All posts by Rebecca Michelle

Educator, traveler, reader, blogger. Loves learning, black coffee, and friendly people.
On My Mind

Pages of Intimacy

3 Comments

Reading
A friend was recently telling me about a book he was reading and we both agreed that the author (who is well-traveled, multilingual, knowledgeable, funny, and articulate) would be fun to spend time with in real life. In conversation, I expressed how nice it was to find a good “book friend” to spend time with regardless of real life.

Book friend.

That’s how I generally think about authors or even characters in novels. I love Haruki Murakami, for example, because he describes the world in ways that make it both bigger than it is and also so uncomfortably close and personal. Reading his books, I see my world through his eyes and I learn from it. I enjoy Robert Sapolsky because he’s funny and engaging, which is not always common practice for scientists writing for lay people. In the fiction world, Hermione Granger remains a favorite female protagonist for her unashamed love of books. Importantly for a book character, she rarely disappoints. If there’s a fact to find and a book to find it in, she will.

Book friends, unlike real people in unedited daily existence, are manufactured. They’re predictable, omniscient where appropriate, developed in a certain way to achieve certain ends. They weave bits of plot together into a neat story that is literally bound and sealed. And that’s what makes them safe. That’s what keeps me coming back to books I’ve read before, authors I’ve spent time with, characters I’ve learned to love or hate. Book friends are there to be heard and I’m here to listen.

Sharing
There’s a feeling of excitement when I read something that is just so perfectly, stunningly, eloquently true. There are passage from books that I highlight, write down, keep track of, and return to over and over. Often I find myself looking to share whatever I’ve just found with someone who will appreciate it as I do. I want to share why I’m so thrilled by what I’ve read or what makes me laugh or cry. I want to share what fills me with awe, dread, or horror. If I’ve learned something new, something that I think is important, I look for people to show it to because it’s too special to keep to myself.

I’m cautious, though, because I see sharing passages from books as an intimate action. I’m handing you a piece of my mind in the form of something that has stood out to me as beautiful, honest, and true. I’m telling you, “This resonates with me.” Sometimes, you haven’t seen that side of me. You didn’t know I was looking for those things, believed that, or had come to such understandings. And here I am, holding out something that excited me and hoping that you’ll accept it, meaning that you will also accept me and who I am, what makes me tick. And I am always hopeful that you’ll return my share with one of your own or with conversation about your own found truths, your own beauties.

But sometimes, the people we share with don’t respond in the ways that we hope they will. Sometimes we try again, we ask again that they take us for who we are. Sometimes they surprise us and they do. And other times, we learn to stop asking.

Breathing
I admit that I am cautious. I love talking about books and hearing what others are reading, but it takes time to feel comfortable enough sharing so much of myself with anyone else. I want to know you and I want you to know me. But I don’t want to overwhelm you. I don’t want to scare you away. Vulnerability is at the forefront in any interactions when we allow ourselves to be seen by others, but vulnerability comes with a balance. We cannot immediately demand that others see us, hear us, let us breathe. We need to give them time to decide that they want to engage in the same way.

We ask for a lot when we say, “These are the words that are meaningful to me and through them, you see my scars. These are the words that I find true, so I am fragile in showing them to you. And these, these are the words that are dark and unspoken and through them, you see what I keep hidden.”

Thought about like this, sharing books with others is intimate in a way that most shared activities are not. It’s a revealing of oneself, a taking off of clothes of sorts. We are unprotected and therefore vulnerable to whatever might be thrown at us. Sharing our inner lives with one another is an act of courage.

But now you know me. Now you see me. And hopefully, you let me see you.

Education

Schools Are Not Boxes

2 Comments

A friend recently (and innocently) sent me this quote: “School is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside.”

I read it, I read it again, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

Because it is so wrong and so troubling.

Here’s why:

  • Schools should not be only buildings. Schools are places where we learn. This can happen anywhere and anytime. If we focus more on the learning and less on the physical structure in which it takes place, school and learning look very different.
  • Tomorrow isn’t wrapped up neatly inside any walls. It’s happening right now and our students are likely unprepared for it. Tomorrow isn’t waiting. It’s here.
  • Learning cannot be static. It must be responsive to the real needs of today’s students, which are to live and thrive in a world that looks nothing like the world that created schools-as-boxes.

To be fair, we could (and should) conceive of schools as labs that develop tomorrow. We could implement the ideas of school I’ve linked above and we’d have buildings or spaces where young people create the future while being part of it. That’s where we should be heading, but usually we’re not. That’s what I found so troubling about that quote. It uses the buzzwords. It creates a pretty little picture. But learning is organic, messy, complicated. Learning is constant, multimodal, self-directed. We don’t need to fit it into four walls.

My classes right now are learning about social norms and conformity, which we’ll use as a way of introducing the topic of genocide in preparation for spending a week in Cambodia in November. And I know that I’m not alone among my colleagues, here and elsewhere, in trying to make real learning happen. But it’s frustrating to constantly explain the need for authentic, relevant, meaningful learning. As adults, we find ways to understand things when we realize we don’t. Our students are no different when we give them the chance.

So let’s rewrite, “School is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside.”

I propose: “Schools, spaces where learning happens, are all around us. Learning, which cultivates growth and development, never ends.”

 

On My Mind

Quite Possibly the Best Run I’ve Ever Had

4 Comments

I didn’t want to run tonight.

I spent all weekend at school covered in dirt and fake blood, learning how to save lives, splint injuries, clean wounds, conduct a full body physical exam and focused spine assessment, and record patient data to pass records off to the helicopter (or car, donkey, or mule) evacuating them from the field once we’re done administering wilderness first aid.

So I was tired. And I didn’t want to run tonight.

But I did, because tomorrow night is back to school night and therefore I’ll probably be even more tired on Wednesday.

Turns out, this run was the best thing I could have done tonight.

I took a long route by mistake. I told myself I’d turn around and then I forgot because the run felt good and steady. I was in East Coast Park, the grass was springy, the breeze that comes every evening smelled like salt and ocean, and there were fewer people around than usual. So I kept running.

About halfway, I stopped. I took a breath. I sat on the rocks in the sand, as low as I could without getting wet, for about 15 minutes. What I began to understand on those rocks qualifies this as perhaps the best run I’ve ever had.

As I always do when I pause in the park, I just looked at the water. I found it in the air and I breathed in it. But waves are mesmerizing , hypnotic, and I felt my eyes close. I let them. And then I listened.

I know that the remaining senses sharpen when one is removed. I know that you can see waves roll and hear them crash. I didn’t realize that you can also hear waves roll. I had never thought about the energy that keeps waves in constant motion. For the first time, I heard the waves rolling down the beach. I heard them crash and I heard the crash ricochet, tumbling down the beach. And when I opened my eyes to see what I was hearing, I lost it. I love watching water, but I’ve never spent much time just listening to it. I sat there on the rock for those 15 minutes, eyes closed with occasional peeking, feeling a giddy smile on my face each time closing my eyes brought the sounds back. Brought the energy back. My rock was just above the tide line but I wasn’t always sure based on the sounds I was hearing, the water pulling back, rolling forward, like rocking a cradle.

I was surprised how quickly time passed and how lost I’d been in the sounds of such a powerful force. It literally swept me away to a different understanding of energy and how it drives all things. Energy is everything there is, everything we touch, everything we are, and the connections we form with each other. I could say those words before, but I understand them now.

Learn something new every day.

Take time to be still and quiet.

On the run home, and even now still in the wake of endorphins, I felt happier, calmer, more connected to the natural world and the people around me. At the end of the day we’re all part of the same thing. And I have to believe that on the most basic, human we’re all just doing the best we can to hold it all together.