Helping Kids Hope; A Teacher Explores the Need For Meaning In Our Schools and In Our Lives

215 Pages·2003·10.61 MB·English

by  Nancy E. Gill

Helping Kids Hope
A Teacher Explores the Need for
Meaning in Our Schools and in
Our Lives
Nancy E. Gill
A SCARECROWEDUCABTOIONK
The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford
2003
A SCARECROWEDUCABTOIOKN
Published in the United States of America
by Scarecrow Press, Inc.
A Member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, MD 20706
www.scarecroweducation.com
PO Box 317
Oxford
OX2 9RU, UK
Copyright 0 2003 by Nancy E. Gill
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gill, Nancy E., 1942-
Helping kids hope : a teacher explores the need for meaning in our schools
and in our lives / Nancy E. Gill.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
0-8108-4678-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Education-Aims and objectives-United States. 2. Motivation in
education- United States.
LB14.7 .G55 2003
370.1 5'4 -d c2 1 2002153541
eTThMe pape r used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences -P ermanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
This book is dedicated to my friend, John Linnet, who died June 15,
1997, from cancer, at the age of fifty-four, and who wanted to go on
living.
“When dialogue stops, love dies and resentment and hate are born.”
-Reuel L. Howe
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Permissions xi
Introduction 1
1 “In Much Wisdom Is Much Grief”: Thinking about
Teaching as Learning 6
“In Much Wisdom Is Much Grief” 6
Alice in Where? 9
Sows’ Ears 11
E-ducere 15
Higher Education 17
That’s the Breaks 20
“Literary General” 23
Clues 26
Seeing 28
Remembering the Pleasure of It 31
Sometimes I Wish 34
My Life of Crime 36
Rhododendron 38
What Did You Learn in School Today? 41
You Don’t Have to Be Alone 44
Grim Days 46
Just Imagine 47
vi CONTENTS
2 Very Like a Jail: Ten Years in Public School 51
Very Like a Jail 51
“Hey! Miss Gill!” 58
Poems 61
When Life Is Not Fun 63
The Horrible Curickleeum Worm 64
Trust 65
This Class Is So Boring! 69
Loneliness 73
Have You Done Your Homework? 75
It Just about Puts You to Sleep 76
They Like to Give Their Own Thoughts 78
Love Is Taking Time 80
Messages 81
3 “Hello in There”: Taking College into the Community 84
“Hello in There” 84
The “Combine”’11 Getcha, If You Don’t Watch Out! 89
Beyond Degrees 93
Please Live 95
Reading 100
See What? 104
Don’t Ask Me to Be Creative 110
Drawing 114
The Man Thing 116
Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer in the Road 117
Names 120
Drugs 122
4 “Nada Y Pues Nada”: The Kids Nobody Wanted 127
“Nada Y Pues Nada” 127
Screw ’Em All 133
You Live under My Roof 134
He Just Got Completely Lost 136
So There Were Fifteen of Us in the Back of This Truck 137
Up against the Wall 138
True Love 140
CONTENTS vii
They Should Treat You Like a Person, Instead of a
Student, You Know? 142
Who Wants to Sit in a Sub Shop on Friday Night? 143
Kindergarten Was the Worst 145
Corning 146
These Were the Irresponsible Ones 14 7
Who’s Going to Hear You When You Talk? 149
I Just Don’t Concentrate in School No More-
I Don’t Know Why 151
Hey! Where’d You Get That Gold? 154
Most of Them Are Just a Pain in the Ass 157
Stupid Peanut Heads 16 0
Why Don’t They Just Understand? 163
Ninth Grade 165
When I Think about Tenth Grade 165
Fourteen 166
5 “Poetry, Like Bread, Is for Everyone”: Breaking
Down Stereotypes 167
“Poetry, Like Bread, Is for Everyone” 167
Thinking about the Beauty of Place 169
Square Roots of Minus Numbers 172
Mapping 173
The Right Side of the Brain 178
White People All Listen to Classical Music 181
“Going Out Not Knowing” 183
Just Say Yes 186
Thank You 187
Reprise 191
Symbols 194
References 200
About the Author 202
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to Dorothy Bjarnason, Mary Dayharsh, Catherine Jianopou-
los, Jim Brandt, Alfred Hillier, John Spellman, Florence Diesman, Fred
Dudley, Remo Fausti, Donald Hiller, and Dyson Shultz, who taught what
they were; to S . Leonard Rubinstein, whose vision of what Composition
could be made my own vision possible; to Richard Lewis, who showed
me what children could do; to all my college students, who were, in so
many ways, my teachers -especially to the Literature and Society stu-
dents who helped to plant the garden, and who gave so much more than
three credits could ever measure.
Thank you to each of the younger students 1 “adopted.” Some of
you are older now than I was when I first visited you, and have chil-
dren of your own. It has been a privilege and a blessing to have been
part of your life.
Thank you to the administrators, office staff, guidance counselors,
and teachers who selected “my kids” and arranged for me to visit them,
especially Esther Franklin, Nancy Swisher, Carol Giger, and Joan
Varonka; to the English Department and the Human Relations Com-
mittee, whose funding made those visits possible; to the Office of So-
cial Equity of the State System of Higher Education, which funded my
summer project. Special thanks to Ruth Schwimmer, Sam Bidleman,
Dee Anne Casteel, Don Gross, Joe Klusman, and Thomas Lynch, who
let me wander so freely through their classrooms and their schools.
Thank you to The International Society For Exploring Teaching Alter-
natives (ISETA), especially to Bill Mullin, Gloria Balderrama, Linc
Fisch, Charlie Wales, Jim Marlin, Christine Campbell, Ken Klopfenstein,
ix