1987 was my second year of teaching
(after a short-lived career in business)
i had been hired the fall before (and was desparate to take any job
because i was pregnant with my third child and had no health insurance)
i worked at an elemenary school in the south rio grande valley in
albuquerque, new mexico
i taught a combined class of 4th and 5th graders
i had some information about Piaget from my certification coursework, but
had heard nothing about the big V.
i had an Apple IIe computer in my room and tried to ignore it. (that's
certainly changed!)
i tried to get my students to write about themselves and their lives
outside of school, but they didn't trust me enough.
i still have christmas tree ornaments from the kids i taught that year.
i remember Ricky who told me that when his step dad was driving them in
the car, Ricky's job was to look out for cops so the step dad could put
out the joint he was smoking.
and Jaime Moreno who tried to teach me spanish.
and one boy whose dad was in the state prison (he was scary!)
and Alberto (very smart) who took a standardized test and wrote down a
bunch of gibberish.
i was so puzzled until i realized that the directions were to alphabetize
the words on the list and he was alphabetizing the letters in each word.
!!!
my son was born that april and will be graduating from 8th grade tomorrow.
weave the threads
culture - mine theirs ours
history - personal social
activity - remembered forgotten
theory as weft to the warp of experience
kathie
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Words are the thunders of the mind.
Words are the refinement of the flesh.
Words are the responses to the thousand curvaceous moments---
we just manage it---
sweet and electric, words flow from the brain
and out the gate of the mouth.
We make books of them, out of hesitations and grammar.
We are slow, and choosy.
This is the world.
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Mary Oliver - The Leaf and the
Cloud
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Katherine_Goff@ceo.cudenver.edu
http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~katherine_goff/index.html
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