real day ingredients

The recipe for a real day puzzles me. The recipe is decidedly backward.

On April the 1st Ralph and I went to my first Husker Baseball game. For some reason I kept waiting and waiting to go to the bathroom. I've come to love baseball so much--I didn't want to miss anything. After a quick trip up the stairs, I came back to a grinning husband who had just caught a foul ball. One of the most exciting moments of a baseball fan's life, and I was in the loo. I missed it.

Lovely.

Now that we've told the story a couple of times, I've come to see what fun it is to share how things didn't go right. I've come to love the fun of the conversation that flips everyone's expectations.

This fun works the other way as well.

This weekend we celebrated Easter, and I was bummed that we had nothing fun planned for Saturday afternoon. Ralph and I loaded up and drove all over creation on Saturday getting the new truck nice and messy. This was one of my favorite days. We didn't plan it, but the time together driving around God's country was just so us.

The one thing I did plan out for the weekend was my food contribution - this was going to be fun. This was going to bring happiness. One of my "big plans" to celebrate easter was to make a lemon meringue pie from scratch to share with my parents. We ended up dumping it out on Rohrs Corner after realizing that I had left it sitting in the back of the truck speckling the meringue with dirt and rocks. Somehow telling the story of this mishap was even more fun than enjoying the dessert. After all there was Cherry Delight, and the story was somehow just as tasty.

hello spring. . . how I've missed you

"Spring teaches me to look more carefully for the green stems of possibility; for the intuitive hunch that may turn into a larger insight, for the glance or touch that may thaw a frozen relationship, for the stranger's act of kindness that makes the world seem hospitable again.

Spring in its fullness is not easy to write about. Late spring is so flamboyant that it caricatures itself, which is why it has long been the province of poets with more passion than skill. But perhaps these poets have a point. Perhaps we are meant to yield to its flamboyance, to understand that life is not always to be measured and meted as winter compels us to do but to be spent from time to time in a riot of color and growth." - Parker Palmer

not wasting time

This afternoon was real. I sat in her office laughing as he came in and we sat, talked and giggled all three knowing work was waiting, but the doldrums of Lent ending and Easter coming had us all three feeling well. . . rather unproductive.

So we sat, and laughed.

It was nice.

beads

Before I could do anything today, I knocked a plastic container of beads off my shelf so that they spilled throughout my entire office.

I think people will be finding beads in the crevices of this office for years to come. It was annoying; I didn't have time for this, but as my two co-workers came in and helped me clean up.

I couldn't help thinking. . . what a beautiful mess.

rain haiku

shining yesterday

now splashes gray rain

green for tomorrow

from a "good" English student

I was always a good English student.

I have a propensity for language, and my English teachers always looked like what I wanted to be when I grew up. I earned A's in every course I've ever taken in regards to writing. I was the editor of my high school newspaper, the editor of my college student newspaper, I became an English teacher and an adviser of our high school's student newspaper, and blah, blah blah--you get the picture.

I'm an English nerd.

I tell you all of this (with a nagging sense that this is not nearly humble enough language for a farmer's daughter) not to impress you in any way (plus, I'm certain it doesn't anyway), but to show you that by the world's standards--I am a writer, and I know how to write. While on the outside this seems to be the case, I can tell you with honesty that gets at my guts to the point of tears--that I was never under stood much about writing, and I was never truly a writer until participating in the Nebraska Writing Project over the summer of 2010. Sure, I knew about commas and all that stuff--but writing, real writing, I hadn't the foggiest.

I chose to participate in the institute largely because of emphatic encouragement from colleagues. Also, prior to this time, I began work on my doctorate, and in numerous pieces that we read about what "works" in teacher professional development, the writing project was held up again and again as something that actually works. I certainly haven't read everything, but as an erudite who loves to read about education, there is so very little written about things that actually work time and again. As educational researchers we're forever searching for the "magic" concoction that makes the very nuanced human interaction of classroom learning work. I knew it cognitively before the institute, and I have now come to know it through experience: The Writing Project works.

This institute changed the way that I see students, the way I see writing, and the way that I interact with my writing classroom. It made me a better teacher, not in a touchy feely way, but in a pragmatic, rubber-meets-the-road, day to day teaching practice way. I am so thankful that I was able to take part in this month of professional development.

I have to admit something, before I continue to write anything else--I am not a political person. In fact, whenever I see the polarized discussions taking place, especially during election season, I opt to turn toward anything that gets away from polar extremes and resembles honest to goodness conversation.

But. . .

On March second of this year, I learned that President Obama signed a bill eliminating direct federal funding for the National Writing Project.

This makes me think about running for office.

Certainly I'm joking as I have no political background, but I'm sure you hear my point that this is one of the first issues where I truly feel that I need to speak out to my government. My own life experience is directly in opposition to this decision. One of my favorite educational writers, Paulo Frere, talks about the pedagogy of the oppressed, where in some ways the best education is that which creates freedom and gives power to the powerless.

I mean this not as hyperbole, but as a reality I have experienced--the daily conditions of teaching--whether in a great school or a poorly performing school--even if you love it--can in many ways feel oppressive. Of course there are glimpses of light, ah-ha moments that keep us diligently working and striving on, but reality of teaching vastly different students in large quantities is difficult. This is no secret, but I must some how convey this in words. So many teachers experience this difficulty (sadly many of them are too busy with the stuff of teaching to write blog posts such as these). Professional development in many ways is an attempt to free teachers a bit--to give them an ounce of power over their subject areas and classrooms. The National Writing Project freed me--and I know many others--to see my own subject matter clearly enough to teach it. There is a freedom that comes from deep understanding.

Currently, I work with pre-service teachers at the University of Nebraska, and I want to jump up and down to get them to see that writing is so much more when they spout about how their objective is to get their kids to fill in a five paragraph essay organizer. For some reason, even with all that jumping, I cannot get them to see what I see. The only way for them to see is to experience the Writing Project for themselves. For their future students, and for the many teachers who have not yet been a part of a Writing Project, I encourage the Department of Education to continue what they have done for the last twenty years, and support the National Writing Project.

clouds

If only a picture could capture the clouds from today. They were moving; they were electric - just so happy, that I was too.