Encouraging Words

Can I get a show of hands? How many of you have ever felt lost? Ever felt yourself drowning  in number two pencils and bubble sheets?   Lost in your lesson plans or lost in your unit goals or lost staring into the filing cabinet like it's a refrigerator and you're starving?

Lost. Disheartened. Defeated. I've had those days. All of us who teach have had them. We question ourselves, our work, our purpose. We question whether we matter.

Angela Meirs would tells us: You Matter. And you do. I do too. We all do. We matter every single day we get up and do our best by the students we teach. Even when our best means we're still learning, we're still figuring it out.

Still, that sly fox, doubt, sneaks around behind us and nips our heel.

It seems whenever that sly fox fixes his sights on me, encouragement finds me. He clears his throat to get my attention. Sometimes He is soft spoken: a shy smile, a whisper, a line in a book, a Word. If I don't hear him He gets louder. He tends to repeat himself until I get the message. He's spoken to me at school, in grocery stores,  restaurants, and parking lots.  He's speaks words or blue skies or sunrise.  I will be lost, then suddenly, I see. I  hear: "Miss! Ms. Spillane... remember me? I remember you..."

Conversations ensue. Laughter follows. Spirits lift.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined such a shout of encouragement coming from the stage at Carnegie Hall. Did that really happen?

You never know what students are thinking or what they will remember or what they will one day say--in public, at a sold-out show, in front of their parents, their families, famous writers and thousands of Nerdfighters.

Amazing.

So, Hank Green, about whom I've written here, here and in my recent book Reading Amplified, thank you. Thank you for your encouragement last night. But I know it's really not about me. And it's not really about teachers and crushes and whatnots. The story is bigger than that.

It's a love story. They fall for the world and in the falling others are caught up. It's a story of how two brothers came to be all-in. And how two brothers are able to walk with hope and conviction into an uncertain future seeding love in a community that is changing the world.

It brings tears to my eyes, but it has a happy ending. It is absolutely joyous to see and to share in.
Thanks, Hank.

Ode to These Knees

Camp Gladiator Color Run team. 

Ode to These Knees

Oh knees with your articular cartilage

ball joiner of joints complex

Oh knees with your miraculous bending ,

bearing , standing,  shifting and swiveling.

These knees are stiff knees,

worker knees squatting and standing

these knees are boot camp complainers

slapped and cajoled into sprinting and hopping.

Creaking and cracking these knees sprint yards and run miles

Who would believe these knees once swiveled and swayed with abandon:

balancing the ball of their joint between tibia and femur

just so

they  danced and dodged, cycled and rope jumped,

dug in, they locked and held their breath to play tug of war .

They delighted in tall trees, polished wood, slick ice, steep hills, manicured paths, and new concrete--

gasping at flights which threatened their very skin

on roller blades , ice skates, cross-trainers , Chucky Taylors and Jimmy Choos.

Oh these knees have known disco balls and back seats,

perfumes and lotions, ocean salts and bath bubbles.

These knees have swung from

bar stools and love seats,  counter tops and park benches, limbs and jungle gyms,.

Oh these knees seize their days!

Carry on fearless knees!

Though the battle be tough and the  Gladiator field uneven,

hold firm brave Meniscus and Honorable ACL.

Soldier on against the enemy of age and couch-comfort.

Stride straight and bear the weighty future.

 *inspired by The Color Run, Doug Reeder and Camp Gladiator Orlando and Lucille Clifton's "Homage to My Hips" Watch Clifton in this piece by Bill Moyers.

Visit Two Writing Teachers for a second Slice of Life helping-
-always on Tuesday and everyday in March.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 1-14-13

Host by Kellee & Jen from
Teach Mentor Texts

I missed last Monday. It was back to school and packing lunches and making coffee and organizing for the week. Then once I arrived at school. Well, you can imagine! I wish I'd left my classroom a bit tidier. Wish I'd planned and planned and graded and recorded and responed during vacation. But I didn't and to be truthful, I'm glad that I didn't. I enjoyed catching up last week. There was enough. Enough time to get what needed doing done. Enough to keep me busy.

Ruth Ayres wrote a great enough piece last week on Two Writing Teachers. It's sustained me last week.  I sent it to teachers and administrators at my school. Many emailed back to say it was just what they needed.
I love those just in time, perfect reads. Be they blog posts or books.

Books I'm reading this week include Godwink Stories by Squire Rushnell and Louise Duart, Art at the Speed of Life edited by Pam Carriker and  Daniel Handler and Maria Kalman's Why We Broke Up. How I missed  the latter when it came out, I don't know. It is gorgeous. Printed on amazing, heavy-weight, gloss paper, Kalman's painting pop. Handler's writing--the description and the listing--delightful to read.

Godwink and Art at the Speed of Life are books I will be dipping into over the next few weeks. Both were gifts. Godwink Stories talks about lifes' coincidences as winks from God--little things people notice that put their hearts at ease or cheer them. The art book is chock-full of cool techniques I'm going to try as I paint my way toward summer.