P.S. Perhaps stories are like stars...

Perhaps stories are like stars, concrete clouds of gas and fire that do, indeed, exist - we see them with our own eyes and can prove their existence in scientific ways - yet exist in a time and place that we cannot access from our vantage point. We cannot touch the stars for they are both too far away and far too large and magnanimous to touch. Even less are we able to move them from where they are set in place. Yet, generations of humans have looked to the stars and attempted to use them to make sense of the word - to draw pictures in the sky that explain and recall who we are as a people. We do the same with stories: we return again and again to the fundamental themes of learning how to live, pointing to something that we know and experience every day, yet feels very far away when we try to grasp it between our fingers.

"Back to the roots"

To take a quick hiatus from my life as a teacher, it's time to share another emerging passion of mine: my family tree!

As a storyteller, it is no wonder to me that I was sucked into the fascinating stories of my ancestors at such a young age, and have now - by two aunts - been tapped to continue to the record-keeping for both sides of my family. What has become a wonder to me is: Why me? Why, of all of us, am I so rapt with the stories that have survived, and the artifacts, and the photos ... ?? I can only assume that there is something within these treasures that will help me understand. So, I keep researching (thank you, ancestry.com), keep sorting those photos, and writing down the stories as I hear them.

This is the house my great-grandmother grew up in. The second floor windows have been added, and the straw roof restored in an extensive and fabulous renovation by the current owners.

While living in Germany, my aunt back in the States made a genealogical connection that sent me to a family reunion on the Bodensee (Lake Constance) to meet relatives I never knew I had. I was so inspired, I decided I had to do it again, and engaged in a search for another branch of the family. Through the very roundabout workings of snail mail, chance encounter, and email, I have come in contact with folks who - in this strange tradition - invited me to attend their family reunion over in the east of Germany.

Unfortunately, I had already left Germany when I received the invitation, but this year, I was able to cash in my airline miles and go "back to the roots", as the Germans are so fond of saying of us emigrants. I was accompanied these past weeks by my aunt and uncle, who oh-so-gladly chauffered us along the Autobahn in a rented Mercedes. We retraced the residences of my great-grandmother in the north, and of my great-grandfather in the east, where we met those descended from distant lines of my great-grandfather's line. It was quite a whirlwind, but, on my return, this is the story that remained (shared at our October story swap):

Why do we tell each other stories? What lies within a story that allows two people or two million people to feel more deeply connected to each other? Can we trust stories to be concrete enough to found new relationships, or to connect us to those we have never known?

I am a storyteller, yet I know all too well that the power of stories far exceeds anything the most wise teller could conceive of. I can only surrender myself to them, letting them tell themselves, thus completely negating the very identity I claim to have. Yet, without tellers, stories would not exist. And without stories, I don't think any of us would be where we are today.

Without stories, I would never have found myself in a most unspectacular courtyard, completely overwhelmed with how much it meant to me.

I was in Germany, in the small eastern town of Zeitz (pronounced Ts-eye-ts). It was no beauty of a town, with several abandoned buildings and an obviously struggling economy. This was the town my great-grandfather had left all those years ago to sail the seas as a merchant marine, and, eventually, to settle on a distant shore. One by one, he organized for each of his sisters and his parents to join him.

Almost a hundred years later, I stood in front of what used to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse 54, and contemplated the former abode of this family. It looked so normal, so typical for a German apartment house: a storefront on the ground floor, neatly stacked residential windows above, and two great iron doors on the far end of the front wall. Behind those doors, I knew there would be a courtyard, the real meeting place of the families that had lived there, the real personality of the place.


The iron doors were locked, and with only two names on the list of buzzers, the chances of gaining entrace were not good. Just at the moment when I was ready to step away, something caused me to lose my balance and lurch forward, leaning onto one of the great iron doors. It gave way.

It opened.

I stared at the wonder: an open door ... a door I had assumed would be locked.

I walked in, past the residential entrance, to the back courtyard. There was a greatly distressed brick wall to the right that indicated the property of the next apartment house over. The ground was paved asphalt, obviously catering to the cars that were meant to occupy the row of carports that extended to the building on the other side. Next to the carports, the outer wall of a brick building showed the outline of where a building used to stand next to it.

It was such an unspectacular sight. The 360-degree turn I felt obliged to take must have seemed an act of graciousness. There was really not a lot to look at. Yet I felt as if I could feel the entirety of the world beneath my feet, as the one great circle that it is ... just one circle, but a circle that was whole and complete.

We ate lunch at a nearby hotel restaurant on the Altmarkt - the old market place. As the exotic Americans, we were greeted with enthusiasm, treated to the house Federweisser wine, and we ate, drank, and spoke merrily. As we left that afternoon, I leafed through a book I had bought with historical photos of Zeitz, and came across a picture of the hotel restaurant from almost exactly the year of my great-grandfather's emigration. It occurred to me then that the family would have walked by that restaurant every time they went to the market. I don't know whether they ever ate or drank there - surely, they could not have afforded it. But I like to think they would have been as happy as we were - perhaps even proud - to know that we did eat there. That we are well. That we are who we are because of who they were: because of the lives they lived and the decisions they made.

Now, when I remember that courtyard, I wonder whether we seek the stories of our ancestors so as to know them better, or to know ourselves, and understand where we come from. All that held me there, still, in wonder, was a story. But it was because their story in that place that I not had a story in that place, too.

I never thought it possible ...

When I left Germany after two years as an English assistant, a colleague mentioned to me that it would be a shame ("Schade") if I didn't go on to teach German, or use my German in my profession. At the time, I sort of agreed, but I was also fervently protective of my German as a personal treasure, of sorts. Why did I have to use German for my profession? Couldn't I just keep it for myself?

However, I was a bit disheartened by the slim prospects of blending my new interest in early education with my experience in German language and culture. I thought I would have to wait for an opportunity to work in Germany, again, before fulfilling both passions simultaneously. ... But! I was pleasantly surprised when I came upon - of all things - a German-immersion pre-school right in my neighborhood!

PLUS

EQUALS

This school is still very young, and growing. What has begun as a Preschool-Kindergarten program of about 40 students has grand plans to become a legitimate K-8 school, like other German American schools in the country. But for now, they are developing an official curriculum and establishing themselves in the German American community.

A dream come true?? That's what I'm here to find out!

How did this happen?!

It is with a heavy heart that I have come to a decision to leave this lovely school I've substituted and taught at since February. I had the option to begin a new position in a different classroom at the same school, but in a perfect storming swirl of emotion, logistics, and a blustering wind that has left me facing a new direction, I've accepted - and now begun - a position at a different pre-school.

I have kept my own extensive journal of my time at this school, and find I still have not been able to write about this past - my last - week with the children, because it is hard to believe it. The soul always needs to time to catch up to the body, as they say.

There were many factors that played into my decision. They are not as important to me right now as the joys and thanks I will keep with me when I think about my time with my students.

As I've mentioned in my posts, this school practices the Reggio Emilia pedagogy. It has been such a gift to attend professional development workshops and read up on this unique approach to working with children. What I appreciate most about Reggio Emilia - and about the teachers I've worked with - is that both acknowledge the immense capacity of children to imagine, create, think critically, and reason about so much. There are many "child-centered" schools and pedagogies today, but I feel like Reggio Emilia is an approach that is truly derived from a nuanced understanding of the culture of childhood.

As I have engaged in more concentrated observation and documentation of my students' natural way of being, interacting, exploring, etc., I find that I have gotten to know these kids better than any other students I've had. I know them as individuals, as friends, as playmates, as Lego-ship-builders, as paper-airplane-makers, as dramatic-play-characters, as puzzle-masters, as storytellers, as artists, as imaginers of worlds I could never begin to conceive of ...

How could I leave this? I ask myself.

And yet I know: I am not leaving. I am moving forward. While I keep working away at my graduate studies, I want to be sure I get to experience as many schools as I can, to get a good picture of what is out there, and to continue exploring the most fundamental question of my journey: What does it mean in my life to be a teacher?

It is this question I am chasing...

Sound maps at Magnuson Park

While at IslandWood, I learned a variety of exercises in listening to engage in in quiet places. My favorite was called a Sound Map, and I have carried it with me to engage myself in, as well as other students I've met along the way.

At my school now, we've been taking weekly field trips to Seattle parks all summer, at which I had already introduced some listening exercises. Who could ever imagine 15 boisterous K-3 students practically bouncing off the trees one minute, that the next they could be sitting in a wide circle with their eyes closed, counting all the different sounds they hear on their quiet fingers and their concentrated faces?!

... Which is why I felt, by this point in the summer, that they were ready for the Sound Map. And this is how I found myself with fifteen clipboards, sitting in the tall grasses of Magnuson Park with the kids ...

I struggle with the initiation of activities, because I don't like to detract from the kids' motivation to explore something by imposing my motivation to explore it in a way I prefer. However, when I sat down with my clippboard and pencil, and began drawing ... all it took was a question:

"Avery, what are you doing?"

"I'm beginning a sound map. Do you remember counting sounds at the Arboretum? This is like that, but instead of counting, I try to draw pictures of the sounds I hear and place them in a map around me..."

We were off.

I began the Sound Map by drawing myself in the middle of the paper. Then I asked, "What do we hear around us here?" As each child suggested something, I invited them to add a picture of it to my map. We began with birds and airplanes, which are easy enough to visualize for a picture. And then we came to the wind.

"How do you draw the wind?" someone asked.

"How do you draw the wind?" I reflected with them. There was no way I was going to make any suggestion whatsoever.

"I know!" declared a second-grade girl, "You could draw it like the pictures in the weather, with curves and stuff." She added the wind.


After our collaborative sound map was well on its way, I invited the kids to take their own clipboard and find a quiet spot to make their own sound map. If they didn't want to focus on sounds, they were welcome to draw a picture of something where they were sitting.

Once engaged, they were quick to focus their attention on the task they had chosen, and were able to decide when they were finished, and when they needed to continue. Some left their clipboards behind completely, and became engrossed in exploring the tall grasses.

I usually like to let children's drawings speak for themselves, but I just can't resist sharing: at the very bottom of this picture, the student drew "the wind rushing through the grasses"

This student opted to draw what he saw in his surroundings.

The "wind" appears here similarly to our collaborative sound map because it is by the same girl who thought of this particular representation of the wind.

What I most enjoy about this activity is that it allows me to get in touch with each student as an individual. There is no rubric, no expectations connected to this exercise - it is a way I get to know my students, just as they are. Their expression is invaluable to me, because it reminds me that, though we may all hear the same sounds and draw the same pictures, there are as many ways to show what we know as there are ways of knowing.

The culture of money

This past week, I observed a fascinating development among some boys in my class. They learned last week how to play an ocean-themed version of Monopoly (called Oceanopoly), which, when you think about it, is not exactly intuitive to five- and six-year-olds. Did that stop them? Of course not.



After one of our teachers had explicitly taught them the conventional rules of the game, they kept much of what they had learned, yet began altering some aspects. For example, they introduced Opposite Day: "If you get this [a card that says "Pay $200"], then you don't have to pay, you actually earn $200." ... Of course, another boy was quick to add: "But, if you get "Earn $200" then you get to earn it, too." Hmmm... "And," - there was more - "when you want to buy something, you actually get paid to buy it!" I see ...

From game adaptations, they moved to playing Aquarium, which I was given the grand tour of, with each kid interpreting a different sea animal. (I think my favorite was the seahorse: he knew that in the seahorse community, the males carry the babies, so he stuck out his stomach with a grin on his face, declaring, "I'm pregnant!").

By the end of the week, however, the idea of money - the making of it, the exchange of it, the earning and losing of it - had really taken over, so that by Friday, there was no Oceanopoly game any more. Instead, the boys were in the studio, cutting up construction paper and putting some awfully big numbers on them.

@: What are you all up to?
Jack: Making fake money.
Miles: For Kyle to sell.
@: What are you selling money for, Kyle?
Kyle: I'm being nice, so people have more money.
Miles: And we get paid.
@: How does that work?
Kyle: I pay them with paper money ... the money they made! ... [To Jack:] Don't make 'em too short, make 'em, make 'em ... yeah, that long. ... [To Denny:] Since you've been such a good worker, I'm gonna give you a hundred bucks! [Gives Denny one fake $100 bill.]
Denny: Yes!
Miles: I wanna get paid.
@: What will you do with your money, Miles?
Miles: Keep some of it. ... I'm gonna take it and put it where I put all my money ... in my suitcase.

Meanwhile, I later came across Hamish with a whole piece of paper, on which he started writing 5 - 0 - 0 - 0 ... and just never seemed to stop. As he filled the page with zeros, he chanted along: "Zero ... zero ... zero ..." and then, under his breath, " ... I'm going to be rich!"

Being a naturally reflective person, I can't say I was exactly thrilled to see all this going on. I am as much a product of our capitalistic society as anyone else, but I just couldn't help but cringe to see children role-playing their interpretation of its different aspects. However, at some point, I remembered I had my teacher hat on, which meant I was not judging, but exploring a theme that emerged from the interest of the children, seeking to understand how the children experience it in their play.

My observations prompted me to remember what my concept(s) of money were as a child. I'm sure I would be deceiving myself if I pretended to think I had always been as frugal, yet generous as I aspire to be as an adult, though no particular examples come to mind. Except, perhaps, ironically enough, the games of Monopoly I played with my cousins for days on end. I laugh to think how seriously we took ourselves, how proud we were to have amassed a small fortune of hard cash and valuable properties, and how devastated when bankruptcy seemed imminent. Did we have any idea of the actual weight of such ventures on the psyche? We were just playing, after all.

Oh, play! I find it a sort of double-mirror. It is somehow painful sometimes to see children use their play to act out adult roles they have observed, as with Hamish's money-making Kyle's management of the money-making (though I have to say, he was pretty generous and supportive of all of his employees). However, at the same time, just because children are acting out these roles does not mean they will come to inhabit them as adults. They are simply trying on something for size, imitating something they have observed to see how it feels in their own skin. It is certainly a fascinating phenomenon to be witness to!

However, here I arrive at a bit of a dead end: Where to from here? As the teacher, I've first explored with the children how they experience this theme of money, and have a good impression of what each of them is drawn to within this theme. Now, is it also my job to respond to that and introduce some new element to the theme? Perhaps another money-oriented game, with a different spin? Should we experiment with real money?

The possibilities are endless ... yet I hesitate. All to often I watch children's motivation to explore a topic simply dissipate as I begin to "take control" of it through a lesson. I wonder if it is precisely when the teacher attempts to own a theme at hand that the learning no longer belongs to the children? What, then, is there for the teacher to do?

I'm listening ...

The beginning of some story therapy?

Isaac, I have noticed, learns extremely well with his ears. When I tell a story, he is able to retell it later almost with the exact tone and inflections that I have used.

Isaac also is very demanding when there is a particular story he would like to hear at a particular moment. He has a hard time waiting or negotiating what story will be told. "But I want to hear THAT one!" he insists. "Tell me NOW!!"

No one likes feeling threatened by such demanding behavior, least of all myself; however, I also know Isaac. I know that he generally has difficulty processing emotions, so that they come out much stronger and more aggressive than they might appear in others. He is also a perfectionist, with very precise ideas and little room for negotiation.

As I teacher, my job is find childrens' joy inside them, and to inspire it to come and be shared with the world. Isaac's behavior, at first, makes it hard to do this. However, I have tried to stay focused on that joy that I know is inside him. Despite his belligerent reactions, he really does love stories and is probably so fixated on some of them because they are helping him process something inside that he is, for now, unable to express himself.

So, one day, at his "demand", I began telling a story ... until I stopped. "What happens next?" I asked, with a foolish grin, and a sly "I think I forgot." Seamlessly, Isaac jumped in every time I presented the opportunity, until, at the end of the story, I said, "You know, Isaac, I think you know these stories better than I do. Let's write them down together and make a book of them for you to keep and remember just for yourself, anytime you need them."

With that, I pulled out our classroom laptop, and we began the story from the beginning again.

RAVEN AND THE MAN WHO SITS ON THE TIDES
Retold by Isaac
[Originally from the Pacific Northwest Native American tradition - I learned it from a fellow environmental educator, and I believe he got it from eldrbarry.net, an online story resource.]

Long ago, the oceans had no tides and the shores had no shallows. There was no way for Raven to get the food, 'cause he was a bird. And birds can't get food very easily from the ocean. He was not a fish. And he was ... HUNGRY!! He decided to find Fog Man, far to the North, where the fog comes from. Raven saw an island bobbing from wave to wave. An old man that was wrinkled, with a long straggly beard was sitting with a hat on his head, and there was fog coming out of the top of his hat.
Raven snatched his hat. Fog man was an-NOY-ed.
"Why do you make fog?" said Raven.
"It's what I do."
"Can the sea be moved away from the shore, so I can get food?"
"I don't know but give me my hat back."
"Can the sea be moved away from the shore, so I can get food?"
"I don't know but give me my hat back!"
"I don't know," mocked Raven, "I've give you your hat back if you tell me how to solve my problem."
Fog Man told him to go to the Man Who Sits on the Tides. "Just fly toward the setting sun as far as you can go, and you'll find him there."
So Raven did just that, forgetting to give the hat back. Well, he didn't really forget.
When Raven was near the Man Who Sits on the Tides, he noticed a large rock that seemed to have eyes in the middle of the water. It seemed to be this old man sitting in the middle of the sea.
"Do you know where the Man Who Sits on the Tides is?" said Raven.
"I am the Man Who Sits on the Tides."
"Do you know the secret of how I can get my food? How does one make the sea go out?"
"I forgot."
"Why do you sit on the tides?" said Raven.
"It's my job. It's what I do."
"It's my job, it's what I do," mocked Raven, and he circled the Man Who Sits on the Tides and found little rips on his clothes where his skin was sticking out. He picked on it and nicked on it with his beak. The Man Who Sits on the Tides stood up and let out a painful roar. AAAAARRRRR!!!
All the water seemed to go in this hole, which he was sitting on. Raven flew all the way back to the village and all the see creatures, like the gooey ducks and the sea anemones and the sea urchins and the fish and the crabs and the mussels were all left out on the sand. He flew all the way back to the Man Who Sits on the Tides and he seemed to sit back down again. When he sat back down, all the water squirted back out all into place again, so that the sea creatures were covered in water.
Raven really liked when the tide was out, so when the tide was in, he pecked and picked and nicked with his beak again at the back of the Man Who Sits on the Tides. But he would not stand up. So, Raven put Fog Man's hat on his head and aaaaaaaalllllll the fog from his hat came out everywhere to block his sight.
And he nicked and pecked and picked again. And the Man Who Sits on the Tides stood up once again and sat back down again, and the water went back in place.
Raven liked this a lot. "How would you like to do exercises, just twice a day? It's not a big deal," he said.
"NO!" said the Man Who Sits on the Tides. So he nicked and picked and nicked again. He visited him twice a day to make him stand up and sit down until he did it automatically. So now Raven can eat as much as he wants.
And now Raven says, "When the tide is out, the table is set!"

THE END

There are more issues at hand, obviously, to address with Isaac. However, something in the stories seem to resonate with him, so that I feel it will be through stories that I can begin to uncover some of what Isaac is trying to express through his aggressive demands. We shall see what develops. Stay tuned ...