They were doing the FCAT in the public school where I volunteer. It took two weeks and they did not want volunteers there for the duration. I took a trip up north and worked in the garden and thought about those good and patient children who were filling in the circles with their number two pencils.
I reappeared today to cries of welcome, and "What are we going to do today?" They are eying my satchel for clues of what art materials and what food goody I have brought this day. I have brought a big bag of greens from my garden for the teacher and two large bags of peanuts in the shell for the kids. After the 'pancake' fiasco I have vowed never to cook in that classroom again.
As usual, the teacher is hunkered down at her laptop and her database of kids' scores and attendance and what else I have never been able to figure out. What I know is that these tasks take up all her time. She is a shy woman and I have gradually warmed to her and now appreciate her shards of humor. After all, she did ask me to be a classroom volunteer and she knew right from the beginning that I would not be Ms. Plastic who put up bulletin boards (all canned). She weathered the pancake incident, after all, and she pretty much gives me free reign to do what I want with the kids.
She told me today that she had an encounter with the principal, who wanted to know why in the world she would let a volunteer-me (!) do clay with the kids when the FCATS were pending?? My projects are messy and fun and noisy and the fired and glazed products are wonderful to my mind.
Earlier this week I went back to my old school to visit for a few hours. As I walked into the school my eyeballs popped at the riot of colorful paintings lining the halls. In the background I heard choruses of recorders playing in the distance. Little kids pulled me along to look at the small cottages they were making out of craft sticks. There was so much STUFF there! Other kids showed me their writing. Five minutes before the end of the day everyone, kids and adults, went into action to clean everything up. They are responsible for their everyday environment and they take doing their jobs seriously. In the public school the janitor does all this.
In my old school the kids also take standardized tests. They do not spend every school hour preparing. What they do is produce a Shakespearean play or go on a trip to study marine science in the Keys. And on the tests they do very well indeed.
Today I wanted to start a small group of ten students writing their own books that we'll compose, illustrate, edit, and bind. They seemed excited about it, though there is never enough time. These kids seem starved for adult interaction. They wanted to tell me so many things! They wanted to talk to me about the books they are reading, and what they used to read. I am thinking about the many years when I read to ten year-olds "To Kill a Mockingbird", and how this book was the most important thing they addressed. A few kids sidle up to me and ask, "Have you read the second book of "A Land Remembered"? This is the book they are required to read (Sunshine Standards), a fictional history of Florida. I read it months ago and was appalled by the expurgated edition and promptly got the original. The kids wanted me to somehow get them the real edition. I hedge.. I am already in trouble with this school.
I think that I may just begin reading them TKAM. It could be the best thing they learn.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Making Decisions
You would think that a person of my age would have a better handle on living the life I have. But, two years into retirement from compelling work, I am still flopping around trying to be grounded in a purposeful schedule. When I was working, teaching and administrating, life was full of that bulge of close to ten hours each day being on the job. I squeezed in exercising before the first light of dawn, and social life was relegated to the margins of the weekends. At that time, family was remote, and we visited back and forth on carefully calculated dates.
In the last couple of months I have had to deal with complex and hard family problems and my free time has been taken up with the truly gritty stuff of being a hands-on grandma. I love that little guy, but it's intense.
I am glad to be retired, no question. It has been important to me to leave my work life to younger people and I am glad every day not to have to be telling people what to do, glad to be through with staff meetings, and the everyday details. I am loving having time to do some of the things that have always lapped at my artistic soul. Wallowing in dilettantism. Volunteering.
My husband and I still struggle with having two homes. More and more, the town house in the city fades away in our interest. It's a lovely thing to have that place for one or two nights a week when we want to see friends there, attend board meetings, or go to the theater. We have finally really finished that place that needed so much renovation. Now it's pristine, hermetically sealed in perfect air conditioning, and quite lovely and stylish.
But, after the brutal commute back from town, we sigh a deep breath of joy as we drive the mile from our mailbox to the farmhouse. I look at the resurrection ferns on the oaks to see how much rain there has been. I see a flock of turkeys running crazily in front of the car at seventeen mph. Home! First thing, I check the vegetable garden, then the flower beds and the orchids under the pool screen. Then I open my studio after checking the container gardens of lettuces. I have to walk around and look at everything, even if it has only been twenty-four hours since I was last here. While the computer gets going (321 messages), I walk out behind the barn and look at the footprints of deer, hogs, coyotes, turkeys, and hear the rustling of armadillos. I check for new wren nests, and I rejoice at my good fortune.
The main house is to us such a wonderful place. Sometimes I just twirl in the central hall and look in all directions. One way you see out front to the porch and the vines full of hummingbirds, and beyond that the beauty of rural Florida with deer, sand hill cranes, hawks on the ghost tree and maybe a gopher tortoise lumbering across the pasture. In back there is the spacious screen porch where everyone gathers and where dogs lie in the sun rays. There is the fragrant farm kitchen on another arm of the house looking out to the vegetable garden. And, opposite, there is the public space: on one side, the study and fireplace room (chimney swifts nest in the chimney there from March through October, kindly leaving us time to have a few fires in the cold season). On the other side is the music room with the piano and instruments and t.v. In every room there are the dogs and I try mightily to vacuum up their hair and scrub down the surfaces of the couches. We have several bedrooms upstairs and a playroom in the hall there with lots of toys left over from our kids and grandkids.
I think I am describing a home? It's where we live.
I guess what I am describing is our real home and maybe we should be perfectly content. But there is still that niggling at us (our mothers' voices? Our friends in the city who chastise us ever so gently about rusticating here?).
I am also trying to make the decision about this blog. Shall I just let it die? I began it because I wanted to try something different and public- a real departure for a shy person. I have learned a lot from doing it, no doubt. But it may be the time to get a grip on my real life.
In the last couple of months I have had to deal with complex and hard family problems and my free time has been taken up with the truly gritty stuff of being a hands-on grandma. I love that little guy, but it's intense.
I am glad to be retired, no question. It has been important to me to leave my work life to younger people and I am glad every day not to have to be telling people what to do, glad to be through with staff meetings, and the everyday details. I am loving having time to do some of the things that have always lapped at my artistic soul. Wallowing in dilettantism. Volunteering.
My husband and I still struggle with having two homes. More and more, the town house in the city fades away in our interest. It's a lovely thing to have that place for one or two nights a week when we want to see friends there, attend board meetings, or go to the theater. We have finally really finished that place that needed so much renovation. Now it's pristine, hermetically sealed in perfect air conditioning, and quite lovely and stylish.
But, after the brutal commute back from town, we sigh a deep breath of joy as we drive the mile from our mailbox to the farmhouse. I look at the resurrection ferns on the oaks to see how much rain there has been. I see a flock of turkeys running crazily in front of the car at seventeen mph. Home! First thing, I check the vegetable garden, then the flower beds and the orchids under the pool screen. Then I open my studio after checking the container gardens of lettuces. I have to walk around and look at everything, even if it has only been twenty-four hours since I was last here. While the computer gets going (321 messages), I walk out behind the barn and look at the footprints of deer, hogs, coyotes, turkeys, and hear the rustling of armadillos. I check for new wren nests, and I rejoice at my good fortune.
The main house is to us such a wonderful place. Sometimes I just twirl in the central hall and look in all directions. One way you see out front to the porch and the vines full of hummingbirds, and beyond that the beauty of rural Florida with deer, sand hill cranes, hawks on the ghost tree and maybe a gopher tortoise lumbering across the pasture. In back there is the spacious screen porch where everyone gathers and where dogs lie in the sun rays. There is the fragrant farm kitchen on another arm of the house looking out to the vegetable garden. And, opposite, there is the public space: on one side, the study and fireplace room (chimney swifts nest in the chimney there from March through October, kindly leaving us time to have a few fires in the cold season). On the other side is the music room with the piano and instruments and t.v. In every room there are the dogs and I try mightily to vacuum up their hair and scrub down the surfaces of the couches. We have several bedrooms upstairs and a playroom in the hall there with lots of toys left over from our kids and grandkids.
I think I am describing a home? It's where we live.
I guess what I am describing is our real home and maybe we should be perfectly content. But there is still that niggling at us (our mothers' voices? Our friends in the city who chastise us ever so gently about rusticating here?).
I am also trying to make the decision about this blog. Shall I just let it die? I began it because I wanted to try something different and public- a real departure for a shy person. I have learned a lot from doing it, no doubt. But it may be the time to get a grip on my real life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)