written in my room at the Daytona Beach Hilton, where I am in the midst of reading/scoring AP US Government tests - thru June 8.
First, I realized very much how much of a teacher I am. I miss my students. I missed graduation yesterday, missed saying goodbye to the students.
Second - we have a real problem in that our students do not know how to communicate through writing. This is evident after having been through almost 1200 exams on the same question. No, a Free Response Question does not require deathless prose, but far too many of what I have waded through is at best semi-coherent, with poor organization (let's not even touch the question of grammar). This is a DIRECT RESULT of No Child Left Behind, and Race to the Top, with the absurd emphasis on tests which by and large are low level, recall, and only multiple choice. For gosh sakes, if we really want to assess what our students can do, we should assess them in their ability to analyze, make arguments, express, etc. Otherwise we ARE fulfilling the ridiculous imaging in "Waiting for Superman" of a teacher pulling back a child's skull and pouring in factual information.
The real part of my reflection is, however, somewhat different. For that you will have to go below the fold.
This evening I did something I have not done for years. When I told my wife I had done something I had not done for years, she was able to figure it out. I went into a bar (4 Rolling Rocks in a bucket for $10 is a bargain for a teacher I could not pass up) and took out a spiral pocket notebook and began writing.
I used to do that fairly often. What may surprise some is that I do some of my best writing in bars and coffee shops. There are people around so I don't feel isolated and whatever noise there is serves as white noise, and allows me to focus on two things - exploring my soul and recording the results.
Exploring my soul - in a sense some of my blogging is an extension of this. I process what I encounter and as i write also reflect.
But in the notebook it is somewhat different. There is no immediate stimulus, say like a column by Derrick Jackson. Is is in fact more akin to settling into the silence of Quaker Meeting for Worship, letting go, and seeing what decides to bubble up.
In absolute stillness I am too prone to what those from the Indian subcontinent would call "monkey mind" - my thoughts will flow rapidly, jumping from topic to topic, like somewhat with an extreme case of ADD.
Serving again as an AP Reader has encouraged me to take greater risks in my teaching. I realize that I have gotten to close to being stale, so I have to change. Next year I will have four sections of AP. I think I want to try something completely different - having each dealing with a different topic, then organizing presentations/notes on that topic, then sharing that across class lines. Still need to think out the mechanics, but know it is very doable, and far more valuable as a learning experience.
My "teaching" needs to be even more student-centered.
And that comes from wrestling with something very basic. Tonight I was drafting something for the Sunday worship service at NN11. I started with a basic idea, from George Fox:
Walk gladly across the earth answering that of God in each person you meet
That may not be word for word, but it will serve.
There are two parts.
The first is key - to walk gladly. To do so means to let go of the possibility of despair, to act as if helping make the world better is not something now out of our reach, no longer possible.
Answering that of God in another flows from that - it is the joy of knowing that regardless of how a person may act or speak one can still believe that person is not irredeemable - that of God means something like a divine spark, or a common human connection.
I was writing on the connection of Quakerism and activism. For we Friends that is a somewhat distorted framing. What we do - or at least what we aspire to do - is simply to live our belief about answering that of God in every other. It is not to abandon hope. It is not to despair. It counters the heavy weight of the foreboding of depression.
I sit in the room I share with a college professor. We are lucky - we have a sitting area with sofa, easy chairs, and a small table with two chairs at which i sit as I write this on my computer.
I have spent time tonight writing in a notebook, listening to and talking with others here for the Reading, talking with a couple from Philadelphia who came into the sports bar to watch the Phillies against the Pirates - as other screens had other baseball games, and then the NFL finals.
And as always, I spent time reflecting. Were I at home I would be sad, perhaps even depressed, because on Saturday night I am as far away from being with my students as is possible during the normal course of the school year.
I have been busy, reading and evaluating the work of other students - for 9 hours a day, minus lunch and two breaks, I read over and over answers to the same question.
I stay focused, but when I let up I wonder if this is a fair way of evaluating those students?
Then I wonder, should not our evaluation be to help us understand so that we can help our students understand better? Why then is our focus so much on evaluating for grades, for credit, so we can compares students/teachers/schools? How is that answering that of God in each student?
It is now almost midnight. The glass of beer I brought from the sports bar is now almost consumed. Knowing I will awaken at 5 AM or thereabouts, I realize that I should consider heading for bed.
But one more time I stop, I reflect. I remember: Walk gladly across the earth answering that of God in each person you meet
I stop and consider how glad I was, how much I walked actually and figuratively, and whether I remember to answer that of God . . . .
. . . . first in the person whose face i can see when I look in the mirror. Do I remember to answer myself?
There is no angst in what I have written. At most a small challenge to remind myself of that of which I - and so many people, if not all people - am capable.
Ultimately it is love.
Love only happens when one is open, vulnerable, and thus possibly at risk of hurt.
It does not matter.
To answer that of God is to love without artifice or desire to possess or control.
It is what opens me up to the possibility of really making a difference by how I live my life.
Peace.