It’s May 8. I sleep in an extra hour. I make myself a kick-ass scrambler. I pick my brother up at 9 and we drive toward I-84. There’s a bunch of teachers on an overpass wearing red and hanging their banners and I honk at them. My brother and I make our way to theContinue reading “#342: May 8, Soul Work”
Tag Archives: The Courage To Teach
#346: I Drove Through the Desert and Back Over a Mountain to Get Home
I drove for three hours, through the desert and back over a mountain, to get home. Listening to XTC the whole way, I felt every twenty minutes or so tears of gratitude welling up, which I staved off, because I was driving at sixty-five miles per hour and singing along to every single song, neitherContinue reading “#346: I Drove Through the Desert and Back Over a Mountain to Get Home”
#345: According to This Map
I have lived for a long time now in the country of Autumn, ruminating in the mountains near the capital city of Change, trying to see my way back into Summer. I know I’m going to hike my way through Somewhere on my way over the Plains of Solitude, and I may have to takeContinue reading “#345: According to This Map”
#344: I Drove Over the Mountain to Get Here
I drove over the mountain to get here. I drove over Mount Hood. I drove over the mountain into the desert. Eventually, I ended up close to three other mountains, the ones we call The Sisters. I drove over the mountain to get here. This is the place where I will try to help peopleContinue reading “#344: I Drove Over the Mountain to Get Here”
Diary of an English Teacher in His Penultimate Year: June 12, 2018
Please excuse my absence. After 30 poems over the 30 days of April, one needs a little rest. But on top of all that, I’ve been having a transformative experience. On Sunday, May 20, I came down from the mountaintop. My hair turned white and now looks blown back by a great force of energyContinue reading “Diary of an English Teacher in His Penultimate Year: June 12, 2018”
#300: The American English Teacher Gets His Courage Shit Together
“This shit works” –heard in conversation with Rick, and then later with Paul or Jeff, one or both of whom attributed it to Parker Palmer, perhaps apocryphally. 20 years ago I thought to myself there’s no way I can do this for another 20 years. I would need the strength of a half dozen supermen,Continue reading “#300: The American English Teacher Gets His Courage Shit Together”
Diary of an English Teacher in His Penultimate Year: February 15, 2018
Today I wrapped up three full days of sitting with my senior IB English students, listening to their oral commentaries on a poem by Seamus Heaney and holding discussions with them about Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. I sat with almost 25 students, just me and the kid, one at a time, forContinue reading “Diary of an English Teacher in His Penultimate Year: February 15, 2018”
Mindfulness in 2017: A Reflection
Here’s the new year’s resolution I made two years ago for 2016: I resolve in 2016 to be more mindful, to find opportunities daily for meditation practice, and to seek out a community, some companionship on the journey. This resolution was a resounding success. I found myself a community that still meets two years laterContinue reading “Mindfulness in 2017: A Reflection”
Diary of an English Teacher in His Penultimate Year: October 20, 2017
October 11th of last week was Oregon’s official teacher in-service day. In our school district, the day is unofficial, in that it’s no longer a paid work day. Somehow during negotiations that took place more than a decade ago now, the paid in-service day was bargained away in exchange for some other mysterious but beneficialContinue reading “Diary of an English Teacher in His Penultimate Year: October 20, 2017”
Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: The Next Frontier
Remember that on July 3rd we campers were treated here at Mt. Holyoke College to a fireworks display of stupendous proportions. Yesterday, on the 4th of July, it was quiet. I’m not kidding. After the reading I sat on an Adirondack chair in the dark sipping whiskey in the middle of the lawn and IContinue reading “Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: The Next Frontier”
michael jarmer 