MISCELLANY
EndNotes
A Teacher's Prayer for the Lost
Children
The child who hides behind laughter
The child who reaches out with tears
The child who no one looks after
Who runs away when someone nears
Never got a mamma’s “spit bath”
Never danced on daddy’s toes
No one to ever help with math
No wall marks to show how he grows
Amplified loneliness music
Hollow echoes of lack of sound
Ears strain to hear a doorknob click
Rooms and hearts waiting to be found
The lonely ache of nothingness,
A much deeper hurt than the pain
Of a hard hand’s angry caress -
Storms: they beat clouds that never rain.
God, fill their dark, unquiet nights
With brave, beautiful, dancing dream.
Let them meet smiles, inspiring lights,
Though from strangers’ faces they stream.
Home won’t protect them, nurture them
So, God, please safely bring them here.
We will teach them, try to guide them,
Let them know that to us they’re dear.
— Lee Ann Schaffer
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“ ... the anxiety children feel at constantly being tested, their fear of failure, punishment, and disgrace, severely reduces their ability both to perceive and to remember, and drives them away from the material being studied into strategies for fooling teachers into thinking they know what they really don't know.”
— John Holt
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Plums
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
—
William Carlos Williams
http://www.weeklyreader.com/readandwriting/
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“The young, free to act on their initiative, can lead their elders in the direction of the unknown... The children, the young, must ask the questions that we would never think to ask, but enough trust must be re-established so that the elders will be permitted to work with them on the answers.”
— Margaret Mead
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YOUTH WORKERS
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If I Had my Child To Raise Over Again
IF I had my child to raise all over again,
I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later.
I'd finger paint more, and point the finger less.
I would do less correcting and more connecting.
I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.
I would care to know less and know to care more.
I'd take more hikes and fly more kites.
I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play.
I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars,
I'd do more hugging and less tugging.
I'd see the oak tree in the acorn more often,
I would be firm less often, and affirm much more.
I'd model less about the love of power,
And more about the power of love.
— Diane Loomans
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