#SOL17: Love and Love and Teaching and More Love

painting (May 2017)

I. 

I was reading a post by Kathleen Sokolowski,The Knowing #SOL17. I was touched and honored that she wrote the post in a style I often use these last two years as I have made my way in and out of the twists and valleys that so often typify grief and solace. I leave spaces in my writing--gaps where a reader might roam a bit. I do this by numbering sections, knowing the spaces between numbers will be the gaps readers compose. It's a nod to Wolfgang Iser who first named this for me.  

As lovely as it was to find Kathleen's statement about my style, what caught my eye was a quote at the top of the post:

"As a general rule, teachers teach more by what they are then by what they say." -Unknown

It seemed to demand a response.  


II. 

Devon and Rob at his 8th grade graduation, 6.14.2013

This morning my son, Devon, graduated from high school. Four years ago--almost to the day (June 14, 2013) Devon graduated from eighth grade. I wish I had taken a better photo of Rob and Devon, that day, but I didn't. Nonetheless, can't you just see the love on Rob's face for his son? Who could know that four years ago would mark the only graduation Rob would be alive to witness? Who would have thought that the day his son completed high school he would be dead for more than a year? 

Devon and Rob in Tuscany, 8.10.2013

What I want to write about here though is not that, but rather about a single moment during the graduation that meant more than I could say here.  After all of the speeches had been given, three academic awards were presented to students by faculty. The first one was given to my son by a teacher who taught him every year and befriended him surely. He began by telling a funny story about first meeting Devon as an eighth grader and then spoke about how Devon became more and more a partner than a student during his time at the school. And when he started to mention Devon leaving and going on to Stevens, he choked up, stopped speaking, and momentarily cried. In that moment, Rob Houghton taught more by what he fundamentally is, than by anything he might have said. 

These are moments to notice and savor. 
Don't look away.
We must commit such expressions of love to our memory. Our lives depend on it.


III.

Devon left the house this morning carrying one unwrapped gift in his hand. Just one.

What's in the box? I asked as we drove to graduation.
A motherboard for Mr. Houghton.
Is that something he wanted?
Yep.
Couldn't find wrapping? I teased.
We nerds don't wrap. And Houghton? He's like an original nerd.


IV.

If you listen to pundits talk about education and there's lots of chatter about higher standards, grit, data driven instruction, performance gains, STEM, and being college-ready (whatever that might mean). We pay big bucks, billions actually, to annually measure how well every learner can perform on a narrow set of outcomes so often determined by pseudo-educators and then we claim that those results represent the value of their teachers and schools. 

Pure idiocy. 

Frankly, such tests are woefully incomplete, often erroneous, partial snapshots at best, and very costly to students, teachers, and our wallets.

This morning, Mr Houghton got it right. He showed us what matters more than the ed buzzwords and is a much finer expression of a teacher, a student and the learning they have composed. Great teaching isn't about stanine growth. 

Great teaching inspires us to compose better versions of ourselves. That's what Mr. Houghton's actions were teaching us this morning. 

Love endures.  It inspires. It is the energy that survives well beyond the breakdown of our human bodies. 


V.

It has been a tough, tough six weeks--in many ways the toughest I have ever known. And after the ceremony I made my way to Mr. Houghton to simply thank him.  

What Dev has been going through these last weeks? he began, sounding so certain.
I nodded and said, Yes.
It's been good for him. May not feel like it. But it's been good for him. He needs to get this out.

I nodded and touched his arm and think I may have said, thank you although I am not sure.


VI.

A doctor explained that for Devon it's like his dad died a week ago. Delayed grief is the psychological term. 

He was my best friend, my son would tell me. I miss him every day. 

Some pain is so big it cannot find expression until it bleeds out of us.


VII.

I wish I could have done better for my son at this moment of great pain. I wish that when I had to fail him, it would not have been now--not when the stakes are so very high. There simply is no one on this planet who I love as I do my son.  But in his eyes,  I failed him in ways that have scarred him, in ways I cannot find the words to say here. 

What I learned this morning is that others have stepped in to love him when he would not allow me do so. And for that I am grateful.


VIII.

Though Devon's dad was not there this morning, my brother, Jack and my friend, Jane each assured me that they strongly felt his presence throughout the ceremony.  Jane told me in an email late this afternoon, and Jack told me before he left our home today. 

Mary, I felt him. Rob was there in that auditorium. He's watching over Dev and you. I know it. 

Each was so certain and each is gifted in such ways. We have long joked in my family that my brother is like St. Francis of Assisi. All the animals come to him: abandoned dogs and snakes; raccoons and birds. They all seem to sense that gentle kind soul he harbors.  And Jane? Well, she dreams. Always has. I imagine always will. Prophetic dreams that open her to what most of us simply miss and keep her open when she is no longer sleeping. 

Mr. Houghton, Jack and Jane remind me that there are many ways to be in this world--ways that my son has learned as well. 


IX.

Stay open to love, I tell myself--for even when I cannot feel Rob, others do and that fills me with hope.

Stay open to love I say to Devon, for it heals and redeems us when we cannot seem to find the road we most need to walk.

#SOL16: On Writing and Teaching Writing

Art Conversations (M.A. Reilly, 2008)

I. 

Recently I wrote in the comments section of a blog, "I like to think every letter of every word written and the spaces between these words are a record of healing." 

And I do.

For the last six years that I have kept this blog, I never imagined how much I would grow to need it--to need you--my imagined reader. Back in 2009 when I first posted, I did so out of obligation. I was taking a weekend course at Bard College and everyone enrolled had to make a blog.  So I started this blog, posted, and did not write again for another 8 months. But even as I did not write, I knew in the back of my mind that there was this space waiting for me to fill.

Since then I have written more than 1500 posts and have published 1400 of those. Since Rob's diagnosis, I have written more than 200 posts, more than 100,000 words and I recognize that each utterance and the spaces between have been healing steps. 

Who knew I would ever need this like my very breath?

II. 

I think a lot about the intersections between writing and healing. And today, I am less sure that writing instruction at school is worthy of our children's time and attention. These commercial units of study that are so popular feel so contrived. So jammed up with tasks to do that thinking, yes thinking, feels somehow left out. Completion should never be mistaken for grand conversations. When I read the prepared units I think that learning is so outlined and calendered that one might wonder where there was room to pause. To think. To talk. To err.

I grow weary just thinking about the rush to teach so many different genres each year to children of all ages. Surely in this drive to pack it all in we may be missing what is most fundamental: 

Invention. 

Yes, invention is at the heart of writing. William Carlos Williams admonished us years ago when he wrote, "Shame on our poets/they have caught the prevalent fever:/impressed/by the 'laboratory,'/they have forgot/the flower!/which goes beyond all/laboratories!/They have quit the job/of invention. The/imagination has fallen asleep/in a poppy-cup."

When I think of learning, not necessarily teaching, writing seems more possible, more ready to wear, less stuffy. I want the young people I work with to make meaning because they must. I want them to do it daily and to do it with intention when possible. I want them to learn the art of contradiction, the wonder that comes when the poem writes itself, the frustration that happens when the page remains empty. I want them to live wide awake lives and take notice. I want them to privilege accuracy because the words and marks they place on a page matter so, as do their readers.

I want the young people I teach to learn writing by walking/wheeling/moving/chatting. The world beyond the school house beckons and we ought to help our young people build bridges with words and intentions to it--to gather the shorelines in their fists. I imagine writing instruction has more to do with painting--with mess making--with building stuff, than with strict guidelines about any particular genre. I shudder when imagining teaching a class to write poetry at the same time. No, not that. Never that. 

I would surely fail as a writing teacher today, likely I would be dismissed. But, I would fail brilliantly. Chuck those units of study out the nearest window or better yet use them as substrates to bloom beautiful works. At best, I would hope to occasion the interest in my students to see what might be waiting around the bend. To listen to what is not said. To consider the possibilities before them and say what must be said and honor, yes honor, the silence such saying might evoke.  We could sit awhile. Perhaps take tea. There is time for this. 

John Cage knew. I have nothing to say and I am saying it--may well be the first creative act after breathing.

#SOL16: Teacher as Intellectual

Rob teaching.

I.

Early today I was in a 6th grade English class in Newark when I heard a young girl share how she and her group were inferring possible relationships between Stanley's great, great grandfather and potential reasons why Stanley has ended up at the camp. The children are beginning the year reading Louis Sachar's Holes.

The teacher told them, "Oh, I see you're putting together information.  Your putting together clues from the sentence strips."

It was then I thought of Rob and how a year ago he wrote this unit--the last work he crafted. Rob authored this not knowing that inside the apex of his right lung was a disease that would kill him seven months later. Life cannot be guaranteed beyond the moment where we stand.

I think now how my husband, a most talented teacher, anticipated ways to ensure lots of engagement among the middle school students he taught.  He sought their engagement with literature and with one another. Today I was thinking how melding the social with the intellectual is stamped all over the work the children are doing and it is gratifying to see how much the students enjoyed working with the sentence strip engagement Rob designed.

Leaving holes in the work at hand helps students to begin to co-create the novel they are reading.  My husband's work as I saw it being played out reminded me how powerful authoring is.  Wolfgang Iser's notion of textual gaps greatly (in)formed this work.

II.

A few weeks ago as I began to sort through the many books and papers in our guest room--a room Rob used as a study, I collected several of Iser's books from different shelves, resettling them together. The Fictive and the Imaginary, The Implied Reader, and The Act of Reading were three books Rob referred to when writing this grade 6 unit. He was so deeply interested in Iser's work--an interest that spanned decades. I am thinking now about the intellectual work of teachers. The units Rob and I have composed have never been intended to be used as written. Even though they are mostly written alongside teachers, they nonetheless require teachers to make alterations and revisions as they teach--as they see fit and in the best of classrooms that privilege is extended to the children as well.

No one can correctly anticipate the emerging interests, strengths, and needs of a teacher or students. Being responsive to emerging conditions is critical when teaching and learning and Rob kept this understanding central in his work.

He was a teacher of teachers and this morning I was reminded the distance between the perception of teachers whose work is limited to merely following already established plans--teacher-proofed materials--and the more energetic work of teacher as intellectual. In devaluing public schools, teachers, and teachers' work for these last thirty years, we have allowed public education to be rewritten by hacks, co-opted by con artists and do-gooders, and subjected to the whims of people hawking goods. We have allowed learning to take a back seat to teaching and content to be determined by what can be easily assessed. Students have been situated more as props to be taken out during election years and used as needed. Teachers and students are so much more than mere technicians.

Like climate change denial, our devaluing of pubic education and public educators will likely harm our planet in ways we can little imagine and can little afford. Life cannot be guaranteed beyond the moment where we stand and we should not waste it trying to replicate what ought not be replicated. We cannot afford to allow the word, intellectual, to remain a dirty word. Let's be brave and not settle for the simulacrum.

Rob's work reminds me to make the original.

#SOL16: Mend My Life

from my Art Journal, 5.23.16 - Tell Me About Despair (gesso, watercolor, acrylic, collage )

I.

What do you love to do? the grief therapist I am seeing asks.
Hmm. I'm not sure. I love to teach, read, make art, write, walk, talk with others.

Our talk this week turned to taking action. Meaningful action.

Do.

Make.

Teach.

Begin to breathe, again--to mend this life of mine that has been torn apart.

II. 

Rob and I led an insular life in many ways. Our work brought each of us into contact with so many people each day that we tended to spend our weekends and time off together in quiet ways. Now, the spaces of quiet are larger than I need or want and Rob is gone.  My life is an absence I need to redefine and there is such loneliness sitting in the stew. The way through this grief that paralyzes at times is not to obscure it with trivial activity which only makes the loneliness loom larger, but rather to transform it with contact with others and work that is meaningful, playful.

Meaningful work.

I don't feel ready for the pace of full time education work, but I do think I would enjoy teaching again. With that thought in mind I contacted two friends to see about potential adjunct positions at colleges. I have taught graduate school for several years before and think such work would suit me now. In the past, my courses tended to be rather creative mixing the arts with the study of literature, reading and writing as a way to make the theoretical more physical, more inhabitable. 

Yesterday, I joined a book group that meets in June and I am going to try out a sketching group that meets locally. I am looking for a watercolor class to take this summer and Devon and I planned our summer with a bit more detail.

I also have a book in the planning stages and am setting a time to meet with two others about writing a book about early literacy in kindergarten. I want to write about the work I have made with others during the last five years in poor inner cities and how joyful, developmentally appropriate, and successful that work has been for children.  

All of this reminds me of a poignant poem by Mary Oliver, "The Journey." 

III.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

IV.

Trust the voice that is mine. Wade deeper into the world. This scares me as the confidence I have had feels less present, certain.  Rob's illness, the speed of his decline, the tragedy that dogged our every step, the loss of my true love--all of this has dismantled the certainty of love that once framed my life. I felt invincible with Rob by my side.  We were partners in all things. And without him venturing into the world feels scary, exciting, lonely, uncertain, sad. 

"Don't you dare hide yourself away," Rob told right after he bid my to live brilliantly. He said this an hour after we learned that the cancer had metastasized to his liver, spleen, ribs, sternum, both lungs and that we would now measure time by days and weeks, not months and years. Rob knew me so well--knew that I would seek the shadow, not the sun.

Will you welcome me, world? Torn and battered as I am?

Do what I love.

Make.

Be.

Breathe.

Oliver, Mary. New and Selected Poems, Volume One: 1 (pp. 114-115). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition. 

Noticing What Tugs at Your Sleeve (#SOL15, Day14)

American Bus Stop: No Child Left Behind (M.A. Reilly, 2009)

I.

I was thinking about teaching children to write and how very different our expectations are for them as opposed to the expectations writers set for themselves. I was reading an interview with Ian McEwan and in response to the question--'How does a germ of an idea evolve into a novel?"-- McEwan said he's "a great believer in hesitation." 

Hesitation?

Yes, hesitation.

He added:

I think there’s nothing wrong with pausing when you’re not sure how to proceed. And in that rather dreamy, floating kind of mental state (one which I long for once I’ve started a book and can no longer have it) I go where my reading and thoughts and travels take me. 

II.




The ELA Common Core State Standards is rooted in certainty. And that's a problem as life--yours, mine and our children--is clearly not rooted in certainty. For the next few weeks, 900,000 students in NJ will take the PARCC--the single measure touted to be a next generation (whatever that means) examination that will let us know (perhaps by next October) how ready our children are for some imagined future. 

There will be no hesitating on the PARCC.  It's all about extracting information quickly, perhaps even thoughtlessly. 

When I read the Standards and notice how its being implemented in schools, especially with younger children, I cringe. It's ironic that with all the references to being college and career ready, there's no mention in the CCSS of privileging a "dreamy, floating kind of mental state" that McEwan alludes to. 


None.

Nada.

I'm not trying for humor here. I know this is serious. How time is allotted at school and who does the allotting matter, especially if we want children to develop into thinkers, doers, makers.  For  it is often in that dreamy floating mental state, McEwan alludes to, that thinking happens. Equally important, it's the agency to choose that matters too. 

Take a moment and think about schools and how writing is taught. There's often little time, if any, dedicated to floating when the end products have already been determined before young writers have even had a moment to consider words, interests, or notice the phrase that tugs at their sleeve.

Noticing, attending to what tugs at our sleeves ought to be a measure worth a writer's time.

Learning That Gets Made in 2nd Grade (#SOL15, Day 5)

Stop Holding Us Back (M.A. Reilly, 2014)

I.

I spent yesterday teaching small groups of second graders from Newark Public Schools as their teachers and other visitors looked on. These are children I have taught before. We have shared good books together and so the work unfolds in ways that are both predictable and not. During the morning session, one group of children partner-read The Emperor's New Clothes and then independently wrote responses to three questions. The teachers and I reviewed their work during lunch. Rather than traditional guided reading, this type of guidance focuses more exclusively on comprehension. Reading their written responses allows me to see some of the confusions the children have about the text--and it is a complicated text to read--as well as what they seem to understand. This knowledge helps me to plan for a possible conversation the children and I will have after lunch.

II.

It's 1:30 in the afternoon when I meet with the children again and what is most noticeable, and not surprising, is that all of them from time to time offer responses that are not rooted in the actual text at all, but rather represent truths they know and want to apply. We talk for an hour and the children work hard to determine why the emperor continues parading without his clothing after he hears the child say he is wearing no clothes.  Edmund offers that the emperor doesn't believe the child. Juliana says that's not true and is able to locate in the text where the emperor directly states that he believes the child. This prompts all of us to reconsider what else might be influencing the emperor to continue doing something that is at best embarrassing. This is a challenging question and one that has caused each child to ponder what they know, what they know to be true about the emperor, and to consider what might be worse than parading without clothing.

"Why would the emperor do that?" asks James with a certain amount of indignity.
Why indeed? I think.

III.

In all the boisterous talk that follows, it is the quiet utterance that is most important to hear. Marc says the single word, dignity, in response to what the emperor loses. His statement catches the ears of his peers and they begin a heated discussion about the emperor, his relationship with his subjects, and how his actions protect his job, but cost him the respect of his subjects. I physically sit back in the chair as I know they will wrangle with this question and no longer need the language I was loaning them.  Now that language is too bulky, too much in the way. They have found their own words and are trying out some big ideas, such as:

• The emperor is a bad leader. He cares only about himself.
• He cares more about keeping his job than being honest with his citizens.
• The emperor is not courageous.
• The emperor would rather be without clothes than have his advisers think he is unfit for his job.
• The emperor is not honest.
• The emperor knows he is lying.
• The emperor has lost his dignity.
• The emperor has lost his money and he won't say anything to the swindlers because he has to keep up the lie.

IV.

I listen and when there is a lull in the conversation I ask the children, "Do you think if you reread the book tomorrow and talked a bit more about why the emperor makes the final decision to continue parading without clothes that you might be able to write a response to question 3?"  They wear big smiles on top of their confidence and nod their heads indicating, yes. I next ask them: "Would you agree to allow your teacher to send me what you write as I'll be in Boston tomorrow? I'd like to read what you had to say." Again, they indicate yes.

At that moment, it's almost as if their collective confidence was a living thing in the room alongside us. It's big. Present. Powerful. And I know they have caught fire when the school day ends and they will not leave the classroom.  Thirty minutes later and they are still trying to figure out where they can get their hands on copies of the book and other stories by Hans Christian Anderson so they can read it again at home. Juliana tells me she's going to go to the library as soon as her mom can take her.

"You can take out the book and they let you keep it for ten whole days," she tells me as only an 8-year-old can sound.  I listen and make a silent nod of thanks that we still have public libraries in our country.

Others in the group are already planning to borrow the book so they can bring it home to read again. And they look to their teacher who lets the know this is possible.  I listen as they finally leave the classroom and notice that they are continuing the conversation about the emperor and his lack of leadership on their own as they make their way down the long hallway.

V.

Learning requires the space to be wrong--as does good teaching. This shift from more traditional approaches to guided reading to guiding children's reading through conversation is challenging and necessary. When the teachers ask how they might best prepare for such conversations we talk about reading the text carefully, sharing your perspective with another teacher, preparing, asking, and answering good questions, recognizing that the conversation will take twists you did not plan for, and becoming comfortable as the lesson will not turn out the way you may have intended as the lesson no longer rests solely in your hands.

The learning is a made thing that happens among people. This is a liberating truth: the work that is made does not and cannot rest solely in the hands of the teacher. This is, in part, what makes it so powerful.

Being is Not Univocal: A Response to Jay Belsky & Eugenics 2014

Coming through the Rye (M.A. Reilly, 2010)

I. Partial Views

I first met Darren after he somersaulted into our class. It was his first day of high school and this was the manner he entered the class most days. Darren talked to himself, made models out of folded paper, and had little use for homework.  He had a keen sense of humor.

Ryan, I was told didn't speak at school from 2nd grade until 10th grade. He was routinely picked on in grade school his peers would tell me. He was without question the finest writer I would ever teach and I can still recall that last period of 10th grade English in early October when his 28 peers sat in awe as I read (with Ryan's permission) a dystopian story he had penned.  His first words at school would come later that week. 

Then there was Carlos who in first grade also did not speak and interestingly was able to signal to the class that information about a snake we were studying could be found on a particular in an old encyclopedia he routinely studied.  He showed us the drawings of snakes and other reptiles he had drawn in a notebook I had made for him, turning each page and pointing. 

Then there was Tony who had spent considerable time the previous year in the hallway as he had lot of trouble sitting still and had been 'diagnosed' with ADHD. As an 8th grader he learned behind the lens of a camera, documenting learning and in doing so building his knowledge of composing.  It was his idea that we clear the room of the desks.  He so wanted to move. His idea allowed for increased classroom performance space and what got privileged that year shifted, in part, as a result of him.

Ava was a painter and she helped me to create art conversations (nonverbal discussions using paint as a medium) as a way of making sense, making connections with others and texts that we used during English class. It was a method I would use for the next 30 years. Ava often saw the world through design. She had struggled to put ideas on paper. She painted complex compositions that she could narrate.

Steven arrived in fall of senior year in the late 1980s with a full time nurse, a computer, keyboard and a straw he held in his teeth that he used to communicate by hitting the keys on the keyboard and spelling out his thoughts. Steven had never been to school and it was his desire to do so. He attended English and history that year during the warmer months and graduated with the class that June. 

I met Robert when he was 19 and arrived in English class late September after being expelled from a technical high school for assault of his former English teacher. He was surly, unread, and difficult.  Across the school year he began to connect with books and read a trajectory of texts I could never have predicted. He concluded the year with Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being,  a book only he read in the class. We exchanged marginal notes as a way of discussing the text. He was an amazing intellect whose life beyond the classroom walls was increasingly difficult and dangerous. Both he and Steven would be dead just a few years later.

All of these young people I referenced struggled physically, academically and/or socially at school. Each might be understood as quirky, odd, outside the norm, different, even difficult. To not have know each (as best I could) would have diminished my life.

II. I Know Better Than You: The Obedient Child

A history of teaching children young and old has taught me repeatedly that what I think I know about learners is quite partial. Their lives unfold in ways I simply cannot predict, nor is that my privilege. And so it was with this perspective that I read Jay Belsky's New York Times article, The Downside of Resilience after it had been referenced in a tweet by Ira Socol (@irasocol) and in a post by Anthony Cody (@AnthonyCody). Cody quotes this from Belsky's article:

One might even imagine a day when we could genotype all the children in an elementary school to ensure that those who could most benefit from help got the best teachers. Not only because they would improve the most, but also because they would suffer the most from lower quality instruction. The less susceptible — and more resilient — children are more likely to do O.K. no matter what. After six or seven years, this approach could substantially enhance student achievement and well-being.

It's hard to breathe after reading such a faulty and dangerous vision. Belsky is recommending that "..we seek to identify the most susceptible children and disproportionately target them" based on a genotype profile (as if genes were destiny) with academic/social interventions from the 'best' (for whom?) teachers. 

In Deleuze's Difference & Repetition, he tells us, “There has only ever been one ontological proposition: Being is univocal" (p. 35).  

Being is not univocal. That we labor under this delusion is what I thought about when I read Belsky's article. Beneath his proposition is an unstated belief that there is some closed set that can be named by others that we all (univocally) find desirable, essential.  Really? 

Who determines what is desirable in Belsky's schema? Keep in mind that Sir Frances Falton, the father of eugenics, believed that 19th century British elites represented the model of human perfection. Now perhaps it's because I hail from Dublin, but the idea of 19th century British elites representing human perfection is laughable, as it is tragic. Every bad idea for humanity begins with the proposition that someone with power knows better and therefore can act upon those with less power with impunity.  Is this not the foundation for genocidal thinking?  A sanitized life, genetically and/or behaviorally manipulated, is akin to a life of servitude. 

III. Who Determines?

At the center of this discussion are a few questions, with the first being most central: 

1. Who determines? 
2. What cultural, economic, political, geographic, religious, racial, and gender imperatives dominate? (No decision is neutral).
3. With what agency do children live lives in and out of school? 

A flaw in Belsky's plan is the underlying belief that he and others know best. We see this played out well in Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel, Brave New World. There we see the tension between beauty and stability. In chapter 16, after the Controller quotes from Shakespeare's The Tempest, Savage reacts, surprised that the banned work has been read. This leads to an inquiry by Savage and then Helmholtz as to why the people cannot view Othello and why the writers cannot write something akin to Othello. The Controller answers:

"Because our world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivvers without steel–and you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma. Which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr. Savage. Liberty!" He laughed. "Expecting Deltas to know what liberty is! And now expecting them to understand Othello! My good boy!"

This doing unto others as a means for stability and as an exercise of power is a root problem. One only needs to think about residential schools where indigenous children were interred to understand the faultiness of  someone knowing best. It is with the omniscient sense of self, that we most often know tragedy. 

A life well lived is complex and impossible to map ahead of time. Small perturbations can create significant changes and it is here that we must lean in and ask what has been lost by our tampering? Whose agency has been usurped? What have we unknowingly sacrificed? What life direction that might have evolved as a result of a perceived 'negative trait' have we shorted? 

Jay Belsky's belief in the use of science to engineer better academicians is faulty at best and dangerous for all. Let us learn how to love our quirks, challenges, and differences.

25+ Recommended Children's Picture Books for Teaching Literary Techniques

Bruchac, Joseph.  (1995). The Earth Under Sky Bear's Feet: Native American Poems of the Land.  Illustrated by Thomas Locker. New York:  Philomel Books.   

• A collection of 12 poems that offer Native American explanations of nature.
• Of particular note is the cohesion Bruchac achieves through voice, simile, repetition, dialogue, and sensory details. 

Buchmann, Steven and Diana Cohn. (2012). The Bee Tree. Illustrated by Paul Mirocha. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press.

• In this book we learn about Nizam and his family who live near a rainforest preserve in Malaysia, and the tualang trees of that forest have been at the center of an important clan tradition, the honey hunt, for as far back as anyone can remember. Nizam’s grandfather, Pak Teh, calls upon his grandson to continue the tradition. Nizam wants to make Pak Teh proud, but worries about whether he is brave enough to climb 120 feet into the rainforest canopy at night and trick the angry giant bees out of their honey. 
• Of note are the authors' use of narrative and explanatory text and their use of similes. Such as: 

1. We enter the forest as if visiting a neighbor’s house.
2. The bees roar past like a raging monsoon, swarming after the glowing sparks falling to the ground.
3. Holding the comb in my hand is like discovering a treasure chest of gold. 
4. Just as the bess return to the rainforest every year, I will do the same.”

Christian, Peggy. (2008). If You Find a Rock.  Photos by Barbara Hirsch Lember. New York:
Sandpiper.

• A book length picture book poem about different types of rocks and their uses. 
• Barbara Hirsch Lember colored the black-and-white photographs she made
• Of particular note is the author's use of 2nd person, direct address; use of repetition, and strong verbs.

Cooney, Barbara. (1988).  Island Boy. New York: Puffin Books.

• Cooney tells the story of Matthais and the legacy he inherits and builds on Tibbets Island. 
• Of particular note is the author's use of: alliteration ("crowned by spiky spruce trees..."),  diction ("soft salt air wafting up...", "...moored their pleasure boats", ), internal rhyme ("behind it in the bay, lay the other islands...", "He hopped and flopped..."), motif (wild bird), parallel structure ("felled the trees and cleared the north end...", "ploughing and planting, and chopping"), use of proper nouns and specific nouns ("The Egg Rock...",  "Gulls, terns...cormorants...eiders...sea pigeons"), syntactical repetition ("It was he who...", "Pa taught...He taught...And he taught...", The ship carried...The Six Brothers carried...it carried..."),

Crews, Donald. (1998). Bigmama’s. New York: Greenwillow Books. 

• In this memoir, four African-American children and their mother travel by train to visit grandparents in a rural town. When the family reaches its destination, the children inspect each room of the house. Outside, they investigate the yard, the toolshed, the barn, the stable, and, finally, the pond. To their everlasting delight and satisfaction, they see that everything is "still the same."
• Of particular note is the author's use of narration, dialogue, diction and sensory detail.

Daly, Niki. (2007). Pretty Salma: A Little Red Riding Hood Story from Africa. New York: Clarion Books.

• This Red Riding Hood story is set in Ghana. When Pretty Salma is sent to the market by Granny, she takes a short-cut through the bad side of town and meets a Bad Dog who tricks and steals her sandals, clothing and goodies. 
• Of particular note is the author's use of characterization and the use of illustrations to mimic and accentuate plot detail.

DiSalvo-Ryan, DyAnne. (1994). City Green. New York: HarperCollins. 

• This is a story about a girl, Marcy, who along with her neighbors helps to clean up an abandoned lot in a city. At first Old man Hammer, Marcy's neighbor opposes the work.  He has a change of heart.
• Of particular note is the author's use of of a plot and subplot, along with characterization and simile.

Elya, Susan Middleton. (2006). Home at Last. Illustrated by Felipe Davalos. New York: Lee & Low Books. 

• In this story we learn that Ana Patiño and her family have just moved to the United States from Mexico and although Ana learns to speak English, her mother does not as she thinks learning another language will be impossible. An incident happens that makes Ana’s mother change her mind about learning English.
• Of particular note is the author's development of dynamic characters and use of circular structure (opening and closing).

from In the Garden with Dr. Carver. 

Gringsby, Susan. (2010). In the Garden with Dr. Carver. Illustrated by Nicole Tadgell. Morton Grove, IL: Albert Whitman & Company.

• In this story the reader meets Sally, a young girl living in rural Alabama in the early 1900s, a time when people were struggling to grow food in soil that had been depleted by years of cotton
• production. One day, Dr. George Washington Carver shows up to help the grownups with their farms and the children with their school garden.
• Of particular note is the author's use of personification ("But cotton, like a hungry monster, had gobbled up the good foods in Alabama’s soil. Dr. Carver was showing folks how to make our poor soil healthy again."), and the use of similes ("Before you change or destroy something, you need to understand why it exists and its relationship with the rest of nature. The plants, the soil, and the animals that visit are all connected , just like a web." and "Some people come in and out of your life, as quick as a hummingbird darting a trumpet vine.").

from Frog Song.

Guiberson, Brenda Z. (2013). Frog Song. Illustrated by Gennady Spirin. New York: Henry Holt.

• In this informational text, Brenda Guiberson introduces the reader to eleven unique frogs from different places in the world. The illustrations are portraits of each frog painted by Gennady Spirin. 
• Of particular note is the author's use strong verbs (“bellow, clang, rattle, sing, trill, warble, whistle"), parallel structure, and onomatopoeia.

Guiberson, Brenda Z. (2009). Life in a Boreal Forest. Illustrated by Gennady Spirin. New York: Henry Holt.

• This book explains about the great northern forest—the boreal forest that is home to a unique ecosystem of animals and plants. It covers one-third of the earth’s total forest area and is home to so many birds that it is known as “North America’s bird nursery.” The forest is a treasure trove of riches, but it’s threatened by increased human development and climate changes. Amazing illustrations (paintings) by Gennady Spirin.
• Of particular note is the author's use onomatopoeia, strong verbs/participles, parallel structure, and the author's explanation of scientific processes.

from  Delivering Justice: W.W. Law and the Fight for Civil Rights.

Haskins, Jim. (2005). Delivering Justice: W.W. Law and the Fight for Civil Rights. Illustrated by Benny Andrews. New York: Lee & Low Books.

• This picture book biography tells of W.W. Law and chronicles how he grows up in Savannah, GA which at the time is segregated, joins the NACCP, and fights for civil rights. He led the Great Savannah Boycott in 1960-1961. Law represented non-violent change. Savannah was the first of the southern cities to end racial discrimination. Andrews highly stylized art extends and complicates the text. 
• Of particular note is the author's use of embedded context clues for key terms ("...segregated...Westley went to a separate school...Drink from water fountain marked "Colored"...could not sit at ...lunch counter."), diction (...kneel-ins...wade-ins..."), extended metaphor ("...singing together made a thunderous sound. And that mighty noise mad people think that perhaps working together they could really make something happen.", "delivered more than just the mail...he delivered justice."),  parallel structure ("...cooking, cleaning and taking care..."), strong verbs ("lured...", "...yelled and jeered..." ), and use of subheadings.

Hesse, Karen. (1999). Come On, Rain. Illustrated by Jon Muth. New York: Scholastic.

• “Come on, Rain!" Tess pleads to the sky as listless vines and parched plants droop in the endless heat. Then the clouds roll in and the rain pours. Tess, her friends, and their mothers dance to celebrate the shower. Let’s read and see what Tess experiences and how the author uses specific words to convey those experiences.
• Of particular note is the author's use of participles; sensory details, and characterization.

from Henry's Night

Johnson, D.B.  & Linda Michelin. (2009). Henry's Night. Illustrated by D.B. Johnson.  New York:
Houghton Mifflin.

• This narrative recounts Henry's nighttime walk in search of the elusive whippoorwill.  Henry is a bear who is fashioned after Henry David Thoreau. The illustrations by Johnson have an ethereal quality to them and help to extend the idea of the uncertainty that frames Henry's nighttime quest. 
• Specifically, Johnson & Michelin's diction, use of strong verbs (drift, tolling, float, capture, wings, stride, trips, flashes, leap, snags, slide, flow), inclusion of onomatopoeia and other sensory details, use of first-person narration, personification, and magical realism, tension via the advance of the clock [a trope], symbolism of the quest to find the bird that has not been seen.
• Phrases & sentences worth noting: "I sit up to my chin in night...," "There is no path.", "Clouds erase the moon." "Here where the woods end, all is quiet." "I feel the beat of its bird heart." "The raft, the fog, the bird's song and I--are all as light as morning air."

from  Stichin’ and Pullin’: A Gee’s Bend Quilt.

McKissack, Patricia. (2008). Stichin’ and Pullin’: A Gee’s Bend Quilt. Illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera. New York: Random House.

• For a hundred years, generations of women from Gee’s Bend, Alabama have quilted together, sharing stories, trading recipes, singing hymns—all the while stitchin’ and pullin’ thread through cloth. Every day Baby Girl listens, watches, and waits, until she’s called to sit at the quilting frame. Piece by piece, she puzzles her quilt together, telling not just her story as she grows up, but the story of her family, the story of Gee’s Bend, and the story of justice and freedom that her ancestors’ struggled to attain. She tells these stories through a series of poems.
• Of particular note is how the author tells a extended story about Baby Girl growing up across a series of poems.  Further the author's use of repetition, sensory detail, metaphor, historical incidents and recollections are well done.  I have used this text to introduce 2nd graders to: line, stanza, speaker, tone, theme, and subject.

Medina, Tony. (2002). Love to Langston. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. New York: Lee & Low Books.

• This series of 14 poems work together to convey the life and attitudes of Langston Hughes. The illustrations by R. Gregory Christie complicate and extend meaning. At the end of the text are fourteen brief notes that shed biographical information on each poem based on a recounting of critical experiences of Langston Hughes.  
• The difference in diction between the poems and the explanations would make for a good lesson as well. Specifically, speaker's voice, use of repetition, internal rhymes, metaphor, alliteration, consonance, and rhythm are all of note.

Mora, Pat. (2005). Dona Flor: A Tall Tale about a Giant Woman with a Great Big Heart. Illustrated by Raul Colon. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

• In this tall tale,  Doña Flor is a giant lady who lives in a tiny village in the American Southwest. Popular with her neighbors, she lets the children use her flowers as trumpets and her leftover tortillas as rafts. Flor loves to read, too, and she can often be found reading aloud to the children. One day, all the villagers hear a terrifying noise: it sounds like a huge animal bellowing just outside their village. Everyone is afraid, but not Flor.
• Of particular note is the author's use of extended metaphor, dialect, exaggeration, and personification.

Nivola, Claire A. (2008). Planting the Trees of Kenya. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 

• Claire Nivola tells the story of Wangari Muta Maathai’s effort to change the fate of her land by teaching many to care for it. An author’s note provides further information about Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement.
• Of particular note is the author's use of story cohesion by circular opening and closing and integration of quotations by Maathai.

Nolen, Jerdine. (2003). Thunder Rose. Illustrated by Kadir Nelson. San Diego, CA: Silver Whistle/Harcourt.

• In this tall tale, Thunder Rose astounds all, grapples with drought, and saves the day. Fabulous and playful illustrations by Kadir Nelson.
• Of particular note is the author's use of extended metaphor, dialect, exaggeration, and personification.

Park, Linda Sue. (2004). The Firekeeper’s Son. Illustrated by Julie Downing. New York: Sandpiper.

• This story is set in Korea in the early 1800s before telegraphs were widely used and telephones had been invented. It tells a story about an incident that happened when Sang-hee’s father failed to light the signal fire.
• Of particular note is the author's use of extended metaphor/simile ("Sang-hee ran up the mountain path. He knew the path like a friend. But tonight it was not at all friendly” (p. 20), development of historical setting, personification (“Then a tongue of flame licked the tinder. It ate all the tinder and the reached greedily for the brush. Soon the whole pile was aflame"), and characterization through actions and thoughts.

Prévert, Jacques. (2007). How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird. Illustrated by Mordecai Gernstein. New York: Roaring Brook Press.

• In this book-length poem, a young boy wakes up and sees a bright colored bird perched on his windowsill and decides to entice the bird into a painting, hoping that the bird will sing for him. This book explores creativity.
• The illustrations help to explain and extend meaning.
• Of particular note is the author's use of direct address, simple syntax, and parenthetical.

Ramirez, Antonio. (2004). Napí. Illustrated by Domi. Toronto, ON: Groundwood Books. 

• This narrative is set in the Mexican state of Oaxaca Napí and tells of a young Mazateca girl who lives with her family in a village on the bank of a river. Each afternoon she listens to her grandfather's stories. As she listens, she imagines different colors — orange, purple, violet, and green. When night comes, the trees fill with white herons settling on their branches. The ceiba tree, which she sits beneath listening to her grandfather, sends Napí dreams every night. 
• Of particular note is the author's use of magical realism, narration, strong characterization, personification ("...the afternoon dresses itself in many different colors.”), and circular beginning and ending to text.

Richards, Jean. (2002). A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds. Illustrated by Anca Hariton. Minneapolis, MN: First Avenue Editions.

• In this book Richards writes about seeds, their purpose, and growth.
• Of particular note is the author's use of extended metaphor. 

Rodriguez, Rachel Victoria. (2009). Building on Nature: The Life of Antoni Gaudí. Illustrated by Julie Paschkis. New York: Henry Holt.

• This is a picture book biography of architect, Antoni Gaudí. Gaudí turned nature into art, and in the process he revolutionized the world of architecture.
• Of particular note is the author's use of  strong verbs and parallel structure (“For him, the world is Cantalonia. Mountain peaks jag against the sky. Silvery olive trees sway in the breeze. The sea sparkles blue.”and  “Cherries hang overhead. Birds wheel around and soar to the sky.)

from The Cuckoo’s Haiku and Other Birding Poems.

Rosen, Michael. J. (2009). The Cuckoo’s Haiku and Other Birding Poems. Illustrated by Stan Fellows. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

• In spare and graceful words, Michael J. Rosen captures the call of the mysterious cuckoo as well as essential characteristics of more than twenty commonly seen North American birds. The artist, Stan Fellows, creates watercolors to accompany the poems. 
• Of particular note is the author's blending of haiku alongside explanatory text. The haikus are surprising.

from The Storm Book. 

Zolotow, Charlotte. (1952/1980). The Storm Book. Illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham. New York: HarperTrophy.

• A brief story about summer rainstorm that is highly lyrical.  The text opens with the approach of a storm on summer's day in the country that the reader experiences through a young child, before shifting to provide brief accountings of the the storm in a city, at the seashore, in the mountains, before returning to the boy at his home and the storm passing. 
• Without question, this text is sensory feast.  Zolotow wants her reader to experience the heat of the day that gives way to a summer storm, and the passing of that storm. 
• Throughout, Zolotow makes use of strong verbs (A queer yellow light spreads...", ) personification ("When the thunder roars), similes ("The lightning was like a wild white wolf running free in the woods  and lamp like a gentle white terrier who came when the little boy called."), alliteration ("A young husband herds his sheep to shelter."), assonance ("...where not a breath stirs and the birds don't sing.", "...sharp quick twitterings..."),  parallel structure ("But the hazy sky begins to shift, and the yellow heat turns gray."), onomatopoeia ("It beats a loud tattooing pitpatpatting on the roof,,,"),  rhythm ("The loud pitpatpatting on the roof grows softer and softer, and slowly becomes a dull pit-a-pat, pit-pit-pit, and at last stops altogether."),  diction  ("...an old fisherman stands boot-deep in the waves...splatter against his oilskin," "A queer yellow light,"),  and multiple settings.