Mo's Missives

Marriage and Teaching Writing

I love to be married, to be secure with someone long enough that both stories can be told unending. Stories evolve overtime, blooming every so slowly as each petal is revealed. Each petal revealing something new, an expansion of an older story becoming new again. A sharing that is nurturing rather than depleting.  Two stories creating one that moves into a future.

The last thing that I would want to find, however, is that the other story was poorly written. To use a metaphor, the story must have the same things that we teach in writing. Does it have the HOC’s done well. In other words, are the ideas new and original? Are they well supported? Do they have evidence that they can succeed?  Is the story organized? Does it make use of transitions to move smoothly from one portion of the story to another? Does it develop well, having its highs and lows? Is there enough information given? Does it show conscious design or the ability to stitch things together to hold well? It is my belief that disappointments in marriage occur when the unfolding story doesn’t match what we thought was the thesis statement. We need these stories well written as it helps us to move forward into the unknown, to  survive the blank pages flung by fate. How disappointing it is to find that we would rather stick with an underdeveloped story than try to find another one that works for us. The marriage doesn’t grow, or if it does, it is lopsided. It closes the door on new futures.

How do we negotiate the future? I used to say that I love argumentation. That everything is an argument. Reason and logic were sure ways to dissect information to find a secure path. I was wrong. It became evident to me that arguments were just part of the story used to explain who and how we were. We use arguments to tell our stories and beliefs. We gain support from others by telling a good story.  It is in these stories that community is created. Good stories show how to negotiate different obstacles and these are the stories we share to instruct each other. Bad stories are used to warn. A real power exists in stories. As teachers, we know that in telling stories understanding the audience is key. To insert an idea into a belief system, it is necessary to show the majority that their belief system is shared by whomever would change it. We must show evidence not only through logic but the emotional metaphors that are used to convey it. Above all, we must show that we have the community’s best health in mind.

When I talk to my students about what they’ve created by writing or using visuals, I refer to their documents as artifacts, pieces of evidence of whom they are becoming in the process. For this, I move them out onto the web so they can see the paper that they will have to write on in the future. This is my vision that we will move more and more into this library of information, coffeehouse of conversation, and playground of sight and sound. It is too stimulating an environment to fall by the wayside. We have to deal with it. We must show students how to use it to their advantage, how to tell their stories in such a way to find a community of support.

While some fear cyberspace, saying that there will be a loss of worldly attachment or of identity, I believe that fear is unfounded. We are social animals, but we love to differentiate, to find ways to self-proclaim, to play king of the mountain. With the wealth of material on the web, it makes it easier for us to find out who we want to be and if we have the capability to fulfill that identity. Here is the real task for teachers. How do we give students the freedom to explore but to steer them from the many dead ends available? What we have to realize is that cyberspace is no different than the streets. It is filled with the same potentials and dangers found in great symphony halls or in back street alleys. We have to use it to discover ourselves to show students how they can build themselves in community. Indeed, teachers must use this new environment to teach stable values.

It shouldn’t be hard. As adults, we have managed to find secure niches for ourselves. We managed to dodge the dangers, to recognize the hazards, and to grasp the advantages where we could. We understand that security is not given and that it is not so stable that it can’t be tumbled. Having done all that we have done, don’t we feel that we can help steer the next generation? For teachers who don’t use the internet, how can we steer them to navigate where we won’t tread? Whether we want it or not, teachers have to learn this environment. Once we move into the data stream, I know we will find that we recognize many of the signals and signs that will lead us to safety or to peril. The internet is new. It is not different.

Anything we build is based on what we understand. The internet is self aware, but that self awareness is from every individual that interacts with it. It is not non human. It is all too human, with its inspiring leaders and its predatory criminals. This is a landscape that we recognize. The language is a little different, but we can quickly move to understand the signals and signs, to understand the stories told, and to find communities that will accept our story into the fabric of their own, growing into a future. A new marriage of two stories with different but understandable metaphors that will unfold into one.

Story-David

I found some stories about my life that I had forgotten, so I’m posting here so I know where to find them.

Views on Normal Behavior

            As I watched David descend the stairs with the program aide, I knew they had had a dispute, and David thought he got in the last word of the confrontation. The small smirk on his face did not hint at the discomfort he felt from the wet stain that marked his pants. He had literally told the program aide, “Piss on you.” As a low-end trainable in the programming adult foster care facility for the mentally retarded, David was slow, but he was not dumb. His dark eyes often showed a knowing that belied his stocky, barely five foot frame. Shortly after he was born, his parents had consigned him to the care of the state; fortunately, he had progressed far enough in personal care that he was transferred to the programming facility where I was the Assistant Program Coordinator. David was one of my eighteen charges, which the staff of the facility was to move to greater independence through training of normal behavior.

            At the time, I considered myself the most normal in the facility. After all, I was only there because my father had died before his fiftieth birthday as he had promised. I remember the conversation with him as he held out the lure of his pharmacy store. He wanted me to know that he felt that I could handle the store if I were to apply myself and that he knew that he would not live to see fifty. I had assumed that he was tired of paying for my college education as I leapfrogged from major to major. As far as his not living until he was fifty, he always struck me as a man of energy. Sure, he had high blood pressure and blood clots in his legs, but how does anyone know when he or she will die? How could he know? When he did die, I felt betrayed. I had wanted to deny what he had said; it was abnormal for someone to say that he would not live until a specific age.

            It was funny to think of training normal behavior into this group of adult males by a staff that was barely normal itself. The facility, located in a small town residential section at the geographical center of Michigan, was the picture of Middle American white, two story homes with its wide colonial front porch and fence-in back yard. Despite its innocuous appearance, it could only attract the town’s outcasts to work with the guys. Our staff consisted of poorly skilled aides, homosexuals, transsexuals, and me, an escapist from responsibility, all working to assist the residents to learn how to be accepted by society. Oh, how ironic! You have no idea how difficult it was to get the residents not mimic one gay aide’s quips of “Pop me a cookie!” or “Gravy!” and to train the aides that the goal was to train the residents in normal behavior and not gay catch phrases. To make matters worst, one of the owners of the facility was a transsexual whose name was in the process of changing from Ron to Renee. Try justifying that to the mentally handicapped as normal behavior.

            If the truth were known, I was terrified at the prospect of working with the mentally handicapped. Horror stories flew around about on how people who worked in state institutions were maimed or killed by their charges. It gave me nightmares. However, my boyfriend, Gil, was hired on at the programming facility as the Program Coordinator, and I felt that if he could handle it, then, I could as well (Yes, in looking back, I needed a safe male to attach myself to after my father had died).The first few weeks were terrifying for me. Aside from a couple of the residents, the rest of the men looked strange, but as I grew to know them, the strangeness melted away.

            A requirement for the facility was to have an aide sleep on the premises to handle any emergencies that might arise. Technically, the two senior staff members only had to be on call, so their nights were free. One night, in an attempt at normal life, Gil and I went to the drive-in theater to see a low budget movie. Unfortunately, halfway through the picture, our beepers went off (this was in the day before cell phones were common). As we were only five minutes away from the facility, we just headed off to the home. Pulling into the driveway, we saw the on-duty night aide sitting on the front steps. Not seeing anyone else outside of the facility, we assumed that fire was not the emergency. Anxious to find out what was wrong, Gil asked the teary eyed aide what was the matter. The hysterical aide responded that he had discovered that he had crabs and that he came out on the front porch so that he would not contaminate any of the residents. Relieved, Gil explained to the aide that the only way that the residents would get crabs was through sexual intercourse; was there any reason for concern in that area? The aide said that, no, he had not touched any of the residents, but the aide remained distraught. Gil sent the aide home and took the aide’s place with night duty, and I went home alone. It was another normal night at the facility.

            Working day after day with the residents gradually wore away my fear that haunted me when I had first started working with them. I came to know their personalities and to listen to what they had to say whether it was expressed verbally or not. For some of the guys, body language was far more eloquent than what they could actually say. I prided myself on being able to read their body language, and, especially, those signs that betrayed potential bursts of violent aberrant behavior that sometimes shook the facility.

            Normal behavior is the mean average between the extremes of behavior. The home’s residents were normal in that they wished comfort, approval, and love. Red haired Bob wanted to be a rock star like Elvis, short David a basketball player. Both of them were Down’s syndrome men with the typical facial appearance, complete with perpetually parted lips. Brian, the most normal looking of our young men, was a high educable that knew his differences from the rest of the town’s inhabitants, and all he wanted was to be accepted as a regular high school student. These dreams seemed no different than those of any young males’ dreams. The difference was that they were not young in body, only the mind. Their dream was to live at home with their families, the same families that dropped them off at the state’s doorstep, unwanted.

            One of the most rewarding experiences for the guys was when the facility was given free tickets to the Silver Dome Elvis concert. Bob was beside himself with excitement, and when he saw Elvis on stage, his eyes grew as large as Elvis himself. Of course, our seats were in the upper stratosphere of the stadium, and Elvis was only two inches high from the distance that we were viewing him; however, he was bigger than life for Bob. Despite one of the residents getting lost for two hours, it was well worth the anxiety of the experience for the reward of the residents’ seeing one of their heroes.

            The facility was geared to the normalization of the residents. As life-long members of the state institution, their acceptance into the facility meant that they were fairly independent and that they needed minimal supervision. Most of the time, they were eager and engaging, willing to try their best for the small rewards of a dinner out or a movie. I grew to love my guys, and it always was heartbreaking to learn that many of their families could not handle the sigma of a retarded child. As I overcame my own fear of working with the residents, I became indignant at the attitude of the residents’ families. The trauma of creating a less than perfect child would often split the parents by divorce, unwilling to acknowledge that imperfection could result from their union.

            Unlike red-headed good-natured Bob, round bodied, thin-haired Bobby was an ectopic baby (conceived and nurtured in a fallopian tube). As a result of developing in the restrictions of his unnatural womb, Bobby could not move his arms away from his body easily. His held his hands clasped in front of his body like a repentant monk peering over the top of his glasses on his lowered head, or if he were in one of his bad moods, like a preying mantis waiting to strike. Strike he could if he were pushed to it to get his way.

            The noise of destruction echoed through the house as I rushed to the community/dining room. It really wasn’t necessary to know what caused the ruckus or why Bobby was throwing over whatever laid on top of the tables to crash to the floor. What was important was to remove him from the room away from the other residents because as long as he had an audience, he would play to it with as much flourish as he could muster. Also, it was possible that the high emotions could counteract the medications that helped to keep the other residents in check. Consequently, with the assistance of an aide, I started herding Bobby out of the room toward the bedroom hallway. Avoiding his flailing arms, we were able to get him into a bedroom where I tackled him onto a single bed. Unfortunately, despite his large size, he was able to wriggle free after two or three minutes and was out the door heading through the kitchen.

            I was hoping that the kitchen might slow him down as he loved to eat. Food was his solace, and he always kept some with him, hidden in his rosy chipmunk cheeks. Apparently, he either had enough in storage or his emotions were running too high for the lure of the kitchen to halt his progress. He ran through the house to the office annex where he started tearing pictures off the wall. With the help of two other aides, we got Bobby pinned to the floor, but to keep him down, it was necessary for me to sit on him. While he lay pinned under me, Gil called the doctor and received permission to administer a shot of Thorazine to Bobby. Bobby’s emotions were running too high to stop. After twenty minutes, it was necessary to give Bobby an additional shot before he calmed down enough to help him to his bed to sleep it off thirty minutes later. As I had Bobby pinned to the floor, David walked through the room watching the action. In a short while, he simply shook his head and walked off to his bedroom. It was just another normal day at the facility.

            David’s parents left him at the institution as a baby, and as far as I heard, they did not even see fit to visit him. David, despite a limited ability to vocalize, could always communicate his pleasure or displeasure. It was not difficult to intuit what he meant by “basketball” and the dribbling motion with his hands. When he was fed up with someone or something, he would merely shake his head and stroll away with an expression that said, “Can you believe that someone would do that?”  It was easy for those who did not know David to think that there was not much going on in that shaggy head of his; however, they would be wrong. Nothing brought this home to me more than the time he was grounded from a movie.

            I don’t remember why he was being punished. More than likely, he wouldn’t give up something that belonged to another resident, probably a basketball because basketball was one of his true passions in life. From time to time, he would mumble enough words for you to know that he was going to be a basketball star. Of course, we never told him that a four feet and ten inches tall, twenty year old would not have scouts looking for him. It would have made no difference because, in his mind, he would be a basketball star. Anyway, when I told David that he could not go to the movie with the rest of the residents, he did not acknowledge it in anyway except to fall in line as the rest of them were loading up in the van. I steered him out of line and told him he was grounded to his bedroom. He went quietly enough to make me suspicious.

            When the van had left and I was alone in the house with David, I checked in on him in his bedroom, which adjoined the office. The other door to his bedroom opened to the bathroom through which he was walking out to go out the other side of the house. Again, I steered him back into his bedroom, but this time I locked the bathroom door. He was now trapped. If he were to leave his room, he would have to walk by me in the office. Now, comfortable that he was securely in place, I went to the office and started some of the paperwork that was always piled on my desk. In a few minutes, however, he walked out of his door, with his usual nonchalance, and moved toward the dining room. Once more, I firmly pivoted his shoulders to indicate his bedroom, and he went back quietly into his room.

            Knowing that this would not be the end of it, I stood by his door listening to see if he would try the bathroom door again. Instead, I heard sounds on the closet side of the bedroom. He was moving things around in his closet. Listening further, I heard him mutter, “door … hide … come in … not see … gone … look house … escape.” Those few words told me that he had hatched an elaborate escape plan. He would hide in the closet. I would come in to check on him and see him gone. He knew that I would run through the house trying to find him, and while I was upstairs looking for him, he would escape from the house. Not so dumb, I thought.

            I sat at my desk trying to decide how to handle the situation. On one hand, if I were to tell him that I knew of his plan, he would come up with another, and the game would continue all night long. It was twenty minutes from the time that I needed to give him his medication, so I waited until it was time for his meds and entered his room. I heard him shift slightly in the closet getting ready. After a minute, I went to the closet, and I opened the door.

            “Here is your medication, David.” I waited until he took the pills and closed the door on his disappointed face. He did not stir from the closet. It was now a matter of pride. He wanted to be in the closet all along. There was no plan for escape. Right… After the rest of the residents came home, his roommate, Bob, wanted to know where David was. Bob wanted to tell David what a great movie he missed. After telling Bob where David was, I heard him open the closet door and exclaim, “What are you doing in here, David?” David muttered some reply and got up out of the closet to join the rest of the group, the great escape foiled.

            That Christmas, Gil got in touch with David’s parents, and they came fearfully to bring David a present. It broke my heart to see the guilt they felt when they saw how well he was doing. Despite the fears that had kept them away from seeing David, they discovered that, indeed, they had produced a human being. Of course, it was understood that they would not care for him within their family home as they were not equipped to handle his needs, but at least, he was now included within their family circle with holiday visits. And, after all of those years, the best present that they could give him was the acknowledgement that he was part of a family.

            It was a good Christmas, and as things settled back to normalcy after the excitement of the holiday, I was content. We hired another program aide, the city’s high school homecoming queen, Mary. She certainly turned the heads of the residents and of some of the staff, including Gil. Mary worked the evening shift with me, and as Gil worked the day shift, it did not worry me.  The residents were on their best behavior to impress her, and she enjoyed working with the residents.  Brian, who attended the high school’s special education program, was the only resident who did not want to work with her; however, he would eventually overcome his hesitancy around Mary, which relieved my mind as she was competent in her work. At least, I thought so.  It may have been that I was trying to compensate for my own jealousy of her obvious attraction for Gil. For the two hour overlap between shifts, Gil was always talking with her. His body language, as well as hers, told me more than I wanted to know.

            One day, I had to return to my house to pick up something that I had forgotten. I could see Mary’s car in the driveway. When I tried the front door, it was locked. It was never locked! In our small town, it was unheard of locking the door during the day. After opening the door, I saw Gil on the couch with Mary next to him. They were surprised to see me, and their body language was clear to me. I am afraid that I went on a tirade. I told Gil that I had had it, and that I was leaving him. One looked aghast and the other puzzled. I don’t remember much after that. I had called my mother to come rescue me, and my brother came with a van the next day to pick up my stuff. After spending three years trying to teach my guys normal behavior, I had gone berserk, but under the circumstances, it was normal wasn’t it? 

Story-Samuel

     People I’ve known but not forgotten… What kind of impact did they have to have on my life that I would have remembered them through the years? Most people flow through my life with barely a ripple, let alone a splash. Is it any wonder then that my memory fails me in locating a memorable person? (Of course, this does not include my husband.) Having Garth Brooks in my office when he was pitching himself as a songwriter/artist was memorable but only notable for whom he became later. Meeting Dr. Thomas Gold, the proponent of the now out-of-favor “Steady State Theory” was interesting—we discussed Schwarzschild Singularities (black holes) on my limited terms—but, again, for bragging rights only. I worked as a secretary for a Trans-control medium, which was definitely interesting; however, I cannot remember her name. In thinking of voices and the words that they uttered that still remain with me, once voice stands out. It is really very silly actually. I never heard his voice, never saw his face, but I remember his name and his words. Samuel.

     I encountered him in the early seventies. It was during the time the Fifth Dimension was singing “when the moon” was “in the second house,” and “Jupiter aligns with Mars,” Age of Aquarius and the new age of exploring the unseen. Also, during this time, I met Zero. He was a medical technology student at Ferris State College who was studying to be a sorcerer in his spare time. “After all,” he claimed, “The world will destroy itself within two years, and I want to be prepared to take over when the opportunity arises.” He also claimed that he could teleport himself from one place to another. Ahh Zero! Your nickname was so appropriate! Followers of Wicca were to be found easily on campus and elsewhere as were Buddhists and other non-traditional belief systems.  There were groups investigating the paranormal everywhere. I guess I give you all this information so that my encounter with Samuel will not seem out of line for the times as embarrassing it now seems to me.

     A group of my friends and I were also exploring the paranormal. I remember séances in dorm rooms where we were sure that we witnessed a palatable ectoplasm buildup by a member’s extended hand. We experimented with out-of-the-body experiences (OBEs), which were all the rage. During an OBE, the sensation of flight was tremendous as you floated gently above your body. I remember, one time when I was taking an afternoon nap, I felt something brush against my leg. Now, I hated bugs with a passion, and I was sure that it was a spider crawling across my leg. I tried my best to wake up; however, I was paralyzed! As I tried focusing on opening my eyes so that I could see what kind of critter was crawling on me, my vision switched back and forth between my eyes looking back at my eyes trying to open. Very strange! However, I was finally able to look out away from my bunk, and I saw an arm, from the elbow to the fingertips dissolving away from me. My friends convinced me that I had an OBE, and I saw myself floating before me as I dissolved into consciousness. After this, you can now understand why my encounter with Samuel did not seem so strange to me.

     One evening, as my friends and I were visiting at my house, we decided to get out the ol’ Ouija board and see if we could stir up anything interesting. At first, there was the usual nonsense that dribbled out of the board. We were just about ready to give it all up when we received a strong message that said, “Hawks for my master. Doves for my lady love. One lonely Jackdaw crying at my grave.” With such a coherent stream of words, we started excitedly asking questions. My friend, Bonnie, decided to go get a soda and as she came back into the room she asked “What happened to my Grandfather? How did he die?” We were told by Samuel that he had been killed by her uncle who was after the grandfather’s social security check. Apparently, her grandfather had heard her uncle ascending the stairs, and he had hid outside the window of his bedroom on a small landing. When the uncle had come into the room and couldn’t find the grandfather or his check, he flew into a rage. The uncle heard a noise outside of the window and went to investigate. There, he tried to strong-arm Bonnie’s grandfather into giving him the check, and in the struggle, Bonnie’s grandfather fell to his death. Bonnie, after hearing the explanation, cried and left the room. We were all flabbergasted, and we did not know that her grandfather was dead let alone how he might have died. She finally got a hold of herself and came back into the room, saying that her family had suspected that the accident was no accident but were unable to prove it. After that for an introduction, we agreed that perhaps the information we were getting from this source was valid.

     Time and again, Samuel would return to us—always with the announcement by the way of the words: “Hawks for my master. Doves for my lady love. One lonely Jackdaw crying at my grave.” Over a period of months, he told us that he had been a house slave in the south and that his lady love had been sold away from the plantation. He gained our sympathy and our support. We believed. He gave us all information, in parables of a type, that helped us to look at the world anew, such as when he told Mary that she “was a tender reed planted in loose sand” and that she needed to plant herself in a more fertile soil. It certainly was true. She was the most flighty of us all.

     In looking back on all this youthful indulgence, I cannot help but feel embarrassed that I was involved in it all. However, no matter how I try to rationalize what happened with Samuel, I still have a strong sense of him as a real person, and I remember him fondly if I allow myself to feel beyond the embarrassment. He sometimes haunts me in memories, especially when I remember one of the last things that he said, “Believe in me, cynic. I am a believer in you.” Lord! I am still a cynic, but why do I feel diminished because of it?

Science is my magic

Science is my magic. I remember being scolded by my first grade teacher for not reading what the rest of the class was reading. It was always some pedestrian story about a family or a dog. Not for me! I had my finger on the classes’ story as a bookmark while I was at the back of the book reading fairy tales and fantasy. Tales of magical power and mystery captured me. Oh, to know the right words, smelly potion, or wizard’s wand was wonderful. I wanted that magic.

Magic allowed someone insignificant to overcome the tyranny of giants and evil wizards.  I wanted that power. Only using it for good, of course, I would make the world a better place shaped my desires. A benevolent wizard, I would be loved for my wisdom. A hero in my story. That’s funny. My story …  Does my affinity for Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” give me any hints as to whom the villain is in my story?

“With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck

And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack

… .

I have always been sacred of you.”

Pasted from <http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/daddy.html>

When I was in grade school, every month or so, an article would appear in the newspaper or on TV about UFOs. A UFO sighting argued for a world beyond ours, but this time, the magic wand was science and its ability to go beyond this world evidenced with the launch of sputnik when I was five and Buzz Aldrin’s first step when I was seventeen. Science was another type of magic. I longed once again for the secrets found in alien civilizations, a way out, to create my own story. I just knew it was possible. I read of one way out in an article which relayed that a young ten-year-old boy disappeared from his backyard, and his mother heard his cries for help trailing away up into the sky. He was never seen again, supposedly abducted by a UFO. By this time, I was much wiser in the lore of fairies and magicians. I now knew that to enter a new world would take the alchemy of science and reason and not fairy dust.

It all makes sense to me now. In my first years at college, I was an astronomy lab assistant, and within a couple of years at another college, I was a part-time secretary for a trans-control medium. I was involved in exploring avenues of escape from the ordinary. I’ve forgotten what my official course of study was for that school with the medium. All I knew is that my obsession with finding a way out did not fall into a middle space. I fell into the underworld of the unconscious/super conscious. I was there for less than a year. After going back to the previous school where I was the astronomy lab assistant, I met a medical technology student who was studying to be a wizard so that he could take over the world when it ended, according to him, in a couple of years. He claimed he could translocate. I wish I could have seen that. After a while, it was clear that the believers were susceptible to their own beliefs. I didn’t know whose answers to believe. Could I even believe me? Frustrated, I turned back to what was rooted in reality.

For a short while, I enjoyed the magic of baking, learning with the guidance of a master baker from Holland. At least, he said he was a master baker. I learned to make the prettiest cinnamon rolls and to roll hot cross buns with both hands rotating in different directions. However, the wonder of the rising dough soon lost the magic of its fermentation after the baker Henry recounted what the bakers would sometimes do with the warm and pliant mounds. It was time to move on to another world! Away from strange fantasies!

At my next college, I studied to be a chemical engineering assistant and discovered other uses for some compounds that promised avenues to other worlds. It certainly was easier than the discipline of calculus and ionic equations. It was apparent that others sought escape to other realms as well. I watched these seekers shooting up in the darkened park across from my night window, arms dripping blood as they sought the right channel for their travels. The bloody sight warned me against journeys that dead-ended. I merely skimmed the surface, touching down briefly here and there. I left those seekers, too. Their dreams quickly ended into dark clouds that would never lift heavenward.

Maybe the answer was dreams. Dreams of success and fame based on language that flowed in song. Adulation that lifted one to rarified air of song. No. I’m not talking about heaven. It was 16th Avenue in Nashville, Tennessee, home to the country music industry. There, along with my husband Fred, we trafficked in star dreams. Much more intoxicating than chemical dreams, it was a rich playground of fantasy versus the real world. After working to make real the dreams, the bottom dropped away from the tenuous foundation upholding our dream and the dreams of others.

From the star studded streets of Music Row, we soon made our way to the hallowed halls of the ivory tower. This time, we nurtured the dreams of the young as they left the sheltered enclaves of family. After years of study and assisting Fred as the instructor, he passed away, and I was left to find my own way once more. Because his music dream was exciting, I was more than happy to follow along. Following along with someone else’s dream was the one thing that I had earlier professed as being an anathema to me. It was ironic.

In searching for my own style of teaching, I found my way. Using my streak of geek to implement different internet teaching strategies, I found the magic, the way to a new world of my creation. The science of algorithms that launched the social web has given me a new world to explore. A world where I can draw the lines and color it in to be what I want it to be. Where I can wave the wand of word patterns to bring what ever I want to explore to my immediate sphere of influence. While there are other more knowledgeable geek wizards and cypernauts, I feel myself on a new horizon, watching the flood of technology create itself into a new life form that is willing to cohabitate my world. I found the magic finally.

Cloud Computing: A step forward?

A Country Without Libraries by Charles Simic | NYRBlog | The New York Review of Books

Teaching to the New Student

     Current students have not known a day where they weren’t immersed in the media stream. They have grown up with always having the internet, always having their brains inculcated with personalized versions of propaganda showing them how to be a contributing member of society. Students have always been solicited to follow one way or another, told that one thing was better than the other, and told not to listen to the others. Is it any wonder that the young are confused? That they don’t know where to turn at times for advice without fearing that it will be another dead end? that the  source of information d’jour doesn’t really tell them what they want to know?  That it won’t simply tell them who they are in the world and what they need to do? How can we tell them that what we want from them is independence to go beyond what we can think of to do, but independence only to the point that it can be controlled or do no harm to the body human.  It is from their independence that new ideas and energy  are created to feed the body human. It must be frightening to them as every faction of the body human wants their energy to grow. The cacophony of attention-getting voices is deafening.

 

     We had it, too, the constant solicitation, but we were able to find moments of quiet without unplugging because we weren’t that plugged in to begin with. As adults, we are becoming aware of all the noise, but it was not that bad when the older of us were growing up. There were clear standard bearers that we knew to listen to for guidance. Not like now, where a new voice comes speeding in from every which way and in directions from which we never heard or thought of before. Another difference between the young now and us before is that in the before there were longer periods of stasis it seems.  It seems.  … Now, is that because I am older? That I absorbed enough new when I was younger that the current changes appear as ripples—small tremors that foreshadow a bigger change, or am I one of those crazies that portends a falling sky? That is the question, and that’s what we really teach as teachers, isn’t it? How to tell the best decisions makers from the others? How to find the ones that can best steer this human boat that we are in, careening past sun through  galaxy, universe?  We search for ones that can see the bigger picture that  we are our own worst enemies: growing population, expanding toxic hazards that will result in a dieback? We are searching for those that can lead and have the energy to do so. We search for the few who will listen to us for the glimpses of the road ahead that we see, and one thing that we can see is that we need good leaders. A question may arise as to why don’t we lead? We do, but under the cover of guiding, of establishing our brand as a trusted source by the establishment. That is where our power lies.

     There is an old saw about those who can’t, teach. That is not true. Teaching is just what we do better than anything else. As teachers, we can word, phrase, expand ideas excellently. We know how to teach to reach an audience, convincing students to get on board the boat, not to be left behind or fall over the side. We are nurturers, fanning ideas to flame in new energy, all for the good of the body human. Great ideas without the ability to gain support from others, however, die. So we teach our students how to reach and convince an audience to participate in creation of an idea, to gather the forces of the body human to grow healthier together rather than as a cancer that overtakes what has worked before.

     We wonder how to reach our students through the noise of all the distractions (anything thing that doesn’t agree with us or our accepted model of the establishment)  and rely on the old models of education hammered out, tested, and held on to by staid citizens of our profession.  After all, we have educated some of the great minds in history. The conservative methods have been well vetted. Why is there any need for change?

     In truth, I guess what I am advocating is a change. Not a change in the established base of what we know but in how we communicate it to our students. Things are changing so rapidly that I feel the air being sucked up in a vortex. It is not really a scary vortex unless one has invested too much energy in the past and doesn’t want to expend energy in what might be considered a fad. However, our salvation lies in our youth.  Hopefully, the social, emotional investment  that they are participating in will  be the foundation for their moving forward. Moving forward, not by the biggest getting the most, but, perhaps, as an amortized analysis, moderating extremes to a livable balance. The social connections being forged by them are on a far greater sphere of like being able to find like than has ever existed before. With the connections being forged, there is the possibility of new forms as well as ideas being created because of the greater human mind is being connected. What we need to teach is to do the body human no harm. In this, I find hope.

Life in the Sci-Fi Lane

As I think about the internet—cloud more and more, it changes into a science-fiction movie for me. I think of the time differences between my students’ lives and mine, and the movie begins. It opens up with a middle-class dark-haired young girl that measured all life events as firsts: This is the first time I saw Lake Michigan. This is the first time I really saw the stars. This is the first time I saw earth light. This is the first time that I understood what the ants were doing as they worked. This is the first time that I desired. Actually, I desired all the time, not that often with the usual teenage angst about friends and lovers, but answers. I wanted to understand. Knowing can take away the fear.

I remembered the first time I encountered a ghost. It was right there! There on the right corner of my bed … . I ducked under the covers, hoping it would disappear. Peeping above the covers, I saw it still there in the exact same position it had been when I ducked under the covers! I thought: it didn’t move. What could I do? Thinking that if it didn’t move, then it must be something other than a ghost (everyone knows ghosts scare little girls!), I timidly reached out my hand to touch it. Trembling, I made contact. It felt like a sheet …? I quickly flatten the corner of the poked up white sheet and got under the cover. That was the first time that I learned that if you investigate and learn about something, it is not scary any more. I needed to know. It’s a big place out there.

I have been patiently gleaming bits and pieces over the years but to no avail. I haven’t learned why it is even though I may know what it is. Many people are content to know that it just is and proceed on down the road, not thinking beyond much as far as I can tell. That is unfair of me. They seem content because to show anything else might endanger their position in the hierarchy. What hierarchy you ask? Let me expound on my theory of it all. No, I better not. It would take too much time.

I must say that I ended up pretty much where I wanted in the hierarchy if I were honest. While I would like to think that I would have the energy and motivation to go to the top, I confess. I am lazy. Here I am, sitting in my recliner talking about how life in the web is so exciting and stimulating, and I think it can wait. They won’t have a major innovation for another day or two. Let me have a beer and watch TV. That’s life.