Monday, November 15, 2010

Climbing Up to Visibility


It’s the small window of time in the morning when classes are switching, from math to science to study. Sarah wants to talk about her project.

“Tal, can I focus on Bobby Sands? Oh, and I have U2’s song ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday.’ Can I play that?”

“Of course.”

“I’m just going to research my project,” says someone else.

“I am such a bad reader. I’m slow. I’m like…” a voice calls out.

“Tal, do you like my John Lennon drawing?” asks Yared.

“Yared, I am helping Sarah on her project right now. I can’t look at your drawing.”

“So you don’t like my John Lennon drawing.”

“I can’t say cause I haven’t seen it.”

“Tal, do you know what this is?” Yared says. “ It’s the bird.” He draws a crude six-fingered hand on the white board.

“Yared, that hand has six fingers. That’s a terrible hand.”

“You don’t like me, do you, because I’m black!” shouts Yared.

“Miles, Miles, not cool, bro,” comes another voice.

“Sorry, sorry!”

“Oh my god, my game that I made that I made for math, it’s called Geomatrictionary. It’s really fun,” says Rider. “I think I’m going to market it.”

“Yeah, it’s really fun,” says someone.

“Yeah, totally.”

“Let’s hug.”

“Okay, that’s weird.”

“Don’t take my computer,” comes a shout.

“Uh—awwww.” There is a brief scuffle around the computer.

“I’m going to eat it. The computer! It taste like chicken. Robot chicken!”

Anneke enters the room. “I was late because I went to the doctor. They gave me like all this stupid medicine. It was like I was two again. Great, now he is writing everything I say. No Tal, Non, no, no, no!”

“Anneke, I heard your voice! You’re back!” exclaims one of Anneke’s peers.

“No, no, he’s typing everything I’m saying!”

“Hey, Rider, let’s look up sports cars,” says Miles.

“No, I’m going to do doing my work.”

“Tal, I’m going home because I have the sniffles,” says Evan.

“Evan, are you a wuss?”

“Tal, that’s not what I said.”

“Anna, tell me about your retreat.”

“Okay. It is called Metta-Earth.”

Metta Earth Retreat? Anna, Why don’t they call it an advance? Why should you be retreating. You should be advancing.”

“Okay,” she says, smiling.

***

“You know what I like to talk about,” Rider says, interrupting. “The difference between ‘precise’ and ‘accurate.’” No one is really listening, but he’s telling us any way.

“Hey Tal, we finally got some guitar music in the big room,” says Ollie. “My guitar is finally in tune.”

“You should play “All Blues” by Miles Davis,” says Rider. “That song is sweet.”

“Miles Davis is the boss!” says Yared.

“I am, aren’t I?” says Miles.

“Play ‘Chameleon’ by Herbie Hancock,” says Ollie. “Or ‘So What,’ by Miles Davis. I’m learning that on guitar.”

“Wait. How does it go?” Yared says, strumming his guitar.

“I’m named after Miles Davis,” says Miles.

“Goddammit,” says Yared. “I was just practicing it this morning. Now I can’t remember it.”

“Clearasil rapid action medication,” says Claire, prancing into the big room.

***

In the lead up to the trip there is the usual high social/hormonal excitement. Apparently the car one is riding in is the most important factor for happiness in the next 48 hours.

But under the hype is the quiet movement of emotion that runs under everything we do, everyday. Insecurity? That’s the abstract word for the feeling of invisibility, a sense of powerlessness that rises when one fears he will not be able to articulate the developing inner world.

Rio feels like others are criticizing him for what? Being lazy? Out of it? Not caring or intense. Never working hard or with focus?

“Or is it that you feel like you are not getting something inside of you across to them?” I aks him.

“Yeah.”

“So they may have a picture of you, but you are aware that you are struggling to bring out anything that would change their picture of you. So what they see, and what you then feel about what they see, becomes the picture of yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“And so, who here has the power to change that picture?”

“I do.”

“But it’s hard for you.”

“Yeah,” he nods. His face is reddening and his eyes are filled and watery.

“Rio, you feel like no one sees what you do?”

He nods.

“No one knows what you really care about.”

“Yeah.”

“Who is responsible for them understanding and seeing you.”

“I am.”

“But you feel like some kids in class are mostly just giving you shit without really caring about you. Without really knowing anything about you?”

He is nodding.

“So when DO you work, when are you all out?”

“At hockey.”

“Why?”

“Because I really care about it.”

“Did you set a goal about hockey.”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“I want to make it to the NHL.”

I look at the class. “Do ya’ll understand that it doesn’t matter if he does or doesn’t make it to the NHL, but that he has a goal. Did you write it down?”

“Yeah.”

“So now when you go to hockey practice you’re thinking about that goal?”

“Yeah.”

“And when you are at practice what are you doing consciously?”

“When the coach says to do laps for conditioning I always work the hardest so I am first.”

“That means you are going to get better. If you do that every time you will be come better than others over time. If you keep doing that you will be great.”

He nods.

“But no one here sees that. It’s not present. And so your story keeps having the same conclusion. Rio is quiet. HE seems passive. He seems to “not care”—he seems like your average 15 year boy, sleepy and catatonic in the morning, distractible during the day, at his absolute fluent freest being with a ball at his feet or a chasing after a puck or ball.”

I look a round, trying to figure out how to get to whatever is in there and bring it out.

“Hey. Someone go get that poster in there.” It’s Rios’ poster. I had been looking at it the other day. It seemed extraordinarily detailed. Filled with ten quotes about freedom and revolution, and each quote cut out into the separate words and arrange in jagged, downward falling zig-zags. One of his quotes was from Rousseau: “Man is born free yet everywhere he is in chains.”

But in the rush of the day I have not had time to really look into the poster. To understand what it is saying, in its layers of collage, in the various images. If there is intention embedded in Rio’s work, neither I nor anyone in the class has really looked at it. We have all unwittingly participated in the the situation in which Rio feels invisible, even though his work is hanging on the wall and he is sitting at the table in front of of us.

“The poster there, it’s above the printer.” Rider scampers to get it.

“Rio, tell me what you were thinking when you made this. What all is here?”

“Well, the eye-shaped thing, that’s an eye. It’s what I see. See how the eye is split and there is that whirlpool is going down through it, that’s how I sometimes feel, water going down or draining out.”

I hold the poster up so everyone can see it. “Tell me more about it. What about this?”

“There is the cut out face of a man, the size of a passport photo. That’s James Van Reims Dyk, of the Flyers.” The Flyers re Rio’s favorite hockey team.

“Van Ram’s Dick?” I shout.

“Tal, shut up. That’s so dumb!” someone complains.

“Oh I get it.”

“Tal! He’s telling a story.”

“Okay, Rio, tell us about the guy. Why is he on there?”

“Well, He was really poor when he was growing up. He never had much money and he couldn’t afford new sticks, and when he broke one he would use duct tape so he could keep using it. And he built his own rink behind his house so he could play all the time.”

“And you admire him.”

“I feel like him sometimes.”

“Even though he is not the best player.”

“Yeah.”

“Tell us more.”

“Well, the guy in the corner is me.” In the corner is a nine-year old’s drawing of a USA hockey player holding up a champion’s trophy.

“We got it. What else?”

“Well the arrow sing pointing down says ‘one way,’ because there is only one way to go.

And the poems and quotes?

Well I arranged them like water dripping down, going from cup to cup, and they are all ending up at the bottom, where I put that part that looks like waters made out of words.”

“What else?”

“Well, that shoe, it’s kind of corny looking, but what it says: ‘Looks good…feels good.’ That’s sort of how I feel, like people see me on the outside, but what’s on the inside is much different.”

“What else?”

“That ice climber.”

“The dude in the crevasse?”

“Yeah, that’s me trying to climb up.”

The class has been listening the whole time, and I have been showing them the poster as Rio tells us everything.

“Y’all, this whole thing is conscious. His poster is the map of him. There’s a whole story here. None of us have been able to read it, or taken the time. That’s not really our fault, but it tells us that what we see is not really what is actually there. Or what is actually there is much greater than what we see.”

To listen to Rio talk, the afternoon before our trip to Montreal, is to see a the miraculous consellation that makes each of us up. I’ve made time for us to look long enough to see him. It is true, in the first half of the conversation, I was doing the work. I was saying for him what he had not yet been able to say. When I held his poster up, he had a picture of himself, an artifact that was wholly his. When he looked at that self-made reflection of himself, he could begin to tell us what he was made of, of the materials and images he’d used to make himself. He is all hope and intention, a boy creating himself. When he could see it the words came easy, already formed, as they must have been, since, in the poster, he’d already said them. We just hadn’t seen it or heard it yet. We needed to listen and look. And he had to talk, to say it, so he could see it again, too.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at North Branch School in the Morning

The NBS weekly notations
By Aylee


Monday

In meeting here is what we heard about. Finn went to Bridget's house because her mom wanted to collect some oak leaves and she had a lot of fun jumping on the trampoline with Juniper. Tal talked about his neighbors trees and how he wants to cut them down. Claire listened to the German Beatles and at first thought that they weren't as good but realized that she liked them just as much and that it didn't really mater what the lyrics were or if she could understand them. Rider said that when Hugh Brown came he was intrigued because hugh talked about “street values”. Here we talk about “huge ideas” like the meaning of life and how should we live but Hugh talked more about actually living those ideas and putting them into action. Hugh had talked about when he was at a party or something and he saw a guy picking up a girl who was wearing a really short skirt and the girl was mad and embarrassed. This was against Hugh's morals, and he believed that respect should be given to women (it should) and so he marched over and told the guy so. This did not end well (it ended in a scrap) because the guys friends were there but Hugh had stood up to what he believed. Also Yared and Rider went to Berklee College of Music and they had a good time. They were both wearing Berkley gift-shop merchandise on Monday

Eric has observed that instead of the occasional boredom and uninterestedness of some NBSers in science class, we have started to say interesting things, we have taken what we know and made something of it. Instead of just learning about the facts that have already been discovered, we make of it something of our own, our own discoveries, such as having a lively debate on if ideas were alive or not in science class today.

Tal said, off of Riders comment and Eric's comment, that it was like house, we have the facts, the foundation, so now we need to build. It can't be only ideas and concepts, it has to be concrete, real, livable in-able. Ollie spent about 4 times more time on a science assignment than he has ever spent. He was working on the cooking project and made pomegranate ice cream with mint whipped cream and fried goat cheese stuff, served with fresh pomegranate seeds. It was amazing.

Tal blabbed about how he severely dislikes/hates the word chuckles except when used as Charlie's nick name. He also hates the word chortle. Tal is toying with the idea of banning the word "chuckle."

Rose has been thinking about how electronic impulses are what make us have different personalities and it made her sad. She felt very small and pointless but then she talked to her sister about it and her sister had heard that the same amount of electronic impulses we use is the number that powers a whole city. So that made her feel significant again.

Luke played really hard in his hockey game because there were only about 2 subs. He felt good after he did that. Calder had his first soccer meeting at the field house- and was elated to be playing soccer again

Tal talked about how when Su White told us the story about how a man went to hell and every one was starving because the handles of their spoons were longer than their arms therefor impossible to eat with but then he went to heaven and everyone had the same spoons except they were feeding each-other across the table. (It was an awesome story-thank you Su) and while we were listening Tal watched Claire's expression of undivided attention. Then at the last line about heaven, claire smiled and she was very in-the-moment. Tal said that after Hugh finished talking, saw Tate clapping quite vigorously and Tal was happy to see Tate happy and visibly enjoying Hughes speech so much. Tal also said that Aylee, (me) is doing very well and being very aware and helping the school in lots of ways, like passing out the lit books without being asked. I did this simply because I knew I had to be done and Tal was overtired.

Claire saw me, yes me again, singing to a song in her project and she was happy to see me happy and enjoying things. Also Claire's project was awesome

Rider read the poem which was:

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.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Tuesday

Kiley was in the book store and she picked up Justin Beiber's book and read a little and realized that he is just a normal kid, and that all the fame and popularity was just a “chance thing;” it was just by chance that he had a good voice and that he got so famous but he is still just a teenager like us.

Patrick said that he thought that he had lost his hat that his dad had given him and he got really upset because it is special to him. He doesn't want to lose it because it is from his dad. But then he found it so everything was better.

Anna went to a coming of age thing at the Metta-Earth institute by my house and spent a lot of time there. While there she forgot about what time it was there and she worried a little about her home work but after a while she felt more free because there was nothing she could do except enjoy where she was. She didn't have time to do her home work which she got all freaked out about. But really since she had been thinking and experiencing things at Metta Earth that was work enough and Tal said that that can sometimes take the place/come before home work. Tal also says that if you sit around writing all the time you wouldn't have real life experiences to write about.

Claire said that her mom and dune picked her up and her mom was saying how she felt like her own mom didn't care about her. Claire, being the smart and opinionated girl she is, openly stated that she thought that every parent loves their child. When they argued about it Claire got upset and went and laid on the wet ground in her yard. She says that she doesn't usually do that but it felt good.

Ollie said that he was very excited about soccer. Yared was sad and says he plays soccer in his head because he can't play with his body.

Rose was reading a book and in it the people say goodbye to each other just by touching the others arm and looking into their eyes instead of saying bye. Rose said how she notices that Ollie doesn't like when people say "I love you" because he doesn't feel like it is real. She says that maybe he is right in that when people had less words to use they were more meaningful.

Claire read poem:


Upon The Image Of Death

Before my face the picture hangs
That daily should put me in mind
Of those cold names and bitter pangs
That shortly I am like to find;
But yet, alas, full little I
Do think hereon that I must die.

I often look upon a face
Most ugly, grisly, bare, and thin;
I often view the hollow place
Where eyes and nose had sometimes been;
I see the bones across that lie,
Yet little think that I must die.

I read the label underneath,
That telleth me whereto I must;
I see the sentence eke that saith
Remember, man, that thou art dust!
But yet, alas, but seldom I
Do think indeed that I must die.

Continually at my bed's head
A hearse doth hang, which doth me tell
That I ere morning may be dead,
Though now I feel myself full well ;
But yet, alas, for all this, I
Have little mind that I must die.

The gown which I do use to wear,
The knife wherewith I cut my meat,
And eke that old and ancient chair
Which is my only usual seat,-
All these do tell me I must die,
And yet my life amend not I.

My ancestors are turned to clay,
And many of my mates are gone;
My youngers daily drop away,
And can I think to 'scape alone?
No, no, I know that I must die,
And yet my life amend not I.

Not Solomon for all his wit,
Nor Samson, though he were so strong,
No king nor person ever yet
Could 'scape but death laid him along;
Wherefore I know that I must die,
And yet my life amend not I.

Though all the East did quake to hear
Of Alexander's dreadful name,
And all the West did likewise fear
To hear of Julius Caesar's fame,
Yet both by death in dust now lie;
Who then can 'scape but he must die?

If none can 'scape death's dreadful dart,
If rich and poor his beck obey,
If strong, if wise, if all do smart,
Then I to 'scape shall have no way.
Oh, grant me grace, O God, that I
My life may mend, sith I must die.



Wednesday

Miles said that he had a good talk with his mom about his sister and father and school and he said that it was good to have that kind of conversation with her.

Rose heard chase say that he liked “all his sevies” and that made her happy because the fact that he said 'my' implied that he belonged to them and they belonged to him. It is good that the sevies are getting to be friends already. They are already forming a group. Rose hopes that everyone can say that they are part of a group like that because it is a good feeling to be included. Also Jarred got all excited about who will be in his class when he comes to NBS in two years I think. Tal said that when he moved here from Atlanta, he was moving away from a pretty perfect situation, he had a good status at Paideia and Henry was in their "15 year plan” so he was worried when he sent henry to Quarry hill School. But then when Henry came home he said that he “liked his Quarry Hill school” so that mad Tal feel better. The idea of possession and being possessed. A child should wan to belong in the world and to his or her place, Tal said.

Anna saw lots of boys playing in the snow at lunch and it made her happy to see them happy and together. I might add that it is also a small miracle that the boys have been having snowball fights every day since there has been snow yet we haven't had anyone get hurt or mad yet. Tal added that Patrick, the schools youngest member, has been having so much fun at lunch out in the snow that he has been forgetting to eat. Tal says that he needs to work on self-regulating and when Anna sees them outside she should remind them to eat a little. Funny, I seem to recall this happening to me in 3rd grade. But the lesson is that we need to self regulate ourselves, take care of ourselves, and havve fun snow-ball fights.

Jesse had to make dinner with Nathan the other night. Nathan was very unhelpful but Jesse made dinner. And for dessert she made crème puffs. She was thinking about random acts of kindness and she decided to bring Sophie and Kiley crème puffs.

Simon felt bad for making fun of Calder, who has to get braces.

Tal asked Calder to put the leftovers from dinner away while he did wood chores and when he came in he saw that Calder had washed the dishes and cleaned the counter too. Rowan did extra chores in the morning and made Eric's life a lot easier

Sophie wrote Patrick an email saying that he was doing good in school. Which is very true.

Tal noticed how hard Ollie is working in soccer practice for Synergy because he just joined and it is hard to do what the other guys have been doing. He has to work really hard all the time.

Eric said that the 'compost crew' worked very well together the other day when they were working on their song for Sophie and Patrick. They were all working together and Rider played the drums on a recycling bin which actually sounded very good.

Simon had a good time in carpool.

Reed read the poem; "Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird" by Wallace Stevens

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.



Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Say You Want a Revolution

We heard projects, first from Kiley, on the Russian Revolution: She asked us: What would you be willing to physically revolt against? Violent or peaceful revolution ? Is violence sometimes necessary? Definition of communism. Early history of Russia before the Tsars. Russkaya Pravda. Early Russian Leaders…Ivan the Great, Catehrine the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great. Serfdom.Pre-revolution events…peasant revolts against Catherine the Great began a long-standing history of fear of peasant revolt…The Decemberist Revolt, 1825—3000 rebel soldiers marched into St. Petersburg against Czars’ troops…they wanted freedom of speech. Nicholas 1—1796-1855…Alexander II, (the liberator) ended serfdom throughout Russia. In 1829 there were 23 million serfs out of 67 million people. This way revolution would be avoided. Alexander the III. Afraid of what might happen to him, …his advisors—feared freedom of speech and press and were against Democracy…Tsar Nicholas Romanov II/ Alexandra Feordorovna…Khodynka Tragedy. Vladimir Lenin, the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, the Duma, Bloody Sunday, 1905 Revolution, October Manifesto…the sailors of Kronstadt, the British Hemophilia Line, Grigori Rasputin, WW I (1914-1918), the impoverishment of Russia during the war…The February Revolution, Trotsky, the July Days, the October Revolution, the peasants throwing out Provincial Government while World War I goes on. White Army, Red Army, 1921 Famine, eye witness accounts of the murder of the Czars family, Stalin and Communist Russia… “The Twelve,” by Alexander Block..

“Remember the evil which is now in the world will become yet more powerful, and that it is not love that conquers evil, but love.” Olga Romanov.

In Claire’s Musical Revolution in the 1960’s project, we learned about the Elvis Presley, early Rock and Roll, Buddy Holly, the Beatles and the British Invasion, the key events of the 1960’s in a time line, surf music, the Dionysian vs. Humanistic impulses in the 60’s, Vietnam War in which 58,000 American soldiers dies, the Lyrics to the Beatles’ “Revolution,” Hitchcock’s film Psycho, which came out in 1960, “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley , the Liverpool Lads and the Cavern Club, Woodstock, Hippies, the SDS and the Port Huron Statement, Bob Dylan, the Kennedys, fashions, popular culture, The Archies, the Mamas and the Papas, MLK, the March on Washington, and many other items. We were also treated to a musical “coda’ of the Sixties in a sound montage made by Claire’s half sister Lily. Our questions: what made this a time of change? What was coming out of people all over the world during the early 1960’s. What force did music have to voice ideas and feelings that many people shared. The All the kids were divided up into groups: The Beatles, Stones, Crickets, Mama’s and Papas, The Velvet Underground, The Who, and each group had to make a SDS Port Huron Statement.

On Friday: we heard Su White tell about the parable of the Empty Bowl; we did an exercise to find out the economic status of the rest of the world, dividing up into the percentages of people who live on less that $785 per year (55%), those who live on $785-$9300 (30%) and those that live on more than 9300 (15 percent).

Then we had a guest, Bridget Nardiello, who did a short workshop on “what I believe.” She challenged each of us to begin thinking about our beliefs, and we began making lists. At first it was hard: Ask your self to say out loud what you believe, then multiply that by 100. Then we listened to a little boy from Texas, 6 years old, who made a list of 100 things and we heard him read 30 of them. Then we began our own lists, and soon enough the lists were growing like wild plants, everybody putting everything on and end. We will keep these lists growing the rest of the year. The beliefs will change, mutate, expand, disappear, become less true. But we want to begin to think about it. The beliefs are no more than hopes until they are said. When they are stated as beliefs, then we can begint travel toward them, or try to live them out. Then we went down stairs to make the “trees” that will hold these beliefs, a forest of trees, of birch trees leaning towards each other. On large sheets of paper, with black paint and popsicle sticks, we each made our own version of a birch forest, which we then pinned up on the all. Later we will begin adding our beliefs as leaves.

Later Bridget sent a note to the kids and asked them be thinking about how to move the beliefs from words to actions. To be thinking about how our big and small actions can make or unmake the world. Or, even, choosing not to act because the action will not add to the world, but will make it smaller. In the end, this becomes a question of: am I making the world more beautiful, or less so? Am I giving or taking? Am I protecting others or creating fear in other. When something bad comes at us from an external place, how do we field that negative force, what do we let it become in us—at our very best, godly selves we transfigure cancerous, negative, toxic forces into something that elevates us and others around us.

This lead us into the second larger discussion of the day with our third guest of the day, Coach Hugh Brown, formerly of Atlanta, GA, now director of the Synergy Football Club of Shelburne, Vt. Hugh picked up where Bridget left off: what do you believe, or, What drives you? He listened to what we had written and then had us think about how those beliefs need to come off the page. It can sound good, but the ideas have to serve, deliver, and take on dimension. What makes us work and live? What value will you stand by in the real world, on the street, face to face with others. Hugh talked about what a gentleman is, using as his source Robert E. Lee (this was not planned); about the power of transforming dreams into goals (as in turning hopes into beliefs) by writing them down; he told stories of Emmit Smith, the importance of living with passion and emotion, the power of one’s perspective, which, most often, is the one inviolate power we all possess. Drop out? Cop out? Hold out? Or all out? How do we shape and direct our lives once we know what we believe?

Hugh also handed out SFC patches, which contain a very specific symbolism: Gold, the color of champions; red, the color of blood and sacrifice; black and white, and which stands for our diversity of origin. Hugh theb received a thoughtful tour around the school by the students, who were proud to show him what all we are doing here.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Dignity and Halloween


Talking about keeping the building in order. Cleaning up after ourselves quickly becomes a question of communal morality and personal ethics. The problems: How are we going to get all the science jobs done? How do we increase motivation? What is the reason we are doing this? For a prize or for the rightness of doing it. What is the right mentality? “What do I HAVE to do,” or “What I can I do?” Is it a question of people not caring or people not making the effort to completely demonstrate that they care? The lost and found? Is it working? Compost in trash? Are people prioritizing science jobs over regular daily jobs? Or are people prioritizing school work over jobs, or vice versa.

“We must be more mindful and expend the effort to care.”

“Grafitti on building and furniture. For me this is not okay,” says Donna.

“Why?”

“Because I care about this building. Because Gary Rutherford, my Husband, and Nick and Devlin’s Dad, built the building.”

“People are not doing their jobs or splitting the jobs instead of doing it together.”

“People distracting other people who are working on school work or cleaning.”

“It’s not fair how some people are given frownies. It’s kind of arbitrary.”

“When the room is trashed, it is because we are not being mindful.”

“Everyone is not honest about whether they have done a job or not.”

“People leave their binders everywhere.”

“We should be doing jobs together.”

Eric says, “When I have to be spending so much time cleaning up after big activities, it makes me not want to plan big activities. I don’t want to scale back the size of what we do, but I am finding that I have to spend so much time picking up after us that I can’t keep doing it.”

“When things get broken nothing happens.”

These are the problems. They must be stated before anything can be straightened out. It will take us the whole year to straighten them out. Then we start over again.

There is a planning going on for Hallowe’en. At age 12, 13 and 14, they are still in love with Hallowe’en. There is a string of emails about the class plans for Friday, about everyone wearing their costumes.

“Hey Everyone, Halloween is on Sunday, so we should all wear our costumes to school this Friday, the 29th. It will be a lot of fun if everyone wears a costume, so wear your costume. Thanks!!!!!! Love, Anna”

“I’d like to add that if you think that you are too cool to wear your costume- you’re not, and if u don’t you will feel sad and be shunned plus you will be missing out cuz its really fun. Love Aylee”

“Shun the non believers. from Tal”

“Tal, I believe, I will wear my costume with pride!!! Patrick”

“Also if you do wear a costume you get to be in the costume picture and if you dont wear one you don’t get to be in it sorry all you losers who don’t. Anneke”

“Shun the non believers! I am working on my costume now! Icarus (Tal)”

“Yes and if you are in the costume picture, future NBSers will see the picture, and know that you went to NBS. If you are not in the halloween picture, no one will know that you went to NBS. So even if you feel humiliated to wear a halloween costume to school, wear it, or else no one will ever know that you ever came to North Branch. Anna”

“Shun the non-believers Chaaaarlie, Says Miles”

"What Anna says is almost right. If you don’t wear your halloween costume, it will be that you never EXISTED AT ALL," says Tal

“Or slay the non believers. Aylee”

“Or wear your costume if you want to have existed. It is plain and simple. Anna”

Carving pumpkins on the patio. It is drizzling and gray, but there laughter reigns. Eric says this is the best activity ever, because everyone knows how to carve a pumpkin. There is something glorious about mastery, about knowing how you like to do a thing, about being able to carry out your vision.

“Scoop and flip,” cries Tsering.

Yared says he does not like pumpkins. He has cut his hand on his carver. “I don’t like how they taste, how they look, their color, the smiling or frowning faces, or their slimy insides. Tal, do you think Hallowe’en is a white people’s holiday?”

I cannot say whether this is true or not.

“Tal, I am making a Manga pumpkin,” says Ollie.

“Ollie, that is the worst pumpkin I ever saw.”

“Thanks, Tal.”

“Check it out Tal," says Rider, as he displays his pumpkin, Vanna White style. His pumpkin says "soul."

“Does that say “Scowl?” asks Luke.

“No, it says ‘Soul,’ you idiot!”

****

The topic of “dignity” came up. I ask if any could give a definition of it. I tell them the story I know about Robert E. Lee. How Lee made the decision to surrender at Appomattox, and when he showed up, Grant was waiting, ragged and unkempt and in mud-spattered boots, while Lee came ring in on his great horse Traveler, dressed in an immaculate dress uniform, with gold epaulettes, polished brass buttons, shaved and combed, his leather boots shining, sitting bolt upright in the saddle, his held high.

We discuss how this is an image of dignity, carrying one’s self with pride in adverse circumstances, of keeping the beautiful, noble parts of one intact even in defeat.

Dignity is a characteristic not normally associated with adolescents, but it seems to be clear to us what it is. And Characteristics are what we have been looking at for character sketches as well. What makes up a person. Mannerisms and manners. Habits of being. How one carries oneself. The secrets of a person only we can know or so. Their loves and dislikes. The secret to their being. A picture of all they are in body, and a description of the spirit…

***

It’s like Halloween Summer camp: Baking pumpkin seeds, popcorn balls, and pumpkin bread. Watersheds Charades, and all the costumes and characters here in class.

A doll, a fat tomato, two hooded robbers, Michael Jackson, A clown, Dogbert, Pippi Longstocking, a co-op shopper, Audrey Hepburn, a male bridesmaid, Rachel from “Glee,” Harold and Maude, Cindy Lauper, Leopold’s Mozart’s Ghost, Sherlock Holmes, Cinderella, Johnny the Greenhaven Worker, a Vermont Hunter, two Gypsies, Barack Obama, a Zombie, a cross-dresser (Rio in shorts), Winston Smith from 1984, the evil bunny from Monty Python, Matisse’s Icarus, and a pirate lady.