YATST

DAY ONE

Today was a long day. Scott and I met our six YATSTERS at the entry to school right after TA ended at 8:10. We had a good amount of buffer time since any "field trip" I've every coordinated can't help but leave school at least 15 minutes late. YATSTERS? No way. I arrived at 8:11 to the whole group ready and waiting on the adults. Goodness, I love this group already! Normally I've had established relationships with at least some students I'm working with in a non-academic group, but I didn't know any of this crew at all. I love the trust this shows. These students had a brief intro to the program, applied, didn't know me at all, and were nevertheless ready to roll into a 12 hour day together. I don't know why, but it felt like magic to arrive at the front of the school to see this crew all set to head out together.

The morning was a bit challenging for our group since they hadn't had the orientation part of the day yet, so the concept of communication strategies for school change work was a bit obtuse for them since they hadn't fully wrapped their minds around what changes they might be seeking. Most found their way in to be engaged and excited nonetheless.

The afternoon orientation was just what our crew needed: seeing students facilitate the orientation, developing connections with students and adults from other schools, engaging in meaningful dialogue, and delving into the four Rs to catalyze school improvement (relationships, rigor, relevance, and responsibility). As our group evaluated our school based on the four Rs, they really got clear insight into our work and how it differs from, say, a student council. As they recognized and discussed the Rs, we delved into talk of instruction, curriculum, assessment practices, school policy, school culture and climate, tracking practices, student self perception based on school or teacher expectations, I could go on and on. I could've listened all day to an extension of that conversation.

The U-32 group had its own uniqueness, par for the course of our school identity. The students had me cracking up more times than I can count (for one, conveyer belt notes on trays to the cafeteria dishwasher). I love the range of temperaments and grade levels that we have in our group. Scott is an amazing co-advisor with valuable similarities and balancing differences from my style. Over the course of the day I also felt more deeply that this is a larger group with which I belong because there were so many people I know from different contexts: Jeanie (a fellow Fellow) and Ally from our Courage work, Peter Evans from my School Leadership course, Ellen Berrings as a past Rowland Fellow, Marcus Grace husband of a beloved U-32 colleague and father of a beloved former student, Amy Rex whom I admire as a strong female leader, Daniel Baron as SRI faculty and CFG lover. All I can say is I'm looking forward to a long future with YATST and this group. I am working hard to trust the process and let the group find its own pace. Feels like we're getting there.

Onward and upward, here we go together!

A Migration

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I begin each year with students by reading this poem. Since I am on sabbatical this year, I missed this inaugural experience, this touchstone for the start of a new communal journey. I read this poem myself several times a year. I also read this poem just before we poured my father's ashes into the wind last October, just thirty seconds before two real live geese sprang from the side of the pond that our small group huddled around and flew off honking harshly and excitedly. Reminder, indeed.

It is easily one of my favorite discussions and classes of the year when I read this poem to students. We do the usual comprehension stuff just to make sure we're all picking up what Oliver is putting down: What words stick out to you? What is the meaning of the poem in your own words? How could we paraphrase these lines? What does this word mean given the line before it? Then, I tell them why I've chosen to open the year with this poem. It goes something like this:

"This is my promise to you. No matter what you have gone through, who you have been, any despair or repentance you hold for not being 'good' or good enough, you belong here--all of each of you. I hope as we spend time together 'loving what we love' or discovering those life passions that every one of you feels your place in the family of this classroom. Me, I love literature, and it's my hope that we can watch the world offer itself to our imaginations through literature and writing. What hopes does this poem raise for you?"

They write a bit, talk to a table partner, share out to the class as I take notes. We close out when I ask them to do a choral reading of the poem popping in to read a line, a word, a phrase as they are moved to do so but as seamlessly as possible. There is always a moment when two students pipe in at the same moment, an awkward .5 second pause to see if one will take the line, and they both read it together. I get chills. Hopeful tears push to the tiny corners of my eyes for another half second. Every time. These students are calling and honking back to me and each other, announcing their place in this family of a classroom.  

What is Jessica Doing? v.1

Okay, folks. Maybe you are wondering what Jessica is doing. Maybe you are not wondering this at all and you're here for ridiculous and rambling thoughts on Emerson, change theory, and general figuring out of it all. Either way, here you have it:

Reading:

• School Finance: A Policy Perspective
• The Picus Report: Surprisingly engaging. Talk about one's reading experience being based in context! I'm so interested in VT and the system as a whole that this report is very interesting. I am no where near finished with all 300 pages, but so far I don't want to bash my head in.
• Leading Change in Your School: I put down another ed. book for this one because I'm loving it so much. It was casually tossed to me in a meeting which made discovery that the book is very good that much better.
• Strengths Finder
• MaddAddam (must have one fiction text in there!)
• Lots of articles on collaboration, organizational dynamics, adult development, etc. Check out my Diigo and Twitter for some samplings. 

Writing:

• Lots of wild and fun journaling, note-taking, agenda-drafting, processing, one-woman think-tanking. Nothing too formal happening...yet.
• Emails...
• Reflections for the two classes I'm in (1.) School Leadership 2.) Financial and Legal Management of Schools). I'm loving both classes right now. Betcha can't guess which one I'm surprised I like. 
• Blog posts, obviously. This is harder. I have to push myself to actually capture my thoughts and then share them in all of their messiness. It's good exercise. I imagine I'll be in better shape soon. 

Fueling the fire:

• Right this minute, the pellet stove in our living room that was just installed this morning. One surprisingly satisfying perk of such a flexible schedule is that I can be present for things like pellet stove installation. Mat is no longer the only one on-call to rearrange his work schedule for home-related stuff. I no longer feel guilty for constantly asking him to do so. Win-win. 
• Students are signing up for YATST!!! It was all hypothetically exciting when Scott and I were dreaming about this little group. Now, it's on! Students are applying. They are so thoughtful, balanced, engaged, and energized in their few application questions (1.) Why do you want to be a part of this group 2.) What is one change you would like to see at U-32?).  God, I love this work. 
• Autumn coolness. Finally, the return of blanket weather! I feel like a hobo sleeping when I have to sleep with a sheet or thin blanket in summer, but I run too darned hot not to.  
• A particularly poignant class last night with Peter Evans. Everyone had a few minute to tell the story of what brought them to this class and how their life experiences have shaped their pathways to leadership. I was captivated. So much humanity and interconnection was in that room. I'm not sure the last time I saw that many people deeply engage and be vulnerable like that in an academic setting. Sure, at a Courage retreat, but in a graduate class on day two? Nope. I'm loving the gentle and open nature of this class. There have been brief moments when I have to remind myself that I'm digging it, but that means I just get to enjoy it all the more once I slow down and become present again. 

Dreaming about (see also: "cloud talk," as in with no obligation to reality or often begins with "imagine if"):

• A real, live lab school (lots more in my head on this one)
• A doctoral degree...probably inspired by my wonderings of what I could do if I stayed on sabbatical forever researching, planning, collaborating, and creating. Then I remember that second bullet up above--I'd miss students too much.

General real-world earth talk of plotting and scheming:

• I registered for ASCD's Ed Leadership Conference and SRI's Winter Meeting. 
• I'm organizing our team to go to the Rowland Conference. 
• Scott and I are getting YATST off the ground. 
• I'm trying to plan a very meaningful, worthwhile kick off meeting for the steering committee and advisory committee. 
• Planning a trip to London...! Mat has a good friend who has been living there for the year for work, so with a free place to stay it would've been ridiculous not to make this happen. There were some false starts and stops (Do we really need to do this now? Yes, they're not going to be living there much longer. Aren't we traveling a ton already this year? Yup. What fun?! Let's experience gratitude over overwhelmedness. What about Anna? She has family friends there and would love to go. Maybe we should bring her. What about school?), but we've finally jammed it into the calendar and will make it work. 

I deem the first two weeks of sabbatical a success. Here's to setting the foundation!

The G.K. himself would say: be well, do good work, and keep in touch. 

Letting the Stars Burn

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, Dream Work, Grove Atlantic Inc., 1986 & New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, 1992.

The Wisdom in Wandering

This work is difficult because we want to get away from the anxiety as fast as we can and return to the illusion of control in our lives. But, if we want to gain the wholeness we seek, we must spend time wandering for it is the place of creative emergence of higher aspects of who we are. We must trust the process, our inner wisdom, and our natural propensity for growth toward our highest humanity. 
~ Marianne Williamson

Week two of school-year sabbatical is about to close. Almost every day this week I've been in awe of this process of adult project-based learning. After all, that what I'm doing. I am experiencing hourly relief when I pinch myself and remember the relative freedom I have to follow my own wanderings on my own schedule. Don't get me wrong; there's plenty of structure. I have sets of to-do lists I tick measurable items off of, stacks of books I am dying to read and some I'm in the middle of, emails galore, meetings that get me into school several times a week. But the joy of making my own schedule, of moving with my own rhythms, of following questions into several books and articles over the course of a few hours, of taking a yoga break when I've been working for several hours, of truly and calmly anticipating awaking the next day to be with this process some more, it's a gift I cannot seem to even fathom yet. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes much in "Self Reliance" about being able to follow one's own pace or follow one's
"whims," for lack of a better term and, for him, lack of the desire to explain further: "I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation." Now, don't get me wrong, as with everything in my life, I walk the line of paradox. One one hand, I am skeptical of the all-too American value of individualism, the mash up of Romanticism and Puritanism that says hard work, integrity, self-possession, and independence is all one needs to be "successful" (let's not even go into definitions of success and the capitalistic implications therein). On the other hand, I am a born and raised American woman who not only has those cultural values mixed into the fiber of my genes, but I've also achieved much in my life due to those very characteristics. (I swear, this post is going to come together!) However, this is the first experience I have as an adult being able to follow my own whims on a (mostly) daily basis. 

Those whims don't take me to procrastination of my work or squandering of time, in fact it's quite the opposite. The more I listen to them, the more connected I feel to my work. It's healing. Nourishing. Centering. I almost said "professional whims" but what is taking shape is an interconnected personal and professional self, one I've been working for years to achieve in a more sustained way (hello, Parker Palmer!). I have hope that perhaps there will come a time when my full-time job sans sabbatical feels a bit more like this, like my talents/interest/passions/skills/growing edge are meeting the needs of an organization and/or others in a way that strikes balance, maintains passion and energy, that keeps me whole. 

“Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks--we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.” 
― Parker J. Palmer

“If we want to grow as teachers -- we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives -- risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract.” ― Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life  

Intentionally and actively being a part of a system is no easy task (hence my Rowland work on collaboration, reflection, and shared leadership that at its heart asks the question of how to be both sustainable and sustaining in the ways we engage in our monumental work). Keep hearing this: I love teaching. I love teaching, reading, writing, thinking, questioning, and learning from and talking with students. Love it. But it's so exhausting. Every minute of every day is planned, even if it's a plan to have some unstructured discussion or time for students to work on a project or paper. My every moment is scheduled and planned: check in with these students first, give feedback on this essay, ask this student about his sick grandmother, attend this committee meeting, grade until 11:00 pm, create an agenda for this meeting, email this parent, research a better strategy to help this student comprehend the reading. Again, I do all of this with so much love and appreciation to have "work that is real," but there isn't much time in there (maybe nor should there be, I'm serving a purpose beyond myself in those moments) to follow my own whims, to strike a balance that feeds that work long-term. (Those darned Puritan values could be contributing....) The human need is so, so great. The word "whim" has been on the lintel of my classroom door for the last five years. Mainly it's there because I teach Emerson in American Writers, so I'm playfully and seriously asking students to internalize what it would mean to follow their own rhythms, to be present to their own unfolding, to see how internal self and external work can become more aligned for the benefit of both. Now it's time to add the term to the lintel of my home, I think. 

As everyone and their cousin would like to tell me the best way to go about this work, the books I should read, the plans that are best, the things to avoid, ad infinitum, when I listen I hear this still and persistent voice that is my own. And it sounds steady, resonant, clear, and grounded in my experiences and education. It's a trustworthy voice. I SO appreciate all of the advice, all of the insights, all of the experience of others that can help my own. I actively listen to all of that, too. But never in my life has my own voice been so clear. Time and experience and others will help me to know if that voice is right or wrong. Correctness is not the point. The point is that it is long since time to listen to this voice, to trust, to refrain from "half" expressing myself. It's time to till this plot of ground. What a fertile, spacious, humbling ground it is. 

If you've made it this far, I adore you! Thanks for indulging me in this wandering post. I promise more concrete ramblings are on their way. 

More Emerson to feed your soul:

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.

***

Okay, so maybe this didn't come together like I promised. I'm embracing that imperfection I warned you about! This blog is about putting ideas out there, documenting my process, and engaging others, not about a proven thesis statement or a cohesive argument.

P.S. I love Emerson. No really, like an infatuation only an English teacher could sustain for decades, like I would've married the guy at his lightest ("Self-Reliance") and his darkest ("Experience").