Today I am in Missouri seeing some of my family over spring break. Traveling for 10 hours yesterday and hanging out with my brothers made it so that I wasn't able to blog... but its good to be back and getting back to the writing!
Today is only one writing, it's a bit longer than the others I have shared so far (the limit I gave myself was 20 minutes instead of 10). The chapter is called "Great Students", in it, Natalie Goldberg remarks on how we all remember the great (and bad) teachers in our lives; those that helped shape us, guide us and, well, teach us. But she asks the question, "What about great students that we knew?"
She goes on to say that this writing is looking into negative space, focusing on what you have not noticed, like drawing attention to everything around a tree, except the tree itself.
As she says, "You're focusing not on the teacher but the key element that creates a teacher. No teacher exists without students."
So, here's to all the students that I have encountered in my life and to all the teachers that helped us get there... cheers!
"Great Students"
Great students in my life? That's a bit of a hard one; my mind is racing through a myriad of times spent in a classroom; grade school at a private christian school in Missouri, community college at Moberly and the study partners that I had, especially in history classes.
For me, history was always easy, but for many other people it's a tedious study up there like math is for me.
I remember my first art history class, there was this cute, little, out-going blond girl that mostly didn't have a clue about what was going on in class (nothing against blonds, I am still one if I had my hair ;), but she was fearless enough to ask people around her if they wanted to study together, and I said yes.
Most of the time it was just me and her going over my notes that I had taken in class (I took some seriously detailed notes, including small drawings of the pieces/art that we were studying), she would sit down at her kitchen table, pull out her notebook and we would slowly go over everything that we had covered in class; boiling everything down to a quick outline that can be looked over to help get over those pre-test jitters.
There were several people like that, we would get together at homes or local eateries, like Country Kitchen, and spend hours pouring over pages of notes of names, dates, babies (just kidding), places and pieces.
I remember my biology class and how all my classmates there worked hard to make sure that they got passing grades.
This was most exemplified by these green pieces of paper that we got before we took out biology tests.
Our teacher, handed out these blank "study sheets" that were on green paper, and the deal was, that we could write down as many notes, facts, definitions, etc. we could on those pieces of paper and we could use it for the test as a reference.
You should have seen how small people can write when they are allowed too.
I remember several sheets (my own included) where there wasn't a square inch of that paper that was not taken with some definition, concept, or scientific fact that I felt was need on that test.
I can only imagine the hours that we all spent writing and re-writing our notes so that we could get as much information as possible... fun times!
Other people that I can think of would have to be in art classes.
So many people would come in clueless about what they were to draw, paint, or make with clay.
They would struggle with taking a ball of clay and "centering" it on the wheel (that's when you would take the clay and throw it on a wheel and then apply steady pressure to the clay with your hands to make it so that it wouldn't be wobbling all over the place as you spun the wheel around).
They would start...
For me, history was always easy, but for many other people it's a tedious study up there like math is for me.
I remember my first art history class, there was this cute, little, out-going blond girl that mostly didn't have a clue about what was going on in class (nothing against blonds, I am still one if I had my hair ;), but she was fearless enough to ask people around her if they wanted to study together, and I said yes.
Most of the time it was just me and her going over my notes that I had taken in class (I took some seriously detailed notes, including small drawings of the pieces/art that we were studying), she would sit down at her kitchen table, pull out her notebook and we would slowly go over everything that we had covered in class; boiling everything down to a quick outline that can be looked over to help get over those pre-test jitters.
There were several people like that, we would get together at homes or local eateries, like Country Kitchen, and spend hours pouring over pages of notes of names, dates, babies (just kidding), places and pieces.
I remember my biology class and how all my classmates there worked hard to make sure that they got passing grades.
This was most exemplified by these green pieces of paper that we got before we took out biology tests.
Our teacher, handed out these blank "study sheets" that were on green paper, and the deal was, that we could write down as many notes, facts, definitions, etc. we could on those pieces of paper and we could use it for the test as a reference.
You should have seen how small people can write when they are allowed too.
I remember several sheets (my own included) where there wasn't a square inch of that paper that was not taken with some definition, concept, or scientific fact that I felt was need on that test.
I can only imagine the hours that we all spent writing and re-writing our notes so that we could get as much information as possible... fun times!
Other people that I can think of would have to be in art classes.
So many people would come in clueless about what they were to draw, paint, or make with clay.
They would struggle with taking a ball of clay and "centering" it on the wheel (that's when you would take the clay and throw it on a wheel and then apply steady pressure to the clay with your hands to make it so that it wouldn't be wobbling all over the place as you spun the wheel around).
They would start...
Times Up!
Looking forward to see what the topic is for tomorrow! Hope everyone is well and if your on spring break, I especially hope for you that you get some of the much earned rest that you deserve!
Take care everyone
-Eric Alan
PS. Brittany, you can borrow the book when I am done :)
Take care everyone
-Eric Alan
PS. Brittany, you can borrow the book when I am done :)
3 comments:
The bio cheat-sheet brought back memories. I remember being allowed to use one on a few difficult tests... I never knew i could write so small!
Great stories Eric...I always laugh when teachers say you can use one sheet for notes on a test. I feel like people often spend more time writing out the notes then they would if they had just studied for the test. Oh, the joys of school!
Enjoy your time with your family :)
I like it!
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