Today, as I look out across the street at our neighborhood school, I see the cars parked, as teachers have returned for the new term. And even though it has been 14 years since I last entered my empty classroom with dreams and visions of how to make that new year the best ever.... I still have that sense of solidarity with teachers.. their hopes and the things they probably dread about each new start up...my adrenalin still starts pumping as I would one by one get about a dozen balls into the air and try to keep them all going... the class arrangement, the computerized math lab, and the reading lab, reading groups, bulletin boards, books assigned, lesson plans, progress charts, new class notebooks for creative writing, and student documentation folders. and praise the Lord there are some things I cant remember..that is a good thing because a lot of these things I'd love to forget.. for it was the students that every teacher really wanted to assess... those giftings, and the struggles and how to set about reaching each young mind to challenge it and help mold it for desiring learning and to be self sufficient in their own ability to reason and think for themselves.
My favorite subject to teach was history.... I love our history.... the true history with its greatness in the founding of our nation and its struggles in its darkest moments. I taught fourth grade... Virginia history... and I loved to teach through story-telling and hands-on projects.. So many wonderful themes about Jamestown, Williamsburg, the Revolutionary War, etc. and then toward the end of the year we taught the Civil War...and I pray that my students, who many are in their 40's now, remember how strongly we taught of the horrors of slavery... of being kidnapped, the ravages of the long arduous voyage, stacked in rows of crates in the bottom of those vessels left to lie in their own body fluids for days and once a week brought up on deck and hosed down with sea's salt water. ... treated worse than animals.. and then worst of all being separated from families on the auction block..and then slavery began.. not a pretty picture... but then I taught them about Robert E. Lee...a top graduate of the US Military Academy, a decorated US General who fought valiantly in the Mexican American War..whose father Lighthorse Henry Lee signed the Declaration of Independence,, whose home was in Arlington Virginia.. his beloved state. He was heart broken over the secession of the south and Virginia's part in it, and it was Lee who was offered to lead the Union forces, but couldnt in good conscious fight against his home, Virginia. Lee was born to the upper class, like many of the founding fathers of that time lived in a beautiful mansion, was taught in the best schools and had by great tudors and was a gentile gentleman... he was a man of his time... was sympathetic to slaves yet was a slave holder as had his family for generations. He was a man of great dignity, who may not have led his troops to victory , but to fair the deck was from the beginning stacked against him... The south being agricultural, the north, industrial.... but he was first and foremost fair and never vindictive which cannot be said of many of his northern counterparts. The Civil War was an ugly business at best.. Brother fighting against brother, cousin against cousin, some times father against son...
Not only a war about the ills of slavery, but just as much a battle over state's rights. If we are not very careful, the US could find itself facing another such war and I tremble at the thought. This is why the desecration of historical monuments and figures is so wrong... The rewriting of history and now the lack of even teaching students of their history is downright maddening to me... or else the trap of making the very same mistakes of the past will be inevitable. I would urge parents and grand parents to find good writers of books who are not skewing the truth but correct documentation of the past to share with your children...many books do exist.. but young adults need teaching on the truth of our history so they can instill in their own minds openness and wonder and not be swayed by the lies that are so prevalent in our society.
Wow, have I ever deviated from where I as planning to go... but I do hope that was timely and it was things Ive been wanting to say... but Im actually here to pay homage to back to school..Many schools across the country will host at least one classroom celebrating the apple, because if it back to school.. it is fun to celebrate Johnny Appleseed..
Steven Kellogg, one of my favorite children's author, wrote a delightful book that I read to my classes..
So, if it is back to school, I love to pull out my Fransican apple dishes.. a large bouquet of wild flowers and some bright red gingham and I'm all set to get in a happy to go lucky mood..
It also makes me feel great to be getting in a quasi autumn attitude because late August around here is so miserably hot that dreams of September days seem like heavenly delights longed for!
or other years I change it up a bit...
One tiny shared tidbit.. I love my creamy white teapot I fund at a consignment store a couple of years ago.. I'm so glad it caught my eye and I bought it for a song.. because it goes with everything but also because when I got it home I discovered it was made in England by Wedgewood..One of most special finds!!
It just gives me the merriest feeling, especially, now that I am retired.. I can enjoy the frivolity of the upcoming apple season, but my body can revel that I am doing it here at my home sweet home!!!
Oops, let me go hang out my back to school flag...
