared in the corner of her eye. 

I wondered if it came from giggles or from sadness. 

I caught the tear in my hand as it rolled off her cheek.

"See how I caught your teardrop?" I asked. 

"As your teacher, I'm here to catch your happiness and your sadness, Geraldine. 

I'm here to help you learn everything about everything so you can be anything you want to be. 

I’m here."

I was there because I listened.

What are the stories of the people around us? 

What are they saying? 

With our two ears, and with the ears of our hearts, let's listen.

from Trevor’s Encyclopedia of Guardian Angels

He looked up from the book in his lap as the Greyhound bus squeaked to a stop at the Greenville terminal.

The old woman next to him fell asleep on the trip up from Charleston, and leaned her head on his shoulder. 

Her face was wrinkled like the bark on an ancient magnolia tree, and colored the beautiful brown of it’s trunk and branches. 

She breathed in, the air made a soft, whistling sound through her nose, and she breathed out.

That made a gentle, flapping sound through her lips.

“Life is a symphony,” he chuckled to himself, “Of kazoos.”

“Ma’am,” he whispered. 

She didn’t move.

She kept right on sleeping and kazooing. 

“Ma’am,” he said a little louder.  

This time he reached out and touched her weathered hand. 

She opened her brown eyes and smiled a tired smile at him. 

“Thanks for a lettin’ me use yo shoulda as my pilla,” she said with a gravelly voice. 

“First time I woked up beside a man in a long time. 

Hope my snorin’ didn’t bother you none,” she giggled. 

“No ma’am,” he said with a giggle of his own.

“It was music to my ears.”

His knees and back snapped and popped as he stood slowly and smoothed the wrinkles in his pants and shirt. 

“My goodness,” said the old woman, “You make music, too.” 

He placed his hand on her bony shoulder. 

“We could start a band called The Human Experience,” he said. 

“People would come from all over the country to hear us whistle, flap, snap and pop. 

You think?”

“Yep, they’d pay a bundle of money to hear that.”

He pulled on his jacket and waved to her. 

“Goodbye, my friend,” he said. 

“Thanks for the song.”

She waved back. 

“Thank you,” she said. 

“And do me a favor. 

Lean on down here and let me tell you somethin’.”

He leaned down.

He was surprised as she kissed him on his forehead with a tender kiss. 

“That’s the kiss of a guardian angel,” she whispered. 

“Look closely, listen carefully and do not be afraid.”

Notes from public school - Day 44

I see the human face.

I write the human face.

(Well, I try to write the human face)

See Courtland.

He’s a tough on the outside, tender on the inside inner-city kid.

If you pass by my classroom and glance at his table, you will see him standing up when he is supposed to be sitting down, trading Pokémon card when he is supposed to be doing Extra Math.

But if you come into my classroom and sit beside him for a while, you will learn that he has a special needs sister in kindergarten.

He loves and cares for her deeply and widely.

You will learn that he took the time to find the perfect shell for me when his family traveled to the beach over Labor Day.

And you will learn that he is the kid who always wants a hug when he enters through the classroom door in the morning.

Sometimes he seems what he’s not.

Sometimes he’s not what he seems.

Always he just...well, he just is.

A human being.

In all the simplicity and complexity of that word.

I write to humanize the person.

It’s my bare knuckled, whole hearted fight against those who would dehumanize the person.

When you hear someone speak of “those people,” I want to write to show they’re our neighbors.

Courtland put this note on my desk this afternoon. 

“I relly love Mr. Barton,” it says.

(We’re working on spelling :)

I relly love him, too.

My black skinned students, my brown skinned students, my white skinned students, my multi-colored skin students...human faces, each and every one.

I hope you can see them and love them, too.