Bird Droppings May 12, 2010
Trying to understand war and teaching

Yesterday afternoon I sat in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit holding a tiny baby, four pounds as she has lost a few ounces since she was born. It felt as if all I was holding was a blanket as I watch the tiny face grimace then half way smile then back to sleep and open her mouth and amazingly enough roll her tongue as she stuck it out at me. My first thought was all was simply it was instinctual as I touched her tiny foot and her Babinski reflex curled her tiny toes. On her ankle jokingly her mother and I noticed a Finding Nemo Band-Aid holding her IV line in place. Her mother said her first sticker. It was hard watching this tiny person make faces at me as I sat trying to not move because of various wires, tubes and other support electronics all connected and keeping her trying to smile at me.
It was several years ago I told my sons I did not want grandbabies till I was sixty and surprise here I am sixty and sitting holding my grand daughter. As I sit here writing a tear in my eye as I look at images from photos taken as I sat holding her yesterday. Each day she is changing more smiles more tears and more messy diapers although they are tiny. One day I will be able to tell her the stories my father her great grand father told me when I was only a child so many years ago. I came home exhausted from a lack of sleep me who only ever gets a few hours a night. I sat down and fell asleep as if my day had lasted for weeks. I checked my phone an odd number was on missed calls. It turned out to be a good friend from so many years back just happened to be checking on me. We were room mates nearly forty years ago when I was in college in Macon Georgia.
We talked for nearly half an hour and I made sure to save his number on my phone. It has been nearly a life time since I first met this fellow. His grandfather was the medicine man for the Creek Nation in Oklahoma before he passed away. My dear friend has retired due to health concerns but still keeps up with his passion for horses and dogs. Rattling off blood lines and new babies as we talked. My friend is a full blood Creek and lives now in a small town in Oklahoma. It was so long I watched as he pulled an eagle feather from a carefully wrapped bag and explain how he was beading the feather as a present for his mother. So how would I say my day went it was peaceful as I put my head on my pillow last night a new grand daughter and a dear friend all in one day.

“Internal peace is an essential first step to achieving peace in the world. How do you cultivate it? It’s very simple. In the first place by realizing clearly that all mankind is one, that human beings in every country are members of one and the same family.” His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Within the passage is perhaps a key to humanities survival on this planet. It will never be done simply by who is most powerful, or who has the biggest guns and missiles. We must at some point accept others and understand others. There is a tremendous responsibility lying in the laps of teachers. Throughout the world teachers have daily more input into students lives than any other human being. As I finished a paper on technologies impact on youth, human contact is dwindling daily.

“Preserve the fires in our hearts… Our world needs teachers whose fire can resist those forces that would render us less just, less humane, and less alive.” Sam M. Intrator and Megan Scribner, editors Teaching with Fire

I found this book several years ago on a Borders trip. The two editors have taken poetry that means something to various teachers and with explanations from those teachers as to why this poem means so much created a book, Teaching with Fire. Over the years I have had similar questions asked. Only yesterday a teacher asked me, had I ever hit my own children, and I said no. I was looked at funny, “you have never hit your children?” I in all honesty could not remember ever hitting my own children. Several weeks ago I was asked similar, your kids never hit you or your wife or did this or that, and again “no” was my answer then as well. “Well I guess you just are not normal” was the answer both times.

“Normal is not something to aspire to, it’s something to get away from.” Jodie Foster

As I wonder at how others see the world like Jodie Fosters thought. Several weeks ago when first asked about my children hitting me I asked my son on the way home what he thought about it and his response was “normal is what you are used too”. I thought back to a philosophy discussion on Foucault and how he describes normal only after defining abnormal.

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” Albert Einstein

Somewhere, some how we as teachers and parents must set an example in our daily lives. Teaching with fire, The passionate teacher, The language and thoughts of a child, as I look at the books that surround me as I write, maybe answers are here. The answers are right among us, we are the answer. It is not some big secret. Several times over the past few months and years I have shared Dr. Nolte’s 1970’s idea of “Children Learn what they live”. I tried to use that just recently to explain to the teacher asking me about hitting my kids, and that teacher had a difficult time seeing the point.

“The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs. Self-conceit often regards it as a sign of weakness to admit that a belief to which we have once committed ourselves is wrong. We get so identified with an idea that it is literally a “pet” notion and we rise to its defense and stop our eyes and ears to anything different.” John Dewey

Gandhi had a difficult time selling nonviolence as did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as well have a difficult time selling nonviolence. Both men died for nonviolence.

“Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis.” John Dewey

As a teacher, the position I am in each day is one of being on a pedestal being watched seen by hundreds of students each day. As a parent and now grand parent I am seen by my children each day when they are home from college or work. Each of us is seen and understood in context of perceptions and understandings of that moment. Over the past week several students have worn t-shirts that are banned in dress code rules, because of racial over tones. When you ask students why they wear t-shirts that are illegal, answers are always vague and noncommittal never because of race. One of my favorite is always “only shirt I had” so you will get kicked out of school for your shirt because it is the only one you had.
Two events yesterday made my day. The first a simple one, I made the comment I was pissed off at a student for something, another student said “Mr. Bird I never heard you cuss before”. Actually I do not swear and did not consider pissed off as swearing either, however in that person’s context it was. But the remark they never heard me swear is what caught my attention, I WAS SETTING AN EXAMPLE and or not.
The other comment came as an email. A remark as to my wisdom, I wrote back that wisdom is fleeting and only momentary, as you teach wisdom is transferred and soon you must learn more to be wiser. Almost as if you give away wisdom only needing to replenish as we go.

“We must become the change we want to see.” Mahatma Gandhi

“When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative. The time is always right to do what is right.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We are the pathway and the direction and the example for others to see. Never should anyone question hitting another person and try to justify it. Never should a person even in a small way feel doing harm to another in any way is justifiable. As a teacher, parent, or friend go out and show in your life what is, NORMAL. Running parallel through religions world wide is a rule, a guide, a talisman for some just a thought, treat others as you wish to be treated. It is about Teaching with Fire, teaching with example. Learning what we live and trying to live it and see what impact can be made. Please keep all in harms way on your mind and in your hearts.
namaste
bird