Reflections on Personal Vision

More Reflections on the “Personal Vision Project”
Not to Mention My Own Ever-Evolving Personal Visions
By Barbara Saxton

Picture our “bubble students” as they encounter this sample multiple-choice “question” on their next English-Language Arts STAR test:

Sample Question 1: Genuine, sustained learning results when students are—

A. learning in safe, caring environments populated by people who recognize, encourage, and build on everyone’s talents and strengths.
B. asked to reflect, using their own powerful voices, on the facts, meanings, and values of their lives and then relate these concepts to the rest of their world.
C. attended to in effective, caring ways by all members of their learning community, and granted input and choice about their programs of study, products and outcomes of learning.
D. All of the above answers are correct.

Now, fast forward to me, the teacher, reading aloud from the Official Test Administrator’s Booklet (ahem): “Students, which letter did you bubble in as the best answer to Sample Question 1? What was that, Tiffany? Yes, that’s right! The best answer is D. All of the above. But, before I leave you to tackle Test Questions 1 – 75 by yourselves, is there anything else you want to ask me (other than, of course, ‘Why are we doing this at all?’)”

Well, obviously, we’re “doing this,” and not just in English/Language Arts, but in ALL the major academic disciplines, because, as Abraham Maslow, noted American psychologist who helped conceptualize the "hierarchy of human needs,” explained: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.” If one test is good and helps boost “overall student achievement,” then ten must be better! In case you wondered, one of my reasons for writing this to is debunk that very notion!

As many of you reading this are already aware, my SJAWP ISI08 workshop presentation centered around a “Personal Vision” mini-unit plan I designed for and implemented with eighth grade language arts classes at Crittenden Middle School, in the Mountain View (CA) Whisman School District. In my narrative explaining as much as I could about the project and my involvement with it, I mentioned how impressed and inspired I had felt several years ago when John Creger, an educator at American High School in Fremont CA described and outlined his “Personal Creed Project,” designed originally for high school sophomores. I went on to read his fascinating book, The Personal Creed Project and a New Vision of Learning: Teaching the Universe of Meaning In and Beyond the Classroom (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2004 ) and also created a modified version of the “Creed” project better suited to the needs and developmental capabilities of middle school students.

During the two consecutive years I offered it, the “Personal Vision” essay, and all the various stages of its creation, became one of the most meaningful and powerful projects of my students’ eighth grade year. To recap, the essential components of this project/essay are:

1. An attention-grabbing introduction, or thesis statement (usually created after the body paragraphs of the essay are completed!)
2. Paragraphs (revised from student journal entries and other verbal/written responses to various prompts) about the following more or less prescribed topics:
“Big questions” –Up to three important questions students wonder/are concerned about, want to try to answer at some point, etc.
Three influences: people (no celebrities!), experiences, or a combination of both which have shaped the student’s life, and why they were or became important. Two of these influences should be, for the most part, positive, and one primarily negative.
Presenting two or more quotations about education, learning, community, and life (either the student’s choice or from a list I make available) and comments on reasons for their choice and relevance or importance of these quotes in our lives.
What each individual student stands for, or a cause (or causes) worthy of working for and toward, and the reasons why it or they are important, both to the individual and the world.
3. An effective conclusion that restates the thesis in a different way, summarizes key points, and looks to the future.

Creating the powerful essays that emerged from the personal vision project was hardly a stand-alone exercise. Experiencing first hand the value of learning to talk and write about things that truly mattered to them and their world gradually informed every other aspect of the curriculum. When we read Steinbeck’s The Pearl, they discussed economic disparity and injustice, greed and materialism, and related these themes to their own lives and experience. We eagerly debated both sides of a New York Times article about the ethics and plausibility of paying students on the basis of their performance on standardized tests. They became more active, involved learners. (Note: this process was forced into temporary hiatus as we performed the obligatory “test prep” in April just before the annual STAR testing window opened…)

Although mine was one of the earlier presentations at this year’s ISI, the “personal vision” workshop was only the beginning of a cascade of literacy techniques and activities aimed at promoting student engagement, satisfaction, and voice, Herein a smattering of titles and topics: “This is Not about You: Giving Students Choice in the Educational Process,” “Teaching Comparison and Contrast to Stimulate Social and Self Awareness,” “Personalities: The Importance of Being Earnestly Yourself,” “Taking the Fear Out of Responding to Poetry,” “I-Search: When My Dad Was My Age,” “Creating Safe Places for Learning,” “Who Cares? A Response to Literature Unit,” “From Martin Luther to Walt Disney: Engaging Aliterate Secondary Students with What They Read,” “Raise Your Voices! Integrating Research with Lead-ins, Voice and Attitude,” “The Magic of Mehendi: Studying Process Analysis through Culture,” “Healing Grief in the Classroom,” “World Citizens Program: Students Making a Difference.” Obviously, when over twenty of Silicon Valley’s best K-12 English/Language Arts teachers select and present what they know will bring forth the best, both personally and academically, in their students, some common threads pervade the entire series: vision, choice, engagement, voice, measurable learning, values, and satisfaction.

As John Creger pointed out, “such a vision would increase the value our society places on learning…and offering real long-term hopes…for solving intractable societal problems.” (pg. 48) The “two-legged classroom” Creger envisions is “as much devoted to the care and unfolding of persons as to the acquisition and honing of skills.”(pg. 155) Another way of putting it is that, without developing our students’ core beings, recognizing and developing their sense of character and moral compasses, we risk sending out into the world highly-trained automatons who care deeply about nothing. Maybe we’ve done enough of that already.

Like Creger, I am a child of the 1950’s and 60’s. During that period, in the faraway (and educationally much better funded!) land of Ohio, the elementary and secondary education I received was, in its many positive aspects, rigorous, competitive, and thorough. I emerged a highly educated individual—knowing many, many important facts about a wide variety of subjects (and capable of reading, writing, and speaking about all of them), well-read (and a lifelong reader), sufficiently proficient in math and science to flourish in the worlds of business and my husband’s physics lab holiday parties, fluent in another language (French, and later Chinese) than English, and even in pretty decent physical shape, despite being descended from chain smoking alcoholics! What was missing, you might ask? For many years after I left high school, what lurked beneath the veneer of this successful A+, student was a veritable garbage dump of psychological insecurity, lack of direction (or even a real moral compass), and a fundamental distrust of teachers and my fellow students (who were, after all, my “competitors.”)

We “Track One” students were a nice fit for a Cold War society that demanded a highly competent workforce, and reasonably well-behaved scholars, who (at least for a while) were not overly concerned about why they were busting their guts, or for whose benefit. Certainly, there were less standardized tests than now, but real learning nevertheless played second fiddle to shameless grade-grubbing. We quaked in fear of being “lowered a track” to the level of those incompetent, non-college bound students who didn’t matter to anyone. In my own family, the fate of my bright but relatively unmotivated sisters showed me what being treated like academic chaff was like. So, I was careful not to screw up, at least not until later, when the absurdity of it all finally hit me, with gale force. The Vietnam War, or rather the act of protesting against it, also alerted me to realities and injustices I had been too busy to consider, while maintaining that 4.0 average. Once I woke up, though, I never really went back to sleep, and I try to make sure none of my students do, either.

Unfortunately, the multiple-choice non-learning opportunities are not going away soon. As a matter of fact, California is about to add yet another test (Algebra I) to eighth graders’ already burgeoning plate of year end assessments. The irony is that, even if they fail any or all of these tests, they will more than likely be promoted to high school anyway. It’s absurd, and the students know it. Although it is not a complete answer to this growing conundrum, I’ll close on what is hopefully a more positive note, with a quote from one of my students’ personal vision essays. Isaiah M. wrote: “One of my big questions is:“Why do some people hate each other? I think one reason…is that they have become afraid of other people, or jealous, or maybe they just don’t want to change, and they think other people will make them.” We will continue to work for change in education, not through hatred, but by being the change we want so desperately to see.

Two Family Haiku

One day I could hold
both his feet in one hand then
he walked out the door

Pain worries and fears
melt in the warmth of their gaze
my sons are my sun

To Jeanie

Another 3 AM call
All I hear is your breathing

I breathe back,
playing chicken, back and forth,
up and down, hoping
you'll hang up first

Those wordless calls
unanswered and mute, lungs working
hearts beating
through our one open bloodline

I breathe, recalling a time
when I was seven, you were twelve,
We invaded a bakery, ordering donuts
in character, my Tweety to your
Sylvester:

"Cweem-filled gwazed,
pweety pweeze"

"Stop dat, mean ole puddy tat!"

Laughing too hard to pull off the purchase,
nearly peeing our pants, we ran, ran and ran
down the hot, crowded streets,
stopping just out of range, leaning on
each other breathlessly
sweet silly solidarity

I'd never had so much fun
So, next time you appeared
at the door to my cage, inviting me out
I let down my guard, flying happily
to you, only to once again feel
those familiar claws digging into my wings,
and your sharp jealous teeth
clamping on my tail feathers

Did you call tonight wondering
which sister would answer? Dumb gullible Tweety,
or that pissed-off storekeeper, warning you
to take your business elsewhere?

But it is 3 AM
I'm too tired to help you
My cage door's locked tight. Sure, I feel
I feel you out there, breathing
and waiting, it's my choice to cower
in the farthest dark corner, vowing not
to give in to our god damned
depwession

--Barbara Saxton

Falling

Falling
by Barbara Saxton


I. Falling into Love

"Mom, can you drop me at the airport Monday morning on your way to work?"

"Sure, why not?" This was spoken in the breezy, I'm-not-at-all-curious-about-where-you're-going tone mothers try to adopt, even when curious or worried out of their minds. The life of a 23-year-old, even one who is, at present, living rent-free in your home (not to mention eating great quantities of your food) must not be assumed to be an open book. At least not if you want him to open up, really talk to you, ever again.

"I know you’re dying to ask, so I’ll just tell you,” Sam continued. “I'm going to Seattle, to see Emily.” He must have known what this slight opening, a chink in the wall, would elicit from me. I was far from the prototype of a disengaged, disinterested parent. Besides, it hadn't been that long since I'd helped him reassemble the various and sundry pottery shards of his heart, after Emily's abrupt departure from Belmont.

"Oh, really?" I uttered nonchalantly, proud of my calm, breezy tone, considering almost every bone and muscle of my body was shrieking: "Don't do it! Don't go! You'll get hurt!" If body parts were prone to elaboration, they also would have whined, "Can't you find some other girl who isn't about to disappear halfway around the world in three short weeks?"

To distract myself, I mentally replayed a conversation I’d had with my new co-worker, Greta, a week or so before. Through the office rumor mill, I'd heard she was recently widowed, but had no details. One day in the coffee room, thought, I asked her to tell me what had happened to her husband.

"Oh, I don't mind talking about it," Greta assured me. "I prefer that to the pitying, sad looks a lot of people give me! It was about this time last year," she began. "Joe took off one morning for a short jog on the beach. Then, he suffered a massive heart attack, collapsed in the sand, and died before the EMTs could even reach him. That was it. Twenty-one years, all gone in a moment."

I nodded sympathetically, in that way people do when they are inwardly horrified, wanting to run away, but trying to make things worse. Which was worse? To suffer that totally encompassing and unexpected pain, which months later, still dominated the landscape of Greta's face? Or, might it have been better to have never loved this man, much less marry and have kids with him? I honestly couldn't answer that question. What would I do if Eliot left our house one morning, then keeled over dead before morning tea, without either of us getting to say goodbye?

"OK," I reassured myself. "Greta and Sam's situations aren't similar at all!" But I was nevertheless tempted to tell him Greta's story, and carefully delivering the punchline: "And after experiencing so much pain and loss, she knew it was worth it, because she did have over twenty years of happiness with this guy. But YOU--you're facing the prospect of hitting bottom again, and for what? Ten DAYS of bliss?" But something told me Sam had already made up his mind: no matter what, he would be with Emily again, and he didn't give a damn who might have to put him back together again once she was gone.

So, only few short days later, there we were in the car, barreling toward the airport, chatting about who'd pick him up in Seattle, choking on the smoke from the forest fires burning all over the state at that time. As always, I was running late, eager to drop him at the "departures" curb, then go on my merry way. As I maneuvered into outgoing traffic, I glimpsed him in the rear view mirror: his usual rod-straight posture, backpack slung over one shoulder, assessing his next move. Was the expression on his face a little sad and uncertain, or was I as usual, reading too much into it? What depths of despair would that face reflect in a week and half, when I returned to pick him up at "arrivals"?

II. Falling Down Mountains

"Why, exactly, are we heading down this Black Diamond run?" Lynn asked, between labored breaths in the thin, icy air.

"It snowed so much last night," I replied, more cheerful than I felt, then kicking off before we had more time to think about it. "We can just fall sideways if it gets too hairy."

And fall we did. Lynn and I collapsed mid-mogul, hot dogged (and fell face first on) steeper hills than we'd ever attempted, rammed snowbanks so hard our ski tips should have broken, sideslipped on the really impossible bits (and still fell, sometimes quite hardl!). When we finally reached bottom, the hill was totally pocked with our sitz-marks; some depressions so large it looked like fully grown hippopotami, not reasonably slender, twenty-something young women, had been barreling down the hill, falling every ten feet or so. The "real" advanced skiers whizzed past us (cursing us under their breaths, I'm sure), but we were laughing too hard to notice them.

It wasn't until we were safely at the bottom that I muttered, "Well, you'd think that would have done it."

"Done what? Made total fools of ourselves?" Lynn panted. "I think we just managed that on the first try!"

It was time to admit my surreptitious goal to my best friend, especially if I was going to be involving her in more life-threatening exploits. "I'm pregnant," I blurted. "If I do enough runs like Gunbarrel here, I just might miscarry." I didn't want to meet her eyes, even through the goggles I was wearing. I could tell she was sizing up the situation, and I fully expected her to launch into some diatribe about my total lack of morals and judgment. But a few moments later, all she said, in that quiet and level voice of hers, was, "Well, we'd better get back on the lift if we're going to make it down The Face before lunch."

Despite Lynn, for whatever reason, being on board for Mission to Miscarry, we managed to ski the most challenging runs at four downhill areas in three days without that poor, unwanted fetus losing hold. "Jean-Claude," as we had endearing started calling it ,was having none of my attempts to accidentally destroy him. Quite to the contrary, a temporary cessation of the morning sickness that had plagued me for weeks indicated that he was thriving on all this alpine abuse.

Over wine (which I paradoxically told Lynn I shouldn't be drinking, prompting us both to lose large amounts of chardonnay through our noses), I explained that an abortion wasn't covered under my health plan, the baby's shit head father was both clueless and penniless; besides, I said, I was averse to having my insides scraped with any utensils. "I just can't have a kid right now," more to convince myself than Lynn, who seemed increasingly sympathetic. "I mean, can you imagine me talking to coke-head brokers in New York at five in the morning, with Jean-Claude here alternately screaming and tugging on my boobs?"

"Yes, that would indeed be intolerable," Lynn opined, between sips of her wine. She seemed wary about bringing up any of the obvious ethical or religious issues involving my decision, which had apparently already been made, and qualm-free to boot. I couldn't tell if I had fallen several rungs down her esteem ladder, or she simply didn't care. I knew her well enough to see that I was feeding into her love of the quirky and unexpected, and Lynn had never been privy to a sports-related demolition derby of this sort before.

After dinner, we retired to our shared bedroom at the lodge. The next day, Lynn and I would drive back to the Bay Area, and she planned to put me on a plane back to Seattle, where my “procedure” was already scheduled to happen in less than a week.

That Time

Those times, I'd sleep screaming
bloody murder, maybe two
or three in the morning. "Another night terror
I'll go," Mom probably muttered, wrapping her ugly
plaid robe all around her,
padding down
the long hall, flinging open
the door, squinting into the dark
bedroom. Which spot
was I standing or crouching
this time? At last meeting
my sightless wide eyes
deaf ears to her cooing,
"Tell me your dreams"

But that time,
when I screamed
those cold, steely-tinged screams,
sounds snatched from some alien dream demon's belly,
she heard the change, but I didn't. I was
busy being chased by a two-headed monster, whose claws
and jagged teeth were just that close
to trapping me. I tried to escape
through the closed bedroom window,
woke not to soft cooing, but the sharp sounds
of glass breaking, throaty howls
that could never
be my own voice.

But that time,
they were; this nightmare was real. Thick and red blood
spreading over everything--the floor
my bed, the wall, and when our eyes
finally focused on its source--
my own arm--we were transfixed for an instant
by the seldom seen bone and muscle
peeking through the throbbing gash.

That time,
no stumbling back to bed
in warm darkness.
That time, bright emergency lights,
urgent voices, and stitches--so many stiches
to close up the wound and
stop all that blood. That time,
there would still be no answers to
unanswered questions. No spells
to warn off future terrors. No slaying
of monsters.

Not that time.
Maybe never.
"Sleep tight."

Grief Timeline: Mom's Death

Although I wouldn't have wanted her to go any other way, and certainly not alone,  the hardest part was when I held my mother's head, stroking her now-silky grey hair, singing to a song that tinkled out of a cheap music box, while she breathed her last labored breaths. Just minutes before, the nurses had asked me (I had durable POA) whether or not to take "heroic measures." I knew what this meant; they could probably bring her back, but she'd also go back on the vent. Those messages she'd scrawled on the etch-a-sketch my brother bought when she was hooked up to one of those horrid things before that said, "I love to talk--this is killing me" and, later, "Help me die"--how could I forget them, especially now that the doctors had told me the cancer had spread everywhere, and there was no hope? With my heart beating wildly, trying to convince my brain to give them an order that might keep her with us another hour, another week, I instead whispered the words you can never take back: "Let her go."

As she lay dying, for the first time in weeks, my mother seemed to look at me, really look and know who I was.  I even thought I saw a faint smile. With nothing left for them to do, the nursing home staff humanely left us alone. A day or two before, when I'd tried to fix up her "new room"  (a glorified hospital bed with a vinyl curtain around it), I'd hung her "Hawaii" travel posters on the one wall she could see, placed a pot of African violets on her tray, and a silly piano-shaped music box that played her favorite song on the bedside table. Before I held her, I wound it up all the way, and in those last moments, as she drifted off to eternity, I sang to her one last time.

"It was fascination, I know

And it might have ended right there, at the start

Just a passing glance, just a brief romance

And I might have gone on my way

Empty hearted"

Bombs Away, Mommy Bloggers!
by Barbara Saxton
(Inspired by Article in Deb N.'s Presentation 7/7/08

You are not
alone
Narcissism may revolt you with its
germy backlash,
but some comments feel like a balm
on the chapped lips
of everyday anxiety.
The dirty details
the follies and foibles.
If scrapbooking is the urge
to put it all together, then blogging's
a compulsion to pull it all apart.
A whole world of women
raising children on this crazy
spinning planet.
Blogging doesn't make life
tidier, but keeps life
in your memory. You are not
alone.