Gobsmacked

The Goldfinch
by Donna Tartt
Little, Brown and Company, 2013

We have art in order not to die from the truth. 

-Nietzsche

This book. It's why I do what I do. So that someday, maybe sooner, maybe later, every child in the wake of my teaching will come across at least one book that knocks them backward, sits them down hard. Changes the way they see the world.

I read this book through my ears. It's a huge book; we've been together through months of trips back and forth to school, and walks light enough to wear earbuds, and housework menial enough to listen while I worked.

It's not an easy book to read. Donna Tartt doesn't make anything easy for Theo for very long at all. But it's a beautiful book. Long passages were poetry -- love songs to antiques, cities, seasons, art, life.

Yesterday when I woke up, I had about two hours left to listen to, and (you know the feeling) there was nothing else I could do but listen. I took my early morning walk as laps around the basement so that I could listen. I listened while I ate breakfast. I listened while I made my lunch. I listened in the car on the way to school. I listened while I got the classroom ready for the day, before I went to my meeting.

After my students finished their word study task, one after another picked up a book and started to read. By the time I should have done the reading workshop mini lesson, the room was silent. That Kind of Silent. Spring in Fifth Grade Silent. This is a Community of Readers Silent.

I had 15 minutes left in the book. What else could I do? I grabbed my earphones and joined my community of readers. I finished the book, brushing away tears.

And what will I do next? I will buy a copy of the physical book, because it's one I want to hold in my hands and shelve next to the other landmark books of my adulthood. I want to read those last pages again. And find other favorite parts and savor them and sticky-note them.

And then? No, I won't be able to start another audiobook for awhile. I'll listen to Arvo Pärt on the drive to and from school, because Pippa listened to his music. I'll think about art and love and loss and chance and fate and right and wrong.

And I'll think about how lives are changed by the power of beauty in great art and in great books.

The Start of School

It's getting a little crazy here in Back-to-School Land. Times like this, the best we can do is point you to the writing of others. Bud Hunt, at Bud the Teacher, has a great post that every teacher needs to read, whether this is your first year or your 25th year (*finger pointing at self*): An Open Letter To Teachers, by Bud the Teacher. Here are a couple of my favorite parts:

Be humble, but fight like crazy for your students. (Did this today. Proud of self.)

You’ll have nervous days and scared days and failure days. But you’ll also have “yes” days. Write about, reflect upon, and learn from all of them, but build a special place to keep a record of the “yes” ones. Return to it when you need a boost on some of the not-so-good days.

I wish you well. I ask you to be brave and humble and kind and tenacious and wise and caring and gentle and fierce. We so need you to do well. And there are lots of folks out there who want to help. Do good stuff.

JBlack at Transitioning to Web 2.0 made a Wordle poster of Bud's main points. Very cool. Words to live and teach by.

Poetry Friday -- A Fable

The Calf-Path

by Sam Walter Foss. Public Domain.

One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell–wether sheep
Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell–wethers always do.
And from that day, o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because 'twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed – do not laugh -
The first migrations of that calf,
And though this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.
This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o'er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way.
And lost one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.
A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf.
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.