A love letter

Dear Books with Pages:

Before you get all hot and bothered by what I am about to tell you, know from the get-go you are still my first love. I will never abandon you. You will always have a place in my house, in every room, just like you do now. That will never change. Not in my lifetime. Not for me.

You will still draw me with your intoxicating scent and smooth touch. I will still slip you into my carry-on when I travel. When I turn out the light at the end of the day, you will still be on my bedside table, just inches from my sleeping form – often the last thing I touch before falling into dreamland.

Now go back and that read that again. And again.

Brace yourself.

I got a Kindle for Christmas.

And I actually asked for it.

Dear, dear Books with Pages, hear me now. I am finding out why people love e-Readers. Did you know, Books with Pages, that in a matter of seconds I was holding Anna Karenina in the palm of my hand? Just like that – for free? And that Medici book I need to read for research? In seconds I had it. In my hand. Okay, not for free. But still. In seconds. In less than half an hour I can literally have 50 books in the palm of my hand. It’s astounding.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “Those are not books. Those are words floating around in an invisible world and which can disappear the moment the cyber-world has a major hiccup. Or the moment you lose that little bit of plastic and wires. Or you drop it into the ocean. Or the tub. Or a vat of melted chocolate.”

My beloved, I totally get what you are thinking. I thought that too and that’s why I waited until the end of 2010 to finally own a Kindle.

But here’s the thing, Books with Pages. You are not the paper you are written on. You are not. That is just your outward form. Just like I am not a skeleton wrapped in muscle and skin. The soul of me is like the soul of you. It transcends the physical. You are the words and they come to us in many forms. On paper, on audio, on E-readers, and on the voices of our mothers when they read us bedtime stories. The words stay with us, inside us. And the words that change us stay with us forever. Surely you know pages won’t stay with us forever. And neither will E-readers for that matter. Even our mothers will eventually leave us. But the words that your writers used to give you life will not disappear. As long as there is just one person who remembers the story, you will never disappear.

So you see, dear Books with Pages, your immortality has not suffered. Your beauty has not diminished. Perhaps in decades to come you will become more Art and less Text but that is not such a bad thing. I have always thought your lovely spines looked beautiful on my shelves. And maybe, maybe in centuries to come, you will become treasured heirlooms and museums will honor you in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.

But you have not been replaced, usurped, or forsaken.

You are more than your pages.

You are the boundless expression of your creator.

Just like me.

And I will always love you. . .

The teacher still teaches – Part III

Today I bring you the last installment of my interview with my now-retired high school English teacher, Frank Barone. You’re in for a treat. . .

Me: You’re known for your talks to very young writers that include a purple balloon. What is the purple balloon?

The Purple Balloon is my Friend. One of my students who taught as an aide for K-5th graders asked me to introduce her students to metaphor and poetry. Because of the wide range of grades, I tried to think of something I could use to gain and keep their attention and jump-start their imaginations. I decided on a balloon, an immediate eye-grabber and purple, my favorite color.

When I met with those students, I asked them to say “Hi” to my Friend. All of them immediately shouted, “Hi, Friend.” They had made an instant metaphoric leap from object to idea. Then I asked them to tell me what else my Friend looked like, what else it could be. The range of their quick responses amazed me: a globe; an Easter egg; an ice cream cone; a bald head. When I altered the position of the balloon by moving it sideways or holding it upside down, they said: a fish; a rocket ship; a grape; a raindrop. Then I told them they had just spoken poetry and that poetry would be easy for them to write because poetry uses the language of metaphors to make pictures for the reader, and they had just spoken metaphors.

Some of her early grade students could not yet write, so my student had copied their responses onto a blackboard, and by putting the words “Poetry is,” or “Poetry is like,” in front of their responses, that became their first poem, a group poem that they could continue to add other metaphors to and increase their images by also including what those metaphors could do. Example: “Poetry is a rocketship that can fly to the moon.”

The Purple Balloon succeeded so well in making poetry easy and fun, I continued to use it with students of all ages, K-adult. Years later one second grade girl wrote: “Poetry is a mermaid swimming into your imagination.” Recently I used the Purple Balloon at a local community college when a friend of mine asked me to help his students open up their imaginations. And this summer I led a poetry workshop for about fifty elementary and middle school students at their Young Writers Camp at UCSD. Naturally, I brought My Friend with me.

Me: You began in me my love affair for metaphor. I still haven’t recovered. What can metaphors do that ordinary concrete word choices can’t?

What can metaphors do? Metaphors help the writer play with language, to make language leaps of faith, to make pictures for the reader that “show more with less,” and to create multiple levels of meaning for the reader. Metaphors involve the reader by getting them to use their own imaginations to recreate the pictures the author paints for them.

Me: Your five favorite quintessential authors?

Unfair question. Especially for a literature teacher. So I’ll respond as a long-time reader. At the head of any list I would have to place the Divine Author of The Bible, then William Shakespeare, and I wouldn’t even count or include them within the list. They would stand above any ranking, so that still gives me five choices. 1) Alexander Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo captivated my imagination when I read it as a teenager. I’ve reread it a few times since and it continues to impress me. 2) Victor Hugo. Les Miserables pulled me inside the life of a man redeemed by the power of love, both received and given. 3) Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Epic and unforgettable. Also, poetic. Enough said. 4) Feodor Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment. Both take us on intense journeys through the minds, motives, and behaviors of their characters. 5) Harper Lee. To Kill a Mockingbird. For any number of reasons. She only wrote this one book, but she did it right the first time.

Obviously we could spend a few hours at our favorite coffee shop discussing other authors of merit, and maybe that would lead to another interview. But let me add this. I usually browse through bookstores about twice a week looking for the next “quintessential” writers. I continue to discover perhaps lesser known yet powerful and poetic authors whose books lay open the humanity of their characters and whose writings “sing into my eyes and touch my heart.” Some of these books I have read over again because they continue to disturb, haunt, impress, please, and speak to me. While these authors do not enjoy the recognition of more famous writers, I still consider them “good reads,” like your own The Shape of Mercy, and continue to recommend them to other readers.

Me: You humble me. So, if you could do one thing over again in your writing life, what would you do?

For the first ten years of my teaching career I didn’t have a writing life. If I had known then that writing could be used to create pictures and touch the heart instead of for testing and grading, I would have started sooner to put the writing process at the center of the curriculum. But, again, thank God that I did learn how to do it differently.

Susan: You should write a book about that! Just think how many English teachers would be able to revolutionize the way they teach what is sadly for so many kids their least favorite class. You gave your professional life over to the care and education of young minds. Was it worth it?

Whatever I gave to my students, they gave much more back to me. When I showed them I could take risks and change, they found it easier to risk as well, to change and grow and learn. And I grew and learned along with them. I could not have achieved what I did in my educational life, getting published, presenting at workshops and conferences, along with awards and recognition from peers, without their help and encouragement. And I would not have grown in my personal life without them showing me the importance of caring for them as individuals.

On one occasion, before going to a workshop for teachers, I asked a class of supposedly low ability learners what would be the one thing they would want me to tell those teachers. That class gave me only one answer: tell them they have to care for their students, each one, no matter what their ability. That response became the bottom line for me whenever I presented a workshop. Teachers have to care for their students. If not, they shouldn’t be in the profession. And if they want to stay young in the profession, they should listen to and learn from their students. It has made all the difference for me. And at eighty-one, I still do an occasional workshop on poetry for students. To see them recognize and use their imaginations to create metaphors continues to keep me young.

Me: Thank you, thank you dear Frank for spending this time with me and my friends here on the Edge!

Susan, thank you for giving me this “assignment,” and for giving me time to think about my responses and to put them in writing. I found the task both challenging and enjoyable. I hope they achieve what you wanted, and that they may help your writer-friends.

Your grateful student, Frank.

The teacher still teaches – Part II

Here’s Part Two of my interview with my high school English teacher, Frank Barone: Find Part One below this post . . .

ME: What did you learn about life by teaching teenagers how to interpret life on paper?

FRANK: I learned to look at and treat students as individuals, to give them choices and let them make decisions to involve them in their own education. I also learned the value of creativity and encouraged it as much as I could. Writing gave me confidence on how to select words to express not just ideas but also feelings that would satisfy me and my audience. My students did not just write for the teacher or for a grade, but for themselves and a wider audience since we all shared our papers for comments and editing. Editing became an important part of our writing process. Students knew the criteria for a piece of writing and could rewrite their papers as many times as it took to meet the criteria. I never put a grade on a paper, just comments. When students met the criteria, they received credit for completing the assignment.

So I would say the life lessons I learned could be these: treat people as individuals; be creative since it helps you to see and enjoy more of life; have confidence and know that with a little more time and work you can reach your goals.

ME: I love it that you wanted us to write for ourselves first, not for the grade or even for you. That’s brilliant. What did you mean by “Eye, I, Aye” and the affirmation “This sings into the eyes.” You wrote these words on my papers and they made me feel like I was a writer!

FRANK: I found those words a long time ago in some professional journal by an author whom I can’t remember. The words impressed me because they summed up the qualities a good poem or piece of writing should express: “Eye.” The poem must appeal to the senses. Its words must create pictures for the reader. “I.” The voice of the writer must come through to the reader. The words the writer chooses must be unmistakably his or hers. “Aye!” When the reader finishes reading the poem or piece of writing, he or she must be able to say, “Yes! This is true. This is just the way it is because your words lead me to conclude that it is true, or that it is new because your words have shown me something I already knew, but differently.”

This “Sings into the eyes.” I also found those words a long time ago in the title of a collection of poems by Arnold Adoff. Those words showed me that a successful poem must first appeal to the senses, and then the emotions. That became another criteria in my class, that poems should make pictures for the reader, and touch the heart. When I first read Susan’s Oatmeal Story,” it made me smile. Her story made pictures for me, and touched my heart. And her writing still “sings into my eyes” and touches my heart.

ME: MY eyes are singing in the rain right now. I am undone. These are words we must contemplate today, I think. I know I must. We stop for now. More on Friday.

The teacher still teaches

I’ve a real a treat for you today (and the coming days, actually.) Today I begin a series of interview questions with my high school English teacher, Frank Barone. He is retired now but still lives in San Diego and he and I get together now and then for coffee and book talk.

In ninth grade, when I took my first class from him at Poway High School, I was itching to write but lacked confidence, focus, and skill. He gave all three to me and I’m forever grateful. The last time we met (at Panera over java) I asked him if I might interview him for my blog. He said yes! Today begins the first of the posts with his answers. My first question was to let us peek into his biography. Here it is! (By the way, the photo above is us in the present day, the black and white one is him in 1976, the year he taught my ninth-grade comp class and the last one is me when he met me and told me I was a writer . . .

Frank: I will be eighty-two this coming January 30th. Born in the borough of Queens, New York City, in 1929, my Italian-American parents raised me along with my three brothers and a sister through the Depression, a time of great learning about survival, sacrifice, and sharing. My father worked hard to provide for his family, and my mother always made us feel accepted and loved.

At nineteen I left New York to attend a seminary to study for the priesthood. Seven years later I left the seminary because of doubts about my vocation. However, those seminary years had a significant influence on my life, spiritually, for the education I received, and for the friends I made.

I became a teacher for practical reasons. I needed a job and I needed to make some money to survive. With the one education course I had in the seminary, two degrees, and with my training to work with and for people, I decided to apply for a teaching position. A Catholic boys’ school hired me, to teach Latin and English, mostly because of my experience of working with young people at a summer day camp. After one year there I accepted a teaching position at a similar school in Queens for an increase in salary. I taught there for seven years. During this time I also coached freshman basketball and in my spare time obtained a Master’s Degree in Education. Someone once told me it did not matter why we entered the profession, but why we stayed in it. I stayed because I liked working with young people.

In 1963 during a summer vacation to visit my younger brother I met my future wife. I knew after just one date I had found someone special. After returning to New York I continued to pursue her with phone calls, roses, and a letter every day. I came out again to San Diego at Christmas time, proposed, and she accepted my proposal (Ah, the power of writing.) We became engaged at Easter and married in June, 1964. Our marriage lasted until July of 1993 when cancer took her away. Our teacher-daughter and our lawyer-son continue to give affirmation to their mother who raised them with love and care and a sense of humor.

My teaching career spanned eight years in New York City and twenty-nine years at Poway High School in San Diego until I retired in 1993. After I retired I taught for two years at a local community college. Always a teacher, I still do an occasional workshop on poetry for students.

Me: I LOVE that! “Someone once told me it did not matter why we entered the profession, but why we stayed in it.” Okay. First question: What was the best part about teaching high school students? Worst?

Frank: The best part came for me came ten years into my teaching career when I put my students’ desks in a circle, sat down with them, and listened to them. That one change made a significant difference in my career and transformed my classes. Now the students talked and I listened, participated with them, and served as a resource person for their individual and group needs. My classes changed from teacher-directed to student-centered. I could see not only how much more relaxed they were, but also how much more involved they became with their education and with each other. That change also relaxed me and helped me to get to know them better as real persons and learners, not just names in a roll book. And they came to know me better as well since I shared myself with them, wrote and did assignments along with them. We all learned more by listening to each other in the sharing circle and by working together in groups during the workshop time. I became a better teacher from listening to my students and learning from them. Many of them became, and remain, my friends.

No worst part. Yes, I had some difficult days and difficult students, but so does every profession. My training and experience and the support from my teacher-friends helped me to cope and to turn some of those down times into positive experiences. I am always grateful that Providence put me in San Diego, at Poway High, and in English classes where I could grow along with the young people I taught.

Me: I fondly remember that circle! And I am glad to be one of the students who is now, thirty-five years later, a friend . . .

More on Monday . . .

Tenacious and tender

I’ve a lovely treat coming up for

you you, beginning on Friday of this week. My ninth-grade English teacher, Frank Barone, and I get together now and then then for coffee and booktalk. He’s retired now but he still loves the power of story. A couple weeks ago when we got together, I asked him if he would let me interview him for my blog. He said yes! I will post the first installment of his answers to my questions starting on Friday the 10th!

In the meantime, here are just a few photos from my recent trip to Mexico. I love love love cacti and succulents. They are beautiful and dangerous, engaging and off-putting, amazingly resilient on the outside and soft as gelatin on the inside. Enjoy . . . (and see you on Friday!)

Archive: December 27, 2010

A love letter

The teacher still teaches – Part III

The teacher still teaches – Part II

The teacher still teaches

Tenacious and tender