your touching thoughts prompted a sudden recollection
of the schoolyard, my site of terror as a child,
too many children and my hauntings of loud voices, screaming, violence;
and then being there as a teacher, in the schoolyard, "yard-duty" they
called it. And yes, that same terror shrinking inside of me,
watching the children and feeling it as violence,
please just let me back into the school, please just let me sit
in the classroom where it's quiet.
diane
At 1:54 PM 10/29/97, Eva Ekeblad wrote:
>At 22.16 -0800 97-10-28, diane celia hodges wrote about painful memories
>from school...
>
>Diane:
>
>
>carrying
>
>embodied memories
>of being scared
>into my mind
>
>of my firstgrade peers
>I will forever be in the way of
>some boisterous runner on the schoolyard asphalt
>to whom I am invisible
>
>
>embodied memories
>of being used as a paragon of the Reader
>and placed as a calming buffer
>next to the most unruly boy...
>
>
>I can NEVER forget
>
>I keep returning to the place of crime:
>enter the classroom as a teacher
>
>and I run away
>screaming inside
>
>as soon as I can
>
>
>perhaps next time?
>
>Eva
"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right."
Ani Difranco
*********************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada
tel: (604)-253-4807
email: dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca