GRAND CANYONS

Thursday, May 14, 2020

When I was teaching, I tried to remember  – and help my students remember – that human miracles were sitting at the tables during each of my classes. Strangely, I fear that the kids and I were, for the most part, oblivious to these miracles. Each one of us was a ceaseless wonder, and yet I’ll bet we generally passed the minutes of my class in ignorance of this, as though what was present was fairly uninteresting instead of thoroughly astonishing. We were in the presence of many human Grand Canyons, and yet the students and I acted (at least sometimes) like we were not especially interested. Somehow, I wanted to let the students know, and remind myself, that life is an endless miracle. As we sat in my classroom day after day, each of us was an ever-renewing fountain of ideas. Strange as it might sound, each of us was transformed every moment, totally re-made with a brand-new idea. The Grand Canyon is a surprisingly apt analogy. If my students and I were visiting the actual Grand Canyon, we would have been thrilled from start to finish, and yet…there was splendor enough in my classes on Barnes Road to surpass a dozen Grand Canyons. There was the endless birth of ideas. There was youthful wisdom as astounding as sheer cliffs. There were several dozen oceans of thoughts as vast as canyon winds. 

My students and I should have kept our eyes wide open in wonder.

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Our chalkboard poem for today …