Childhood Wisdoms...

Edith P. Guild was my Scottish great-grandmother. There weren’t many friends of mine who still had their grandparents around let alone great-grandparents. Great Grammy, as I knew her, was somewhat of a mystery, a novelty, and a curiosity to me at the same time.

This was a woman born before the turn of the century. In my young mind anything before 1977 was a long, long time ago. She had traveled with her sister on steamer ships like the Titanic. She lived in a small apartment in an old folks home furnished with all sorts of ornate exotic furniture. In particular, I enjoyed a small cast-metal sculpture of a cat that looked soft enough to pet, but felt cold and smooth to the touch. Great Grammy always had butterscotch in a covered candy dish and shortbread cookies filling a glass jar on her small kitchen counter. Visiting her was like traveling to a far off world.

At Christmas time, Great Grammy and I were always parked next to each other. The youngest and the oldest seated side by side in their isolation from the rest of the table. We might as well have been at the “kiddie” table, for we were rarely spoken to. Early on I became aware of the inconsistency of the “adults” actions. While I was taught to respect my elders, I was clearly the only one paying any attention to Great Grammy and she to me. Through the long family dinners with multiple “important” conversations occurring, the most valuable discussions were heard if one took the time to listen to our exchanged whispers.

Perhaps because no one listened very well to Great Grammy anymore, she had a penchant for giving advice. It was hard tune in to what she had to say. She moved slower, talked slower, heard less, walked hesitatingly, and she shrank every year by about two inches. In order to communicate you had to slow down your hectic life’s pace, breathe, and listen, really listen.

Each visit I had with her led to a new insight and a rule that I must follow obediently. Lessons usually came in the form of admonitions to treat my mother and grandmother with more respect. I was able to see irony in the fact that Great Grammy was telling me to treat these women with the respect that I seldom saw them give her. The lesson I remember most vividly was also about respect, but it was more self-centered rather than other centered. She shared this simple almost prophetically wise idea with me.

“Never ever let a man treat you anything less than a queen.”

Where this came from in her wealth of experience I’ll never know, but it has come in handy more times than I can count. It’s funny how some things stick with you while others fade. Hearing these words as a twelve year old, I had no clue what they would mean to me in my twenties. Perhaps they stuck out because the subject matter was slightly different than her usual fare. It’s possible that I just thought it odd that a ninety year old woman would give love advice to a twelve year old. No matter the reason it stuck. Years later, ...I could hear her whispering those words of wisdom in my ears.

Change is the only constant

Note from Amy: This week's entry comes from my fiancee Jay Ryan. In an effort to start writing essays for his future website, he has been tackling some of his philosophical thoughts on his occupation of woodworking. The following is an initial attempt at hammering out some of his ideas. Please feel free to share your thoughts and feedback with us. Also if you are interested in seeing some of Jay's work, stop by and visit him at his temporary website: http://www.myspace.com/jayswoods

That said I hope you enjoy this weeks entry...

Robinson Jeffers wrote that, “surely one always knew that life’s end is death.” Eventually everything fails; you, me , the tree…. the stone, the very air, the sun, presumably all that we know and all that we don’t. Change is the only constant.

Glue is chemical in nature. Since we first realized that spit would hold together……….., we have looked for more efficient glues. We humans have become very skilled at manipulating compounds for all kinds of purposes. We are very skilled at making glues, and yet most glues that were made a hundred years ago have failed by now. Modern glues are likely to last longer, but only slightly longer from the perspective of geologic time. A weld will fail before the steel that it holds together will rust away. Similarly, glue that holds wood together will will fail before the the lignins and the cellular life that is a properly dried tree desires its own return to the earth.

Screws are made from all kinds of metals.. Archaeology teaches us that most metals are likely to last longer as an artifact in the earth than are most woods, but temperature, a tar pit, an ice age…. Not all rules are fast. Whe wood is screwed together, the grainlines that represent the structure of the tree are rended apart, rendering the wood weaker as a whole than it was before.

But wood beats both glue and screw as its own fastener. Wood can be shaped to interlock with itself and hold itself together for hundreds of years with no assistance from its occasional allies either glue or screw. The force, the very core of this this thing that we call life when it comes from the dirt and from the sun in the form of a tree is a truly amazing ally of our own. The forests have been with us since before memory. They were are only fuel, save the sun, for many thousands of years, before oil. They have built our houses, bridged our rivers cleaned our air… they are our partners in this endeavor, this time that we spend on the planet. Most trees would outlive us with ease if we did not cut so many of them down.

The crafting of something from wood should be special. Whatever the purpose; be it a home or a chair, a cradle or a cathedral. Care should be taken, consideration should be given, when a person has only a hundred years to give, some portion of your time should probably be given to creating something that outlives you, the longer the better.

-Jay Scott Ryan, 2008

Connecting to Individual Students

February 8, 2008

As a child could you recite all your times tables faster than everyone in the classroom? Did you live to practice the twenty designated vocabulary words each week? Was anticipation racking your brain wondering what exciting science project your teacher had in store for you? Did school always make sense to you?

If you answered yes to all of the preceding questions I would be astonished. But this is the student that all teachers secretly hope for: the accomplished, internally motivated, eager learner. Wait…Is it? Perhaps it is that we hope our ways of teaching will inspire such enthusiasm. But the equation of successful teaching is not as simple as…

Create great lesson plan + Implement it = Success.

In contrast to this naïve formula, I believe that the relationship between individual students and their teachers is one of the biggest determining factors that facilitate successful learning experiences.

I’d been working with Wade on his math facts for weeks. Personable, friendly, sometimes shy, and an extremely polite third grader, Wade was working with me because his teacher decided that he needed extra help catching up with peers who could recite math facts faster than he could. (Not to mention the administrations desire to boost standardized test scores.) That’s the basic story. What was behind his struggle was surely more complicated and nothing I could fix.

So we started with flash cards. The good old standby that reminds me of the countless times I, myself, used flash cards and wondered if they really ever taught me squat. After weeks of flash cards, the progress was minimal.

Everyday, I try to strike up a conversation with Wade hoping to figure out just what makes him tick. Could there be some answer to the riddle of his brain that might unlock math facts for him. Wade tells me that he spends his weekends working on the family farm helping with the cattle. Mind you this boy is about 4 feet tall and skinny as a rail. At his age I thought weeding dandelions was hard work let alone rounding up cattle. I start to wonder if labels of school failure have been misused. This kid has more practical knowledge about cattle than many of his “city” peers who already have their times tables memorized.

Drawing from my own experience, I thought back to math class with Mr. Tiberio where I had found success. One of the most notable things about the way he taught was that he always made sure we understood the rationale behind math concepts. His idea was that if we simply memorized something we would never truly understand it. Well if that worked for a high school math class, why couldn’t it work for Wade?

And so our conversation grew. As Wade and I worked on math facts we started to draw a relationship between his work with cows and the numbers. He told me about injecting cows with 2 ccs of an antibiotic. So we thought about how much antibiotic he would need for 20 cows. We talked about starting with 12 ccs and dividing it among 3 cows. The practical applications started becoming apparent and the math facts started clicking.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all teachers had more time to develop these necessary relationships? Too many students have no idea 1) why they are learning what they are learning and 2) how it could actually apply to their own life. In a time when standardized testing seems to guide our schools we have seemingly forgotten the importance of knowing our students and helping them understand why it’s all worth it. Or more importantly letting them tell us what they are curious about!

Picture taken: December 2007 Ice Storm in Central City, NE

Turista, turista!

What is diversity anyway?
In what ways is my life shaped by the diversity of U.S. society?

During the summer of 1994, I was an idealistic, sixteen year old setting out on a journey to see the world. After years of classroom Spanish, I found myself on a plane traveling abroad to test my language skills in Costa Rica. My upbringing in the Northeast hadn’t come close to preparing me for what was in store. Raised in a predominantly white suburb of Boston, I had access to good formal educational opportunities, experience with different socioeconomic cultures via church community service projects, and a supportive family that held education as a priority. That said, my childhood was still quite sheltered and lacked a worldliness that only experience could provide me.

Upon arriving in Costa Rica, all of my “preparations” seemingly became obsolete. My five years of Spanish couldn’t keep up with even the most patient of native speakers, my experience with diverse people didn’t cover the isolation of being a blond, blue-eyed girl in a land of brown-eyed, dark haired Spanish speaking people, and I had left my supportive family behind.

The culminating moment of my trip occurred one day as I traveled to the University of Costa Rica where I was taking classes. Seated on a bus feeling bewildered, alone, and perhaps a bit frightened, I was jolted out of my thoughts by a banging on the side of my bus. At first I wondered if perhaps the bus had broken down. Only days before, the implosion of exhaust from the last gasp of an old engine had left me coughing and sputtering as noxious fumes filled the crowded bus. But the banging grew louder and more intense with each frantic strike. As I peered out the window, I saw an irate man looking directly at me and yelling “¡Turista, turista!” It was clear to me that I was not welcome in this man’s country.

Quickly turning away from the window, I wished with all of my might that the bus would pull away and leave the man behind in the busy street. I sank deeper into my seat wishing that I was not American, that I did not have blond hair, that I did not feel somehow responsible for this man’s anger, and that the other passengers did not share his resentment. In my heart of hearts, I wanted to cry out “I’m not like them!”, but instead I sank lower as the bus pulled away and I let out a sigh of incomplete relief.

Knowing I wouldn’t change my appearance nor reject my native country, I struggled to find a way to adequately cope with relating to a culture that at times appeared to resent my very existence. Costa Rica taught me that fear and misunderstanding are inherently tied to one another. While it was not possible to have a heart to heart with an angry man on the street, through time and patience, I was able to share my own diversity with those who I became close to. By taking the risks of putting myself out there, sharing my experiences, and accepting differences in those around me, eventually the intimidation and misunderstanding I felt was reduced. I can only begin to imagine what the experience must feel like for an immigrant in America.