Thirteen years ago I awoke from a twilight slumber. Writing a novel going nowhere. Playing my songs, not going very far. Delivering pizza, going in circles with an MA English. Living in a "rustic" loft in the student ghetto. Then the teaching job came calling--again. Sigh. Persuaded by a friend that I simply must apply and get on with it. I mean how long can you pretend to be a starving artist when you're smoking cigarettes and staring out the window instead of writing?
I drove upon a beautiful, century old school house with large, lovely windows in the shade of century old trees and knew I was about to change. The principal interviewed me with the help of a student-- a unique approach. When he noticed on my transcript two failing semesters from a previous university in my former youth, he asked me to explain why I wouldn't fail again. I said, "I've grown up since then." So I was pulled back from the cliff, saved and placed on the teaching trail.
And what a long, strange, lightening-bolt-to-my-soul trip it began. Now I must admit one of the strongest influences in my being dragged screaming into teaching--THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. Long-ago teen angst and confusion rose in me as I wiped the dust from the shelves of my new class room. What would I teach these kids, how, why? Holden Caulfield, in all his misery, flooded my mind. I would teach Salinger's timeless tale. I would teach it so the kids would understand that it was all right to feel these feelings, that they would learn to write better because of them, and that they would gain understanding from reading another young person express disdain with the phony, adult world. Yes! And so it began, my own love affair with written words shared with the youth in my stead. Tempestuous and messy, but full of life, I was blessed in my early teaching years to be in a small, progressive high school. When I was asked by the new principal to put together a complete unit to show how I taught, I spent tireless, happy hours designing a multi-media creation on Catcher. Even though he was not a big fan of the book, he grinned and accepted my unit as a winner.
"Why?" he asked. "Why do you think it's worth teaching to them?"
"Because they can relate," I replied. Those were the good ole days. The days before lock-step measurement of results became more important than the creative, compassionate process of teaching and learning.
Twelve years and 3 former schools later, my heart opens once more/ to those frenetic moments/ when stillness reigned/ and epiphanies popped/ in mine and students brains/ like flash bulb photos/of confetti-lined dreams. /Untold 'til now/ but ingrained it seems/ for truth and wonder were streaming/ streaming from the beams/ of those on the edge of knowing/ they were part of the machine/ but we saved each other from falling/ into the treacherous, lying schemes/ maybe it was the calling/ the crazy words flowing/ maybe it was the connecting/ of a thousand different visions/ the link to our emotions/to avoid a common oblivion/ to remain on the edge/but in control of our decisions/
I moved for love and followed my dreams and taught in two more schools before the R. I. F. came. Each unique with special students that will stay with me always. Each making me stronger as the structure became more rigid, the demands more thoughtlessly bureaucratic. Still the young ones carried me through. But "Catcher" wasn't on the reading list. Too controversial. Banned. Too many cuss words. But I started a reading initiative. In one school we built a "golden wall of priceless words." Each time a student finished a book, she or he placed a gold bar on the wall with the title. We reached the top and then some. At the other school we made bumper stickers with profound quotes from what they were reading. And I spent my own money on my class room library, with several copies of Catcher in the Rye for the taking. Most of the books were not returned, so I always bought more. I like to think that many of my copies of "Catcher" are still being read and passed on today.
~R.I.P. J.D. SALINGER~
This morning I awoke, clear and driven. Too much to say. Memories of concrete block school walls lined with my bumper stickers lingering. "What's popular isn't always right. What's right isn't always popular," the one at front center had read. Still no good job yet after being let go from the institution. One of many teachers with Master's no longer sustained. But the novel is progressing. (It's a coming of age tale with a lost anti-hero hanging on the slippery slope between youthful imagination and the concreteness of adulthood. She has a sense of humor, though.) Writing new songs and learning to record them. Preparing to play out live more and in bigger circles. At first it was an unexpected push from the cliff I teetered upon. Now I'm gliding though, prudent yet free, to explore these paths before me. The landscape shifts from barren to lush, over and back again. A kaleidoscope of possibility. For I won't succumb to the crushing rocks below. Soon I will find my people again.
Thanks, Karen--I'm sharing.
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