January 2012
15 posts
“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the...”
– Christopher Mccandless (via light-essence)
For Yale.
The Look:
Neatest thing happens this time of the year. From a place of comfort & continual patterns inside these classroom walls, these children know me and I know them to such an extent that on a cold & bright Thursday in January, I can extinguish an argument over a poorly placed bathroom in a floorplan drawn to analyze the personification in Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come...
On taking your own advice and realizing you've got...
The older this kid gets, the more I realize how much she teaches me.
Hi Ms. Solesbee! It has been so long since I have written anything to you; life has just been busy. Molly and I talked about you today, and Dominique and Anel mentioned you too last week, at different times even! After two years you have become one of our main memories from middle school: that is proof of the huge difference...
“Your teachers didn’t just appear in front of you in a classroom....”
– Columbia City Mayor Steve Benjamin.
On the day of his State of the City Address, Mayor Steve Benjamin took two hours to come and speak to our children at length about finding their passion and using it as a tool to change the world. He echoed every facet of my own teaching philosophy and...
An internet never forgets:
I wrote this in June of 2008. My father died unexpectedly in October of 2009. I haven’t read it since I wrote it, and didn’t breathe for the all too quick minutes to took me to read it again now. He was this-and this is mine. If ever there was a reason to start writing again—what am I recording right now that won’t be mine in a year’s time? Everything. Nothing.
And...
After the Valley:
Recently, I interviewed for a myriad of summer positions to get me out of this town & the comfort zone that has, despite its best intentions, nearly strangled me with its desire for conformity to a suburban standard I just can’t get down with. I was restless.
I bought the house. The car. The always overcompensatingly sweet rescue dog & cat-like creature who’s origins may be...
October 2011
3 posts
The sweetest thing-
These e-mails always find me when I’m tired to my toes. My heart is huge for this kid. Always has been, if you want to know the truth.
Dear Ms. Solesbee,
Last year I was a student in your ELA class, and I was a slacker. I came into your class as one kind of student and came out a whole different student. You put a vision into my head that I really needed to survive. I...
1 tag
September 2011
1 post
"Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night."
I don’t post here much anymore, and it seems as though it takes a pretty sweet morning with eighty plus eighth graders to make me want some sort of record of the magic that just happened at my place of employment.
We’ve started studying monologues within a unit of characterization. Honestly, we’re preparing for a dinner theater fundraiser for our magnet program. But when I...
June 2011
2 posts
“Why you? Why us, for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is....”
– Kurt Vonnegut “Slaughterhouse Five” (via blakeleyanne)
Received my annual visit from my favorite ex-student and frequent contributor via her e-mails to this very teacher’s tumblr. She is an incredibly wise girl. She always was, but today, after explaining to me how much better off her high...
TO DO LIST: SUMMER 2011
1. Turn off Ban the use of all alarms.
2. Wear shoes and pants only when absolutely necessary.
3. Bake pies.
4. Float down the river in a variety of vessels.
5. Teach Miss Tulip to be the first dog water ballerina ever.
6. Read so many zombie comics that you begin to feel 100% prepared should the dead ever actually walk.
7. Watch Citizen Kane.
8. Sleep on the golf course.
9. Go back...
May 2011
4 posts
Because Grannies are the wisest women of them all.
Grandma: You gotta be careful with that. You gotta be careful with the person you fall in love is worth it… to you. Cindy: I never want to be like my parents. I know they must’ve loved each other at one time right? To just get it all out of the way before they had me. How do you trust your feelings when they can just disappear like that? Grandma: I think the only way you can find out is to have...
April 2011
1 post
10 things I wish someone had told me before I...
I am losing my sweet student teacher this week. She’s the first I’ve ever had, and I believe she’s set the bar unbearably high for student teachers who follow her footsteps into my classroomland. The children & I wrote her letters to say thank you for all she’s done & it occured to me that being in this profession six whole years I might finally have some advice to...
February 2011
4 posts
The very best medicine.
I’ve posted words from this former student of mine before. When I got here this morning, and kids were rude & life got loud a little too fast for barelysevenam, I saw this e-mail first:
Hello Miss Solesbee!
Do you remember our morning talks? [and yes this is another e-mail about our morning talks :D]
Well, today was one of those days. I thought of you and how awesome you are at life....
On saying difficult things to sweet people:
It’s become clear that a conversation around these parts has to happen & sooner, rather than later. Am anxious simply because I know precisely how what I have to say will impact the other & while it can’t be avoided or said in such a way that won’t sting a bit, I’d like to do this even half as well as my father did. This is from an e-mail from my Mama. I want to...
Why we do what we do; Why I am what I am
Seven small days ago, I was worn out. At my end, & faced with, figuratively speaking, mountains which felt immovable and a survival instinct nearly extinct. There is redemption in the low only in that you know it’s got to have a complementary high. And here we are, at the end of a week much different than the last. Where I love this job despite flaws & accept every inch of this...
Roots in the South: A "Where I'm From" Poem
Trying to teach the children the value in finding their own voice. Poetry is the vehicle & we’re modeling each day in hopes of translating the tricky language that the genre involves. This is a “Where I’m From” poem I wrote for them this morning. Only two tears & minimal damage overall. Sharing so I don’t forget.
-
Roots in the South:
I am from multiple...
November 2010
3 posts
“Maybe it’s not, in the end, the virtues of others that so wrenches our hearts as...”
– By Nightfall | Michael Cunningham (via deliberatepace)
Raskolnikov of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment is my favorite literary character of all time. This explains that.
Lessons.
Once upon a time, I thought that things never changed. Now I know different.
1. We are our perspective. Our vision is a choice. What we see defines what we are, where we go, and who keeps us company along the way.
2. Rational thought can be taught.
3. Things happen. We feel. We react. Our control lies only in our reactions.
4. Everything is temporary.
5. Nothing is promised.
6. Blame is...
October 2010
1 post
“I could introduce myself properly, but it’s not really necessary....”
– -Death, the Narrator of The Book Thief
It has been a long while since I have had much to say to you, Tumblr. But here at the halfway mark in this novel, I believe it may be time to find the words again & give this another shot. When I write, it appears to stick better. Lessons I learn are more...
June 2010
1 post
My fifth year in the middle school classroom ended...
It still doesn’t feel like middle school ended, Miss Solesbee. I think on the first day of High School or whenever I have a strong need for one of our morning talks I’m going to end up looking all over the school for you but only end up with disappointment, I guess that’s when the tears will come. It’s hard to believe I’m all by myself now, I think you might have...
May 2010
3 posts
“If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then...”
– John Lennon (via quote-book)
Because what is happening in public education now is hurting those who had nothing to do with it: our children.
Oh, hi.
Here is an update.
1. I purchased a home. It has many lovely parts including a doggie door, front porch, wiffle-ball structured backyard, & a walk-in shower that I could comfortably sleep inside of. You know, should I ever need to.
2. Tulip has learned to play. She also now fusses at those who leave her alone for too long. I probably contributed to this behavior by poor-babying her to...
April 2010
1 post
steelopus:
Piebald - Grace Kelly With Wings
In...
March 2010
30 posts
tuneage:
Band of Horses - Detlef Schrempf
For...
1 tag
labeledbones:
baby, come over, i need...