As I prepare to begin for my first teaching job at a junior college, I felt I needed insight into how teachers deal with students beyond just the teaching of materials. A few years ago I read the book Angela’s Ashes, the Pulitzer Prize winning memoir of Frank McCourt. He tells of his poor and “miserable” childhood in Ireland. I loved the book and knew he had later written a book about his years teaching English in the New York City public school system entitled Teacher Man.
I finished the book last week. It put my mind at ease to learn from his experiences and to know that he didn’t always know what to do, took risks and experimented in order to find his way. To know that he survived 30 years with all manner of students; the good, the bad and the imposing students with black belts in karate gave me comfort.
Yesterday I had an interview a the Bronx Community College for an adjunct position. I arrived early and wandered through the empty stifling air-conditionless building, popping my head into old and weathered classrooms.
Outside the Art Department office, there was a bust of Albert Einstein. A wad of gum stuck in his right nostril and there were traces of gum that has been scraped from the other. I smiled to myself and though, I can do this.
Often while enjoying a meal or walking down the street something ordinary and often fleeting may catch my eye. In the middle of dessert to the surprise of my friends I began admiring the artistic quality of my half eaten dessert and had an impromptu photo session with my brownie and gelato.
Abstract Dessert: For a moment it was art.
Today I met Guillermo an old friend from Miami at MoMa for an evening enjoying art. We chatted about the art, why he liked Clifford Still and why I liked Mark Rothko. We both enjoyed the fact that quite often we couldn’t understand why certain pieces were considered good enough to warrant a space in the museum.
To my surprise, what struck me most and even made me a bit emotional wasn’t the high art. It was a set of pastel colored tupperware tumblers on display in the exhibit, Shaping Modernity: Design 1880 – 1980.
I was swept away is a sort of waking dream. I saw myself back in the home I grew up in. We had an identical set of tumblers when I was seven, eight, nine or thearabouts. The blue cup was “my cup” was till I left for college.
I first became aware of the book Life of Pi more than a year ago, when the image of a small brown skinned boy curled up in a fetal position on a life boat with a tiger four times his size caught my eye, one day at the library. I have checked the book out three times before it finally took hold.
I thought to mention the book several times as it has perfectly enthralled me. I have chucked often, and thought deeply as well. I appreciate the wonderfully sculpted words of the author Yann Martel. One image that made me chuckle with delight was the encounter at a zoo between Pi (the protagonist) and two of his religious mentors, Mr. Kumar and Mr. Kumar.
I have yet to finish, but this quote grab ahold of me last night and I felt the need to to share.
“I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always … so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
— Yann Martel – Life of Pi
