Six Word Saturday
I am so very, very tired. . . .
Poetry Friday: Jean Kerr Taught Me To Love Poetry
Mamacita says: I first encountered Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Spring and Fall and Robert Burns’ John Anderson, My Jo in a college course. Unfortunately, the professor was a jaded, bored, boring man who considered himself far too important to be teaching a group of eager undergrads, and who turned every selection into a joke. Both poems, he taught us, were about old people who were about to die. No biggie, that. Death. Common theme. Moving right along. . . .
A lot of treasure went undiscovered that semester, thanks to him. He knew there was gold in that book and even more gold seated in the room, but he did not bestir himself to go a’digging for it. Too much trouble. He held the key to a treasure chest and did not bother to use it. Never once did he tell us that poetry was awesome and fantastic and heartbreaking and thrilling and bloody and pathetic and sweet and sour and bitter and lusty and sexy and mind-boggling and dirty and just plain wonderful unless it wasn’t.
A few years later, I encountered this poem again, in Jean Kerr’s How I Got To Be Perfect. Jean and her husband Walter, upon realizing – with horror – that while their kids seemed to know an 
awful lot about sports and movies and fun, not one of their kids knew anything about poetry, instituted “Culture Night,” wherein each child had to memorize a poem and recite it to the family once a week. It went over like a ton of bricks the first few times, and then took off like a rocket as the boys gradually gained an understanding and appreciation of form, rhyme, meter, patterns, theme, and inner meanings. (The Common Room has a fantastic post about Jean and Walter Kerr’s “Culture Hour.” I highly recommend that y’all go read it.)
One night, after Jean’s son Colin had finished his recitation of John Anderson, My Jo,, Jean burst into tears. The boy said to her, “Mom, it is Margaret you mourn for.” It was true.
I cannot think of either poem now, without tears. The good kind. I teach my students that both poems are, first and foremost, about love: the kind of love that lasts forever.
John Anderson, My Jo, by Robert Burns
JOHN ANDERSON, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snow;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo!
John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill tegither;
And monie a canty day, John,
We’ve had wi’ ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we’ll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.
Spring and Fall, by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
Thank you, Jean Kerr, for teaching me that poetry rocks. The university couldn’t be arsed to do it.
I Agree With Mr. Horse. We Don't Like It.
Mamacita says: part of this post is from another post that I deleted before I wrote down the date. I’m so tech savvy and organized.
This semester, I will have to say that most of my students have been exceptionally fine. Lovely, hard-working, sincere people who genuinely want to improve themselves, so they can improve their job status, so they can improve their way of life, so their children’s lives will be improved.
Throughout my career, I have always loved and respected most of my students, and deeply resented the fact that the majority of the perks and money and attention and programs seem to go to the students who least deserve them, while those who most deserve them are expected to get by on their own. I will always resent this fact. The fact that it’s a fact is completely unacceptable to me, and I will work until I die to get this unreasonable fact changed. I doubt this will happen in my lifetime, however, so I am counting on YOU to work hard to change it, too. The lowest common denominator does NOT deserve the highest amount of praise, programs, and cash.
I never forget any of my students, but there are always a handful of students I don’t want to lose track of, either. There are always students who are too good to lose. I followed my middle school students through high school and college (not the creepy stalking follow: the interested concerned follow) and often went to their weddings, graduations, etc. Now, while some of my students are just out of high school, and, indeed, some of them are the same students I had back in the middle school, most of my students are approximately my age or older, and after I’m finished being their professor, sometimes I want to be their friend.
You know, I can close my eyes and see group after group of students. I remember where they sat. I remember things they said. I remember essays they wrote. I remember their circumstances. I can remember positive things about most of them. Others, well, sometimes I have to try harder to think of something positive. 🙂
I don’t think it’s enough for a teacher to be smart and knowledgeable about his/her subject. Yes, those things are important, but they’re not enough.
To be a good and effective teacher, I think a person must be smart, knowledgeable, and genuinely interested in the students. As a professor, I am bound by certain rules, but I am not imprisoned by them. If a person in authority does not know when and how to bend a rule, that person has no business having authority.
Because, you see, there are times to be inflexible, and there are times to make allowances. Knowing the difference can be the difference between a teacher and a machine. One has a mind and a heart, and the other can only spew out what’s been programmed into it. I have no desire to be (or have, for that matter) a bread machine. I prefer to get my hands dirty and my fingernails crusty (Eat up. Yum.)
One of my fears is that our drilled, re-drilled, prepped, re-prepped, tested, and re-tested students are going to become so out of practice and out of synch and out of even simple acquaintance with their minds and hearts, that they’ll turn into machines. Even now, our kids are pretty good at making their marks heavy and dark with a #2 pencil, but not so good on understanding WHY a certain answer is correct and another isn’t. Without the understanding, what do we really have?
We have machines. Bewitched, Bothered Machines, bullies, and a lot of bewilderment.
To quote Mr. Horse: I don’t like it. No, sir, I don’t like it at all.
(WHAT? You don’t know Mr. Horse? This is unacceptable. Go find out, right NOW!)
Knowledge is knowledge.
