issue 6 badday magazine, featuring interviews with Vito Acconci and Owen Pallett
How to Look at Modern Art
“Minnesota Fats” on Pool
- from Art History, Queen St. W.

The Art of the Poetic Line
Graph Out Loud
The Waterproof Bible, Andrew Kaufman
Am/Pm, Amelia Grey, featherwood press

- Type Books, QSW

We Meet, Kenneth Patchen
Collected Poems of Raymound Souster- Volume TEN (says guy at cash, “who’s Raymond Souster?”)
art on black, d’bi young
Procedures for Underground, Atwood, 1st edition, score!
The Blasted Pine: An Anthology of Satire, Invective and Disrespectful Verse, Chiefly by Canadian Writers (now I don’t have to steal it from our school library)
The Trojan Women, Gwendolyn Macewan
A Historical Guide to Walt Whitman (really, it should be An Historical Guide, yes? but who wants to be pedantic with Walt Whitman in the House? Apparently, I do.)
Purdy, selected. Looks like another 1st ed. beautiful.
Fooling with Words: A celebration of poets and their craft, Bill Moyers.

other:

Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles

A yodeling Pickle

While re-reading RG, I come across this heavily underlined passage, adorned with asterisks and exclamation marks. This is what Sara Ahmed would call a “sticky” passage for me. I’m emotionally invested in this idea.
And it makes me think of Helen Hajnoczky’s thoughtful report of the bok/starnino cage match posted on lemon hound. Hajnoczky brought forward the scene of writing, the context. And reminded me of how un-avant garde much of the avant garde is.

It concerns my asperger’s student. He had been doing so well in my class. But a little over a week ago, an internal trigger was sprung. And there was nothing that I or his EA’s could do to prevent his acting out. And the situation became, well, volatile. I won’t say any more than that about the situation itself.

When I played Resident Evil 4, I abandoned the game when it got to the point where you had to protect the president’s daughter as well as defend yourself. I HATE those levels in video games. I don’t mind fighting the bad guys. I love it. I don’t care if I take a hit- that’s part of the game. But being responsible for someone else’s safety in an environment where I don’t make the rules? That’s not recreational for me.

Fortunately, the situation seems to have been resolved, for the moment.

But it’s taken its toll. So I’m prescribing a bit of down time for myself this weekend. Tea, cookies, candles and Firefly.

My creative writing students finished their sound compositions- working in groups they made recordings. And on Friday, we sat down together and had a listen.

Each piece is remarkable. Each piece has its own character. And they all reflected the work we had done in improvisation, in voice work, in attending to other sound composers, in discussions of the expressive, creative, political, and aesthetic nature of sound.

I didn’t think of them as “student work.” And I want to think about what I mean by that. I don’t normally like using words like that. I don’t like talking about what’s good for having been written by a 5 year old or a 16 year old or a 45 year old or an octogenarian. What do we mean when we look at a piece of student writing and ask about the grade or level of the student before we pass judgment on the quality of the work? Surely that’s a statement about the level of skill or the artist (maybe? if it even is that ?), not about the quality of the art. Lurking around in there I’m sure is an idea about labour and capital. It’s related to the dismissive “a five year old could have done that.”  (related issues, examples: Kenny G’s OCR’ing much of Day, Xian Bök’s much touted Herculean 7 year Eunoia labours). (other related issues: “art is difficult, entertainment is easy.” scratch any student discussion about aesthetics, and you’ll find that sentiment under the first few layers.)

Ok. So, what do I mean by it. Because I did very quickly start thinking, “these wouldn’t be out of place on a compilation with Christine Duncan.” Or… “this kid could give Paul Dutton a run for his money, if he chose to.”

But I abhor the labour = capital equation.

Here’s what I think I meant. I think I meant, “I am enjoying these in the same way I enjoy the works of art I choose to listen to on my own time. I would choose to listen to these even if I didn’t have to mark them.”

[Evaluating Student Poetry-“taste in the classroom: your style, your teaching, your students, their art, your art.”]

Does that mean they’re good?

I watch this thought as it bubbles up from wherever these things start, and forms into words in my mind: “Does that mean they exceed the values of the classroom and should therefore all get a perfect mark?”

What does that even mean? How deeply divorced are the values of the classroom from that of the world? What do I fundamentally believe about the value of what we do in class if a thought like that is in me?

Another question I contemplated as I listened: how brave they were. These 15 students undertook something that many writers would dismiss as ridiculous. Teenagers, who fear ridicule above all else, and for whom social acceptance is everything, the only capital that counts.

So, do I give them each a perfect mark because they took such extraordinary risks?

Well, no, of course not. Though it’s tempting.
But if I only give A for effort, it would undermine my assessment of the aesthetic value of their creations. And it’s a bit patronizing, isn’t it? Oh, good for you! Coochie Coochie coo!

Nonetheless…
There is a place in the classroom for assessing the relationship between the student and their art. And this is where evaluation of student poetry is a very different exercise than the work of the critic. As teachers, we are assessing learning. Not just the skill, but the acquisition of skill. Not just the quality of the thought, but the fact that a particular student was able to give the thought utterance, when she might not have been able to at the beginning of the term.

This is big. And tricky. So I’m going to put it aside for later writing and reflection.
[Evaluating Student Poetry: Lessons from the Poolhall]

Cause all I wanna do, really, truly, is spend some time with each piece, and evaluate it on its own terms. Just as soon as I figure out what the hell those terms are!

A year later, I took a leave of absence from the grey building where I’d landed, to pursue grad studies in Computer Applications in Education. This was in 2000, for those of you following along at home. I knew that the World Wide Web and other internet protocols were having and would continue to have a significant impact ( I wasn’t using the word revolution then) on the way we read and write (and think!) and teach. I wanted to take a step back to figure out how this all played out.

When I came back to the classroom in 2001, there was still a position at the school, and in most (all?) schools in the board, called “Network Administrator,” I think. Ours was a creative, intelligent, free-wheelin’ thinker who worked tirelessly with me to get someone on the other end of the TDSB network to open a port through a firewall so my students would have access to an Educational MOO hosted at U of T. I also did some work with students blogging, and another class created a hyper-linked annotated version of the Scottish Play, which we put up on angelfire. (Remember angelfire?)

The next year, the board declared the Network Administrator positions redundant across the board. School networks would now be centralized, imaged and serviced centrally. I took my marbles and went home. I knew how difficult it was to do was I had done when I had on site help. Now there were four people centrally assigned to give this support to at least 200 schools. I decided that I had enough work to do just learning how to do this thing called teaching with pen and paper.

I did propose to the gifted program at the school that I had specialized knowledge in digital pedagogy and poetics, and, as I was teaching one of the gifted English courses at the time, I would be able to offer an enriched digital literature course, perhaps co-ordinating with their computers science and math studies, which they were taking at the same time. But they expressed no interest in what I had to offer. So I took a few more marbles home.

But I still surveyed my students at the beginning of every year, asking who had computer andor internet access at home. The first year that the survey came back with 100% home access (it seemed to go from 2/3 to 3/3 in one year), I reintegrated computer technology into my teaching. I’d been blogging for 5 years. My students had never heard of such a beast. And so we started. Again.

I guess it was around that time that I ended up on a committee with a wonderful, savvy Computer Studies teacher with bright eyes, a quick wink and a smile. I didn’t know at the time what it meant when she would get a job as an Instructional Leader in Information and Communication Technologies for the Board- I mean, I didn’t really understand what it was that she and the people she was working with were doing. I was just sad that she was leaving my school.

But she would drop me a line from time to time, asking if she could reference what I was doing with blogs in the classroom. And I was starting to give a few presentations here and there, at my school, for board sponsored PD days. And I got a few gift cards in return. Sometimes.

And so things went on. And then last year this woman invited me to submit an application to join TACIT, a group of teachers who are early adopters, innovative practitioners in ICT,  who are then supported by the ICT Instructional Leaders, given super-rich Professional Development, and then asked to bring their knowledge and skill to the wider body of TDSB teachers by offering workshops. So I did. And they did. And that would have been enough for me. Meeting with colleagues, true colleagues, rich professional development… all so good.

And then, I was recommended by the ICT leaders to be one of 300 demonstration class teachers, a new initiative in the board, where teachers are invited to watch a classroom in action, and then spend the rest of the day debriefing and strategizing. It’s a very powerful initiative. And it’s an honour and privilege to be asked.

So, the hitch is that the demonstration class has to be a morning class, and this semester, I have my creative writing class in the morning.

And so. I’m dusting off my long shelved digital dreams. And planning a digital poetry unit. That’s right. A whole, goddamn unit. Chew betcha.

It just feels as though everything is coming together.

And although I did take that advice way back then, and have always counted it enough to know for myself that I was doing a good job, there’s something about being  treated like a professional, and being recognized for the work you do with something other than a mug… well, you know it brings out the best in me. It makes me want to be an even better teacher.  And makes some of the other bitter pills go down a bit easier.

But one of the students who was there was Hubba. And she came up to me very excitedly, saying, “Guess what I’m doing, Ms. Parrish? I’m going back to Pakistan. And guess what I’m doing?”

I braced myself. But smiled to share her enthusiasm, “What? What? Tell me!”

“Well!” Hubba’s enthusiasm and delight and warmth always radiated a wide circle around her. “Even though I don’t need to earn money for University there, my father said I could do some work, maybe teach something while I’m there, cause it’s not so formal. And he said I should teach something that interests me.”

“Really?… really!”

“So I told him what I was really interested in was writing. So he said, okay. Do that then. ”

“…. really??????”

“Ya! So I’m going to teach Creative Writing in Pakistan!”

Never, never since starting teaching at Garneau 10 years ago did I ever even dream that this would be the story that a student of mine would tell me.

When I went to give Hubba the “wings” award at Commencement, I didn’t recognize her, even standing 20 feet away from her. I thought maybe she hadn’t been able to make it and I wondered who the young woman approaching me was. And I kept wondering until she was standing 4 feet away from me. I had never seen her without her Hijab.

And now, this thing is really happening. (what happened? how did it happen? was what was happening what we wanted?) Hubba is preparing to teach a creative writing class. And she’s asked for my input.

and said, but of course! but hey, why not do this like Rilke did it?

so we’re doing that.

over here.

And we were given a historical context for the work we are doing, the philosophy of the document, etc.

And my colleagues are bright, funny and warm.

good day eh?

postscript:

I realized that I have not had the opportunity to ‘splain all about the TACIT.  TACIT (Technology & Curriculum Integration Team) is a group of elementary and secondary school teachers in the TDSB who are considered innovative/advanced in their use of technology in their teaching practice. We are meeting together 4 times this year to share ideas, to be given real, honest to god, professional development, and to receive information about resources and opportunities to take back to our schools & beyond. We also then become an extended arm of the ICT team by offering workshops to other teachers to support their own use of technology across the curriculum.

It’s all so incredibly smart.

And, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, for me, it’s a bit like finding out that there are actually other people on this island, and they speak my language.

The eng2ps are coming along nicely. I’m still finding my way with some of them. Sometimes, it’s so hard to remember that when they act out, it’s so often because of insecurity, not toughness. And the class that usually just flows without a hitch were all kinds of agitated on Friday, and I remembered only 3/4 of the way through that some students don’t look forward to long weekends, cause home isn’t so very pleasant. So I took a few comments in stride.

Had a cool moment with one of them when we were talking about the Mag 7.  We were discussing Chico’s ambitions to be celebrated in song by the village for years to come, and one fella burst out, “yea, but that only happens in the movies.”  “what does?”  “people writing songs about you.”

Time for a ballad unit I think. I’m practising the pogues’ version of Jesse James on accordion.

And with writers’ craft, it’s been a lot o sound. There was a beautiful moment last week when half of them were sounding and the other half were listening, and they were just so wonderfully loud! It was absolutely thrilling.

A thoughtful young woman asked the question, “Is the joy of gibberish the denial of formality?” So we ended up having a great conversation about the pleasures of transgression and subversion. The politics of noise in the classroom. The politics of girls being loud. Potent stuff.

Even though they’ve loosened up in noise making, they’re still tight-lipped when it comes to expressing opinions and engaging with ideas. I think giving them some conceptual vocabulary might help. I dunno.

but it’s all very good. all of it.

The students are lovely. Thoughtful. A bit on the quiet side. Very shy. You know. Writers

I’ve been spending this time getting to know them and their attitudes towards writing, introducing them to the major activities of this part of the course, and gently exposing them to other authors, forms, types of writing than they may have seen to this point.

I’m also trying an experiment with the Writer’s Journal. This year, we’re making our own journals. In the past, it’s been so difficult to get them to use an actual journal, not loose pages put in a duotang. When you can get a fairly nice bound one at the dollarama, I don’t see what the problem is.

I was concerned at first about how they might create a journal that had sufficient girth for the length of the course, cause making bigger books takes more skill. And I wanted them to achieve some success with their first creation. And then I decided that we would make a successive number of journals, each one a different style, so that hey could feel the difference that writing in each of them made.

So, our first journals were just simple signature volumes. We took apart the lined pages from cheap-o exercise books to form the text blocks for those who wanted to use lined paper, and made the covers from scrapbooking papers I got from Wallmart and the Dollar Store. Cheap, and easy. And everyone was successful!

So, now we’re ready to write, I think.

And I think I want to start with a week of sound exercises. I just feel more and more convinced that unless they start to become more sensitive to the sounds of words, sentences, and the spaces between them…

And besides, nothing loosens a group of teens up than running around a room makin’ noize

My student with Asperger’s, we’ll call him Steve, is a delight and a joy. I’m very lucky in that he seems to have adjusted to the whole idea of school, the chaos – of which there’s a whole plenty- of the halls, all the other stuff- last year. But I’m going to take some credit for the way he’s now blossoming in my class. He’s doing the work, he’s making jokes, and responding to my sense of humour, he’s moving around the room, he’s interacting with other students- really, he’s the least of my worries about that class. I really like him, and I have a whole lot to learn about asperger’s because this is not at all what I expected.

I tried something new this year in my applied classes. I asked them to complete their introductory “all about me” assignment by sending it to me in an e-mail. I wanted to see if my hypothesis about the reasons for their reticence to blog was correct. I figgered that blogging is far too exposed for these students. They are far too insecure to risk exposing their ideas to ridicule, especially the best ideas, which are so often the ones that are different, and expose a bit of emotional vulnerability.

Additionally, last year I did have students do a few e-mails as assignments because I wanted them to learn how to write professional e-mails, or how to write e-mails to their profs or teachers or bosses. It was very gratifying to see Dennis Jerz, a pedagogue whose work and teaching in writing and digital media I admire greatly, post this guide to writing effective e-mails to professionals and see that we are in synch as to the needs and requirements.

Instead of asking them to write lyrics to songs they can remember, this time I asked them to give me a link to a website they like. And also to ask my a question about myself or about the course.  It’s fascinating to see the websites they like. Most of them are youtube videos. If they’re appropriate, I screen them for the class. Quite a few of them loved this Charlie bit my finger video. But none of them had seen this brilliant remix. Which reminded me instantly of The Happiness Project. (what I wouldn’t do to teach in a networked lab). So I played it for them and they loved it. And that tells me something about their net habits. When I clicked on the original Charlie video, the remix vid was high on the list of recommended videos and I was instantly intrigued. So I followed my bliss. I’m guessing that these kiddos only follow the links recommended by their friends.