SOL16: Seeking Lazarus

I. 

I've been listening to Oprah and Deepak's Getting Unstuck: Creating a Limitless Life. This is a 21-day mediation experience that is happening now.  Each day Oprah and then Deepak provide some centering thoughts related to helping listeners get unstuck by connecting with untapped creativity and then providing time for meditation. Each session lasts for about 20 minutes. The purpose is to help uncover how to compose a creative life through some centering thoughts and meditation. Since, I have come home from France, I have been listening. The focus for the first week is on how to be in the present moment. In week two, the focus is on choosing expansiveness, letting go of the past, and living creatively. In week three, sharing the spirit of creative awareness with others is the focus.  

There were several things I heard during the first week that I especially wanted to remember--ideas I appreciated and yet quarreled with.  On day 3, Deepak said: 

"Stuckness keeps us from accessing our creative potential, which is our birthright. To begin a more creative way of life some basic points are important. First stop comparing today to yesterday. Look upon every day as a new world, because in truth it is. Only are stuckness makes it old."

I found the idea of not comparing today to yesterday to be a bit alarming. I can't think of a day that has gone by where I have not compared my days with Rob to the absence of him in my life now.  As I listened to Deepak speak, I thought that neither he nor Oprah could have experienced what I am experiencing and so his directive to stop comparing today to yesterday must surely be for other situations, not mine. 

The more I listened, I began to realize that often I was agreeing, but I also found that I would qualify what had been said when it might require me to live more deliberately and move on from the loss of Rob--to not hold myself in some waiting pattern as if Rob was coming home. And this idea of waiting for Rob to come home made me stop and ask, What is it I would have him do when he arrived? I had no immediate answer.  And so I told myself that the ideas professed by Oprah and Deepak were quite sound and that these ideas did not always apply to me. For example on Day 4, Oprah quoted Eckhart Tolle:

"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you're having at the moment."

I thought, Yes, that can be true, but not for me now. Not at this time. Surely these words are not meant for someone who has suffered the loss I have. Surely this tragedy is not a help in any way. 

I conflated not comparing today with yesterday with requiring me to forget all about Rob. I also thought that some experiences, such as the death of a husband, are too tragic to ever serve as object lessons. Somehow my words began to ring a bit hollow and doubt entered. I began to question if perhaps, just perhaps, some of what Oprah and Deepak were saying might also apply to me even as I resisted the two ideas. It wasn't until I got to day 7 that I realized that living brilliantly as Rob asked me to do requires first and foremost, that I live and be responsible for my life. 

Yes, live.

On day 7, Oprah asked,

What makes one person react to bad news with grace and dignity, while another person experiences the same news with a sense of hopelessness, resentment, or anger? Why does one person get stuck while another uses the moment to make changes and reorient   his or her way of being in the world?  Our perceptions. Our perceptions paint our personal realities...As the author of your life, you can rewrite the story by changing your perceptions. That's a key to getting unstuck...

Years ago on a classroom wall, I quoted a line from Hamlet I found pertinent. Hamlet is explaining to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about the relativity of thought.  Hamlet concludes,  "...there is nothing either good or/bad, but thinking makes it so." 

Hmm. 

Perhaps there were lessons here I needed to heed.

II.

Saying out loud that living, brilliantly or otherwise, requires me to be present in my life is a step towards wholeness. 

A big step. 

I must be responsible for my life. I realize that I have wanted Rob to be responsible-- from the grave--for my happiness. Even as he lived, he was not responsible for my life, my happiness although I have surely placed that responsibility in his hands these last few months.

I have forgotten that happiness and contentment are not the absence of grief.  For the longest time I have been waiting for my dead husband to return and remedy my grief.  I have been waiting for my own personal Lazarus to arise and take this responsibility from my hands.

But being responsible for another person's happiness is not a definition of love. Love is far less selfish. And though Rob loved me, he was neither able nor responsible for my happiness. That rested in my own hands.  It rests there presently and no amount of wishing can diminish that truth.

Grief cannot be remedied. It is not diminished by the number of activities done, the trips made, the sacrifices accounted, the good deeds done, or the events attended. None of these make a critical difference when it comes to healing. Rather, healing is determined by the perceptions I hold regarding the relationship between Rob's death and the quality of my life.

Only I am responsible for my life. 


III. 

Collage made from pages altered by Citra Solv
(M.A. Reilly, July 2016)

Earlier today I was playing around with pages I had altered through Citra Solv and I made a collage. The main figure reminded me of Beowulf and I thought about a line by Leo Tolstoy from War and Peace when General Kutuzov says, "...there is nothing stronger than patience and time, they will do it all" (book 10, chapter 15 ). 

Patience and time. Healing requires both. Knowing I am responsible for my life is a big step. It is a big step that I will surely forget. 

Yes, forget.  

My intentions are often larger than what I can manage. A week from now, perhaps even a day and it will be as if I never wrote these words and I will need to rediscover them again.

And again.

Ahead of me are lots of rehearsals where I will remember the gift of responsibility and accept the ambiguity that accompanies it. 

I will remember and forget well before I more fully author my life.

What Rest in Our Hands

From here.

The Chatter

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and how teacher, administrator, board member, professor, consultant and publisher interpret the CCSS is particularly important.  I am already hearing statements and directives like these:

1. The way for our kids to be CCSS-ready is to fill the classroom with informational text. That's our priority: Buy books.
2. I told my teachers, 'No pre-reading. It's a waste of time. No one cares how you feel.'
3. Let's based our curriculum on products. The Board has determined that there will be no curriculum writing until after we've purchased CCSS-aligned materials. Teachers are to teach these materials.
4. Our students need to practice writing arguments. I don't want to see any narrative writing hanging up.
5. Argumentative writing is the same thing as persuasive writing. I don't see what the big deal is.
6. The only way for our students to be CCSS-ready is for us to make sure we have them read only grade-appropriate books. Nothing easy.
7. We're not sure what text complexity means, so we're only using the text exemplars for what we teach.
8. No feeling questions. Just text-dependent questions. 
9. We're getting a jump on the CCSS by making sure we are emphasizing information books. No story books.
10. Teachers are not allowed to read aloud to students. We need to stop doing their work.
11. The 5 W's are text dependent questions: Who, What, Where, When and Why.
12. Our kids must read like detectives and write like investigative reporters. That's our curriculum and our approach.
13. All lesson plans will be reviewed to see that only close reading is being done. 
14. We need to get kids ready for the test so they will take a CCSS exam every x weeks (insert: 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10).
15. Stop asking students what they think.  It's not about their thinking. It's about the evidence in the text.
16. I teach only academic vocabulary. That's what is most important.
17. It's what the text says that is important.  We need to focus on that. What does the text say? Can you point to it?
18. This CCSS is a fad.  I try not to get too worked up when something 'new' comes along. I just close my door and teach.
19. Why are we following the ideas of someone who has never taught?
20. We allow students to only read challenging books.
21. These kids can't pass the old state test.  This new test will just put them further behind.
22. Close reading will hurt children. We need to stop this.
23. Kids need to have better vocabularies.  We need to buy vocabulary workbooks.  That's how I learned.
24. I didn't read the CCSS, but I did skim it and I think...
25. CCSS is just a way for publishers to make money. Nothing in it is any good.
26. Where's the evidence? If I have to do CCSS-based teaching I want to know where is the evidence that supports these approaches?

As I listened to these statements and directives being uttered, I wondered if the focus on reading method and writing products which have garnered so much attention doesn't oddly limit learner potential--not because CCSS is 'good or bad", but more so because such talk signals an absence of agency and will.  Across the 30 years I've taught--matters of method and product have occupied large portions of debate--often obfuscating personal and professional responsibilities by substituting choosing sides for exercising one's agency and responsibility.

We are what we do.

We can't forget that as discussions about CCSS occur.  What is it that we do each day in our respective work?  How does what we repeatedly do matter?  To whom?


Getting Beneath Method

From here.

In the CCSS, close reading is a method referred to when reading narrative and informational texts. Garnering evidence from the text is clearly privileged in the CCSS and most likely in the testing that will accompany the CCSS (PARCC and  Smarter Balance). Close reading is a term most associated with New Criticism--an Anglo-American literary theory from the last century that emphasized the belief that meaning exists on the page. For such a stance, it is the reading of the text that must be privileged, with less emphasis on the author and the reader's experience. Close reading locates the text as self-sufficient and meaning is made through careful attention to language and text structure. Garnering evidence by reading and rereading a text so as to notice textual details, language, patterns, and structure represents important ways of coming to understand.

To make meaning, attention to a text is important, and so too is attention to author and reader.  The biographical, historical, ideological, and sociocultural contexts in which a work was penned and is read inform the meaning that is made. It is the reader who makes sense of a text's language and structure and it is his/her experiences, schema, knowledge of textual strategies and the context in which the reading occurs that will each inform the meaning that is made. It is not one of these: text, author, and reader which is most important, but rather complex readings occur when reader intention is purposeful and knowledgeable. There is no escaping one's prior knowledge, regardless of ideology.  Our prior knowledge informs the understandings we construct for simple and complex texts.  Reading and rereading the text is not sufficient for making rich understandings when the requisite prior knowledge is poor. No matter how many times one rereads, the absence of relevant prior knowledge will limit meaning and/or help the reader produce misreadings.

What Do We Need to Ask Regardless of Method & Product?

Out Walking (M.A. Reilly, 2010)

Learning how to read well and with authority is not simply a matter of knowing reading methods and processes, just as writing arguments is not simply a matter of knowing form. For many learners, sensitive and responsive teaching is necessary.  We may need to see/hear/sense how.  We may need to be coached.  We may need to find our own methods. We may need to try and refine our attempts.  We may need to cooperate with others.  Alongside these actions an attentive teacher can be essential.

How attentive are we?  To what are we attentive? In what ways are we knowledgeable?  No amount of described learner outcomes can substitute for what we attend to and how we understand. That rests in our hands.

Some questions to consider (generated in a random manner and hardly complete):

1. How do we actively theorize based on what we perceive learners know, misunderstand and fail to know when engaged in making meaning and when we observe and evaluate learners' expressions of that meaning? 
2. How often are learners' opinions sought when designing lessons, programs and policies?
3. In the places where we work, who are producers? Curators? Receivers? Are we inclusive?
4. What do we do when we are confronted with not understanding how, what or why learners' are progressing and/or failing to progress? 
5. Is saying we don't know allowable where we work?
6. How do we understand the complexity inherent in the acquisition of reading/writing processes and problem framing/solving strategies?
7. Are we published and/or is our work exhibited?  Do we make anything? Do we apply this knowledge to our work?
8. Do we participate in active learning beyond our workplace?
9. Which of our assumptions about knowing, teaching, learning and doing do we question?  What does that look like and lead to?
10. What is our commitment to learning? 
11. What is our commitment to learning with developed and emerging technologies? 
12. When we don't understand a teaching/learning procedure or practice, do we seek to understand what or why rather than acceding to just getting x done?
13. Do our decisions and practices telegraph that getting done is more important than understanding?
14. Are learners' achievement a shared responsibility?
15. How often do we write?  
16. How often do we read/reread?
17. How often do we fail?
18. How do we understand the complexity inherent in the critical application and evaluation of literacy processes and strategies?  
19. When a learner's close reading of a text is misinformed, how do we fashion a response that will forward not only the meaning(s) that learner is making from that text, but also that learner's independence? 
20. How do we create occasions where learners make literal, interpretive and critical understandings of text? How do we scaffold learners engaged in such work?
21. What foundational skills are necessary for literal, interpretive, and critical understandings of text and how do we measure the presence and absence of such skills? How do we provide learners with methods to develop these skills, especially those who struggle to make meaning of simple and/or complex texts?
22. What practices and policies do we adhere to when teaching learners who are experiencing difficulty learning?
23. What role does vocabulary knowledge play in making meaning of text(s) and how do we provide explicit and implicit ways to grow such knowledge?
24. What is curriculum? How is it determined?
25. What is our personal responsibility to deepen and complicate our pedagogical and content knowledge? How are we supported?
26. How do our budgets, practices, and policies support and/or limit learning? 
27. Whose voice is mostly missing from the education conversations you participate in? Why?
28. Whose voices is overly privileged in education conversations you participate in? Why?

These are a sampling of questions and ones that cannot be soothed by only attending to method.  If the CCSS represent a road map (potential or otherwise), we must also remember that we make that road by how and where we walk.

Your thoughts? Responses?