This is Not Band of Brothers
So it goes.
I've been reading Slaughterhouse Five and forcing myself to slow down - my tendency is to rush through a book to the end - I have that tendency... I just - I want to KNOW - it's right there! So close - I can reach the end if I. Just. Keep. Reading. Keep on turning the pages. Go-go-go! I did this with the Harry Potter books - well the last three, which my friend and I would purchase the night they came out and then read immediately. It wasn't a race. . . but it was. A race to find out what happened next.
A few years later, I moved into my first house and - upon finding my box of Harry Potter books while sitting on the stairs that led to the attic taking a break from painting- I began to read them as they came out of the box, which was in backwards order. I decided why not? It was surprisingly fun, and informative for me, as I noticed some connections backwards that I had missed the first go round. I actually did this again a few years later while in my Doctoral program at Ball State, racing my friend as they read them forwards. We met in the middle, and while I waited for my turn with The Goblet of Fire (we were sharing books), I picked up my first Vonnegut book - Cats Cradle.
My first house was a 1950s Cape Cod, and my first act was ripping up the carpet and revealing the original hardwood underneath that had been stained over the years by pets - and who knows what else. I was very pleased, as I looked at the orange colored wood (like the color of a 1980s high school basketball court), and imagined the dark walnut stain I had planned - turning the sanded down stains into a marbling that gave a rich look to the floors. What stain? That's just the natural undulations of color! A few weeks of work with dad later, and my living room was finished, set up as a place to read, talk, or listen to the radio - a nice Oriental rug from my Great Uncle tying the room together. Television and other electronics were placed in the basement - upstairs was for company, conversation, and books. My current house is similar - the living room is set up similarly - so you face each other, and not a television. I rent my first house now, and so I had to give it up - I had to learn to not care about the condition or the wear and tear as someone else now lived in it - its a hard thing to give up something you absolutely love and put effort into. Its now five renters later, and with each one it got a little easier to let it go, but I still have good memories of my time there. For example visiting with my neighbor John, who at 78 still would take is little Red MG out with his wife on occasion, top down, and drive the streets of town before he passed away in his sleep a few years ago. So it goes.
Death is Just Another Moment
Death! I read an article or chapter somewhere that I shared with my grandmother at breakfast a few months ago as she and I were talking about death and legacies and what we would be remembered for. I mentioned to her that even when you die, you live on in those who knew you in life, and those who knew of your in life - it's a slower process of fading into memory, much less a rapid departure from the physical world and more a transformation of existence. With so many great grand kids that have met her and been touched by her kindness, warmth and love, I told her she would live on in living memory for a long time - beyond even when I pass (as I did remind her I was her favorite). She and my grandfather are 90 - they had ten kids, the kids had 40 grand kids - and the grand kids have kids - and so on. She always reminds me she regrets absolutely nothing and wishes she could do it all over again, but she does mention all the time these days how she always wanted to be a teacher, and I say all the time to her these days that she taught 11 children (including grandpa) and continues to teach them today. Teaching is not regulated to the classroom. She also used to be very active at my grade school, where she would come in and read books, and bring crafts and cookies that often matched the books they were reading - again so many ways her existence will live on in this world. She lived the purpose she always wanted, but maybe just didn't realize it.
My uncle passed swiftly last fall, which had led to this conversation. He had a history of heart problems, was on blood thinners and other medication. My aunt, his wife, had actually suffered a heart attack herself not a few years before. My two cousins, a son in law and his grandkids made it to the hospital before hist time was up. A cerebral hemorrhage and he was gone. So it goes.
Uncle John. Not to have favorites, but he was the uncle that actually seemed interested in anything you were doing and he remembered it too - I mean they all do generally, but he was always just smiling and asked questions - maybe it was his human resources background, but it made him engaging and inquisitive and just great. And fun. One of the pictures at the funeral, drawn by his grand daughter, was of him as "Beer Man" - he had a beer in each hand. Hilarious. Uncle John. His last purchase he was so proud of was a convertible car - he showed me the last time I was in Indiana visiting. I consider my self fortunate, because I was able to visit with him and the family a few months before he passed - just dropping in for the heck of it. We all had dinner, shared some laughs and I was on my way. He will also live on well beyond his physical life, because of so many people that knew him. My grandmother on my mom's side lives on every year for the same reasons - memories are powerful moments that allow those departed to continue to live in our minds and in the items we keep near that remind us of them. For grandma, its the See No Evil, Speak No Evil and Hear No Evil monkeys. She always used to do a "monkey" face and noise. Priceless. Her sense of humor was pretty good too - she broke her arm, and when it healed it bowed up, like a flexed muscle. She would hold her arm up and say - "look how strong I am." Congestive heart failure. So it goes.
Death is a moment in a life - if you look at it differently - perhaps as only a Tralfamadorian would in four dimensions - it's only one moment, but it is not a moment that has to define you. So it goes. There are so many other moments that have existed and continue to exist in the minds of others- it's just another moment - the dead are alive and watching QVC, or playing Racquetball. So it goes.
The chapter is evocative of other memories - none more powerful than that of the crucifix adorning the bedroom wall of my youth. I still have it, but it's in a box somewhere, and I *may* be okay with that for now. The face of the corpus tilted to the side and down, looking at me while behind it, encased in the cross itself, was hidden the paraphernalia for last rites - a candle, holy water, some instructions - I looked a few times, it snapped on and off pretty easily but then, as Vonnegut writes of the Ghastly crucifix that influenced his characters in the book, I recalled my own late nights hiding under my sports ball comforter due to having watched an Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack. I mean, a crucifix whose eyes had OPENED ... and I think cried blood? Sweet mercy. I can hear his voice - that Robert Stack voice - "the crucifixes eyes were somehow opened."
To this day I still feel the chill on occasion, when I am alone in a room, or a church - and I wont always look up at the alter - out of fear? Ha. Or something else. It's what sets Catholic churches apart from others - our cross always has a dead Jesus on it - a crucified corpus. So it goes.
I won't/can't say I am unstuck in time, but as I refer back and paint a picture of my past I have to become as "unstuck" as possible so I can give the best description possible - to paint a picture that can be examined by others to find their own memories and understandings - and stories. I have to re-live it, in a way if that's even possible - "unstuck" to find my place there, again, in the moment.
Curriculum, Memory, and Action
I think teacher candidates often have a narrow view of their apprenticeship of observation - they do not really re-live or remember the classroom as it was - they have a view that is lopsided and it creates obstacles to moving forward with modern education. If they could become unstuck and re-experience their life they might develop differently. I mentioned last time the Currere model - we have to understand where we came from and where we are going in order to be the teacher our students need. Pinar further defines curriculum as a "complicated conversation"- a conversation we have with ourselves, our students and our content. He shifts the idea of curriculum into Currere - from a noun to a verb - a shift that makes sense today as we can no longer teach a course of study established by others, viewing the student as a blank slate or empty vessel to be filled. They have lives, they have interests - and knowledge today is no longer static. The knowledge, what is worth knowing, is a fluid and flowing collection of skills and critical thought that students should learn- it is not the facts of history as much as it is the interpretation and argumentative claims we make - from a democratic point of view. We have to run our own courses as teachers, and so should our students - working together to solve problems, and ask better questions. We have to run the course - not just run an established, official oval of a state created curriculum, but our own personal currere journey we forge with and through our students. We do not always know where its going, and we do not have too. I am reminded here of the failure of grades as well - attaching letter approval to what should be a developing mindset.
Anyway - reading Vonnegut - being "unstuck in time" -seeing things beyond our measly three dimensions- it makes sense as both a citizen and educator. We have to see ourselves in the past, the future and the present, and all within a larger societal experience. We do not only exist at one point in time, we exist at all points simultaneously influencing our actions.
Behind Enemy Lines
Vonnegut's book is not Band of Brothers - but of course it's not supposed to be - he is challenging our concept of time - of reality and existence - and doing so as a commentary as well on war and life's purpose. Who is alive, dead - and all about Billy - who was abducted by aliens and decided to tell his story. Perfectly normal. What is our purpose.
It's how I like to look back - I'm in 8th grade drawing Animaniacs on my desktop. I am in preschool on the monkey bars with Mrs. Jones, and a smiley face name tag around my neck. I'm teaching my first lesson on the Racism of Woodrow Wilson, albeit in a lecture format that I called a "conversation" in Cincinnati - somewhere between traditional and progressive.
Where am I in time tonight/today? I am buying a record player for my new house in 2006 at the local consignment shop before I bought any furniture because what is a house without music - music played on a 1968 Zenith console! Now, I am eating liquid soap because I talked back to mom, her fingers pinching my jaw like you hold a freshly caught bass, undoing the barbed hook from the lip before you toss them back - now I am launching Estes Rockets in the back yard with dad, and watching for the parachute against the blinding rays of the sun. Pine cone wars in the barn. Late night basketball with the neighbor.
We are all storytellers, if we let ourselves become unstuck in time and re-experience our life for the benefit of others. What memories can we relive and use to help others learn about their own lives. Teachers can allow their students to weave new stories with them in the classroom- and those stories can live on.
Except for Robert Stack and his voice. No more Unsolved Mysteries before bed for me.
I've been reading Slaughterhouse Five and forcing myself to slow down - my tendency is to rush through a book to the end - I have that tendency... I just - I want to KNOW - it's right there! So close - I can reach the end if I. Just. Keep. Reading. Keep on turning the pages. Go-go-go! I did this with the Harry Potter books - well the last three, which my friend and I would purchase the night they came out and then read immediately. It wasn't a race. . . but it was. A race to find out what happened next.
A few years later, I moved into my first house and - upon finding my box of Harry Potter books while sitting on the stairs that led to the attic taking a break from painting- I began to read them as they came out of the box, which was in backwards order. I decided why not? It was surprisingly fun, and informative for me, as I noticed some connections backwards that I had missed the first go round. I actually did this again a few years later while in my Doctoral program at Ball State, racing my friend as they read them forwards. We met in the middle, and while I waited for my turn with The Goblet of Fire (we were sharing books), I picked up my first Vonnegut book - Cats Cradle.
My first house was a 1950s Cape Cod, and my first act was ripping up the carpet and revealing the original hardwood underneath that had been stained over the years by pets - and who knows what else. I was very pleased, as I looked at the orange colored wood (like the color of a 1980s high school basketball court), and imagined the dark walnut stain I had planned - turning the sanded down stains into a marbling that gave a rich look to the floors. What stain? That's just the natural undulations of color! A few weeks of work with dad later, and my living room was finished, set up as a place to read, talk, or listen to the radio - a nice Oriental rug from my Great Uncle tying the room together. Television and other electronics were placed in the basement - upstairs was for company, conversation, and books. My current house is similar - the living room is set up similarly - so you face each other, and not a television. I rent my first house now, and so I had to give it up - I had to learn to not care about the condition or the wear and tear as someone else now lived in it - its a hard thing to give up something you absolutely love and put effort into. Its now five renters later, and with each one it got a little easier to let it go, but I still have good memories of my time there. For example visiting with my neighbor John, who at 78 still would take is little Red MG out with his wife on occasion, top down, and drive the streets of town before he passed away in his sleep a few years ago. So it goes.Death is Just Another Moment
Death! I read an article or chapter somewhere that I shared with my grandmother at breakfast a few months ago as she and I were talking about death and legacies and what we would be remembered for. I mentioned to her that even when you die, you live on in those who knew you in life, and those who knew of your in life - it's a slower process of fading into memory, much less a rapid departure from the physical world and more a transformation of existence. With so many great grand kids that have met her and been touched by her kindness, warmth and love, I told her she would live on in living memory for a long time - beyond even when I pass (as I did remind her I was her favorite). She and my grandfather are 90 - they had ten kids, the kids had 40 grand kids - and the grand kids have kids - and so on. She always reminds me she regrets absolutely nothing and wishes she could do it all over again, but she does mention all the time these days how she always wanted to be a teacher, and I say all the time to her these days that she taught 11 children (including grandpa) and continues to teach them today. Teaching is not regulated to the classroom. She also used to be very active at my grade school, where she would come in and read books, and bring crafts and cookies that often matched the books they were reading - again so many ways her existence will live on in this world. She lived the purpose she always wanted, but maybe just didn't realize it.
My uncle passed swiftly last fall, which had led to this conversation. He had a history of heart problems, was on blood thinners and other medication. My aunt, his wife, had actually suffered a heart attack herself not a few years before. My two cousins, a son in law and his grandkids made it to the hospital before hist time was up. A cerebral hemorrhage and he was gone. So it goes.
Uncle John. Not to have favorites, but he was the uncle that actually seemed interested in anything you were doing and he remembered it too - I mean they all do generally, but he was always just smiling and asked questions - maybe it was his human resources background, but it made him engaging and inquisitive and just great. And fun. One of the pictures at the funeral, drawn by his grand daughter, was of him as "Beer Man" - he had a beer in each hand. Hilarious. Uncle John. His last purchase he was so proud of was a convertible car - he showed me the last time I was in Indiana visiting. I consider my self fortunate, because I was able to visit with him and the family a few months before he passed - just dropping in for the heck of it. We all had dinner, shared some laughs and I was on my way. He will also live on well beyond his physical life, because of so many people that knew him. My grandmother on my mom's side lives on every year for the same reasons - memories are powerful moments that allow those departed to continue to live in our minds and in the items we keep near that remind us of them. For grandma, its the See No Evil, Speak No Evil and Hear No Evil monkeys. She always used to do a "monkey" face and noise. Priceless. Her sense of humor was pretty good too - she broke her arm, and when it healed it bowed up, like a flexed muscle. She would hold her arm up and say - "look how strong I am." Congestive heart failure. So it goes.
Death is a moment in a life - if you look at it differently - perhaps as only a Tralfamadorian would in four dimensions - it's only one moment, but it is not a moment that has to define you. So it goes. There are so many other moments that have existed and continue to exist in the minds of others- it's just another moment - the dead are alive and watching QVC, or playing Racquetball. So it goes.
The chapter is evocative of other memories - none more powerful than that of the crucifix adorning the bedroom wall of my youth. I still have it, but it's in a box somewhere, and I *may* be okay with that for now. The face of the corpus tilted to the side and down, looking at me while behind it, encased in the cross itself, was hidden the paraphernalia for last rites - a candle, holy water, some instructions - I looked a few times, it snapped on and off pretty easily but then, as Vonnegut writes of the Ghastly crucifix that influenced his characters in the book, I recalled my own late nights hiding under my sports ball comforter due to having watched an Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack. I mean, a crucifix whose eyes had OPENED ... and I think cried blood? Sweet mercy. I can hear his voice - that Robert Stack voice - "the crucifixes eyes were somehow opened."
Nightmares. Forever.
To this day I still feel the chill on occasion, when I am alone in a room, or a church - and I wont always look up at the alter - out of fear? Ha. Or something else. It's what sets Catholic churches apart from others - our cross always has a dead Jesus on it - a crucified corpus. So it goes.
I won't/can't say I am unstuck in time, but as I refer back and paint a picture of my past I have to become as "unstuck" as possible so I can give the best description possible - to paint a picture that can be examined by others to find their own memories and understandings - and stories. I have to re-live it, in a way if that's even possible - "unstuck" to find my place there, again, in the moment.
Curriculum, Memory, and Action
I think teacher candidates often have a narrow view of their apprenticeship of observation - they do not really re-live or remember the classroom as it was - they have a view that is lopsided and it creates obstacles to moving forward with modern education. If they could become unstuck and re-experience their life they might develop differently. I mentioned last time the Currere model - we have to understand where we came from and where we are going in order to be the teacher our students need. Pinar further defines curriculum as a "complicated conversation"- a conversation we have with ourselves, our students and our content. He shifts the idea of curriculum into Currere - from a noun to a verb - a shift that makes sense today as we can no longer teach a course of study established by others, viewing the student as a blank slate or empty vessel to be filled. They have lives, they have interests - and knowledge today is no longer static. The knowledge, what is worth knowing, is a fluid and flowing collection of skills and critical thought that students should learn- it is not the facts of history as much as it is the interpretation and argumentative claims we make - from a democratic point of view. We have to run our own courses as teachers, and so should our students - working together to solve problems, and ask better questions. We have to run the course - not just run an established, official oval of a state created curriculum, but our own personal currere journey we forge with and through our students. We do not always know where its going, and we do not have too. I am reminded here of the failure of grades as well - attaching letter approval to what should be a developing mindset.
Anyway - reading Vonnegut - being "unstuck in time" -seeing things beyond our measly three dimensions- it makes sense as both a citizen and educator. We have to see ourselves in the past, the future and the present, and all within a larger societal experience. We do not only exist at one point in time, we exist at all points simultaneously influencing our actions.
Behind Enemy Lines
Vonnegut's book is not Band of Brothers - but of course it's not supposed to be - he is challenging our concept of time - of reality and existence - and doing so as a commentary as well on war and life's purpose. Who is alive, dead - and all about Billy - who was abducted by aliens and decided to tell his story. Perfectly normal. What is our purpose.
 |
| A visual representation of my dissertation findings - I had asked to draw my entire dissertation as a comic book. They said no drawings. I snuck one in anyway. |
Where am I in time tonight/today? I am buying a record player for my new house in 2006 at the local consignment shop before I bought any furniture because what is a house without music - music played on a 1968 Zenith console! Now, I am eating liquid soap because I talked back to mom, her fingers pinching my jaw like you hold a freshly caught bass, undoing the barbed hook from the lip before you toss them back - now I am launching Estes Rockets in the back yard with dad, and watching for the parachute against the blinding rays of the sun. Pine cone wars in the barn. Late night basketball with the neighbor.
We are all storytellers, if we let ourselves become unstuck in time and re-experience our life for the benefit of others. What memories can we relive and use to help others learn about their own lives. Teachers can allow their students to weave new stories with them in the classroom- and those stories can live on.
Comments
Post a Comment