Keeping the Field Neutral

Where I teach runs on what I call a block-skinny schedule: 1, 3, 7 are A days, 2, 4, 6 are B days, and 5 happens every day, but is a shorter period (skinny).

Today was a fairly simple agenda as we wanted to give students time to "finish" (start) their reading and assignment for their first Book Club meeting this week. On the "to do" list:

1. Introduce them to Hedy Lamarr and her co-created invention to stop Nazis from jamming Allied torpedoes during WWII . Yes, the actress and the inventor are one and the same! (Women's Heritage Month, plus, it's cool as heck!).
2. Warm up: Poetry Terms Vocabulary. This was a review of terms they have heard and worked with before, or at least it was supposed to be.
3. Book Club work time: read or work on the assignment, those are the options.

Pretty easy, yea? Except my brain sees opportunity where most of learned to keep mum. 

We have finished the poetry terms and I have them waiting for a few seconds. They are ever so eager to put their notebooks away and move onto the next thing, even if they have forgotten it's reading work, but I need them to understand the importance of literature and poetry in society. I change the slide to one that explains why poetry matters and how it relates to our utopia vs. dystopia unit. I did not write this slide or provide any of the information, but I'm a fan and my brain is simply buzzing with ideas and connections we want to make with (for) the students. I don't know about you, but my brain usually has the upper hand in my battle of wills.

I begin by saying how poetry both reflects and resists society. In dystopian communities, and we've discussed how all communities have at least a few dystopian traits,  literature is often censored. Then, I waited to see if any of them had heard anything about Utah banning books at a rapid-fire pace or the legislation offered up after the State of the Union address to have a federal ban on books in schools or any other connection they might have. Nothing. 

I go on to say that poetry, or collections of poems, are usually the first to be censored because the readers are encouraged to feel, think, and question even if they don't understand what the poem is saying. I emphasize that poetry speaks to the soul, whereas stories speak to the mind and, secondarily, the soul. Nothing. The quiet is driving my brain INSANE, "WHY DON'T THEY RELATE??" she screams into the void. "Say SOMETHING, let them know that we too, especially them, live in a society with dystopian traits (if not an outright dystopia for some)!".

Brain is not a calm being. She is outspoken and judgmental. She squashes feelings with intellect and never looks back to see the damage. Brain needs these students to make the connections so that they can lay the groundwork to change the world. Brain forgets, or chooses not to remember, these are children. Barely 14 some of them. Their world, for most of them, is just fine: food on the table, rides to practice, doors that lock, homes and families that are safe. Brain does remember, perhaps just in time, that some of these humans do not know safety and to identify a difference between them and their peers, especially by volunteering information or situations no one else seems to know, would put their sense of self in jeopardy. Brain is debating the costs of a move while the "feelings" part of me is begging Brain to shut up and sit down.

I don't know what to call the part of my restraint that occasionally wins a battle against Big Brain, perhaps "restraint" will do. As Brain falters, just for a moment, restraint takes advantage of the situation and swoops in to block. I finish speaking on the slide's information by ending on a quote from Mary Oliver that discusses bread as fire to the cold, a rope for the lost, and bread for the hungry. I move further away from the information Brain has demanded be shared. I show students a reverse poem that starts dystopian and ends utopian from a Honda commercial. We move onto their reading and assignment completion. It takes Brain longer to recover her fire and brimstone when it is restraint that steps in versus another part like "feelings".

Today, we appreciate restraint for keeping the "field" (playing, battle, corn, what have you) neutral. Information was delivered without opinion or bias, without frustration, and without unintentionally isolating young minds and hearts. 

"Unstoppable Dreams" as narrated by John Cena for Honda

You won't remember my name.

This is the last time you will see me at the top.

My doubts will destroy my dreams.

The more I seem to learn, the more I seem to lose.

I want to carry on, but not today.

This is the point I give up.

This is the point I give up, but not today.

I want to carry on.

The more I seem to lose, the more I seem to learn.

My dreams will destroy my doubts.

You will see me at the top.

This is the last time you won't remember my name.