I know how this works. Hua Hsu is that good at his job. First I read the article. I’ll be fascinated by the poet, by their work, by the way they describe their work. I’ll track down the first couple of books, get them from the library, and sit down to read.

And it will all go right over my head. I won’t understand the poems at all. Just not smart enough.

Still, the closing quote is as good a description of what I’m trying to do as a teacher as I’ve read:

“You go out and you look in the sky. We live in this act of creation that is unfathomable and overwhelming. The intricacy, beauty, fearsomeness,” he said. “We push back by becoming active, becoming producers, and putting our little pieces of creativity down next to it. It’s this idea, I can do something, too.

“But every now and then, when the flow’s not coming, you gotta get up from your couch or the desk, you gotta go out on the porch, look up at the sky and enjoy the humility of just taking in this obviously superior and more complex creativity. What we do could never match that. Could I ever write a poem as intricate as a pinecone? Wallace Stevens has got nothin’ on this.”  (Nathaniel Mackey)

This opening piece from the magazine on social media contains this perfect description:

Late in January, I logged into Twitter only to see that an account I followed had decided to talk about racism. This is a not-uncommon experience for social media: Check to see what your friends are doing or look at cute dogs, and it’s not long before you’re digesting a near-stranger’s analysis of contemporary social issues.

The twist, of course, is that the account is managed by O.J. Simpson.

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I’ll use this article with my photography unit in U.S. History. The essay by Celeste NG is superb.

This book review describes a book that I’ll have to read. These passages:

On average, one child is shot every hour; over the past decade roughly 30,000 children and teenagers have been killed by gunfire — recently eclipsing cancer as their second-leading cause of death. (Unintentional injuries, such as those caused by burns, falls or drowning, are the leading cause.)

These numbers suggest the scale of the physical, mortal toll inflicted, but they cannot account for the psychic price paid by kids who live in the dark, long shadows of the aftermath of such violence: those who lose a friend or relative to gunfire; who witness gun deaths at close quarters at a vulnerable age; whose lives, and life chances, are shaped by a premature brush with mortality. And since such children were not struck by a bullet, they are not counted and, at least in any official sense, do not count.

Cox, John Woodrow. Children Under Fire: An American Crisis, (__: Ecco, 2021).

Hard to know if I’ll listen to this or not. I would like more shots of that home studio. But this quote:

“In our own ways, Bruce and I have been on parallel journeys,” Obama says in the first episode. “We still share a fundamental belief in the American ideal. Not as an airbrushed, cheap fiction or an act of nostalgia that ignores all the ways that we’ve fallen short of that ideal. But as a compass for the hard work that lies before each of us as citizens.”

NYT Coverage here.

There’s this piece about what college costs and why it costs that much. I’d bet a mortgage payment that Brian Rosenberg had a lot more to say but the reporter cut it out.

Then there’s this piece from the New Yorker about how everyone is a CEO in high school. How about the kid who helped a McDonald’s be super efficient?

I loved this essay: How We Survive Winter

“I have spent some long, scary nights waiting for the sun to come up. There have also been some long, barren seasons when I feared the sap would never rise again,” Barbara Brown Taylor, an author and Episcopal priest, reflected. “The hardest thing is to keep trusting the cycle, to keep trusting that the balance will shift again even when I can’t imagine how. So far it has.”

“The most important thing is to hold that tiny spark of life, if it is in a bud, in a seed, that is our work, to hold on to life, so when spring comes back, there can be growth. If you fail at that, spring doesn’t matter,” she said. “That seems like a Covid teaching to me.” (Robin Wall Kimmerer)

Reminded me of this passage, which is on my stick:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Many versions here.

White clicktivism: why are some Americans woke online but not in real life? And a solid article as well.

I’m trying to think whether I might use this in English — alongside Ta-Nehisi Coates — or whether I want to use it in history.

Quoting:

“Following the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, many white Americans have spent the past year taking part in a social justice movement online and on the ground, combating systemic racism and opposing police brutality. Bookstores sold out of race education books, social media timelines were consumed with Black Lives Matter support, and protests drew diverse crowds.

But then we saw the election results. Trump won the support of 71 million Americans this year – including 55% of white women and 61% of white men. Even in liberal hotbeds like New York, California and Washington, Trump maintained 48%, 47%, and 36% of the white vote.”

Great interview.

For me as a musician, I try to be aware of where I am. As a performer, my job is to make the listener the most important person in the room. The only way to avoid burnout is to care about where you are. My good friend Manny Ax¹² would always say to me that it doesn’t matter what you did yesterday; if you’re here today, that’s what counts. Being present. Caring. You’re working with living material. That goes back to memory. The living material is only living if it is memorable. Not only that it’s memorable but that you pass it on. That is what I’m thinking about with every single interaction. Whether it’s a kid, someone on the street, in a concert hall or with you, David. It’s the same thing: How to be present. Because if you’re not?

Re-written:

For me as a teacher, I try to be aware of where I am. As a teacher, my job is to make the students the most important people in the room. The only way to avoid burnout is to care about where you are. My good friend Manny Ax¹² would always say to me that it doesn’t matter what you did yesterday; if you’re here today, that’s what counts. Being present. Caring. You’re working with living material. That goes back to memory. The living material is only living if it is memorable. Not only that it’s memorable but that you pass it on. That is what I’m thinking about with every single interaction. Whether it’s a student, someone on the street, in a school or with you, David. It’s the same thing: How to be present. Because if you’re not?

What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In?

Not sure why this is in the style section, but glad it got published.

“The antidote to that outrage cycle, Professor Ross believes, is “calling in.” Calling in is like calling out, but done privately and with respect. “It’s a call out done with love,” she said. That may mean simply sending someone a private message, or even ringing them on the telephone (!) to discuss the matter, or simply taking a breath before commenting, screen-shotting or demanding one “do better” without explaining how.

Calling out assumes the worst. Calling in involves conversation, compassion and context. It doesn’t mean a person should ignore harm, slight or damage, but nor should she, he or they exaggerate it.

I appreciated David Blight’s essay here, particularly the paragraph on institutions.

Thomas Edsall solicited ideas from a number of historians and compiled them here.

A piece assessing the President’s attack on history teachers.

Need to remember this page when we start Gatsby.

Here’s the initial project: Obituaries, The American Dream 1931-2020.

It’s harder and harder for me, as someone whose mind runs to the negative, as someone capable of cutting cynicism, as someone who has watched for years what American poverty and racism does to my beautiful students, to remain positive.

I once heard a child pay tribute to Simon Hauger. She said:

He loves his family.
He loves his students.
He loves his work.

Simple. Remember that.