Two Weeks in August

[EleCivil]

[Two Weeks in August]

Be aware:

Before you stands the unlikeliest resolver

Unmoved by understanding yet ever undercover

Socio, some venture, but pathos suits the suffix

Rust-born and wind-thrown, cicada-song or distant traffics?

Be distant:

This one runs headlong ignoring signs of safety

Movements shared through rearview seizures, turns of phrase

And unwashed faces gazing blankly back in recognition

Fellows, comrades, frauds, a fresh turn of the ignition

Gone and gone again and gone.

Be:

The simplest directives and the thorns of blooming carnage

Far more likely tap the vitals, sound the horns, run down the foxes

Striving to leave and let live unnoticed

Reign in the tamed absurdist

But the trembling of the hands may not equate with “nervous”,

Be aware.

[EleCivil]

Haven't done this in a while, haha.

Anyway, wrote this one in my head while homeless and drifting across America looking for a new place to live.

[DesDownunder]

I'm just pleased to see you posting, EleCivil.

But what's with the homeless drifting?

Doesn't the President know you should be running the Department of Education?

[Merkin]

Better not to be homeless in Washington, D.C.

[EleCivil]

I'm just pleased to see you posting, EleCivil.

But what's with the homeless drifting?

Doesn't the President know you should be running the Department of Education?

At my previous school, I ran a department based around designing interventions for kids who weren't learning in the traditional classroom setting, as well as serving as a mentor both to new teachers and to the more "different" students. But then my entire department's funding was cut by the feds, thanks to the sequestration in January (you know, where the Republicans and Democrats teamed up and decided to say "Screw underprivilaged school kids, we're making a statement about the deficit!" and cut funding to everything that helps poor kids?).

So, I jumped in my car and started driving around to find a new school, with no idea of where I'd go or where I'd live, carrying nothing but the clothes on my back and my laptop.

I'm now teaching middle school science in a very rural area in the South. That's right - I went from gangsters to tractors.

[Camy]

Glad you're (seemingly) okay, glad you're in touch, and super glad you're writing.

Not that I entirely understand it, but the poem has some very evocative bits.

[Cole Parker]

Wherever you're teaching, the kids are the luckiest they've ever been.

C

[DesDownunder]

At my previous school, I ran a department based around designing interventions for kids who weren't learning in the traditional classroom setting, as well as serving as a mentor both to new teachers and to the more "different" students. But then my entire department's funding was cut by the feds, thanks to the sequestration in January (you know, where the Republicans and Democrats teamed up and decided to say "Screw underprivilaged school kids, we're making a statement about the deficit!" and cut funding to everything that helps poor kids?).

So, I jumped in my car and started driving around to find a new school, with no idea of where I'd go or where I'd live, carrying nothing but the clothes on my back and my laptop.

I'm now teaching middle school science in a very rural area in the South. That's right - I went from gangsters to tractors.

Science in the South?

Creationism or Evolution? bad Des.

Sorry to hear of your predicament. Hope you survive okay.

You have our respect and best wishes.

[EleCivil]

Science in the South?

Creationism or Evolution? bad Des.

Sorry to hear of your predicament. Hope you survive okay.

You have our respect and best wishes.

Haha, you laugh, but it's kind of true. I'm not supposed to teach evolution. I'm not supposed to teach creationism, either, though. So when kids ask about the origins of life, the universe, and the species, I just say "I don't know. Now put on your goggles, because I want to set something on fire!"

Honestly, my department getting cut was the best thing that could have happened to me, professionally speaking. It motivated me to get out of the predatory for-profit education system, out of the ghetto, and into a good union-backed school. Yeah, I miss leaving my friends and family behind on the other side of the country, but it's an adventure, and adventures are rare. You've got to enjoy them when they come.

[DesDownunder]

Ele, your positive attitude is just wonderful. I only want the best for you.

[Bruin Fisher]

I think it's a very erudite poem, a little too much so for a bear of very little brain, but I can appreciate the sentiments. There's a riddle in there as well, though, that's quite beyond me I'm afraid.

Ele, I'm sorry to hear you were a victim of cuts (and there was me thinking that was a uniquely British thing!) but delighted (not surprised) to find you've treated it as an adventure and have a new job in a nicer school. I hope you experience lots and lots of Southern good manners and Southern hospitality, and no bigotry.

I am, as ever, in awe of your talents and good-heartedness.

[Cole Parker]

A victim of the sequestration.

What a horrible use of a decent word. And what a horrible waste the act is. It's a meat axe approach to something where a delicate scalpel was needed. But that would have meant actually looking at and understanding a vast, complicated and important problem instead of everyone just throwing up their hands and saying to the other side, "See what you're stubbornness has caused?"

And then people like E/C got hurt. As well as all the kids he was helping in a very poor area where he was desperately needed. And that sort of thing, little people at the bottom of the totem pole getting hurt, is occurring all over. Because our government can't get its head out of its ass.

So glad you're happy now, E/C. And delighted you're back doing what you love, working with kids, instead of administering programs and sitting behind a desk shuffling papers. Most anyone can do that, and you have a real gift that should be put in use and never let fall by the wayside.

C

[JamesSavik]

I'm glad you are in the SOUTH and teaching science. We need you here and we really need kids interested in science! It's one of the few fields that offers real practical answers to the problems we face now and in the future.

The way it has been taught for years is by a coach whose degree was in football. Or a bitchy old lady who had a degree in education and never did lab work because she didn't know how.

During football season, on home game days, my 9th grade biology class cleaned up the football field and bleachers to prepare them for games.

Now put on your goggles, because I want to set something on fire!

I see you've got us figured out already.

PS. explosions work too Ever been fishing with potassium?

[EleCivil]

The way it has been taught for years is by a coach whose degree was in football. Or a bitchy old lady who had a degree in education and never did lab work because she didn't know how.

Haha. This actually came up in the interview -

"Our last science teacher was also our football coach. Can you coach?"

"I could probably bluff my way through coaching a chess team. But mostly I'm just really good at teaching science."

[Cole Parker]

Why do I see a novel coming out of this experience? Maybe Ellie and the Rednecks? If not a novel, at least a band.

Pat Conroy is a great southern writer. Two of his earlier works, The Lords of Discipline and The Water is Wide really impressed me. The latter is a story of a young, idealistic liberal college grad taking a job teaching black kids in a racist South Carolina district. He was a great teacher who loved his kids and made waves with the existing structure. Anyone who hasn't read it should. It'll remind them of E/C.

C