Notes From Public School - Day 95

When I was a kid, I loved Saturday mornings.

Why?

Because I could get up before sunrise (much to my parents chagrin, who had to sing, dance and blink my room light on and off a hundred times on Mondays through Fridays to get me up for school).

And because I could watch Schoolhouse Rock!

Did you watch it, too?

My favorite was The Preamble to the Constitution (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RnVmIrAiQB8)

It still is.

I memorized the Preamble by memorizing the song.

I show it to my students.

I sing it to them!

And I hope very much it goes from our brains to our hearts to our hands to our feet to our words.

WE the people…establish JUSTICE…promote the GENERAL WELFARE…secure the blessings of LIBERTY.

Wow.

What ideals.

The poet Amanda Gorman wrote in her poem “The Hill We Climb” that, “Somehow, we’ve weathered and witnessed A nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.”

What hope.

What grace.

I hope I’m helping my 9 and 10 year olds (and myself) work toward fixing our nation, finishing our nation, every day.

Today, during eLearning, one of my students, Garrett, sang the Preamble for 20 4th graders and for me.

“My palms were sweating as I sang it, Mr. Barton,” he said.

I’m so proud of him!

It was awesomely amazing and amazingly awesome.

Is he a person who will fix and finish our nation?

As all of those students and I clapped for him, I couldn’t help but think yes.

That all of these Kids will.

That all of us will.

Try.

That’s why I teach.

That’s why I write.

That’s why I hope.

Notes From Public School - Day 94

This is what we say to our students as they walk through the doors of our school, our classrooms and our hearts.

“You are a poem.”

“Eres un poema.”

“The poem is you.”

And, you know what?

The poem is us.

The poem is all of us.

Notes From Public School - Day 93

One of the most important parts of being a teacher is being a learner.

Each year in my classroom and at my writing table humbly teaches me this truth I’m learning.

That’s why I love the writer’s workshop I’m part of at SC State University.

By learning I’m getting better at teaching.

This is good for me, and good for my 4th graders.

This evening in my writing workshop, I worked on figurative language.

I studied an article from the Poetry Foundation on metaphors, similes, hyperbole, sarcasm. paraleipsis (drawing attention to something by pretending not to draw attention to it - think, “Not to mention, everyone in school saw it, too) and aposiopesis (leaving a thought unfinished deliberately - think, “I can’t even.”).

This is the kind of fun a word nerd, or just a plain, run-of-the-mill nerd like me, has of a snow laden afternoon.

After studying the article, I got to work on an ode in the style of Pablo Neruda, who is one of my literary heroes.

Since I am writing a novel with the themes of migration and the beloved community, I wrote “An Ode to a Foot in the Field.”

Here it is in rough draft.

It’s definitely a kind of work like my grandpa did in his workshop.

I’m just tinkering with a pen and a notebook instead of Duck Tape and baling wire. 

Notes From Public School - Day 92

Today is a snow day.

Well, it used to be called a snow day.

Now it’s called an eLearning day.

Like the mixed precipitation that left Greenville covered in a blanket of snow, sleet and freezing rain, our students are getting a mix of Google Slides work and Google Live meets to keep them thinking and learning on this frozen day.

And, just so you know, my teacher friends are building in time in the day for them to get out, go sledding, build a snowman, have a snowball fight, and enjoy the wintry wonder of snow in the south.

For one of my students, my new student from Colombia, this is the first time he has ever seen snow!

Think about that.

Beauty and wonder for sure.

As I look out my window at the snow covered ground, I remember how my mom used to cover my tennis shoes with Bunny Bread bags that she saved from the bread she bought at the day old store at the Bunny Bread bakery in Taylors.

I’m smiling.

And my heart is warmed.

As my students are thinking and learning (and playing, of course), I’m thinking and learning, too.

I’m working on my story for my writer’s workshop at SC State.

A compadre asked me to revise a stream of consciousness piece I wrote about a woman with bruised, bleeding, broken feet.

Here it is.

I hope you look closely and listen carefully to it…and see and hear my heart.

MLK Day 2022 - My Writing Hero Ida B. Wells

On this day, MLK Day 2022, I celebrate my writing hero Ida B. Wells (https://www.nps.gov/people/idabwells.htm)

She wrote to promote social change.

She wrote to punish injustice.

She wrote with a pen that was mightier than the sword.

She wrote.

I reach out my open hand, receive her courageous pen, and keep on writing.

 

Thank you Ida B. Wells.

Your brilliant storytelling made the world a little more human and led it a step forward toward the beloved community some of us are trying to build.

Lightning Bugs

One of my heroes is George Washington Carver (https://www.tuskegee.edu/support-tu/george-washington-carver)

On this day, MLK Day 2022, this story is for him.

“Hey little lightning bugs.”

At the sound of Carver's voice, the lightning bugs  in a mason jar on the table beside our beds began flashing their lights until a warm glow filled our room.

He was that kind of kid.

A special kind of kid.

As a matter of fact, a special thing happened on the day he was born. 

Momma swaddled him in an old, tattered blanket, and snuggled him by her side. 

His big brown eyes were wide open.

He was as still as the water in a summer pond.

A lightning bug came into the room with the breeze and lit gently on his nose. 

I watched in wonder as he blinked his eyes four short blinks and the lightning bug blinked it’s light four short times. 

He blinked his eyes three long blinks and it blinked its light three long blinks back. 

Was my baby brother communicating with the lightning bug? 

Was such a thing possible? 

The lightning bug took flight and flew out the window from which it came.

When he was three years old, he was laying on his back underneath the afternoon shade of the old apple tree in the back corner of our yard. 

I was laying beside him, looking up into the branches heavy with green apples, a color green we can't rightly make with our paints and thinners but that God seems to be able to create with a stroke from a divine brush and palette. 

I was sharing my thoughts about this with Carver, talking quietly and circling the pad of my thumb around and around his chubby cheek, when a lightning bug lit on his nose and flashed its soft yellow light three times. 

His eyes turned inward toward the lightning bug and blinked three times, as if he was sharing a soft light of his own that was yet unknown to human heart and mind but could only be perceived by the natural world around him. 

I knew then that he was special, the kind of person who comes into the world every once in a while to help it and make it a better place.

from trevor’s encyclopedia of things lost and found

Mujer Fuerte

Two important parts of being a writer are looking closely and listening carefully and showing what you see and hear. 

These are especially important when you are trying to show all that’s human in the people around you.

Here’s an example after meeting with a mamí of one of my Latinx students today.

Her arms and legs are the branches of a tree, the branches close to the trunk, thick and strong, able to carry heavy things. 

Her hair is the dark sky at new moon. 

Her brown eyes are the deep earth, yet they carry the soft light of stars at night.

The wrinkles around her eyes aren’t the wrinkles of age and time, but the wrinkles of worry and hardship, lines that shouldn’t be on the face of someone so young. 

Her voice is very quiet. 

She says little, but when she does say something, she says a lot. 

Her hands and feet are calloused and worn, yet gentle and warm, against the life she lives, and for the life she gives.

She has a beautiful heart.

She has an ingenious mind.

She is a wonderful person.

She is a courageous woman.

She is a hero.

She is human.