Seeking Obsurity: Wandering in the Wilderness of Self-Indulgence

I know why my blog stats are not numbers with lots of zeros after them; after several years I gained a daily double digit audience. I know that most people don’t have the time and mental energy to read a broad range of literature. They are working and dealing with life, family, maybe trying to figure out some of the immense problems facing the world. Mainstream literature is accessible and  useful to many people and therefore has as much value as anything else. If I wanted to I could write more mainstream material and so sell more or get more notice. I write what I like to write, and actually I would love for other people to be interested in my work, but I won’t change what I write to suit others so I don’t expect others to change their reading habits to suit my taste.
There is a reason why Ron Paul or Ralph Nader or any other fringe politician will not be president, because they refuse to compromise their values for votes. Borack Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton and anyone else who became president moved toward a middle position at least a little, or pretended to do so. They compromised in order for the moderate middle to accept them. It’s not that their values are necessarily better than more middle of the road people, but there are ideas included that are often challenging and need a bit more time to digest. The same goes for literature. If you want to gain an audience, you have to write for that audience. Maybe like Obama, you can be intelligent about it and shift things gradually in ways that reflect your values, but you can’t expect people to jump off a cliff for you, especially when they have to work hard to understand your message. Sometimes I don’t even know what I am trying to say, and I am sure that all that fuzzy, gray area drives some people away. But, I write what comes when it comes. Inspiration is my muse, not popularity. And, so I am resigned to toil in obscurity for myself and that handful of people who, if they don’t always get my message, are patient enough to stick around until I say something worthwhile for them. To those patient readers I wish to say I will be here plugging away trying to make sense of things from my own small point of view. I hope that you are out there looking for the things that inspire you. Maybe I will read about it or see it or hear it as I wander around off the beaten track. I hope so.

“Auschwitz is not only behind us.”

“Auschwitz must be comprehended in the context of its historical past, be recognized when it happens in the present, and not be ruled out blindly for the future.”

Gunter Grass  “A Father’s Difficulties in Explaining Auschwitz to His Children”

“My children have their doubts. They say: You don’t believe in anything anyway. I admit to my unbelieving life, and tell them: As soon as belief gets ahead of reason you can count on the demise of both politics and literature. Examples include the belief in one God, the belief in Germany, and the belief in true Socialism.”

Gunter Grass “Literature and Politics”

I have been reading a lot about the early part of the 20th century in Germany and the events and effects of what occurred then and there.

W. H. Sebald “The Emmegrants”, Ursula Hegi “Stones from the River”, Gunter Grass “The Tin Drum”, Roberto Belano “2666″, and a graphic novel “Berlin”, as well as many works by Kafka have been giving me some understanding of the enmeshing social and cultural atmosphere that produced the horror that was Auschwitz and the whole nightmare of the Holocaust and the insuing costs that left scars on the world.

Fear is the common thread that weaves this tapestry of doom. Fear disseminated by people who want to control the destiny of a nation and use it to hypnotize people and by degrees convince them to accept inhumanity as the only appropriate measure to protect their way of life.

Every time Dick Cheney or Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck speaks about what we should fear and why we must act on those fears. I am thankful that we have for the moment pushed them to side to focus on some of the pressing issues that face us as a nation. When they use the examples of Hitler and the Third Reich to paint the current political situation in blackest most fearful terms, they are actually using the methodology of the Nazi’s. I think we should fear unreasonable, unsubstantiated  fear and single minded devotion to blind faith in anything. Let’s think things through and look for evidence. Let’s keep our eyes and minds open to posibilities and continue to fill the air with our dreams for a world full of people who can discuss and celebrate differences without the shadow of unreasonable fear. Then Auswitz will be behind us, as well as Rawanda, and Vietnam, and Iraq, and Afghanistan and torture for freedom’s sake.

We do have a long way to go before we are far enough ahead of this thing that it can’t creep up and bite us in the ass again. Maybe we need better rearview mirrors, or maybe take turns looking out, but we have to know what the thing looks like in order to avoid it. When we are looking for a high-stepping, swastika resplendant mob it might sneak up on us in the form of some nice people concerned about morals, or anti-terrorist legislation to keep us safe. Your favorite relatives and best friends could be involved. That is how it gets in when we are afraid to disagree with nice people about their bad ideas and unreasonable fears. Fear is the monster that closes the mind to humanity: careful listening, respectful conversation, and diligent open-minded inquiry are the weapons that will slay it. These are the things that keep us  from reliving the horror of Auschwitz.

Summer Teaching and a Great Book

Summer Teaching

I have started full time at my summer job of keeping my little friends busy and safe. All I have to do is pay attention and go with their flow, and all is well. No paper work just being there for children and providing what they need. They have decided that Dr. Suess is great and have me reading the story of the pale green pants with no one inside them every day. We also have a great box project going, where each has their own special box and I provide materials for them to decorate it. There is one that has his moments, but I am definitely reaching him already after just one week so I feel pretty solid. So many calm moments of children just being and doing what is natural to them — learning about their world. Why do teachers think we have to interfere so much in children’s lives? Curriculum, I don’t need no stinking curriculum. I just need to pay attention and have a few ideas and some interesting materials. The children do the rest.

Short and Vague Review: 2666 by Roberto Bolano

I just finished a facinating novel by Roberto Bolano translated from Spanish, called “2666.” It is about so much that I could not tell you what it is about. It is written in the form of 5 novelas with vague connections to each other, some stronger than others. In the end I got the feeling that somewhere out in the future it all makes more sense, or maybe not. It is not very important. Like any good novel, for me, it was living a life in another skin, or experiencing the world from a slightly shifted dimension. I come back a little changed with a fuller understanding of life as a human being. Also I feel a little disoriented, like I only got some of what he was saying and maybe some of what he said by accident. I think the really good writers are not able to know all the levels contained in their work. There are shadows and reflections that are cast that they are not able to see. There are so many combinations of characters and symbols that interact with the reader that they cannot know what chimeras will hatch. I always come out of novels like this as if I have gone to a foreign country and my mind has not yet assimilated all of the strangeness and time of a different land. That is how I know it was a well written piece. It shifts my perspective and I see more of the human experience. The scope of what I have read has to linger because I am unable to process the whole experience on a conscious level. I am sure that bits of this novel will resurface in poems and dreams for a long while to come.

Beautiful Weeds/ finding the cracks in the curriculum.

I think so much of working with children is about the teacher finding something that she has a passion for, something that she has fun with and finding a way to use this passion to energize the children. That means you have to look at yourself and what is exciting and interesting for you and see how that might help you with the children.
I have also found that I usually have a few natural teachers among my students. I will watch them and see what is inspiring them and then use that to drive us in a certain direction.
I work in a program that is so not Reggio inspired(child centered approach that sees children as capable drivers of their own learning) and I have no colleagues or supervisors who support my work the way I want to do it. I often have to work around the canned curriculum and data collection to infuse a little bit of inspiration into my work. And, sometimes I get some negative feedback and heavy handed interference from my supervisors. But, the way I look at it, either I can find another job or keep working to enlighten the people I work with. I do not see this approach as an all or nothing idea. Any amount of authentic inspiration the teacher can bring to a classroom makes it better. And, to me, there is no alternative to listening deeply to and having dialogue with my students. Now the documentation may not get done in the way I would like, and the classroom I share with a teacher and a supervisor that just don’t get it may not always look like a place where children are truly creating the environment. But, Reggio approach has to do with me and what makes me want to be in that classroom. It is an approach, not a stencil, a philosophy not a concrete model. If you have studied the approach and used it and made it a part of your make up as a teacher, then either you will get to a point where you can’t work in a situation, or your approach will grow through the cracks like beautiful weeds to inspire you and hopefully others.

Beginning the Journey Again

I wrote a comment on a list to a student who was wondering if the Reggio Emilia child centered approach to preschool was they way to go for a teacher just starting out. After I wrote I realized it really was a pep talk for myself.

I love teaching 3 to 5 year olds, but I am often left frustrated and de-inspired by the program I work for and my supervisor, who has a philosophy that you must keep children in line and under control. And then there is the never ending paperwork that has nothing to do with teaching or learning. I am nearing the end of another year in this program and I realize that I have been guilty of giving up the soul of my teaching out of laziness and frustration instead of putting into practice my philosophy where I can squeeze it in. It is so easy to fall into the I can get through this attitude when faced with the ever present status quo thinking, but the bottom line is I have not done enough to create the learning community I want my classroom to be. If I am not committed to the ideas that inspire me then how can I convince others to step onto the path. If I start now I will be ready for tomorrow and that will launch me into the next day. Little steps, carefully taken on the path to my goal of a classroom of engaged learning, I can do this if  I seize my opportunities and inspire others. If start with a little dreaming today, I can go into tomorrows planning session with some fire to light the first steps to finish off the year with some enthusiasm.

Here is my pep talk:

1. If you are working in large program or with a team, what are the approaches they use now and can the Reggio approach be used within the existing structure? How much do your team members know about this approach and are you ready to inspire change? It is challenging to be the only teacher in a program using this model.

2. Have you done the work of exploring your ideas about children and how they learn? On what inspires you and how you form relationships with children, parents and other teachers? If you are ready and committed to the philosophy then even if you stumble around a little, you will know that it is all part of the process of becoming an authentic teacher, but you have to know how you fit into the process first.

You have to know that whatever you do will look different than anything else if you are doing it right. This approach is about building a community of learners: Teachers, students, parents, siblings other members of the enveloping community. Your learning community will be a collaboration of all its members and so unique. If you are ready for being open to whatever happens and to building relationships based on respect and creativity then you are ready to start. The main thing is to reflect on the journey as you take the steps and not be too impatient. Have big ideas as you take the little steps along the way.