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This is not the post I planned to share this evening...but this was not the week I planned to experience.
Monday, I was in a 6th grade Science classroom full of wiggling, chatty, full of questions almost 7th-graders. We were learning about our solar system, space, and our universe. This is a tall order for a topic. I broke it down into:
- See-Think-Wonder warm up with library books about space
- Listen to Countdown. 2,972 Days to the Moon non-fiction in verse by Suzanne Slade for 10 minutes
- Five Fabulous Facts (known in the old days as notes)
- A game of True/False in which you think the answer to questions from True or False. Solar System (World Book. 2018)
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| Bulletin Board of a collaborating teacher May 2022 |
My time in the classroom went so well! The teacher I collaborated with was pleased, and the students were engaged and smiling by the time the bell rang, I felt accomplished.
Tuesday's news of a school shooting in Ulvade, Texas hit me hard. Before work Wednesday morning I stood at my kitchen sink and wondered if my hands were shaking because I had low blood sugar, or my caffeinated coffee kicked in with gusto or, I was literally shaken by the news of more senseless murders by a shooter with an automatic rifle in a school.
Fortunately, I got to work and the routine of my day, students, and work absorbed all my attention. But, still, I am shaken. I am furious. I'm grief-stricken. I am worn out from absorbing the difficulties of our world. My poem below reflects the opposite extremes of a great day at school and the nightmare news of a school shooting felt simultaneously.
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| Seeing this picture differently after the latest mass murder by an automatic rifle |
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Star padlet addition:
https://padlet.com/mitchellhubeimom/4bzbfu2cg5k7awk5
I appreciate your reading. I am out-of-pocket Saturday morning through Monday evening. I will read as many posts as possible tonight through Friday night and catch up with the rest next week. Stay safe, and check-in with loved ones--especially any educators you know. It's been a long and difficult school year.
Please add your Poetry Friday link below
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Thoughtful, heartfelt poem, Linda. I wish we could focus on happier things, but now is not the time for our attention to be diverted.
ReplyDelete"I am worn out from absorbing the difficulties of our world." Thank you, Linda, for your post and for hosting. We have to keep up the good fight until the next massacre can be avoided. My post today is about relaxing with peonies to regain strength. xo
ReplyDeleteThank you for your willingness to work in a school, to give of yourself to the students and teachers. And may you be safe.
ReplyDeleteYes. This. 💗
DeleteThanks for your powerful poem Linda, and for helping us all to process this horrific tragedy–that needs to stop! Thanks also for your uplifting "Stary Stary Night," poem and for hosting.
ReplyDeleteMy heart is so heavy this week. So much tragedy. Thank you for sharing your heart!
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ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your thoughtful poem and sharing your feelings with us, Linda. I'm glad that once you got to school you were consumed by the day's activities rather than thoughts about the shootings. Thanks for hosting, too. (I removed this comment because it is attached to my jewelry page.) But, I reposted because cannot see another way to link it to my blog. Hopefully, people will click on the Mr. Linky to view my post.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I have no words to help. I cannot conceive that somehow this is a situation that can't seem to be changed. I can't fathom that. Can not. How can the system be so far broken that an outdated law that ensures an ongoing threat to civilians - to children - cannot be rectified. What on earth is a government for, if not for THIS?!?!
ReplyDeleteSorry. So sorry. It's not helping. But the world grieves with you.💔
Linda, your poem goes to the heart of the matter, exposing the senseless violence and the incalculable, needless loss of lives. For someone now living so far from the US, the fact a country is awash in weapons remains an anathema. This is only compounded by a legislature incapable of enacting laws to better safeguard its citizens. Legislators financially beholden to the NRA. From outside, it is totally bewildering, that this is tolerated when apparently 90 % of Americans want tighter gun laws. I cannot imagine the angst experienced in schools on a daily basis. The lives of children and their teachers must always be valued above gun ownership. It's not rocket science...
ReplyDeleteLinda, my post got derailed by the thoughts on Uvalde. Your Golden Shovel is filled with your emotional thoughts that make me think how much hate takes a toll on our lives. Thanks for sharing your work, Linda.. I hope you get some rest. Thanks for hosting this week.
ReplyDeleteHugs, dear Linda. Thank you for hosting and for holding your (all of the) students in your heart.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I haven't made it to Poetry Friday in a long time... today it seemed necessary, as we "process more death, loss, infinite senselessness" and as we make ourselves ready to go back to school each day... all I could manage as the news unfolded was a small anagram poem so I am sharing it here today. Thank you for the power of your words so deftly rendered with the Golden Shovel, and for your heart. We all need one another so.
ReplyDeleteMy dear Linda--thank you for hosting after the week(s) you've had. I love love love hearing about how you support learning in the classroom with your librarian's heart for "previously known as facts," action and fun. Your poem brings the raw truth of this week.
ReplyDeleteLinda, your poem is full of the raging emotions we all have. Thank you for sharing it. I didn't want to write about the shooting for today's PF, but I did. It's what I do. And what you do. You write, you read, you teach, you share---you connect to those students in ways they'll only fully know later. Thank you for hosting in the midst of everything.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your heartfelt poem and for being there for your students every day. May we all find a way to peace.
ReplyDeleteGlad I found the correct link, Linda, sorry about that! Thank you for rounding us up and sharing your poem. What heartbreak. xo
ReplyDeleteAgain, every photo and moment changes in its context. Thank you, Linda, for hosting us in your honesty and grief. Much love and gratitude to you and the gifts you bring to students each day. xoxo
ReplyDeleteLinda, thanks for your poem.
ReplyDeleteLinda, thank you for hosting. Thank you for being there for students. Your poem speaks truth. How many more times must we witness tragedies like this?
ReplyDeleteMy brain has been too scattered to gather my feelings, but I LOVE that you did it, and went right back into the classroom to do the work before you. Thank you for sharing your strength and your work.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I am heart-broken and enraged this week as well. Hugs to you. When I write for children, it is to fill some space inside them either with knowledge, perspective, joy, love, or any combination thereof. It is hard to feel like my words or my work matter at all in a society so careless and violent. I have marched and voted and used my voice. And still. God help us.
ReplyDeleteLinda, thank you for sharing. My heart breaks for all of us-- but most especially for children and educators in this moment. Your poem is powerful.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this heart-broken golden shovel. I wish I could say I was incredulous, but the fact that this keeps happening while those in power do nothing leaves me feeling hopeless. It was too much for me to process and write about this week.
ReplyDeleteThank you for hosting us.
Linda, this week's bad news is beyond devastating, and as your powerful poem states -- it's incredible because it's not unique. We share your feelings of heartache and anger, but since you work in a school, your feelings are probably more visceral. Thank you for being there for your students each day, and thanks for hosting this week. xo
ReplyDeleteThank you for rounding us up and for your golden shovel. The contrasts continue to jar me -- all those young lives, all that potential, cut short...and yet the peonies bloom gloriously and give me joy.
ReplyDeleteLinda, thank you for sharing your fun lesson, and your powerful and honest poem. I started writing a poem about this tragedy, but I couldn't seem to finish. Your golden shovel seems to say all the feelings we're experiencing. Thank you for that and thank you for being there for your students every day.
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