that classroom vibe

INTRO:

Today is the last day of the Advanced Institute of the Denver Writing Project. Coming as it did on the heels of our transition to remote learning and the Black Lives Matter movement, we all had a lot to process. Our assignment, at the end of the week, after much reading, reflection, Zoom meetings, online discussion boards, and three eye-opening, mind-blowing writing workshops with Nicole Piasecki, Jovan Mays, and Mark Overmeyer, was to answer this prompt: "Using your own style and structure, create a personal essay that describes your identity as a teacher and/or your teaching philosophy." Here's what I managed to write, out of a combobulated brain full of so many thoughts...

VERSE 1:

Sunday afternoon

my 19-year-old White son 

went downtown, 

to City Hall

where he stood

next to his Black girl friend

holding a small piece of cardboard 

cut from a box, 

on which he had written in black sharpie:

VIBE CHECK THE POLICE

CHORUS 1:

Monday morning I was asked: “What is your vibe right now? What is your teaching vibe?” The fact that this word— vibe— had entered my world for two days in a row struck me as somehow important.  Synchronous.  Serendipitous. Vibey.  

My vibe right now is worry.  And doing projects to keep from worrying.  Grief and mourning for classroom and country I pour into scrubbing the tub, chipping the paint, baking the muffins, and above all else: re-arranging the furniture.   I wonder if this is a distraction, or a healthy outlet for emotion. Or maybe it’s an attempt to change the vibe in my home, the way I change it in my classroom.      

VERSE 2:

I’ve heard people say 

to check in on your Black colleagues

I haven’t done this

I don’t know how to

Yet

CHORUS 2:

Student writer Nick Speranza, Arts Section Editor for his high school’s online news site The Radnorite, declared vibe to be the 2019 word-of-the-year. He wrote perhaps the best definition of vibe check that I could find:   “A vibe check is a genuine expression of empathy, a joking threat that encourages your friends to be happy, and a bizarre internet joke all at once.”  

On the surface, a vibe check means “How are you?  What’s going on?”

At a deeper level, however, it seems to be asking, “What are your struggles? Are you ok? How can I help?”

You can always vibe check a mother by asking about her children.  Maybe that’s a place I can start.

BRIDGE:

White socks

Black shoes

I bet her mama shined those shoes

the night before, scrubbed

her white socks and white blouse and white sweater 

so clean

the White children would have nothing to laugh at

Ruby was brave

Her mama was braver

Would I have done it?

Allowed my child to be the bridge?

What words did she say to prepare her daughter

before she watched her be marshaled 

away with four White men?

When you walk into that school, 

you old your head high,

Ruby Girl, but remember

to look down when you come to those steps,

‘cause everyone will be waiting for you to stumble

And remember to breathe, ok? 

As long as you just keep breathin’, you gon be alright.

And she was.

Ruby Bridges vibe checked them all.

VERSE 3:

The classroom vibe is everything

I create the vibe

starting from the outside

Good Vibes

don’t happen by accident

You have to orchestrate
them, which requires a magic wand

strings of fairy lights
three comfy chairs and a sofa

mismatched wooden bookshelves
along every wall

(where you somehow know where every book

is even though they are not in alphabetical order)

You even have to re-arrange the furniture

to metaphorically match your genre:

Poetry, a seated circle around a round rug

Memoir,  small groups for sharing

Fiction, sitting directly across from an IR of their own choosing

Informational, rows facing forward, 

Literary analysis returns us to our circle, older this time

Argument, two sides facing in

My classroom isn’t where I work,

it’s an extension of my Self

This is what I am afraid of losing —
If my students cannot feel that classroom vibe,

how will I be able to teach them?

The outer vibe creates the inner vibe. 

More than one student has told me 

that the 90 minutes they spend in my class

every other day

is the only time they feel calm.

How can I re-create that safe haven in a virtual world?  

Have we been liberated from fluorescent oppression, 

only to find ourselves in a blue light sleepless state?

What have we lost?

What have we gained?

CHORUS 3: 

We have been given an opportunity to re-think, re-question, and re-purpose ourselves as educators.  We didn’t give CMAS, and the world didn’t end!  We changed grading and teacher evaluation policies overnight in ways we never would have considered before!  Inequities were made visible and impossible to ignore!  Police have been voted out of our schools, curriculum is being re-visioned, and teachers are realizing that we have a role to play in dismantling our very own system.

Now is the time to examine the questions that underlie the questions.  The time to ask all the hows and whys.  The time to spout crazy ideas that maybe don’t sound so crazy anymore.  

Teachers need to bring up questions, again, about school funding structures and all the vestiges of history that have left our school system, still, in so many places, separate but unequal. We need to ask why our teaching force is still predominantly White, and then we need to ask how can we find and support the young people of color who want to become teachers. Ruby Bridges had to take a test to get into William Frantz Public School — how and why is testing still being used to determine who gets to go where?

And maybe someday soon, Zoom will create a “seating chart” function that, when enabled, will allow me to continue re-arranging the “furniture”.  What if we could make circles, rows, and groups, out of those little windows, in an attempt to create that classroom vibe?   

It’s not a distraction, my need to re-arrange, it’s an acknowledgement that my physical space creates my vibe.  When there is thoughtful order and structure on the outside, only then can I maintain my inner vibe, the one that allows me to show up, speak truth, create community, and be present every day with my kids.

OUTRO:

I became fascinated by Ruby Bridges after writing from a photo of her in Jovan’s workshop (see "Bridge" above).  Afterwards, I learned that her mother actually went to school with her on that first day, and didn't let her go alone, as I had imagined it. They sat in the office for the whole day, watching all the other parents come in to take their children out of the school.  Ruby prayed for the protestors every day on her way to school, asking God to forgive them “for they know not what they do”.  She wasn’t angry at the other kids not playing with her, because she understood that it was their parents who made them do it, and if her parents had told her not to do something, she wouldn’t have either.  

Ruby experienced little trauma from her experiences, according to Robert Coles (a White psychologist who offered to help her pro bono).  Instead, Robert Coles learned from Ruby, about conviction and courage, grounded in faith.  

the rules

“THE RULES HAVE CHANGED. TRUE POWER IS HELD BY THE PERSON WHO POSSESSES THE LARGEST BOOKSHELF, NOT GUN CABINET OR WALLET.”
ANTHONY J. D'ANGELO

My bookshelves have been collecting dust over the past few months. It's time to retrieve my trusty feather duster out from under the kitchen sink!

As you may or may not know, about a year ago I began collecting photos of people's bookshelves, and posting them at over at Expose Yourshelf. There was a flutter of activity in the beginning, and then I pretty much forgot about it for quite a long while. Thanks to a recent surprise in my inbox from Gabe, a complete stranger, my interest has been renewed.

I'd love to add yours to the collection, and have you pass along the word. Thanks!

Here are the rules.

Rule # 1: You may submit up to 3 photos. Send them to ssdoula@yahoo.com or give me links to your flickr photos. Try to make them of the largest size and highest resolution possible.... all the better for voyeuring in. However, any photo will do!

Rule #2: I will publish what you send me as is. I will neither censor nor judge nor crop.

Rule #3: Please do not rearrange or organize or dust or manipulate your bookshelf in any way immediately before its photo-op.

Rule #4: I trust that you will follow Rule #3, because to doubt you would be foolish and completely unprovable.

Rule #5: I will publish photos anonymously, or with your name as the title, and/or with a link to your blog/website. The choice is yours-be sure to let me know your desire. You may be as transparent or as obscure as you wish.

Rule #6: Optional: Write some sort of explanation or description or history of your books/bookshelf, in prose or in poetry, and I will publish it along with your photo(s).

Rule #7: I can change the rules at any time.

sexus 123

I read about this meme awhile back at Maria's place - Just Eat Your Cupcake. The story of how her blog got its name is particularly hilarious and worth reading, especially for those of you with young children.

Here's the deal:
You are supposed to look up from your computer, look around the room where you are sitting, and pick up the closest book. Open the book, turn to page 123, count down to the 5th sentence on that page and then post the next three sentences. Easy enough.

Well, the book I have been reading for the past two weeks or so is Sexus by Henry Miller. I finally finished it while driving home from Utah, but it's still sitting here on the floor by my bed, waiting to be shelved on a bookshelf I'm afraid will topple over and kill me in the middle of the night, loaded down as it is. Here's what Mr. Miller has to say on p. 123. At the moment, he is driving out to Long Island with some interesting characters when he realizes that Walt Whitman was born somewhere nearby and mentions going to visit his birthplace.

"Do you know where?" shouted MacGregor.
"No, but we could ask someone."
"Oh, the hell with that!"

Sorry it wasn't one of the more sexy or philosophical bits! But in its own way, I think perhaps it is. Sometimes it is better to go somewhere, to just drive or travel, without directions......you never know where you will end up.......... or with whom. :-)

Consider yourself tagged. I look forward to reading about your page 123's..... or just put them in the comments if you'd rather.

P.S. I wish I would have read this book when I was 20.

a nickel and dime

Expose Yourshelf now has 15 posts! What is most interesting to me, and what I never anticipated, is that it has become as much about the process as the product. Meeting new friends, friends of friends, and strangers.... all this has been incredibly rewarding in a personal, relational kind of way that I hadn't expected. I also know that the simple act of taking the photos has been meaningful to many of you in some way, and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Thanks to everyone who has participated in my project so far. And if you haven't sent me your bookshelf pic, please do. Here are the rules.

all i want

I realize it's not exactly humble to ask for birthday presents from close friends and far away friends and blog friends and complete strangers, but that's what I'm going to do. Today is my birthday. I'm 41. And all I want are two things. Number one: what I have right this moment - a husband cooking spaghetti, two boys baking brownies, and a trip to see The Water Horse with my family later. Number two: what I hope to have after you read this - a photo of your bookshelf.

I first attempted to spell out my brainstorm here. And then I actually started up the blog here.

Now all it needs is you. Click on the link to find out the details. I can't wait. Thanks. And pass it on.

i want to start.....

a blog dedicated solely to photos of people's bookshelves. The bookshelf of the living room and the bookshelf of the bedroom can differ significantly. Some of the books we cherish have been read; others sit waiting for something - the right time, or perhaps, simply, the time. A bookshelf displays only a slight sliver of time, and allows the observer a few inferences about us. It reveals both the content and the structure of our lives simultaneously. What we think. How we organize, if at all. Haphazard attempts at genre or author categorization, but ultimately hopeless as books get read, moved, purchased, loaned, returned, rearranged. It may seem permanent and timeless, but unless you are a stagnant human, your library has mutated over the course of your lifetime. People change. So do their bookshelves.

These would be my rules:
Rule # 1: You can submit up to 3 photos.
Rule #2: I will publish all that you send me. I will neither censor nor judge.
Rule #3: No prearranging of bookshelves allowed.
Rule #4: I trust that you will not prearrange, because to doubt you would be foolish and completely unprovable.
Rule #5. I can change the rules at any time.
Rule #6. You may write some sort of explanation or description about your bookshelf, in prose or in poetry if you so desire.
Rule #7. (because I like sevens, remember?). I will publish photos anonymously, with a name, or with a link to your blog/website. The choice is yours. You may remain as transparent or as obscure as you wish.

Until this bookshelf blog gets started (can't you see me filing it away with all the other unfinished projects?), here are three of my own photos. I followed all my rules. I am a good rule-follower. Sometimes.





If you want to email (ssdoula@yahoo.com) me up to three of yours, I will create a new blog to share them....

At least tell me what you think of the idea. I know anyone can post a photo of their bookshelf on their own blog, but wouldn't it be fun (or am I just perverted?) to have a space where you could just go and browse one stranger's bookshelf after another?

Oh god, I probably should do my research first! There may be something quite like this, already. And maybe you've heard of it. And maybe it's famous. I'm going to go have a look.......

Well, here's what I found: a little something to get you started. And completely lost.