So, the student stops by the house of his English teacher to pick up a younger member of his family who’s taking music lessons from the English teacher’s wife, and he comes into the study to say hello and the English teacher minimizes his Facebook page so that the student doesn’t know that this isContinue reading “#66: The American English Teacher Doesn’t Want His Student To See Him Using Facebook”
Category Archives: Poetry
#65: Quality of Life
Quality of Life The story goes that my parents at one point made official a “do not resuscitate” order in the event of some cataclysmic approach of eternal darkness–and then, at some later point they changed their minds, in order, I can only guess, to live as long as they could live. That cataclysmic eventContinue reading “#65: Quality of Life”
#64: Black Friday
I Well, it’s darker. Yesterday the skies were blue and clear and today there’s a cold cloud cover and there’s rumor of snow. I’ll believe it when I see it, and sometimes I wonder if we will ever see snow here in the valley of the Willamette again, what with the warming. What a strangeContinue reading “#64: Black Friday”
#63: Pilgrims at the Table
Pilgrims at the Table I understand that on the first Thanksgiving there was no meal between Pilgrims and Indians, there was no peaceful gathering around a turkey or anything in particular having to do with corn, but rather, John Winthrop’s declaration of a “day of thanksgiving” when he received the news that 700 Pequot IndiansContinue reading “#63: Pilgrims at the Table”
#62: Leaves
Leaves I love the trees but hate the leaves. Each fall the oaks bury us several times over. You see that big pile surrounded by mostly green grass? In a week there will be no green grass; in a day, perhaps, if there’s a wind, there will be no green grass and the process willContinue reading “#62: Leaves”
#61: The American English Teacher Makes An Epic Gaffe While Trying To Be Inclusive
He’s teaching a poem during the study of 17th century American literature by Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz, a brilliant poet, Catholic nun, living in what was then called New Spain, and crafting these beautiful poems about the power of intellect and about surviving a broken heart. He’s teaching one of those poems, yes,Continue reading “#61: The American English Teacher Makes An Epic Gaffe While Trying To Be Inclusive”
#60: The American Teenager Claims The Puritans Were Speaking Old English
The American Teenager Claims The Puritans Were Speaking Old English He wants to say the Puritans were speaking or writing in Old English; a pet peave of mine, this calling by students Old English what is essentially their language, modern English, a language they don’t really know that well after all. But they know evenContinue reading “#60: The American Teenager Claims The Puritans Were Speaking Old English”
#59: Out of the Mouths of Babes
Mom and Dad are not religious, and have not yet taught their boy much about the wide array of stuff people believe in their hearts and homes and churches, but the boy’s starting to catch on with or without their intervention and today it was clear, to Dad anyway, that some intervention will be necessaryContinue reading “#59: Out of the Mouths of Babes”
#58: Classroom Management
A student entered the classroom of my colleague with a rat. Really. The rat was traveling visibly underneath the boy’s clothing, around the stomach and the chest, up and down the sleeves and nestling in the wide birth of his hoodie hood. It made a girl scream. The lesson, whatever it was, is inevitably interrupted.Continue reading “#58: Classroom Management”
#57: This Is Happening
This Is Happening: Today, in my first official act as reverend, I will officiate the wedding of two former students of mine. I have written some words for, rehearsed and supped with these two bright stars from some deep place earlier in my career some 15 years back. And I wonder at this turn ofContinue reading “#57: This Is Happening”
michael jarmer 