minime mirabile dictu

Fathers and Sons - An MTC Reflection

nobody@vox.com(Reklawnitsua) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:00:59 -0700

Occasionally people tell me that I should be a writer. I can’t, and shouldn’t, because I have very little of what Keats calls the “negative capability,” or the penchant for empathizing with someone (real or fictional) to such an extent that one can emulate the subject being studied. With that said, I wanted to approach this MTC reflection from a slightly different angle. I am going to do as best I can to reflect on my MTC experience in my father’s voice and through his eyes, and then pen a response to him.

The things that my father says have a certain legitimacy; and while his view may not comprehend the entirety of the experience, it is valid in its own way. For anyone who has completed the program, this perspective should resonate; for anyone attempting to complete the program, this viewpoint should at least be acknowledged.

Father

I want to say first that I am exceptionally proud of my son and what he has done. I can’t claim to understand why he has done what he has, but I am still proud of him for it. He has put a lot of hard work into these last two years and I am happy—and he is happy—that this work is starting to pay off. He told me that one of his goals was for a student to earn a medal on the National Latin Exam before he left Simmons. Austin had a student—two, actually—accomplish that this year.

When he and I were talking about the exam results, I asked him, “If that’s your goal, and you accomplished it, do you need to stay on for a third year?” I don’t know if he gave me an answer or not, but it wasn’t sufficient. He has fulfilled his obligations and served his time these two years. He knows that I feel like he doesn’t have the support he deserves and I remind him: “It seems like no one at that school has your back. They’re happy for the publicity you bring, but that publicity wasn’t their idea and some of them may resent you for it. If it comes to it, son, you could be thrown under the bus without a second thought.”

And I worry about the environment in which he works: a girl was sexually assaulted in the haunted house my son’s Drama class put on and the principal, to put it kindly, did not follow the proper procedure for their punishment. That’s what I see: my son kills himself to put together a haunted house, two bad seeds molest someone and the principal doesn’t back my son up. Why stay there longer? How does this benefit my son?

I am proud of him for how he handled the sexual assault. He took it as high as it could go and did everything in his power to address the situation. But I would prefer for my son to be able to demonstrate his judgment without a sexual assault being involved in any way.

I am happy my boy is in Mississippi. It means I get to see him more than when he was in North Carolina. I am happy that he is doing great things. I wish that when I talked to him, he was happier and less tired and didn't have to teach 4 preps. And I don’t want to see him in the Delta as a teacher forever. He has bigger things to do before I retire. He’d better! I’m not going to be supported by a teacher’s salary when I’m 90.

Son

Dad, you know that I can’t respond to any of your observations. I cannot consistently depend on anyone’s support; I’ve seen things here I’d never hoped to see; I’ve been treated in ways that civilized people aren’t and don’t expect to be. But still I’m here. And I’m still here because of the students. If this were some other job like cotton inspector, I’d quit in 10 seconds flat and be in Houston before the sun set. But whereas you have coworkers who surround you, I have still-unformed young people around me whose eyes can communicate hate and boredom and amusement but most of all the “Yes! Please! I always knew there was more than I’d been shown!” yearning.

You know I felt the same way when I was 14. I still feel the same way today. But I had Mr. McDermott and Mr. Mac. And I had you: who else gave me his 25-year-old copies of Dune, The Foundation trilogy, and a beaten-up Lord of the Rings? Who else took me to a Barnes and Noble to buy Jethro Tull’s greatest hits because we’d heard “Bungle in the Jungle” one too many times on a road trip back to Houston from Andy’s hunting camp in Mississippi?

I had the opportunity to attend UNC and study Classics and literature with the finest minds in the country. I know what the world holds; or if I don’t know what it is, I at least know where to look to find it. But what about the curious mind with only corn fields and a weak internet connection to look to? The internet has everything, yes, but unless you have someone to guide you the internet will only reinforce your worst habits and circumscribe your world even further. Without someone to say, “Look at how large the world can be! Look at all these men who felt like you! You are not alone,” what becomes of that curious child’s mind?

That’s why I’m here, Dad. That’s why I put up with all of the disrespect and the low blows. As a teacher, I will support my administration, but that’s not why I’m here. I am not here to provide the school district a docile employee. I am here to show to whoever-that-student-is a collection of like-minded men across the expanse of time, conversing about things that matter.

I cannot say that this job—these past two years—has made me happy, because “happy” isn’t a deep enough emotion to describe how I feel. In my experience I have seen students scrape the bottom of humanity’s barrel and I’ve felt myself work to the very limits of my energy reserves. But those feelings are offset—not replaced, not expunged, but offset—when I watched X.C. discover that he really was among the most accomplished Latin students in the country or saw S.N. and J.S.—two girls who’d previously eschewed responsibility for gossiping—rehearse “A Raisin in the Sun” for hours on end and then say, “What do we do next? I’m not tired.” To see these students take pride in the admittedly admirable things they are doing and have done is a dividend beyond calculation paid on the pains of this endeavor. I stay for these students’ actions; I stay for these students’ opportunities; I stay for these students.

Father and Son

This is my Mississippi Teacher Corps Experience. I felt this way when I entered two years ago. Two years later, I can go back to that same well without cynicism and without doubt. I have found my experience trying, overwhelming, and counter to everything I’ve known. I have seen my efforts thwarted. I have seen myself fail my better instincts and resort to lower impulses. I’ve felt myself hate; I’ve heard myself gossip and undercut others. I’ve rooted for failure.

But those failings don’t define my experience. They are indelibly a part of it, but they are not its summation. My father’s criticisms are valid, but limited. After all that has happened (both good and bad), I can still return to the note I sounded when I joined MTC and echo, redouble, and surpass it. I have been able to do what I set out to do. I will continue to do it. I have not been beaten down. Not yet.

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A Letter to A First-Year Teacher

nobody@vox.com(Reklawnitsua) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:11:58 -0700

As regard the specifics, I don’t know what advice I can give you or what I can tell you to be prepared for. I feel that my experience in Teacher Corps has been a singular one, from which it is hard for an outside observer (or myself even) to draw any lessons. We annually recruit fewer teachers for the Delta schools; we annually place fewer teachers in rural districts; and rarely do such a lack of oversight and sheer managerial incompetence coincide to produce the latitude in which I had to operate (operate, that is, in a rural Delta district).

What advice I can give is relatively simple to say but nearly impossible to carry out: Find a way to forgive your students on a daily basis. The biggest mistake I made during my second year was to turn my classes into a perpetual power struggle: to prepare to battle a select group of malcontents; to beat them and to assert my dominance. This view—and this behavior—by a teacher is necessary, to a degree: if you cannot wrap your head around the hierarchy of power in the classroom then you will never accomplish anything as a teacher. But at the same time, this maintenance of dominance is both intoxicating and exhausting. It’s easy to take too far, and it wears on you both as a teacher and as a human being.

I have forgotten until recently that some of the chief virtues of Western Civilization are humility, forgiveness, and patience. Until I embraced a (limited) humility, I was not able to view my worst students as human beings. Until I embraced forgiveness, I was able to do naught but disdain my worst students. Until I embraced patience, I was not able to stretch my humility and forgiveness beyond a day’s length.

None of this absolves a student from either his own personal responsibilities or the ones he accrues in your classroom. But—in my experience at least—until I embraced these virtues, I established responsibilities as stumbling blocks for my students to trip over and not as checkpoints on the way to adulthood.

I guess my advice is to find a way to approach each day anew, as trite as that sounds. Understand a student’s past weaknesses and failures, hope for him to succeed today, dispose of your anger or hatred when you leave the building.

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Springtime

nobody@vox.com(Reklawnitsua) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:16:48 -0700

Photo 94

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No, you don't have to put your name on it. Tell me how you really feel.

nobody@vox.com(Reklawnitsua) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:43:50 -0700

I recently asked my students to evaluate their experiences in my class this year. I did not require them to put their names on their papers; I wanted an unfiltered response. And an unfiltered response I received. The students were much more honest than I'd planned for them to be. While I had many critics, none of my student critics saw the same complaints that I did with the courses. There were no complaints of: "I wish Mr. Walker had challenged us more; far too often he taught only to the middle half of the class. I wish that he had shown me more of the diverse intellectual world," although this sort of complaint should have predominated. The English I critiques were decidedly mixed; the Learning Strategies were mainly positive; the Drama were universally laudatory (I didn't ask my Latin students to complete a critique). Of course, these results are exactly the opposite of what they should be: I still have no idea what I am doing as a Drama teacher and it's only the students' extraordinarily low expectations that have allowed the class to be considered a success.

At any rate, here are some selected responses. I won't say that they are representative, but they are the most interesting. Sometimes, students can be surprisingly perceptive:

(English I student)

In 1st period we start off with a bellringer. Then we start writing a large amount of notes. Next Jamal start to ged mad about something. Then Mr. Walker tries to be funny. Next thing you know the bell ringer before we get done with anything.

(English I student)

In this class some days it be boring sometimes it don't. I think Mr. Walker can give us a break. People don't feel good at the end of the day. Then we have a lot of word that some people don't understand. That's what I think about this class.

(English I student)

My experience in this class has been wonderful. Ive learned a lot. Ive learned many different words. I learned how to play chess and work with others. I like the after school part to its fun.

(English I student)

My experience in this class has been like a seesaw. Something bad something good. One thing good the ticket pirce up there. North Carolina suck. The bad thing about Mr. Walker is North Carolina they suck. The good thing [incomprehensible].

(English I student)

The things that I have experienced in this class are a good challenged teacher who force that you learn. this class has introduced me many new words and ways to increase my intelligence. The bad things in here are that the teacher sometimes gives the students who are willing to learn and do good the punishment with the students that are misbehaving. Over all I wish that Mr. Walker would be more tolerant of people who don't know better and help them learn. This is what I've experienced in this class.

(Learning Strategies student)

This class is very boring and we always do work. But Mr. Walker always talk about everything that he don't suppose to talk about. One day he told us he got into a fight with a bear and that's not nothing dealing with english. But for now on we need to do more fun activities like jepurdey and play more games.

(Drama student. I have no idea what she was thinking of when she wrote this, because while I would like to be the teacher that deserves this sort of a review, I certainly have not earned it this year in Drama)

Throughout this school term I have learned responsibility and to take responsibility for my own actions. I have learned that greatness doesn't come easy that you have to work for it and earn it. I am thankful that Mr. Walker was drama teacher because he helped to push the best out of me. I have no bad memories in class and I have enjoyed it to the fullest.

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A Third in a Series of Freewrites

nobody@vox.com(Reklawnitsua) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:17:57 -0700

What was once words and plans is now a garden. With weeds.

Garden:

Garden Lengthwise

Snowpeas:

Snow Peas

Tomatoes:

Young Tomato with Dollarweed

Broccoli:

Broccoli

Sweet Corn:

Corn

Carrots:

Carrots with Dollarweed

Swiss Chard: (no picture. they're struggling)

Lettuce: (no picture. too young; it's indecent)

Bell Peppers:

Bell Pepper

Potatoes: (no picture. no reason)

Fig Tree:

Fig Tree

Knockout Rose:

Knockout Rose in Bloom

Rio Samba Rose:

San Marcos Rose

The Guitar Garden:

Guitar Garden 2

Guitar Garden 1

I also have a young bottle tree that has sprouted up right next to my fig tree. I'll have to transplant him when he gets bigger, but for now I'm letting him be:

Young Bottle Tree 1

Young Bottle Tree 2

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A Grounded Look At The MS Executive Summary

nobody@vox.com(Reklawnitsua) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:00:53 -0700

Map

Above is a map that indicates county-by-county the average size of a Mississippi farm. Not surprisingly, the largest farms are found in the Delta; the Delta counties have always been sparsely populated and agriculturally grounded. Still, Mississippi as a whole is an agricultural state. For counties in the state's center to build their industry around 50-100 acre farms while those in the Delta rely on farms in the thousands of acres is a substantial discrepancy. More on this later.

It is also disappointing (though unsurprising) to find poverty rates the highest in these same places where much land is owned by a select few. While a debate can rage endlessly about the degree of "equality of opportunity" in America, it is nevertheless true that all men stand to the same height as husbandmen. In an age where nepotism and degree requirements can broadside an unwary and uneducated worker, husbandry reduces (or promotes) all men to the same stature. In the tillage of land can a man carve opportunity for himself. Certainly husbandry requires hard work, but barriers of neither education nor race will desiccate a germinating seed or turn aside a rainstorm. In the land (once procured) is found freedom. Many things the land can't provide, but it can delineate a path away from dependency, and it can honestly reward honest labor.

Large-scale industrial farming and medium-scale farming I am told are both prohibitively expensive and prone to crippling bouts of debt. I cannot believe, however, that ultra small scale farming--the type that begins to breed a limited self-sufficiency--is beyond the grasp of all but a few citizens.

Am I making policy prescriptions? No. Am I assigning fault or blame? No. Am I lamenting that--in an area that has both high concentrations of land in few hands and an overcrowding of single-family residences (as the map below indicates)--there is not a more robust realization of Jefferson's yeoman farmer ideal?

Yes.

Map-1

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My Community (a very local view)

nobody@vox.com(Reklawnitsua) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:09:19 -0800

In order from left-to-right, top-to-bottom:

1. my garden

2. my knockout rose bush, planted in commemoration of Alexis Hicks' and Xavier Clay's accomplishments

3. my potato mound (presumably the potatoes will grow and I'll heap dirt on them to keep them covered)

4. my compost pile

5. my first fig tree

6. the bridge I shoot guns off of with some people I met there

7. me driving my '95 Towncar away from the bridge I shoot guns off of

8. Fram and I shooting guns off the bridge I shoot guns off of with my '95 Towncar in the background

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The Champs

nobody@vox.com(Reklawnitsua) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:25:56 -0800

Karl already beat me to it, but I'll go ahead and put the full story up on my blog.

As with all academic disciplines, the Classical Arts has its share of professional organizations. One of the most active is the American Classical League (ACL), the scholastic branch of which is the National Junior Classical League (NJCL). If memory serves, 48 states have an NJCL chapter, and in each of those 48 the local NJCL holds an annual conference for students and teachers to meet, greet, and compete. By some stroke of luck, we were allowed not only to join the NJCL but also to attend this year's conference, held in Clinton, MS.

We left on Friday at 11am for the 2:30 conference. I overestimated the time it would take to get to Clinton (also, our bus driver rolled along pushing 70 instead of the 55 I had thought was required by law). By 1:20 we were in Clinton but burned the extra time at the local Wal-Mart. When we drove back to the high school, my students mistook it for Mississippi College. The place was enormous. It was shaped like a cross, with one two-story hallway intersecting another. Above this intersection was a dome--an honest to god dome, with skylights in it--and when a person entered from the first floor he could see students passing overhead on a second-story elevated crosswalk that spanned the length of the central lobby. The students who had been so raucous on the bus were suddenly taciturn--as was I: we were all out of our element here. On a good day Simmons has 250 in attendance; we probably saw 250 students use the elevated crosswalk when the bell sounded.

We were escorted to the 150-person half-rotunda lecture hall with a raised stage where the NJCL conference was being held, and entered. I had not told my students that this would be a mostly white affair, so they were caught unawares when they entered and 80-odd pasty faces looked back at them. We were still 10 minutes early, so by the time the conference began and we had nervously slunk into a corner, the lecture hall was filled, with people sitting in the aisles as well as in the seats. Present were: Jackson Academy, Jackson Prep, Marshall Ridgeland Academy, Madison Central, Ridgeland High, Oxford High, the Veritas School in Jackson, The School for the Performing Arts in Brookhaven, Clinton High school, and the seven of us from Simmons.

The first item on the agenda was a friendly Quiz Bowl. Four students from each school were to face off against another school. Two schools who knew the regulations were slated to go first, and I volunteered my kids to compete in the second round--they were petrified, being around so many strange people, but I wanted to see at least 4 of them find the courage to get up there and do their best. When the quiz bowl started and the clock started ticking, one of my students touched me on the shoulder and said, "Mr. Walker, I've never been this nervous in my life. My heart is beating so fast and I can't make it stop." All seven were in various stages of queasiness, so I decided to take them on a tour of the school to calm their nerves. After 10 minutes of walking, we returned just in time to hear, "Simmons High School, take your seats."

The long and short of it is that we got plastered. Out of 9 questions, we lost 5 to 2. With that said, all of the questions were on either Roman history or mythology, subjects which I hadn't taught to my students yet. This conference itself was but a preparation for the National Latin Exam in March, and as the NLE focuses primarily on grammar and translation, I taught what was most important. Nevertheless, they got 2 questions right and had the courage to compete in front of everyone.

After the quiz bowl, we moved from the lecture hall to the auditorium where the students took a series of individual tests in the different areas of the classics: Grammar and Translation, Vocabulary, English Derivatives, History, Mythology, Private Life and Customs. Some tests had two sections, a Latin I and Latin II test; others had a single version. Each test was 50 multiple-choice questions. Students could take more than 1 test, but time was limited. After the individual tests, the students played basketball and ate pizza while the teachers graded the tests. Awards were given for placing 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in an individual test.

I told all of my seven to take the Latin I Grammar and Translation test since that was information that they knew and were prepared for. Six of them did; one, for reasons known only to himself and his Creator, took the Latin II Grammar and Translation test. Some of the six took a while; others turned it in almost immediately. To belatedly make a long story short, out of the 50-odd people who took this Latin I Grammar and Translation test, out of the 50-odd people from JA and MRA and the Veritas School and the Level 5 Public Schools and the $6k a year private academies, out of the schools with established Latin programs and established Classical Traditions, the placing broke down as follows:

Xavier Clay, Junior, Simmons High - 3rd place

Alexis Hicks, Sophomore, Simmons High - 1st place

In other words, of all the students in Mississippi who are taking Latin I, Alexis Hicks is the one who knows the most about the grammar of Latin and about the turning of Latin passages into comprehensible English. For good measure, Ulysses Aldrige placed 5th in the Latin II Grammar and Translation test. If he had taken the correct test, we could have swept the awards.

This result is doubly sweet: first, it serves as a well-deserved prize for these two students who have tirelessly labored over Latin's jumbled syntax and daunting vocabulary; second, it justifies the reason I joined MTC in the first place.

The horse I'd chosen to ride for the past two years was the one that said there were exceptional students everywhere who, given the opportunity and support, could match the achievements of any more socially-privileged students. Until now, I had only rhetoric, sentimentality, and best intentions. Now I have proof.

Again, just to restate what happened: In the competition of all the most privileged students in the state of MS with all their built-in advantages, Alexis Hicks--being raised by a grandmother in a know-nothing Delta town--came out on top.

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MTC Venison Sloppy Joes

nobody@vox.com(Reklawnitsua) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:37:05 -0800

1.5 pounds venison sausage

1 onion (chopped)

1 can (15 oz) of tomato sauce

10 oz ketchup

1.5 tbsp brown sugar

1.5 tbsp apple vinegar

1.5 tbsp worcestershire sauce

1 tsp dried mustard

1. place sausage and onion in a large, greased sauce pan. Brown thoroughly. Some people will tell you to drain the fat after browning. Don't. Venison is lean enough already and if you're eating sloppy joes you're not on a diet.

2. add other ingredients. Reduce to simmer and cover. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. uncover pan to allow sloppy joes to thicken

4. while waiting for sloppy joes to thicken, place halved and buttered buns in the oven to toast

5. load buns with sloppy joes

6. eat

An optional note: chopped bell peppers could also be added, according to your preference.

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Freewrite version 2.0

nobody@vox.com(Reklawnitsua) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:01:06 -0800

On Sunday I was 30 feet up in a tree, minimum. It could easily have been 40 or 50. I had spent the half hour from 5:30 to 6 sawing limbs and slowly aggrandizing my altitude, as it were. It had been dark the whole while, so by the time I stopped (and the sun came up), I was higher than I'd realized. At that point, I turned around in my climbing stand, unfolded the vinyl cushion attached to the upper harness, looped the cushion's elastic-and-clips around the tree, and sat down. Grabbing hold of the rope tied to the lower harness, with much deliberation I pulled my .30-06 into the stand with me.

At 6:50 I saw my first deer. My stand was situated so that I was on the edge of an oblong clearing, stretching from far-left to near-right. Behind me was a ridge-line, lain fallow. Around me was a tenuous cusp of trees, only diaphonously separating the ridge from the clearing.

I am looking straight ahead. The sun is still low enough on the horizon to keep the birds quiet and the air frigid. I've sunk into a sort of stupor, where I can receive sensory input but not easily cogitate nor analyze. The clearing is an undefined gloom, where the hay bales and the grass and the tree-line are impressed on a single canvas, without depth or definition. Even the colors slouch together toward a uniform grey.

I almost catch a movement to my right. A good-sized doe is at 2 o'clock and at good speed. The hunting instinct takes over, the adrenaline rushes, and as my mind is active again, thoughts pile on one another: she's moving fast, almost too fast; I've got to get my gun up, but I can't have her see me; I need to check her with the binoculars first; no time for binoculars, she's on the move; the gun's up but my heart is violently concussing; crank the scope up to 9, there's enough light for it; alright, she's in the sights and---she's a spike.

According to Mississippi Law, legal deer are: non-yearling does and bucks with at least 4 points on their antlers, a point being defined as any antler protuberance which would hold a wedding ring. A spike--as the name would tell you--is a non-legal buck.

At 7:20 I hear a rustle-and-crunch behind me and to the left. More squirrels, right? They'd been at it all weekend, charging and jumping throughout the woods. But something's off: whereas squirrels will make an unholy racket, the noise I hear now is modulated and restrained, as if resulting from a lean movement, with no energy wasted. Most of the last two years I'd spent hunting deer either in early fall, when leaves were still on the trees, or mid-winter, when everything is bare. I associate deer with silence. As well adapted as the animals are, they have to touch ground--and when the ground is covered with dead leaves, they've got to make some noise.

I am in the tree line, and it separates the ridge from the clearing, but behind me the trees have made one tumescent advance up the ridge. In that cropping is a buck carefully stepping between skinny maples and over logs. Sometimes deer will size up a log, pause, and jump, but this buck's movement is deliberate and incremental. Too many deer have been harvested over the last three days for him to make himself untowardly known.

My binoculars are in my hands and he is not a spike. I can't tell how big, but I can see that his antlers don't stick straight up but bow out--minimum four-point, maybe six-point, who knows? My binoculars are down, my gun is up, but I can't find him. He's left the forest out-growth and is in the ridge's waist-high grass. He appears, he disappears, he's slowly climbing the ridge. For some reason, I'm having the damndest time coordinating my real-world view and the tiny sliver viewable in my scope. In an instant, the deer is again in the clear, twenty yards from the ridgetop. This is my last chance. If he moves again he'll be covered by another clump of trees and then he'll be over the ridge. The gun is up, I find him in the sights, the safety is off, for some cosmically-obscure reason the deer has paused, back to me, and arched his head high, showing me as good a profile as I'll see, I pull the trigger.

I don't feel so much as hear the gun. With no conception of anything outside myself, I immediately refocus the scope on where the deer was--nothing to be seen. In itself, that's not unusual. In all likelihood the deer has been shot and will spend his last moments in mad flight.

Earlier in the morning I'd dropped my cell phone from the tree, so I climb down to text-message my uncle and my father. I get back up in the tree to position where the deer had been with any local landmarks. I am down the tree and in the ridge, climbing to the spot where the deer had been. The grass is depressed--obviously, I say, this is the reason why I'd suddenly seen him; he'd entered a clear spot.

And the spot is clear still. No blood, no fur, no deer. My dad arrives, so does my uncle. I get back in the tree to direct them. I'm back down and staring at the ground again. We ponder a little while longer and finally decide that the altitude had something to do with it.

Nobody mentions that my 91-year old grandfather had killed a deer on Friday in the same spot where his 23-year old grandson had missed one.

After a time, my grandfather comes back to our minds--at ninety-one, to be alive and to have killed a deer. As we say, it's a thing worth remembering.

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