English Teacher Neverland

“I mean, if you have to spend almost all of your money on something–” I begin. “–it should probably be a book,” he cuts me off with a solemn nod. “Exactly.” Honors American Literature, Winter 2013 I remember the war between kids and reading. It was a Genesis 3-style feud: And I shall put enmity between teenagers and…

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This Is The Day

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice, and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24 “I’m not that sporty,” I said one day long ago, walking around Greenlake with a friend. “You didn’t do sports in high school?” “No, I did. I ran cross country for three years. I didn’t really…

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“Worth The Sadness”

I know that it’s English teacher heresy, but I find Dead Poets Society impossibly sad. Peter Weir’s 1989 film has become a personal classic, falling into the genre of “teacher movies” that I consume with the same emotional voracity that some men I know attach to sports or war movies. I love these movies, and watch them…

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Of Returning

My students have obligingly pulled their chairs into a rough circle on the second afternoon of school in 2013. We’re reading Emily Dickinson aloud, each student sharing his or her favorite from last night’s reading, explaining why it was so special. My classroom fills with the call and response of familiar words in familiar voices, punctuated by…

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Things (And Mostly People) That Made Life Better This Year: 2012 Edition

Black Forest Academy–this ever-changing community of staff and students that flow in and out of this little valley on the edge of the dark hills–is a place of tradition. Do something once, whether it’s dumping someone in a pond on their birthday or granting crazy Christmas wishes, and it’s likely that you’ll be asked to…

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There Are No Lakes Till Eternity

We are not permitted to linger, even with what is most intimate. From images that are full, the spirit plunges on to others that suddenly must be filled; there are no lakes till eternity. Here, falling is best. To fall from the mastered emotion into the guessed-at, and onward. Rainer Maria Rilke, from “To Hölderlin” We…

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Trying to Play Soccer, And Other Dangerous Endeavors

I’m completely soaked by the time I get to the soccer field, near the end of my 5k afternoon run. It’s been raining for ages, you see. Four or five days. And it’s that cold, wet rain that would be snow if it had any decency, but it doesn’t, so it just keeps raining and raining….

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A Letter of Thanks

On Thanksgiving Day in Germany, we go to school, like other Thursdays. To celebrate, I asked my students to write letters of thanks. Their letters were meant to be symbolic, written to objects, places or people that wouldn’t necessarily respond.  As I think of what I’m thankful for this year, it’s more a group of…

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Thanksgiving, Now and Yet to Come

It isn’t an ordinary evening at Maugenhard dorm. The seven oblong tables, typically arranged side by side in the dining room, have been pulled end-to-end into a long table, and every chair in the house has found its way upstairs to this mega-table. The boys come to the table, giddy with anticipation, wearing shirts and…

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I Carry It In My Heart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) E.E. Cummings The Friday night recital has more people than usual, the perfect confluence of no other scheduled events and the novel introduction of clever advertising by an enterprising strings teacher. So we know who’s playing tonight, and the many of us too weary to…

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