Dear Reader,

     I am no longer adding to this blog. You can find me at loripohlman.wordpress.com. Hope to see you there!

Writing, Lessons on Greatness, and What’s Up With Those Tumor Markers, Anyway?

Ah, the great juggling act of life.  Attempting to keep all of those pesky balls up in the air at once, simultaneously and perpetually, can discourage even the most practiced, talented, energetic, and coordinated of jugglers.  Career, family, health, love, finances, spiritual concerns, creative needs, chores, and countless  obligations ranging from the mundane to the apocalyptic are all whirling about in the space above our heads at any given moment, threatening to come crashing down upon us, either crushing us or breaking themselves into irreparable pieces.  None of it good.

It’s exhausting!

My doctor doesn’t understand why I don’t walk with my husband and my dogs in the beautiful forest that surrounds my home.  My granddaughter doesn’t understand why I don’t want to get cleaned up and go to the pumpkin patch on Saturday morning, or in fact, that I don’t want to get cleaned up that day at all.  Not at 9 am, or 11 am, or at three in the afternoon.  I listlessly lounge on the sofa as the clocks ticks past the hour of the Octoberfest-style party I had planned to attend, and had truly wanted to attend.  I can’t will myself to get up.  Pajamas and heating pads, those are the things I long for, my sweet, sweet candy.

I am a teacher, a writer, a cancer survivor, a wife, mother, grandmother, and friend—and I am also that person always on the verge of dropping the ball.  Or balls.  Maybe all of them.  And maybe good riddance to some of them, anyway.  You know?  Why do I find it so tiring these days?  I suspect that some of the balls have gotten heavier over time and therefore the whole system is wobbling, so to speak.  Some of the balls are light, frothy as whipped cream, and require very little effort to keep afloat.  Others are more dense and multilayered than Spaulding golf balls, heavier than lead.  Synchronize that?  How?  

Part of the problem is the absence of consistent, thoughtful, and well-organized training.  A personal trainer for life, that’s what I need.  

Enter applicant number one:  Writing.  Cleansing, mostly rewarding, personal, intimate even, demanding, elusive.  Yes, writing is a good candidate. 

Number two is teaching, and in particular an aspect of teaching that I love, and hate, and think is exciting, and boring… It’s always changing.  New kids, new curriculum, no curriculum, state curriculum, national curriculum, testing, training…lawyering up.  Yes, teaching is a great training ground.  Just this week a group of middle school teachers in Southern California were trained in ERWC, that’s the expository reading and writing course developed by the California State University system to facilitate teacher learning aligned to Common Core Standards, which in turn will be used to “train” our youth for college and career readiness.  Good stuff!  One of our sample modules is based on the article by Geoff Colvin published in Fortune magazine in 2006, “What it Takes to be Great.” Apparently, with “deliberate practice” and years of hard work, any one of us can achieve greatness in any endeavor, regardless of any notion of natural or inborn talent.  This is one example of the kind of critical, evaluative, soul-searching thought and discovery that teaching engenders.  Teachers experience the world through the innocent, (or callow) souls of youth, but also through the texts of the ages.  Yes, teaching is a good candidate. 

How about cancer?  Cancer, in it’s very essence, implies, no, that is not precision language, there is no implication involved, it dictates loss of control.  It is mysterious multiplications metastasizing.  It is sneaky, quiet, and, at its most powerful, deadly.  Millions of lives are changed forever by its power.  How does that train anyone?  Well, okay, maybe a juggler needs to relax a bit, let go of the idea of constant surveillance and personal power over the balls.  Cancer can certainly teach those skills.  In the beginning, when first diagnosed, constant surveillance is often the defining feature for the patient.  The internet has made this understandably more overwhelming and addictive than ever.  Log on to any cancer website and you’ll see what I mean.  We’re talking plethora.  And how about all of that pink?  Talk about looking at the world through rose-colored glasses!  I’ll never look at another pair of ribbon-adorned baby girl pajamas the same way again.  Pink ribbons mean breast cancer, not baby girls.  Get it through your head, America!  Still, if you’re going to give up control, free yourself of the notions of immortality, strength, and planning your own calendar… you can’t do better than to hire cancer.  And, by the way, it comes in all colors, for all races, creeds, ages, and genders.  Cancer is an equal opportunity trainer.

Writing, I’m keeping you on.  Teaching, I think I can give you a couple more years.  Cancer… if you give me a year of clear scans and lower those darn tumor markers on my blood and urine tests… (as if I can bargain with you), I guess I have no choice but to keep you on.

Wishing you luck in keeping your balls up! 

Lori

(Summary:  Loma Linda scans: clear.  Tumor markers: elevated.  News that isn’t news.  More juggling predicted!)

     

Advice from Virginia Woolf, Writing Group News, and a Zombie Beauty Pageant

 Poetopia from Pininterest

October 2013

"Therefore I would ask you to write all kinds of books, hesitating at no subject no matter how trivial or however vast.  By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream."  Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

We had a great home based meeting last week--the words, wisdom, and wine were flowing; it was our monthly "share" meeting!  Next week, it's back to coffee, frozen yogurt, and hammering away at the old keys.  Meet Tuesday.  Bring edited copies of the shared work from last week.

Alicia is taking a month off.  Rumour has it there's a big shindig going on in Redlands, CA around Halloween that she spends a lot of time working on this time of year.  Something about a zombie beauty pageant? Missing our tiny dancer already!

I just finished reading Ken's manuscript.  Bravo, Ken.  I'm looking forward to your first book signing event!

Write on, and on, and on!

Fellow readers and writers, please let me know what you think of Bodies of Smoke as a young adult level historical fiction novel so far.  Comment on this blog. Let me know if you have a blog so I can visit you, too! 

Copyright Protected? Yes, Of Course.

I'm so grateful to have readers!  Thank you all.  Just a statement for the blog:  I either write everything on this blog personally, or I credit it.  All of my work is my exclusive property.  I am happy to share it with my readers because I write for you, and, for me, and maybe even for some of my loved ones and perfect strangers who will discover some resonance in some of my words, someday, somewhere, anywhere.  Mahalo.                    ©2013 Rachel Lorene Pohlman          

 

Paris, France

So You Want to Write a Novel

PicLit Poetry

http://www.piclits.com/viewpoem.aspx?PoemId=107181

Click on link to see and read "My Wavier Cascade"...  and write one of your own (or several!).  It's fun!

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The Importance of a Liberal Education

The Eye of the Mind

July 7, 2013

Twin Peaks, California, USA

     Education is on my mind; hopefully, some of it is also in my mind (what hasn’t leaked out or been hidden in the locked recesses of memory)—Education, it’s “whys” and “hows” and “wheres” and “whens”—that’s what I want to explore in my writing today. 

Experiential Learning on the Streets of London with actors portraying Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf, June, 3013

 What seems most valuable to me differs often and much from what I see being elevated in society at large, and I find myself on a mission of sorts to deepen and strengthen a better understanding of the importance of adopting a lifestyle of lifelong learning, of appreciating critical thought and knowledge for their own sakes.  And not down only the intensely beautiful narrow cobblestone streets of any one person’s particular chosen neighborhood of industry or science or art or literature or religion, but also, along a world encompassing network of roads leading to the knowledge thus far compiled on earth. 

     I would love to hear your thoughts.  What is the purpose of education?  Who should be educated?  How should they be educated?  Where should they learn?  When should an education begin, and when, if ever, is enough, enough?

     This is obviously much too much for one day’s worth of writing, so I’ll begin with my main concern right at the moment, and that is to attempt to explain what I believe the purpose of education to be, by exploring my own experiences and through an examination of what others have published on the topic. 

     This summer I pulled out an old college volume, The Norton Anthology of English Literature, and began a short program of study.  I chanced upon the following quotes the other day.  I had underlined the passages below during my student days.  I find these words even more compelling today, as an American school teacher, living in an environment of constantly changing educational expectations and requirements. 

     “The bodily eye, the organ for apprehending material objects, is provided by nature; the eye of the mind, of which the object is truth, is the work of discipline and habit…  This process of training, by which the intellect, instead of being formed or sacrificed to some particular or accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or study or science, is disciplined for its own sake, for the perception of its own proper object, and for its own highest culture, is called Liberal Education…And to set forth the right standard, and to train according to it, and to help forward all students toward it according to their various capacities, this I conceive to be the business of a University.”

                                                                          John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), from “Discourse 7. Knowledge Viewed in Relation to

                                                                          Professional Skill,” The Idea of a University.

     The eye of the mind, yes!  Education for the broadening and deepening of the mind, for the opening of that mind’s eye, this is what I still believe frees humankind from petty, self-righteous, narrow thinking—authentically releasing us from the constrictions of our own history, culture, mores, family, state, and national systems.  These systems are not all wrong, no, not at all, but they are not enough.    

     Newman continues, “It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them.  It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought, to detect what is sophistical, and to discard what is irrelevant.  It prepares him to fill any post with credit, and to master any subject with facility.  It shows him how to accommodate himself to others, how to throw himself into their state of mind, how to bring before them his own, how to influence them, how to come to an understanding with them, how to bear with them.  He is at home in any society, he has common ground with every class; he knows when to speak and when to be silent; he is able to converse, he is able to listen; he can ask a question pertinently, and gain a lesson seasonably, when he has nothing to impart himself; he is ever ready, yet never in the way; he is a pleasant companion, and a comrade you can depend upon; he knows when to be serious, when to trifle, and he has a sure tact which enables him to trifle with gracefulness and to be serious with effect.  He has the repose of a mind which lives in itself, while it lives in the world, and which has resources for its happiness at home when it cannot go abroad.  He has a gift which serves him in public, and supports him in retirement, without which good fortune is but vulgar, and with which failure and disappointment have a charm.”

     This speaks to “why” and also to “when,” for it is clearly a course of education that supports the student for an entire life, through the school years, working years, and all the way through retirement. This also explains why I still wish to teach the classics, while I wish to teach the classics of as many cultures as I can, while at the same time bringing in as many of the new great writers being published today.  And why do I want to expose my students to as many different styles of writing and schools of thought as possible?  Why do I propose that they explore their own minds with unlimited and unedited requests that they write in response to the words, ideas, art, and history presented to them on a constant, nearly daily basis?  To assist them in opening their minds’ eyes.  It is never to insist that they agree with or even like any particular piece of literature, but it is an invitation to become someone with their own “clear conscious view of [their] own opinions and judgments.”  What greater gift can a teacher give?  What higher calling?

     In this way, a Liberal Education seeks to prepare every student for a life truly fulfilling and without boundaries.  And it can only be accomplished in a truly loving and brilliant environment—one that shines with excitement and constant academic thought, exchange, and preparation.  As teachers, we need to believe in and support our very important mission, to encourage all students to use their minds’ eyes, and to believe that even those who today seem to reject the gift of education are still profiting from being included in a caring and safe community of intellectual pursuit.  There is no way of knowing exactly how much any one student is profiting from a rich, supportive, loving, and enthusiastic classroom environment.  Test scores cannot reflect the sparks a teacher can clearly see in a student’s eyes or hear in their words.  Of course, tests are probably not going away, and so we will continue to teach the skills and information necessary for students to test well—but that is the least important lesson.  Critical thinking, true academic research, a wide exposure to the worlds’ fantastic collected fields of  literature, science, mathematics, art, and the history of all cultures…these are the lessons that mean the most, the greatest gifts of all.  As teachers, it is our duty to gives these gifts freely and with respect, humility, and love.  If we cannot muster up the capacity and enthusiasm for the mission, then I respectfully would suggest that teaching should not be our chosen profession; it’s much too important a cause.  Liberal Education has the power to open up the eyes and the minds, and yes, also the hearts, of everyone. 

     And so the “why and how and where and when” of education are to me all encompassing; it is crucial that education is elevated in practice and in support, that it is everywhere and that it is lifelong, for it is as important to humanity, and to everything humanity affects on this earth, as are our very lives. 
  
                                                                                 ©2013 Rachel Lorene Pohlman