Two Days Left at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School

So already, only two days left as a public school educator.  It's an extraordinary time -- especially sweet and intense given the prospect of Scott's gallery talk at Johnson State College on Thursday. But it's also a disorienting time, both wondrous and unsettling.

If you read my blog post of about a week ago, you saw pictures of the sculptures that Scott has included in Darkness and Beauty, his M.F.A. show at JSC.  The sconce you see at the left, which Scott recently gave me as a gift, is related to that work in terms of materials, subject matter, the presence of duality.  It rounds a corner and looks in two different directions.  Its two faces exist cheek-to-cheek, like close sisters or kindred spirits who sense each other through peripheral vision, actual or spiritual -- or like one person with two different orientations. And it feels to me like a near-perfect expression of my current situation: I am rounding a corner, but with such a strong sense of connection to the person and places I have been.

Today I had as nice a final day of "teaching" as I could have asked for. Too many carbohydrates for sure, but so many expressions of appreciation -- and so much wisdom and caring as my students shared their thoughts on a number of topics. I love how this group of students has come to value one another over time -- as human beings with particular perspectives, as sources of particular kinds of knowledge, as possessors of particular talents that have been developed and then shared for the pleasure and enlightenment of all of us. "Only connect" doesn't always come easily for worried, over-committed seniors.  But we connected.

I suspect our "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" VoiceThread Project clinched it:  so many students, in the asynchronous conversation that VoiceThread makes possible, articulated how much their own understandings of the poem developed as a result of others' comments and choices of images to represent particular stanzas. After that project, the students collectively and individually seemed to have surer knowledge and a keener appreciation of sensibilities, experiences, and knowledge each one of them brings to the endeavor of interpreting literature and life.

Speaking of "Prufrock" and in honor of the many wonderful students I have taught at CRLS who have encountered "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and embraced the chance to learn with and from one another, I am publishing in this blog four essays and one drawing created by students in my "last" CRLS English class who connected to "Prufrock" in personally important ways.  Klara's, Solomon's, Rachel's, and Sam's literary personal essays were written for our class; Elizabeth's drawing was created for her art class.  

Two days left  . . .