Welcome to the Spring 2014 blog for CI 526. Let the writing begin.
The following piece was inspired by a recent CNN literacy report that targeted the literacy gap between student-athletes and the general student population at 21 schools including Oklahoma and Oklahoma state.
CNN Official Report
sixteen soccer fields
run a 4.4
swish, baby - all net
all implicated in the CNN report
that North Carolina education is fraudulent
shine the spotlight instead of the stadium light
inside a new fight
to be different than anyone else
because I swim faster and have new warm-up suits
I am cut from the same cloth
but you see me differently
because I wear my name on the back of my shirt
but you've only revealed your dirt
We've never been advanced
but you want to advance your cause
as if you really care about me
It's not that complex
16 on the ACT
now you want to get rid of me
sixteen soccer fields
run a 4.4
swish, baby - all net
What's your official score?
What's your official sore?
by
A.W. Tatum
January 15, 2014
4:20 pm
They say the eyes are the mirror of the soul-what do mine reflect to yours?
ReplyDeleteDo they show my defiance?Do they make you feel shame?or illicit pity for my pain?
Is there hurt in my eyes or a quelled spirit?Attempting dignity in my glare,daring you to see this chattel is more than just an animal.
They say the eyes are the mirror of the soul-what do mine reflect to yours?
And then one night I was on a beach in Michigan with some friends. The sunset was brilliant, insisting to be watched. There were elegant arcs, layers of red, orange and gold; finally, an array of purples emerged. It was as if somebody had dipped a brush into god’s own paint box to say a grand hello. Suddenly everything shifted. I realized that my dad was all right. I turned around and fireflies had begun lighting up the forest behind us. Life is beautiful and demands to go on being lived, no matter how alone you feel. Maybe that’s it—life isn’t supposed to make you feel great, nor is it supposed to make you feel miserable—it’s just supposed to make you feel.
ReplyDeleteYou know, they say your eyes speak the truth. If you look into your eyes, you hear the unspoken. Every emotion seeps through them. Right now, your eyes are like a Jumbotron making a PSA. They speak with answer and sorrow, resentment and fear. They play the unspeakable acts you've witnessed and endured. They are loud yet soft, bursting with emotion yet flowing with an ease.
ReplyDeleteCorrection to above post: Insert "anger" for "answer"
ReplyDeleteEpiphany
It all boils down to one word, "choices." Each day I awake, I can make the choice to be positive and hopeful or well, lets not think the alternative. My choices were to conform to the family's cycle or create my own path, fear the unknown or take a leap of faith. I haven't always made the best choices, but I am satisfied that my choices have led to my current state- content in the present and hopeful of the future.
Epiphany
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'm just like my mother- she's never satisfied-
seeking approval-
yes ma'am,no ma'am....three bags full ma'am
one lump of sugar or two?
the red shoe or will the blue suede do?
see it doesn't really matter,it doesn't mean a thing-
that chain of approval you yank is no longer yanking
1/15/14
ReplyDeleteBy: Jennifer
It is hard to focus on just these eyes when the whole picture has so much more to tell. These eyes reveal sadness and despair. Staring into me, pleading for help. Like there is more to be said. They are not bright and wide but small and narrow, like the person has something they want to share, but can’t.
I want to know what they have to share. To be silenced seems so painful. A feeling of hopelessness travels through me. It is almost as if these eyes reveal a message of “Please help me.” But how?
Where does the sadness and sorrow come from? What suffering have they endured?
These eyes have a story to tell, they are just waiting for their release. But where would they begin? Where would they end?
1/22/14
ReplyDeleteBy: Jennifer
Walking down the aisle I could feel my eyes welling up with tears. Tears are usually associated with sadness, but not these. These were tears of joy, embarking on the unknown and beginning a new journey together. All of a sudden, it hit me. After years of planning and preparing myself for the “big day,” I realized that nothing could have prepared me for this. Now it was not just about me anymore, but also about us-our future together, our family, and our life.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Are you sure you want to mess with me? I will look you in the eyes without hesitation and make you pay."
ReplyDeleteThose eyes pierced through me and I felt a cold chill run down my spine. They were so naturally wide, and the eyebrows are shaped in anger ready for an outburst. On a mission. They see and remember every single wrong doing I have ever done.
No blinking, no holding back, no way out.
He takes me onto the pier and I am very resistant of what could happen. We will fall in. We will freeze and we will die. He laughs and pulls me gently towards the end of the pier. 2 inches from the edge I stand. Do I jump? Do I take a leap? What do I do?
ReplyDeleteA song starts to fill my ears as my heart wells up with feelings of warmth and fuzzies. I hear the words, but am I really listening? I start to think, “I should start to listen, he doesn’t sing to me very often. Well he doesn’t sing to me. Ever.” The last line of his song hits me as if I had just walked into a lamp post. He gets down on one knee and asks me the question. THE question that I have always wondered where he would ask.
I am still 2 inches from the edge still. I no longer need to ask myself what to do. I take the leap. A leap of faith into the next chapter of my life.
Epiphany
ReplyDeleteStranded on an island with 30 thoughtful, curious minds.
Trying to mold them to be tomorrow’s leaders.
Trying to give them the skills needed to be “college and career ready.”
They may not all master this concept, lesson, unit, or assignment, but they will learn and grow.
Do you really care?
Questionable.
You tell me 95% meets and exceeds is the goal. Never a mention of student growth. Do you even know our student population?
They are just a number to you, no faces attached.
Ask me about my students’ strengths, weaknesses, areas of concern?
No need, they have assessments to show all that information.
TRC, DIBELS, NWEA, MCLASS, Reach, and Benchmark.
You want to know about my students? Then ask.
Ask or not, I will continue to push them towards the right path of success.
Eyes. Hopeless, helpless, silenced.
ReplyDeleteHumiliated and scorned.
Thoughts of revenge… “I’ll make them pay. I’ll make them suffer…One day.”
They are stopping and staring,
Gawking and pointing.
Examining.
Move along, nothing you haven’t seen before.
Don’t break down, don’t shed a tear.
You’re strong, you’re powerful.
They’ll see that…one day.
It's been said that one of the saddest thing to see at the zoo is the eyes of a sullen lion.
ReplyDeleteThe once ferocious and wild spirit is confined.
He no longer is fierce.
He no longer is feared.
His roar hold no weight anymore.
His existence is not his anymore.
This is you.
Your roar is ripped from your throat.
Your wild, creative humanity is beaten out of you.
All you have left are eyes;
Eyes that tell a story of a soul crushed, no longer able to exist.
Confined like the lion.
She has left a few months before. I was finding solace in the arms of another. In typical style I was guiltily leaving before anyone else awoke. It had snowed the night before and there was a beautifully, unblemished layer of white snow covering the ground. As I walked away I looked back like Lot's wife to remember my sin, and while I didn't turn to salt the trail of my indiscretion kept following me. It was that day that I realized this experience of my world being shattered by her could either make me better, or continuously lead me back to the path marked in the snow. Pain is never fun, but is shapes and molds you, you just have to let it. It was that day that I realized I'd have to live in the pain for awhile and learn to grow from it.
ReplyDeleteResponse to the picture:
ReplyDeleteResiliency develops in those who understand they will remain broken without it. Those who thrive with every misstep, remain unmoved by each blow, and keep their voices after each humiliation.
These people know who they deserve to be.
Others remain forever ignorant. Maybe they never learned to stand. Maybe they never wanted to. Regardless, they wither. They dissolve. The flake apart and off, piece by piece, forgetting that remaining whole is worth the struggle.
Looking into those steady eyes, I saw a whole person. One who knew what he was, who he was, and who he deserved to be.
Epiphany response:
ReplyDelete"Who is the queen of you?"
"Um... you?"
"No, dummy... who is the queen of you?" She was getting indignant.
"Um... me?" I responded correctly... finally... shakily.
"Yes--Now say it."
"I am the queen of me."
"Like you mean it, Comiskey."
"Okay... I AM THE QUEEN OF ME!"
My fists were clenched, my voice high and strained, my face a bit reddened as I shouted down the hallway, half excited, half mortified. I felt silly and embarrassed, but freed in a way. This was the moment, in a high school hallway littered with crumpled papers, dropped hall passes, and an unusual (and disturbing) amount of discarded clothing, that I realized I was a real, honest-to-goodness adult.
I could do whatever I wanted.
Goodbye Catholic guilt. So long, desire to please everyone. Peace out, fear of looking like a dum dum. I knew that I had the power to make my own choices for my own life and deal with my own consequences. So I started doing just that.
His eyes are brave, fierce, direct.
ReplyDeleteThey speak to me.
They say all that his mouth cannot.
They are not weak.
They are not disgraced.
His eyes say, "Look at me."
His eyes say, "I am brave."
"I am fierce."
"I am alive."
His eyes are loud.
They pierce my own.
His eyes say more than I can say in this moment, and my mouth is not the one that is silenced.
We are anxious to buy house. A place to call home. Our first home. We have debated when and where for months.
ReplyDeleteI like the lake.
I like the city.
We love the woods.
I am in graduate school here.
I love my job.
My job is... OK.
When do we want kids?
Where will they go?
Who will we be upsetting?
What's the best price?
That's too expensive.
That's too small.
That's a dump.
How many bedrooms?
What about bath?
Two sinks please.
blah. blah. blah.
There are lots of houses.
Together, though, we'll have a home.
Cheesy? Yes.
True? Absolutely.
His eyes had witnessed more than the eyes of most adults by the end of his twelfth year. Each time he watched a family member or friend ripped away it etched another crease in his still baby face. There was a anger burning within that showed in the gentle lift of an eyebrow and the hard even stare. He looked at you- and through you- without ever shifting his gaze. The turmoil he had suffered emanated from that glare, It was a look that radiated his one and only thought. "I may have been brought down, but I will not be kept down." They are the broken, yet vengeful, eyes of a boy who will not be silenced until he is heard.
ReplyDeleteAs I sat on the pier that evening watching the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico, I wondered where I would go from here. I was newly single, newly unemployed, and stuck. I watched life happen for all of my friends as I sat, my life as stagnant as the wave-less water that night. I'd lived in Florida for my whole life. I grew up with the salty ocean breeze and the smell of the beach floating through the air. I loved the way my skin tingled from the heat of the sun. There was something so comforting about an afternoon thunderstorm and the cooler air that followed.Could I leave this place that I know and love and move to a city that I haven't spent more than a weekend in? Move to a city where I don't know a soul? A city that gets colder on some summer nights than my coldest winter nights? A place where my life would never be the same?As the final glimpse of purple light disappeared over the horizon, it took with it my hesitation. I felt a single bead of sweat drip down my back and as I swatted the mosquito from my arm, I realized that I could stay here and have my life slowly sucked away or I could go make something happen for me. Sometimes the things that scare us the most are the things that help us most grow. Sometimes the toughest decisions we make turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to us. We just have to take that leap...
ReplyDeleteEpiphany
ReplyDeleteWake up! It's a new day.
Today.
Tomorrow.
Regretful.
Forgetful.
Forgiving.
Change--a glimmer of hope.
Smile; cope.